id Software producer says Xbox layoffs prove big publishers can't be trusted with games

id Software producer Andrew Willis, caught up in last week's Xbox 'reset' layoffs, has gone public on LinkedIn with a sharp critique of how large publishers run the games industry — and he's not pulling punches despite the studio's official line that everything is basically fine.

Willis argues the only real fix is developer-owned studios rising from the wreckage of closures and layoffs. "If the people who create the value own that value, good things will follow," he writes, calling major publishers and monopolies "terrible stewards and somehow even worse financial managers." He's also unimpressed by Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's "return to growth" framing — the same announcement that confirmed another 1,600 layoffs are coming by 2027. In a follow-up post, Willis goes further: "You'll never get another WoW or Morrowind in the current climate," pinning the blame on executives — "most ivy league MBAs" — who have never shipped a game and don't understand the industry they control.

Willis was a key figure in id Software's unionisation push back in 2025, so his frustration carries some institutional weight. His broader point — that large publishers are burning through decades of accumulated goodwill for short-term extraction — echoes a sentiment that's been growing louder across the industry as studio closures pile up. The WoW and Morrowind comparison is pointed: both were products of environments where publishers gave developers unusual creative latitude and long development timelines, conditions that are increasingly rare under modern quarterly-earnings pressure. Developer-owned studios like Larian are often held up as the counter-model, though Larian itself survived near-bankruptcy before Baldur's Gate 3 made it a household name — proof that independence is possible, not that it's safe.

Whether Willis's call for developer-owned studios gains traction remains to be seen, but the sentiment is clearly resonating with laid-off developers and industry observers alike. The tension between id Software's official reassurances and the frustration of people still working there — let alone those who just lost their jobs — suggests the studio's internal mood is considerably darker than any press statement lets on.