It’s another bleak time in the game industry, as Microsoft announcedits fourth round of cuts in just 18 months. While some projects, likeHideo Kojima’s OD, remain safe, others weren’t so lucky. Rare’slong-in-development Everwild was canned, as was the Perfect Dark reboot, withThe Initiative completely closed in the process. Doom CreatorJohn Romero’s studio also faced huge cutsand a potential closure, and the Forza Motorsport studio, Turn 10, lost 50 percent of its staff, with the expectation that the remainder would be used as support for Forza Horizon.
With so many developers back on the job market, I’m sure most counsel is welcome. However, while many are looking for support, it may be best to ignore the tone-deaf advice given byXboxexecutive producer Matt Turnbull, who suggested that those laid off turn to ChatGPT and Microsoft’s own Copilot for support.
In a now-deleted LinkedIn post, shared onBluesky, Turnbull, who previously worked for Turn 10 Studios, starts sincere, telling those affected “you’re not alone, and you don’t have to go it alone,” before his post devolves into a completely inhuman pitch about how those who lost their jobs should use ChatGPT or Copilot to aid their job search.
Turnbull suggests asking an AI chatbot to “act as a career coach,” and to help those affected “build a 30-day plan to regroup, research new roles, and start applying without burning out.” He also recommends they use AI to rewrite their CV to fit triple-A, small studio, and platform/publishing roles and to draft a new LinkedIn ‘About Me’ section.
It doesn’t stop there, though. Despite suggesting “No AI tool is a replacement for your voice,” Turnbull tells his former employees to use AI to “draft a friendly message I can send to old coworkers” and to “write a warm intro message for reaching out to someone” about job postings, completely replacing their voice in the process. He also suggests a prompt for AI to give them confidence when they’re dealing with impostor syndrome.
Given that this latest round of layoffs has been attributed toMicrosoft’s push to incorporate more AI tools into its workflows, it’s a mind-bogglingly thoughtless post, and it’s no wonder the executive swiftly moved to delete it.
