Union members inflated a giant rat outside Bethesda Game Studios' office in Rockville while the Xbox management team was inside being shown The Elder Scrolls 6, IGN reports. The demonstration was organised by the Communications Workers of America, whose members include current and former Bethesda staff, in protest at Microsoft's recent mass layoffs.
The inflatable, known as Scabby, has appeared at numerous CWA actions. Footage the union shared via Facebook shows it on the lawn outside the Piccard Drive office, with chants of "Who's the rat? Microsoft!" audible in the background. Former employees also planted hundreds of red flags along the street, one for each staff member laid off by Microsoft over the past twelve months.
Inside the building
Nathan Hahn, a Bethesda technical producer and union member, said in a statement shared by journalist Chris Kerr that staff had wanted to make the protest visible indoors as well. Management blocked posters facing the outside of cubicles, Hahn said, so employees brought in balloons to display from their workstations instead, while a separate team of laid-off developers handled the flags outside.
We're mobilising to fight back against these layoffs not just to ensure impacted Xbox devs and testers get treated fairly, but to remind our company and game studios everywhere that layoffs like this cannot continue.
Xbox boss Asha Sharma confirmed the previous day that she had watched a "live playthrough" of the RPG and teased its unrevealed subtitle. "The scale and grandeur are incredible," she said of The Elder Scrolls 6. "The story is even greater." She made no mention of the protest.
The layoffs behind it
The job cuts at Bethesda formed part of the 1,600 staff let go in Microsoft's downsizing of Xbox. In an email to staff, Sharma described the restructure as the most significant in Xbox's history and said the gaming business "is not healthy." A further 1,600 staff are due to leave over the course of this year, taking about a fifth of the division, as Xbox narrows its focus onto its largest brands — among them Halo, Forza, Fallout and The Elder Scrolls.
Current and former Bethesda staff told IGN last month that the layoffs would have a "substantial and cascading effect" on The Elder Scrolls 6, costing the team what they described as key people and raising the risk of crunch and delay; Bethesda has denied this. The game has been reported to be at least two years from launch, eight years after it was first announced.
Join the conversation — sign in to comment.
Sign in
