Laura Fryer, one of the first developers to join Microsoft Game Studios back in 1995, says she “watched the birth” of Halo Studios – formerly 343 Industries – while working on Gears of War 2, dubbing it “a ghost town.”
According to Fryer, who now regularly uploads videos about the video game industry on her YouTube channel, the Halo team was “next door” to her own – and after witnessing how it supposedly came to be, she says she’s “not surprised” by Halo Studios’ recent layoffs.
You know, the ones stemming from Microsoft’s plans to cut 3,200 employees at Xbox, with a whopping 268 employees laid off earlier this month, many of whom were working at Halo Studios.
The very same which saw Activision take control of the franchise with a promise to deliver “the greatest Halo game ever,” in fact.
Former 343 Industries art director Glenn Israel doesn’t exactly agree with Fryer’s recollection, however, commenting as much on her video. “I’ll reiterate that while Laura’s intro is a cool story, it isn’t accurate,” he writes, explaining that he’s not looking to “glaze” Halo Studios, which “was rife with systemic issues.”
It wasn’t, however, rife with “laziness,” as he points out. “343 Industries didn’t start staffing up as a development studio until late 2009 (Gears 2, incidentally, shipped late 2008 in the west and mid 2009 elsewhere – the actual work executed in NC not WA),” Israel continues, already leaving some holes in Fryer’s own tale.
He explains that when he joined in 2010 “straight from Bungie,” there was no Gears of War team “next door.”
The Halo developers were “already hard at work in a maximum-security off-campus satellite called Willows,” and “you couldn’t badge into the studio space if you weren’t on the team” – which, yeah, would imply that Fryer’s memory here isn’t exactly accurate.
Israel concludes that the video is “deeply disappointing” as “there are more than enough legitimate grievances to farm engagement from in this pot; we don’t need new fictions from the kettle.”
It’s tough to discern what is reality and what isn’t, I suppose, but Israel’s words hit hard here – especially considering the circumstances. Fryer has yet to respond to the former art lead’s reply, but since she’s commented on others’ posts, she just might.