Following years of games industry woes and multiple waves of layoffs out of Microsoft, Tim Schafer – founder of the formerly Xbox-owned studio Double Fine – says he doesn't understand the economics of the industry anymore.

The most recent of Microsoft's now yearly layoffs will see 3,200 Xbox employees lose their roles before the end of the 2027 fiscal year. Alongside this, Double Fine, Compulsion Games, and Undead Labs went independent from the publisher, Ninja Theory is now at risk of closing after multiple purchase attempts fell through, and Arkane's fate is up in the air. While Double Fine has had to lay off staff following this change, the studio is taking to Kickstarter to fund its next "small" game, with Tim Schafer saying "no one puts Double Fine out of business except for me."

Speaking to BBC News (below), Schafer says that in this modern day, "I don't understand the economics of making games to be honest." He explains, "for years [I] thought I understood them because there are layoffs, which is bad. And then the people who make games realize, 'Oh, we need people to make games,'" which in turn resulted in developers being hired back.

" He adds, "people are playing games and people are making money, so I don't know why there's a big loss of jobs.

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