Asha Sharma praised a live playthrough of Elder Scrolls VI while Bethesda workers protested outside Bethesda Game Studios in Rockville, Maryland. The visit landed in the middle of Microsoft’s 1,600-worker layoff wave and another 1,600 layoffs planned for later.
Sharma’s live playthrough post
Sharma wrote, “Live playthrough of The Elder Scrolls VI: ******** this morning,” then added, “The scale and grandeur are incredible. The story is even greater.” That kind of public praise puts Elder Scrolls VI at the center of the studio’s messaging even as staff numbers are being cut around it.
The post matters because it tied a high-profile project to a workplace already under pressure. For Bethesda developers, the contrast was immediate: one executive was celebrating the game’s ambition while employees outside were trying to make layoffs visible to the same leadership.
Nathan Hahn and the flags
Nathan Hahn, a technical producer and union member, said workers organized around the visit to show how the layoffs had hit the studio. He said, “We heard that Microsoft leadership was coming to our office this week, and decided to make our presence visible at the office to show how our developers have been impacted by these devastating layoffs.”
Hahn also said management told workers they could not have posters facing outside their cubes. “Then, we brought in balloons so that they could see we were here, but inside our cubes this time. A separate team of laid off developers planted flags outside, one flag for each laid off dev,” he said. “Each flag was a public reminder of how many people management cut from our teams—not just our colleagues and coworkers, but our friends at the end of the day.”
Those details show a protest built for visibility inside and outside the office. Posters gave way to balloons, and then to flags on the lawn, while a giant inflatable Scabby stood outside as a blunt symbol of labor anger.
Microsoft’s 1,600 layoffs
Microsoft cut 1,600 workers last month, and another 1,600 layoffs are scheduled for an undefined point later. Bethesda workers had also been forced to take down an in-office memorial to dismissed colleagues, which made the return of flags and other protest symbols more pointed.
Chris Hays, a lead services programmer at id Software, said morale has never been lower. He said, “It is hard to make a game that is triple-A—that is like we've done before—with half the people. And by hard, I mean impossible,” and added, “We're not the same id. We're half the same id. It was the people; what made us special was the people and the relationships that we have. It's not the IP. Our name doesn't matter. It was the relationships we built and the experience that we had together.”
That leaves the protest with a clear next step: another set of rallies is scheduled for August 18, and the issue is no longer just the layoffs themselves but whether Bethesda can keep selling a future built on Elder Scrolls VI while its workforce keeps shrinking around it.
