It was well received but did it have microtransactions? Checkmate game enjoyers!

Just because the company you work for is making bank doesn't mean they won't fire you at the drop of a hat if they think they can make more by doing it.

Tbh, the game wasn't even that good. After the first 5-6 hours most people put it down. It just becomes frustrating and not fun.

Going by MS‘s track record the last couple decades, it‘s all business as usual. It‘s expected from them to eventually close everything down they incorporate into their ecosystem. Sometimes after draining it or letting it rot away, and sometimes sooner than later.

I’m generally against acquisitions for this reason. So many companies just want to be acquired instead of running a company.

I can’t think of one large acquisition that benefited consumers

Don't worry, they kept BGS intact making mediocre-to-bad-but-still-lucrative games.

I'm definitely a little confused about Tango - I'm hoping we'll at least get more details come out about why Microsoft shuttered them. I mean, Ghostwire Tokyo was... whatever, and I could understand Microsoft not wanting to have them working on that kind of scale again any time soon. It wasn't bad by any means, but it was fairly expensive and perhaps didn't do as well as they hoped. But I'm surprised they didn't want to just downsize the studio and aim for another HI-FI Rush-esque game (or sequel).

But Arkane Austin being closed definitely makes sense. Not only was Redfall a disaster, but by the time Redfall released, 70% of the people who'd worked on Prey had left the studio. (Largely because the studio's president had left the studio just after Prey, I believe, rather than because of the Microsoft acquisition of Bethesda.) All that was really left was the name.

If Microsoft shuts down Double Fine I'm going to riot

Known as the "merdes touch."