Very weird it happened twice! But that's a kind of a cool factoid to tell people haha.

Even with devs and publishers that don't die or are killed, they still lay hundreds off when a game is done. Then the studio limps along in pre-production mode on their next game for 4-5 years it seems like...

Maybe the only job stability in the industry is with indies, and... Nintendo?

I'd add the hugely successful studios to that list. Even after ms acquisition, to the best of my knowledge neither of the 2 studios I worked at had any layoffs.

But they boast the most sold video game in the history of videogames (Tetris a close-ish second), and most downloaded free mobile game, respectively. Each have player bases larger than the population of the country they're from!

Here's to hoping ms is hesitant to gut either!