There’s a whole approach to making games contained in the phrase “hire to retire.” Choose your people carefully, give them somewhere to develop, and keep the experience they accumulate inside the studio. Former id Software senior technical designer Jordan Turner says that was the idea behind hiring at the Doom developer. After this summer’s layoffs, it makes for a painful account of the lasting career Turner says id wanted to offer.
In a new Kiwi Talkz interview with former id developers, Turner recalls how particular the studio was about recruitment. The intention, he explains, was for people to spend their careers there, with the studio finding where their abilities could shine. Reece “Kiwi Talkz” Reilly shared the passage on November 12, criticizing what had happened under Microsoft.
The contrast is substantial. Game Developer reported 136 id Software job cuts, citing Texas workforce records covering 96 roles in Richardson and 40 remote workers reporting to that location. Microsoft has owned id since its ZeniMax acquisition closed in March 2021.
A Studio Accumulates More Than Headcount
Keeping people together has a practical value that players rarely get to see. A developer learns which tools behave strangely, which shortcuts create trouble later, and how the person beside them solves a problem. Across successive games, those lessons can become part of how a team works. Retaining that knowledge deserves to count as an investment in the next project.
Turner’s recollection gives that investment a human scale: someone could join id expecting to develop their abilities there over an entire career. A layoff cuts through both plans at once, separating the person from the workplace and the workplace from the knowledge that person carries.
In its July response to the cuts, id said the changes were spread across teams, that it retained the crew needed to build its games and technology, and that its staffing was roughly comparable to when it made Doom in 2016.
Some of that experience is already taking another shape. Former id developers have formed developer-owned studio Hidden Horses, whose stated approach gives major business decisions a democratic vote. They are trying to give the people making the games more control over the business surrounding them.
Giving developers a vote in major business decisions puts some control over that future in their hands. If a studio recruits people for a lasting career, the decisions about its future should give that commitment real weight. “Hire to retire” asks an employer to plan beyond the next game. The people who build its reputation deserve that much consideration.
Official Doom: The Dark Ages artwork: id Software / Bethesda Softworks.
