Harsh Words from Xbox Founder: “Greed Has Overtaken Gaming!”
Laura Fryer, one of Xbox‘s founding team, hasn’t held back her criticism of Microsoft’s recent policies. In a video shared on her personal YouTube channel, Fryer addressed Xbox Game Pass price increases and hardware costs, saying the company has become completely disconnected from gamers. According to her, Xbox’s “game-focused spirit” has been replaced by a corporate culture driven by greedy decisions.
Laura Fryer Accuses Xbox Management of Forgetting Gamers
In a video, Laura Fryer accused Xbox leadership of “living in a bubble disconnected from reality.” Addressing the Xbox Game Pass price increases in particular, Fryer described Microsoft’s informative video as “insensitive.” “This shows the bubble Xbox is in. Leadership no longer understands what makes them successful,” Fryer said, emphasizing that the “yes sir” culture that has grown within the company since 2008 has corrupted everything.
According to Fryer, Xbox has lost its identity. “Once upon a time, Xbox was built on a genuine connection with players. Exclusive games were what made the brand strong. Now, everything has become ‘service’-focused,” he said. This shift, he said, has caused a significant loss of trust among loyal fans. “These price hikes feel like a betrayal. Greed has surpassed the love of games,” he said.
In his speech, Fryer emphasized that Xbox’s original purpose wasn’t just to sell hardware, but to build a strong ecosystem between players and developers. However, he stated that this relationship has completely weakened today: “There’s no reason to stay with Xbox anymore. If everything is Xbox, then nothing is truly Xbox.”
At the end of the video, Fryer characterized current management’s lack of vision for the future as a “trial-and-error management.” While he said he could understand Xbox’s shift away from hardware and toward cloud gaming, he stated that the brand’s value has eroded with “management that doesn’t understand gamers.” Although he left Microsoft long ago, Fryer’s words brought to the fore the identity crisis facing the Xbox brand today.
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