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Helen Chiang’s departure from Xbox has divided opinion among the company’s former staff. After Chiang published a lengthy LinkedIn post denying claims that she was fired for a policy violation, former Xbox executive Shannon Loftis came out strongly in her defence and had harsh words for the company’s current leadership.
Chiang, who led Minecraft before becoming Xbox’s COO, left Microsoft abruptly a few weeks ago. Windows Central reported that she was fired for “policy violations”, citing unnamed sources.
In a LinkedIn post titled “Clarity is Kindness”, Chiang said that claim is “not accurate”. She denied leaking confidential information to the press, leaving to join a competitor, or engaging in discrimination, bullying, harassment, insider trading, embezzlement or other fraud. She also rejected suggestions that she left because she was passed over for a bigger role, saying she was promoted into the COO position in July.
Chiang didn’t explain why she left. She did say she has “serious concerns” about how company standards were applied in her case, and ended the post by saying her departure “is not the whole story”.
Shannon Loftis: “It’s a clownshow up in there”
Loftis, who spent years in senior roles at Microsoft, including general manager of global games publishing and head of Age of Empires studio World’s Edge, responded both in the comments on Chiang’s post and in a post of her own.
In her comment, she described herself as “Team Helen all the way” and criticised the leak of what she called “false information”. She said a proper leadership team would have pursued whoever leaked it, adding: “It’s a clownshow up in there and I feel terrible for anyone that still has to deal with it.”
In her own, separate post, Loftis argued that the rumour hurt “a brilliant woman with deep integrity” and reflected poorly on Microsoft’s HR organisation. She said she doesn’t know what’s going on with Xbox leadership right now, but that it “seems to bear little resemblance to the organization I used to know”, concluding: “The future of Xbox is cloudy indeed.”
Other industry figures have also questioned the original reporting. Greg Snook, a software engineering lead whose credits include Halo, Minecraft and Age Of Empires, wrote under Loftis’ post that he didn’t know the truth of the matter, but questioned how an uncorroborated rumour from a single source became a headline presented as fact.
Microsoft haven’t commented publicly on Chiang’s departure or the reasons behind it.
Chiang spent around two decades at Xbox and became one of its best-known executives as head of Minecraft, before her promotion to COO in July. Loftis worked at Microsoft across two stints, holding roles including director of European production at Microsoft Studios UK, head of Kinect developer Good Science Studio and, most recently, vice president at Xbox Game Studios until 2022.
The situation comes during a turbulent period for Xbox under CEO Asha Sharma, who took over the division earlier this year and has since overseen around 1,600 job cuts and Microsoft’s departure from several studios.
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