En god portion af The Initiatives samlede antal ansatte har udvandret fra studiet over de sidste par måneder, som både efterlader deres spil, Perfect Dark, i en lidt prækær situation, eftersom støttestudiet Crystal Dynamics tilsyneladende nu leder an, men det efterlader også os med en masse spørgsmål.
Windows Centrals Jez Corden har undersøgt sagen, og lader til at have fundet ud af, at udvandringen skyldes uenighed blandt de ansatte om hvordan studiet egentlig er struktureret. Angiveligt skulle den originale ide være en flad struktur uden reelt hieraki, lidt ligesom eksempelvis Valve og engang Blizzard har haft held med.
"The way The Initiative was set up, almost in a unique sort of studio format...I don't want to say 'flat structure' but they did build it to explore a different way of making a game studio. Anti-crunch, which is great...a more sort of democratic development process structure...The problem with that is, that they emerged two schools of thought about how to develop Perfect Dark."
"One of them was, 'We hire the people in.' The other school of thought was 'We remain small and build sort of high quality indie level games.' But because of the hype surrounding the studio, I don't think Microsoft wanted to let The Initiative be that kind of sort of smaller studio. I think the expectations had gotten to the point where people wanted them to make grander games."
Disse to skoler endte med for alvor at komme i karambolage med hinanden, og det var i sidste ende dette der ledte til et stort opgør mellem de ansatte. Corden siger at det nok var en god faldskærm at have Crystal Dynamics på, eftersom der stadig aktivt arbejdes på Perfect Dark hver dag, men hvordan strukturen vil se ud vides ikke.
