I can't fucking imagine what it has to be like walking into work on a day like today. Hope everyone affected ultimately lands on their feet.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Blizzard employees are crying and hugging in the parking lot ahead of impending layoffs - Jason Schreier
- Thread starter Deleted member 249
- Start date
Fair enough so it's possible I came in the middle of a conversation and replied to you. I certainly wasn't implying that union = never fired.
I mean the merger happened in 2008... 11 years ago
I hope you don't feel some vindication or like nostradamus, because they were fine for many years. were you complaining for the first several years after 2008?
As someone who works at company that just experienced layoffs, I suggest keeping tissues on hand when reading Twitter today.
Sucks my prediction was true. So they did quiet layoffs (where they give you a severance package to keep your lips sealed). It sucks to be in this boat. Prayers all those affected land on their feet
No new IP/franchise, old IPs stopped growing with no new game from Blizzard in sight, Activision side losing Destiny.
okay cool, got it
I mean unions do help with some things like severance
all i recall is saying 'uh-oh' when i read the news
coincidentally, Blizzard's output has been progressively getting worse since then
I don't think numbers will be that terrible, but when you compare higher management's wages (plus bonuses and all that jazz) to what developers are making (in average), they prefer to simply let people go to improve the bottom margin instead of actually moderating their salaries.
Spending way too much money elsewhere.
In unrelated news
Hope everyone lands somewhere safe. :(
This is horrible.
Also.
Kotick is still taking home millions, so I doubt he considers any of this a problem.
Sure, but you can communicate this to the employees to give them time to get another job, not torture them by not speaking amidst tons of layoffs rumors.
Christ's sake. It's absolutely worthless with you lot once the cogs start rolling.
I'm not suggesting he's lying and I understand the concepts that have been quoted/linked to me 30 times over perfectly well (well, not the claims that I'm a facist of some sort). Nevermind - I don't need to explain myself if you've all made up your mind.
I'm assuming if another journalist came forward with conflicting reports to Schreier and also said they had "a source" - you would all just have a breakdown?
recently, I would agree
but I do not agree for right after 2008
Wrath of the Lich King was released after the merger. the majority of WoW players still think that's the best expansion
I hope these ex blizzard employees gets the right to a warhammer game and make a real warcraft 4.
I really hope Acti gets some sort of backlash for this. Even if it is a small backlash. Anything.
That's the sad thing, they have not fuck up. We live in a society were you can earn billions of dollars, but won't be enough if investors don't see at least a kajillion dollars. Acti-Blizzard is a succesful company, making so much money, but is never gonna be enough, so the next best thing to earn "profits"? Let's fire all the people while keeping the CEO's pockets full of money. Hooray for capitalism.
Jesus, sorry for the rant, I'm right now both so angry and depressed at the state of all this crap.
To play devil's advocate here, there are usually decent reasons not to announce layoffs as soon as rumors leak. Figuring out exactly who is going to be laid off, what severance they're going to give, etc. And you usually don't keep people with any kind of access on the job after the layoff is announced because of the very real fear of reprisal (which some are advocating in this very thread).
You really don't understand the concept of credibility and trust built over time do you?
Christ, just leave and stop derailing the thread with your conspiracy ramblings.
A cold reminder that as much as we enjoy games, there's a human cost to our enjoyment.
People work HARD, even on games that don't turn out great. Days, months, years of talent, support, and community that a single "not amazing" financial quarter can discard to try and save face while the guys at the top shuffle and discard employees like poker cards.
Someone was there, handling toxic gamer feedback on the other line. Someone was there, staying up late trying to code out a bad bug someone found. Someone was there, trying to organize events and help make them as awesome as they could be.
I don't know any of them personally, but I sincerely hope they land on their feet. Hoping for the best outcome, all things considered.
People work HARD, even on games that don't turn out great. Days, months, years of talent, support, and community that a single "not amazing" financial quarter can discard to try and save face while the guys at the top shuffle and discard employees like poker cards.
Someone was there, handling toxic gamer feedback on the other line. Someone was there, staying up late trying to code out a bad bug someone found. Someone was there, trying to organize events and help make them as awesome as they could be.
I don't know any of them personally, but I sincerely hope they land on their feet. Hoping for the best outcome, all things considered.
That's somewhat fair, it's been 7 years since Diablo 3 launched & there isn't a Diablo 4, because they restarted the project 5 times or something, but when CFO's get 15mil in stocks & 100's of people get fired, it's harder to blame the devs.
Severance is temporary, and doesn't alleviate the emotional cost of being laid off and the panic necessary to look for a new job. (esp if you have a family / need health insurance outside of COBRA)
It is clear that you have no understanding of how journalism actually works. I'm not sure why you continue to push this narrative about some sort of higher standard or quibbling over a single "source". You don't seem to understand how sourcing works, how credibility works, or clearly any other basic practices relating to journalism and journalism ethics. Rather than continue to make a fool of yourself, I'd encourage you to get educated on how journalism works. ZhugeEX already linked you a helpful article to get you started.
The article said the layoffs are largely going to affect people in publishing and esports.
Those are areas that can be vulnerable even with efficient exploitation of popular IPs.
Bobby Kotick is definitely happy about laying people off. If he could fire everyone and make all the money he would be happier, though of course without people of actual value providing a product he'd be exposed as the worthless piece of crap that he is, so at least some form of cover is useful.
This is not the fuck-up. This is the fix.
The fuck-up happened years ago, cumulatively, when Blizzard started to bloat into an unnavigable bureaucracy whose only solution to its problems was to hire and spend. In this period, it managed to not only destroy its own storied franchises, but hemorrhage talent to competitors, while taking on way too much junior staff that languished on ailing projects.
So really, this was inevitable and needed, from what I've heard.
That is not the point. No matter how much profits you make one year. You are expected to top it the next year, that is the problem with capitalism. They are not struggling for money but they need more profit. So if they make 15 millions last year and they make 10 million then that is a failure and the stocks drop.
He ended up being correct... Maybe save this spiel for someone who gets the story wrong?
Seriously...this is just some demented shit. Fuck billionaires.
That particular expansion was being developed before the merger I'm pretty sure.
WotLK and BC were my favorite expansions as a WoW player, but after the last couple patches for WotLK the content kept getting worse (the notable exception being MoP, which I thought was good for the most part). and now I honestly find the game unplayable and there's little incentive to go back to it. Never cared much for Hearthstone and Overwatch, and StarCraft and Diablo have kind of been flatlining.
What I'm trying to say is that Blizzard feels a lot more profit-oriented now and less focused on quality content than it did before, and I'm pretty sure the merger played a huge part in that.
Yeah, people were posting about Activision going bankrupt and not caring the people lose their jobs in the 'Black Ops 4 had microtransactions' thread from just after Christmas, because lootboxes.
I'm not sure what alleviates that besides being guaranteed a job in perpetuity no matter how you perform.
"People are not allowed to have/express feelings amidst their unavoidable firing, since this happens all the time in every single business, ya know?"