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Mixer employees were unaware of Mixer being shut down. Learned at the same time as the public.

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GameDev

GameDev

Member
Aug 29, 2018
558
Yeah, you're never given advance notice of layoffs. If the company does go "Hey, there is a decent chance we're going to let some people go", a bunch of people are going to jump ship which is going to put the company in a worse position so it's in their interest to make sure no one knows the financial state of the company. Generally, news of layoffs is kept top secret and even low to mid level management will be kept in the dark for as long as possible. I've lost track of how many times I've heard somebody was in the interview process about ready to get hired and then they find out the studio is getting shutdown.

Learning to read the writing on the wall is an important skill in the industry if you want to survive.
 
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VPplaya

VPplaya

Member
Nov 20, 2018
1,970
Once again, big corporations don't give a single shit about anything but their own profits. They won't hesitate to fire as many people as they can in order to save a quick buck, and there's really nothing you can do to stop it either given the shit worker's rights laws in this country. Companies are not your friends.
 
LordRuyn

LordRuyn

Member
Oct 29, 2017
3,910
I feel so bad for all those Mixer streamers right now. I am watching a couple of streams right now and all of them are just heartbroken.
 
Scottoest

Scottoest

Member
Feb 4, 2020
11,382
Hopefully the majority of the people in the Mixer division get shifted to other positions within the company.

Mixer itself closing has kinda been written on the wall for several months, after the Ninja and Shroud contracts failed to move the needle at all.
 
AyaisMUsikWhore

AyaisMUsikWhore

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,738
Damn, it really sucks to be the employee in this situation who has to watch their job crumble AND also watch the streamer who plays games for a living, walk away with 30 mil and you have to find another job in the process.....damn..
 
LavaBadger

LavaBadger

Member
Nov 14, 2017
4,988
Really shitty move. Regardless of whether or not people are being moved to new areas, have enough respect and decency for the people who work for you to fill them in before a public announcement.
 
BioDigital Jazzman

BioDigital Jazzman

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
6,942
VPplaya said:
Once again, big corporations don't give a single shit about anything but their own profits. They won't hesitate to fire as many people as they can in order to save a quick buck, and there's really nothing you can do to stop it either given the shit worker's rights laws in this country. Companies are not your friends.
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Nobody was fired. Mixer employees were moved to other divisions in MS. Partnered streamers were given the option to have their partnerships carry over to FB
 
LifeBrandRobot

LifeBrandRobot

Member
Oct 26, 2017
2,182
Not that uncommon. When Target Canada closed down my store found out from customers asking when the clearance sale was starting. Including our store manager.
 
blitzblake

blitzblake

Banned
Jan 4, 2018
3,171
AyaisMUsikWhore said:
Damn, it really sucks to be the employee in this situation who has to watch their job crumble AND also watch the streamer who plays games for a living, walk away with 30 mil and you have to find another job in the process.....damn..
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It's ok, take solace in all the small time streamers on mixer that are now just as fucked as you.
 
robot

robot

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,473
I just started using Mixer to stream low-latency games with my girlfriend while we're stuck in quarantine. This kinda sucks. Feels a little Google-esque to pull the rug out this soon and suddenly when the tech seems to work quite well.
 
arsene_P5

arsene_P5

Prophet of Regret
Member
Apr 17, 2020
15,438
robot said:
I just started using Mixer to stream low-latency games with my girlfriend while we're stuck in quarantine. This kinda sucks. Feels a little Google-esque to pull the rug out this soon and suddenly when the tech seems to work quite well.
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The tech was never the issue and with the desperate Ninja deals we can't say Microsoft didn't tried. But they fought a uphill battle against Twitch, Youtube and to a lesser degree FB Gaming. I'll miss mixer, because as you said the tech behind it was great, but it just wasn't worth it from a business perspective.
 
dunkzilla

dunkzilla

alt account
Banned
Dec 13, 2018
4,762
There's nothing too unusual, or wrong about that. If they told them last week it would have leaked followed by a week of speculation. I mean it sucks, but any type of shut down sucks,
 
THEVOID

THEVOID

Prophet of Regret
Member
Oct 27, 2017
22,888
VPplaya said:
Once again, big corporations don't give a single shit about anything but their own profits. They won't hesitate to fire as many people as they can in order to save a quick buck, and there's really nothing you can do to stop it either given the shit worker's rights laws in this country. Companies are not your friends.
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very true and I've been at the receiving end of this very thing, but at least the employees didn't get fired. I would kill for the same respect and opportunity when I get shafted.
 
Sanka

Sanka

Banned
Feb 17, 2019
5,778
How is this even legal? Did they deliberately wait one month before it shutsdown to tell their employees?
 
Boppa

Boppa

Member
Apr 4, 2020
400
What a dogshit move by MS

All this does is show mixer employees they weren't worth a pinch of shit to MS (during an employment crisis as well). At least other departments know what to expect now I guess.
 
Yearsoflurking

Yearsoflurking

Banned
Nov 11, 2017
2,744
Boppa said:
What a dogshit move by MS

All this does is show mixer employees they weren't worth a pinch of shit to MS (during an employment crisis as well). At least other departments know what to expect now I guess.
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A public corporation isn't going to tell their employees about a deal like this and risk insider trading
 
ShapeGSX

ShapeGSX

Member
Nov 13, 2017
5,238
So they let the employees know. And then they let the public know.

That's the right order in which to do this.

If they didn't let the public know immediately, an employee would have made it public, possibly with a much different message.

There's never any "advance notice" for things like this.
 

Water

The Retro Archivist
Member
Oct 30, 2017
813
This sucks, mixer Zero Latency streaming was awesome. However, why in the would any of you think the streamers would know before hand is beyond me.
 
Watership

Watership

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,123
robot said:
I just started using Mixer to stream low-latency games with my girlfriend while we're stuck in quarantine. This kinda sucks. Feels a little Google-esque to pull the rug out this soon and suddenly when the tech seems to work quite well.
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Mixer was great tech, probably the best of all the streaming apps, but it just never caught on. This very forum mocked it constantly and joked it was doomed. Microsoft put money into big names, but even during the pandemic they couldn't grow at all. I wonder what people expected.

Whats crazy is how revisionist this story already is and how much misinformation is going around. Mixer is suddenly awesome and it was the best? Where were these views and opinions for the past 4 years? Mixer staff lost their jobs, Facebook bought mixer, steamers/partners dumped, Facebook and Xbox merger even??? All inaccurate. It's insane how no one is reading.

It still sucks, but I think they probably wanted to enter the next gen free of Mixer so they could start fresh. Instead of a preferred MS service for streaming which was not popular, they will have Twitch, YouTube and Facebook Gaming and users can stream to whatever service they want.
 
K' Dash

K' Dash

Banned
Nov 10, 2017
4,156
Mr_DyZ said:
Anyone who works in the tech industry (or any startup quite frankly) is use to "surprise" closures or layoffs. I'm actually more surprised that people are surprised that no prior wide-spread message was sent to the teams at Microsoft working on Mixer who were impacted.

I've worked at game studios where HR told us day of our studios were closing lol. Large changes like these are usually reserved for people very high up only.
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I've been working as a developer for tech companies for 15 years, this is par for the course, they can change, be sold or closed overnight, this thread should tell you that most people know nothing about working on this field.
 
Sanka

Sanka

Banned
Feb 17, 2019
5,778
Legacy said:
So it seems most of the staff got moved on to different teams. You were suggesting MS waited until the last minute so they could just get rid of staff right?
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Empahsis on most. It should be ALL. No one should hear shit like that an hour before the public does. Even only one of their employees not being aware of it is bad enough.
 

Deleted member 58846

User requested account closure
Banned
Jul 28, 2019
5,086
Bundy said:
I'm just hearing it now (Mixer getting shut down). It's..... weird. Really thought they would give it a chance for another year because they hired all these famous streamers. But yeah, Mixer was trash since day 1.
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Mixer wasn't trash at all, it was a far superior streaming platform in terms of the tech and UI. The only problem was that it didn't have the content which meant it didn't have the user base.
Something isn't bad just because Microsoft does it lol, and the death of Mixer is an issue because it means Twitch's monopoly continues. Twitch sucks on multiple fronts, from the actual streaming tech to content and community moderation issues, and the lack of competition means they have no incentive to improve.
 
scaryrobots

scaryrobots

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,130
Doing Robot things
The One Who Knocks said:
Mixer wasn't trash at all, it was a far superior streaming platform in terms of the tech and UI. The only problem was that it didn't have the content which meant it didn't have the user base.
Something isn't bad just because Microsoft does it lol, and the death of Mixer is an issue because it means Twitch's monopoly continues. Twitch sucks on multiple fronts, from the actual streaming tech to content and community moderation issues, and the lack of competition means they have no incentive to improve.
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I've talked to friends that are okay with Twitch having the monopoly on streaming because they're too lazy to visit other sites to find people to watch.
 

Deleted member 58846

User requested account closure
Banned
Jul 28, 2019
5,086
scaryrobots said:
I've talked to friends that are okay with Twitch having the monopoly on streaming because they're too lazy to visit other sites to find people to watch.
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Monopolies always happen because of market complacency, which is unfortunate.
It sucks, but it makes sense for the "convenience" factor (and to be honest, all of us are guilty of this at some point in time or the other).
 
arsene_P5

arsene_P5

Prophet of Regret
Member
Apr 17, 2020
15,438
Boppa said:
What a dogshit move by MS

All this does is show mixer employees they weren't worth a pinch of shit to MS (during an employment crisis as well). At least other departments know what to expect now I guess.
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That's harsh and I didn't like that they didn't get a upfront notice. But that's sadly not unusal and most employees didn't get fired iirc. They move to different departments and teams at Xbox or to FB.
 
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