Yup, people lose their job all the time.
The outcry is mostly for a company to both announce record profit and do massive layout at the same time. Capitalism at its best… 
And also, as usual, the employee foot worker, take the hit for the mistake of the exec. As the recent staleness of Blizzard is a mistake of their own making (at the top level). Phone, anyone?
And yet not every company does this sort of thing. You can point to Nintendo where Satoru Iwata took a pay cut to keep other people working or to a cavalcade of indies that are run in an ethical manner (When is the last time that you heard for instance of a firing scandal coming from Amplitude Studios or Devolver Digital?) and it becomes quite apparent that this is not the way that you need to run your business to make video games.
And who said I don’t care. That’s a pretty bold faced assertion. One of the reasons that I can’t openly applaud CD Projekt Red for instance, and I have said this before, is the way that they treat their employees.
But I also think it’s a fallacy that you can’t hold somebody responsible for something they’ve done wrong, simply because other people have done things wrong as well. It doesn’t matter how many thieves may surround you, if you have stolen something, you are still a thief. Saying you bear no personal responsibility in light of not being the only one doing something is ridiculous on the level of being a child’s argument.
That wasn’t actually an appeal to emotion. I was trying to make a statement so ridiculous that any reasonable person could agree that it was. Unfortunately I forgot that the people that I’m dealing with are not strictly reasonable individuals. Which was my bad, really.
You perhaps may feel this way, people responding are acting like blizzard is the only company that does this.
Calling a thief a thief only works if the law says they’re a thief. Currently they are doing what the majority of companies do and what has been acceptable for quite a while. Being one of the 99% I would love to see more equality in corporate structure, but vilifying a company for doing what they do? Nah. Lets stick to it’s been a rough week for the people who got fired. As far as sudden layoffs go this wasn’t any sort of bombastic event. It’s business. Telltale games employees got NOTHING. Expecting compassion in business is setting yourself up for disappointment and tragedy.
Not that it’s a good thing, in fact it’s one of the main industry complaints; but you do realize that the video game/movie industry is kind of messed up and this is normal, right? That’s not just ActiBlizzard being a douche. Most big media producers do this. I was a graphic designer before I became an art teacher.
When you start a big project with a company, like for example, doing art/character designs for a video game or a Disney movie; everyone doesn’t stay hired until the end. Sure you keep the main stars, but the little guys doing things like shadow quality and other minor, (but important) background things come and go. For example, there might be a lot of artists at the beginning when concepts are thrown around. However, after that phase, when we pretty much know how the characters, environments, etc. look, 90% of the artists are either moved to another project, or laid off and go looking for another contract because they aren’t needed anymore. It’s normal. It’s the same for voice actors and other media specialists.
We’re talking about an industry where companies being forced to give voice actors breaks every 3 hours (where they often have to yell or do other energetic lines during that time) was considered a landmark case.
You sound like you have no experience of adult life. This is just insulting the people who lost their jobs over some greedy corporate CEO. 800+ just out of pure greed. People crying at parking lots with their families because they weren’t even put on notice that they were being seperated. 800+ lives. Are you serious?
You have to understand how tiny the game industry actually is when it comes to open job positions. it would be too hard for 100 people to find the same position at new game studios, much less 800
Also there’s zero things you can say to justify having the most profitable year in a long time and giving new CEOs 15 million as a welcome gift then instantly firing 800 people to ‘cut costs’
It’s a really bad sign for the company. Blizz wouldn’t have done this. Activision is fully in control.
I think it’s a crappy thing that they lost their job. I think people upset that 800 people lost their jobs at the same time is fine. It’s a big deal when a company that you have interest in their products (i.e. games…like this one, that we’re on the forum dedicated to one of them lol) is fine.
I do think that some people just like to add more fuel to the “OmG OvErWaTcH iS DOoMed” fire, which I think is a bit ridiculous and detrimental.
But…yeah, it’s a mass layoff for a game. And personally, I think the fact they hit really high gross profit and still chose to lay this many people off is kind of telling to Activision’s greed. But that’s a separate issue.
Lay-offs =/= end of the world but they are still really bad. And I sympathise because I was laid off in December before Christmas. Just sucks knowing how the people that lost their jobs feel.
The law doesn’t change what a person has done. Period. It might say that you can or can’t punish a person or determine what that punishment might be but it doesn’t alter causality. But that is a tangent anyhow. The point, in case you might have missed it, is that being one of many people to do something, does not change the fact that you’ve done it.
I do think though that the fact that you would say that somebody can’t be called a thief unless the law says they’re a thief and that I would say a person who steals would be a thief regardless of what the law says points us somewhere towards the heart of the difference between the people who are defending these actions and the people who are disapproving of them.
You seem to be a very “That’s the way the world is” sort of person, I get that. But my response to that is “Hey, I understand that, but that doesn’t make it okay”.
It would. And yet I don’t think that the way that you should treat other people changes the minute that you become part of a corporation. In light of the company having a record year I think the layoffs violate a lot of people’s sense of fairness and it doesn’t help that they’ve pulled other shenanigans this year like promising the Heroes of the Storm players that there would be a World Cup, only to then pull said World Cup out from under them. It certainly doesn’t look good.
As sorry as I feel for the people who got fired, it seems like Blizzard is also hiring right now (mostly developers for Diablo, Overwatch and Warcraft if I am not mistaken).
And that is exactly what most people on the forums are asking for:
More content, regular updates, faster game releases (Diablo 4).
Seems to me like they are not simply firing people, but trying to restructure in a certain direction.
The OP is talking about overreacting though, which a lot of people most definitely are. It wasn’t like this was some sort of mass death or unheard of atrocity. A money focused business cut out what it thought was necessary to remain greatly profitable. I do feel sorry for those who lost their jobs, but this isn’t the end of overwatch (most of those jobs lost were unrelated to development) and really is just another day in the biz for even those that got fired.
I say “money focused” instead of greedy like a lot of others here do because thinking that a company ISN’T here primarily to make as much money as possible is foolish or at the least self delusional.
Business, as most of life, isn’t fair and expecting fairness is only lying to yourself. Breach of contracts and broken promises ARE deplorable Though. I do not follow HoTS at all, but if people were promised something and the company didn’t deliver then sure, rake them over the coals for unfulfilled promises. But let’s temper our actual complaints with the reality of the business world. Crying wolf for every thing that happens only makes the actual problems get lost in the noise.
I’m not saying what they did was fair and right. Only that it’s not unexpected or cause for doomsaying and panic or a call to arms.
Every response that you make essentially boils down to “that’s just the way it is.” But hey, thanks for keeping it respectful.
and “it’s really not all that bad”.
I also mention how constant flailing and yelling drowns out actual feedback.
NP, there’s no reason to be flamey. You got your opinions too.
I think it’s still sad that 800 people lost their jobs, hopefully they can all find something else, but maybe some won’t. I hope the severance is fairly substantial and they’ll be well taken care of in the meantime.
just 800 people?
Who’ll even notice 800 people’s effect on a company. Let’s fire a couple of thousands at least. That might be worthy of OVERREACTION. Until then, who cares right?
Of course that sucks but sometimes people get laid off, so how is ActiBlizz horrible for doing this? Their profits didn’t meet their goals and are predicted to drop more next year, is it strange they’re restructuring and changing?