Recently, Activision released a statement regarding their restructuring plans…the short version of it is not only is it going poorly but, at this rate, it’s poised to leave the company worse off than if they’d stayed their previous course (which was also going to start getting them nowhere).
Of note two reasons for this grim forecast stood out to me; Worker Morale and the inability to attract and retain Talented Developers. And why would these be a problem? Because laying off 800 people while basically (but politely) calling them expendable will neither encourage people to work for you nor motivate people to work harder for you.
And who knew this? Satoru Iwata of Nintendo.
There is a wisdom in following the example of the wise. There is only folly in turning away from it.
ww w. gamerevolution.c om/news/503867-activision-statement-restructuring-layoffs
Won’t read the article because I try not to follow random links from sites I don’t recognize that aren’t posted by TL3 users. However, I do agree; worker morale is one of those magic things that is difficult to retain yet easy to lose. What is the incentive for putting passion into a project, giving your all for a company, when you can effectively be shown the door after a 10+ year career? I do recognize the recent move largely did not affect developers, but it isn’t beyond the pale to imagine a scenario where, one day, it would.
And I consider this on-topic because of course I want the people working on WoW to love working on WoW, not giving 50% effort with one foot positioned somewhere out the door.
They actually didn’t release any such statement like that.
What nearly all coverage of this doesn’t seem to grasp is the fact that listing of Risk Factors is standard in all annual 10-Ks and isn’t actually anything to worry about it.
Listing Risk factors in a 10-K is a federally mandated requirement for publicly traded companies. It’s listing the ways things could go south and the consequences to the company of when they do.
They should not be confused with predictions. They are not predictions. They’re essentially expanded legal disclaimers of all things that could go wrong. It’s corporate CYA , nothing more.
On Feb 19th they filed an 8-K with the SEC detailing costs incurred from the restructuring. At $150 million that isn’t so bad considering 65% of that is purely from compensation packages for those let go
On Feb 28th they filed their annual 10-K with the SEC which had a new section in the Risk Factors about the restructuring.
Que several fansites misinterpreting that section and releasing articles about how short-sited ATVI’s executives are and how the company’s gonna die!!!
Again Risk Factors are nothing to worry about. They’re scenarios of where things could go south and what affects or effects it will have on the company. They are NOT predictions of what will happen but rather things that could happen.
In previous years Activision Blizzard have listed (as risk factors) :
Our bottomless money pit may spring a hole and we might end up with no money
Advances in tech might make our game look no better then a 1972 version of Pong
Free to play games may steal everyone of our players
We might wake up tomorrow morning with zero players of our games
The debt we incurred in buying ourselves out from vivendi as well as acquiring King Entertainment and MLG might make us go bankrupt (dispite have the cash and investments to pay off the debt)
Natural disasters like Earthquakes , fire and tornados might wipe out every last one of our buildings
Examples of Risk Factors Coca Cola have listed are
The world might run out of water (ya really)
We might run out of clean water
Obese people might all suddenly decide to stop buying soda
A new competitor to coke might edge us out of the market.
Seriously go to the SEC’s Edgar database. Look up other companies annual 10-Ks. So what they list for Risk Factors.
People have been getting snippy with me for just saying it so I wasn’t going to bother with that route. They really have to stop already though, just so much repeating over and over and over.
Yes I know - they are all just variations of getting their facts wrong.
And no I did not read that link, I literally cannot see any constructive purpose to these threads. They are rehashing the same thing over and over again, spreading false information, saying things that barely even relate to WoW and certainly not saying anything that will improve the game since what is done is done and the people who make those decisions don’t waste their time reading this forum anyway. Totally pointless and 100s of threads on this is totally boring and useless.
I think we should offer further ideas for what could go wrong, I’ll start.
The real world and the virtual world may swap, sinking the dollar, as you cannot purchase real money from the World of Warcraft. Also orcs don’t have computers to play on.
I heard they let a bunch of portals go this week, and it isn’t going well. Aparently , Mitsubishi Sacarilliack from Apple2e just quoted that they are dumb dumbs for taking portal away.
How to miss-read a SEC filing. Corporations have a legal requirement to post the most pessimistic outcomes. The layoff is a minor inconvenience when compared to something going horribly wrong with China or the total collapse of California.
What Nintendo did to comeback from their dark times was so honorable. I doubt Activision Blizzard will follow suit. They’re likely to fire 800 more people on the ground level and throw more money at CEOs.
Yeah, okay, I’m with the others. It’s been said. Blizzard knows the forums are upset (tbh when aren’t we)
They do not need to listen further except to determine how much of an impact the player’s perception of their actions colors the financial status of the game.
That’s really all there is left. So if you dislike them that much, unsub. If not, whatever.
And you true to form you simply MUST jump into everyone of those threads to troll those topics, you do know that you dont have to click on those threads right?
![:face_with_raised_eyebrow:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/face_with_raised_eyebrow.png?v=6" ":face_with_raised_eyebrow:")