I’ve always heard bad things about being a CS at Blizzard. Low pay, bad hours, etc. Like you had to really love it to do it because it wasn’t worth it otherwise.
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I’m actually regretting re-upping my sub. I love this game, warts and all, but everything I read about “behind the scenes” stuff at Blizzard infuriates me.
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Yeah I don’t appreciate the lack of elaboration on how having less workers will magically make things “more epic”.
What a tool.
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Couldn’t have said it better myself.
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Well, less community support people probably means they can develop more PHONE GAMES.
Don’t you guys have phones?
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Phones?! What are phones, Precious!?!
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Just reading what that person said its makes me mad that he can just take peoples dreams away and just be like, “Oh you’ll find another job, though it won’t be here.” That hows I read it when he’s say the “the next opportunity”, but working for Blizzard was probably their dream of a lifetime and to see it taken away from them it just destroys all hope you can have. How can firing all these people even help the game more, isn’t it just going to slow stuff down?
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Blizzard has bragged in the past about giving two yearly bonuses to their employees for a job well done based on the company’s earnings. Guess what employees didn’t get that they should have a month or so back?
The severance package is, in actuality, more likely to be the bonus that they earned repackaged as severance. Blizzard wants to look good in the public eye so they call it “severance” even though letting people go like this was not necessary. This was a financially successful term for the company; they didn’t meet Activision’s overinflated expectations, though.
Capitalism!
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Jason Schreier is reporting that some of the people fired have been with Blizzard for 10+ years, 15 in some cases. Eff this.
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So they are doing well money wise and still fire all these people with promises that more will be cut by Brack’s words. Why the hell are they doing this? What is the reason? Is it only because they want to make more money than they have?
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In 2019, the company will increase development investment in its biggest franchises, enabling teams to accelerate the pace and quality of content for their communities and supporting a number of new product initiatives. The number of developers working on Call of Duty, CandyCrush, Overwatch,
Warcraft®, Hearthstone and Diablo® in aggregate will increase approximately 20% over the course of 2019. The company will fund this greater investment by de-prioritizing initiatives that are not meeting expectations and reducing certain non-development and administrative-related costs across the business. The company is also integrating its global and regional sales and go-to-market, partnerships, and sponsorships capabilities. As part of these restructuring actions, the company expects to incur a GAAP-only pre-tax charge of approximately $150 million, the majority of which is expected to be incurred this year.
From the financial report.
So the idea is that by firing these people they will have 20% more devs. I dunno if that’s just a lie trying to make the firings look better though.
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Check Twitter. You can literally see people saying this themselves. “I was with Blizzard for 10 years. It was a fun run.”
(that one is Ythsiens)
Needed to cut corners so that the higher ups could line their pockets deeper.
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He’s probably thinking those fired employees just “thought” they wanted to work for Blizz, but they actually “don’t.”
(yeah, he was the “you think you do but you don’t” guy)
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Shareholder capitalism demands infinite growth, feasibility and sustainability be damned.
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Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
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I have my own issues with WoW’s community managers, but Ythsiens? Of all the CMs, that’s who they choose to let go? And Lore is still here, of course.
Man, this is making me Big Mad.
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Is Blizzard trying to kill itself?
Also this tweet is quite relevant. Just replace Dr. Light with Blizzard and X with us.
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I remember watching a Jim Sterling video about this yesterday.
Basically, it’s not just Activision-Blizzard. Layoffs are happening all over the Triple-A gaming industry because the bottom of the barrel is finally falling out. Publishers aren’t making exponential amounts of money anymore and now they’re cutting costs however they can to keep the record profits going, which of course, they can’t do forever.
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Can they not see what this will do long-term?
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