It really wasn't that important... The Overwatch team was fine but the head CEO was destroying the game they destroyed it and now they are getting axed for bullshit
This wasn’t betrayal. It’s the copium finally being shut off. Blizzard is a failed company with an ip and 2 live services in decline. Esport failed, reforged failed, hots failed, StarCraft shooter failed, titan failed, shadowland failed.
One sided coverage, I repeat are there other news then layoffs? Because 80% or more off those layoffs are not people who develop games ! 1 coder 8 supervisors that running joke has a core of truth, will your team do >>> journalist work
I was right and Microsoft has began the dismantling of Activision. They are a poor service business and they have always been against free markets and consumer rights. Microsoft sucks as hard as bill bad breast gates. Search my comments lol
well what do you expect when they had 3 teams working on yearly crap COD games. hopefully this means quality instead of quantity. we don't need a new COD every year.
@@supersardonic1179nothing is safe anymore in this economy. At least they were around long enough to gather up some wealth, assuming they didn't spend it all. Kind of doubt it, because accounting is mostly about record keeping and not wealth generation like finance. Kind of in the job description of keeping your finances in order, something business will always need. People in general are financially illiterate, kind of why we have a consumer society. Job might get replaced by AI but it sounds like op is old enough that they don't really need to worry about it too much. Not like they are just getting into the industry. Either way it's bound to be a more stable job than being a game developer. Not saying it's safe in this economy, but more safe than working in the media/entertainment in general.
In many mergers they look at overlapping jobs, how many jobs are currently there compared to how many are actually needed, etc. and decide if they actually are needed or not. Lay offs after any merger are expected. I'd say the largest issue is how people are let off, but it's also somewhat understandable, given the issue with insider threats if you tell someone they're being let go in X amount of time. That said, they should definitely offer proper severance packages due to doing that. Edit: changed this to say "severance" package, as I used the incorrect word when meaning severance.
Status quo for Blizzard. They pulled the same thing with E-sports a few years ago, particularly with Heroes of the Storm. They assured both the team and the players that there were plans for competitions for the next year and to make plans for them. Then shut down everything, laid off the employees and effectively made the teams and players jobless as well. A week away from Christmas. They also sold a 1 year subscription pack to players a week before they said they were putting the game in maintenance mode.
@@vvitch-mist20my first and last experience with a union was the company wanting to fire 100 people at a plant. The union said nope. The company said ok, we will close the plant. The union decided 100 was fine.
@@keithb6344 Okay so explain to me how this means all unions are bad? Hm? Don't you think companies might benefit from people not being able to stand up for themselves? Like please go do your homework.
UPS just announced they are going to lay off 12,000 employees. This isn’t just a games industry thing. People are seeing what’s coming down the road. Gird your loins
If you are gullible enough to believe them then the fault is on your own. Heck with my company they have been buying other companies left and right and yet still continue to lose contracts with each merger and acquisition. I'm already posting my resumes and filling applications. I plan to move on before the next axe falls 🪓
@@mrbubbles6468 Aside from the fact that it's standard corporate operational BS, so sure it's taking their word for it but at this point you could read from a script and have 85% of it apply to any number of these scenarios, regardless of industry.
When I worked for Gateway, we got bought out by Acer. Acer's CEO came over, gathered the entire company together, and promised to our face that there would be no layoffs. Within six months, the only people working at Gateway were two security guards to prevent teens from tagging the now empty factory.
No company pre-announces peoples layoffs, not even public companies or departments do. Even ones with concrete 100% predictable contract end dates play the “oh you never know, there could be some extra work” game. They all pretend everything is a ok 👍 until the day. If you are an employee anywhere for anyone, you will experience this at some point, guaranteed.
I mean, did they really say they werent going to lay them off? Blizzard's esports has been a public disaster and drama fest for many years. Im suprised microsoft has kept as much as they have. Cleaning house is expected.
stop sucking their frankfurter, they laid off non-activision employees too, they laid off employees from other departments too. having 70 B for acquisition, but no money for saving their own employees? especially when AB generated extra profit increase, 50% from last year
Layoffs can be understandable, but there are ways of going about it with more grace and dignity than this. Some notice for the employees would be nice, especially after a crunch.
Its not the layoffs themselves that are incredibly awful about this situation. Its the fact they squeezed the hell out of everyone and then dropped the bomb on them LAST MINUTE just as a bunch of these peoples work was about to come to fruition.
Microsoft laid off Non-Activision employees too. Xbox division employees from another studio. Add the fact that they fired people while having 70 Billion for acquisition. And after AB contributed extra 50% profit from last year
@@Therizinosaurus Sure. They chose to cut extra roles that were not part of what they needed in the future. Why pay for roles they dont need? Thats not good business.
@@Psnsouls Everyone keeps acting shocked at the behavior of these companies… as if corporate responsibility has ever extended beyond profit. If Microsoft could just skip making video games with this purchase and just take your money directly, that’s what they would do. So would Blizzard
@@bart_fox_hero2863 but they won't. if they want to keep getting government money they have to keep giving you newer more diverse casts with every game and update. selling lots of games is cool, getting government slush money to have you not be reliant on selling a lot of games is easier.
I will admit the math doesn't add up. Much like how in The Big Short the stock prices continued to rise after turmoil already hit the market. 2 + 2 = 🐟
Investors buy stock on bad news in hopes that the price will be higher when the bad news "blows over". The problem is that when a lot of Investors have the same idea they all buy so many shares that it makes the stock value way higher than it should be. They are expecting a high stock price that will never come but dont want to sell at a loss so they resist selling until the stock is worthless.
@@Victor-vj5ds Some investors will see bad news and sell. Some Investors will look at a companies track record and buy the drop. Others will hold a stock that is stable - especially if the stock gives dividends. The reason for selling can be varied - such as: If you have news on a potential stock you want to buy into, you are going to sell shares you expect will be least performant in your portfolio in order to achieve the diversification. Or, you might re-balance a stock portfolio if say one stock you hold has shot up to like 25% of the total value of your portfolio, especially if you prefer to maintain a maimimum value of any one stock to say 10% or under of your total portfolio. As much as it's easy and often simpler to talk "One guy hopes they sold at a good time, the other guy hopes they bought at a good time" it is ALWAYS more complicated.
I am finding it very hard to feel sorry for Activision Blizzard here. They've treated their communities and customers like shit for so many years and delivered consistently terrible products, one would be forgiven if they said they thought they deserved a good purge. Also esports suck anyway.
@@schism15 Who cares? When you work on something that's crap, you're an idiot if you think you won't be cut as well when the crap you're working on gets axed.
you miss the point literally entirely. It's not about Acti-Blizz, it's about the PEOPLE WHO LOST THEIR JOBS TO CORPORATE PIRACY. Jesus christ get some fucking empathy.
Companies typically cut the bloat from a new acquisition. Just because it is in the gaming industry doesn't change what happens. A couple of years ago I watched a video where they were interviewing a acquisition expert. His job was to go into companies and determine what is profitable as well as what is not. In one situation, he travelled to a new acquisition's satellite company to determine what they do there. Apparently no one at the main acquisition branch had a clue. After finishing his investigation he determined that the satellite branch added nothing of value to the company. They literally did nothing there. This is what happens when companies get so big that they don't keep track of where the funds are going. It was an American company.
Just to say something many of us warned many gamers who where cheering for MS to get Acti/Blizzard! But now people cry that MS is evil and consolidation is not good, who would have thought that this would happen, hm. Kinda sad to see people scartching their heads why this is happening.
Majority of people are employees, they can't understand a business decision. It's a calculated move and projects can be stopped at whim. Sad it happened to them, unsurprised at the same time.
We aren't crying. This is exactly why we cheered when MS bought Activision. Because they are one of the few companies big enough to clean house at Blizzard. 😂😂
OWL and Blizzard e-sports by extension were a massive bubble from the inception. Without people at the executive level continually pumping it up it wouldn't have lasted this long. MS could have kept it going but it would have hemorrhaged money for years. They really tried to pull a "If you build it, they will come" but the size of the project never matched the real level of interest (or profit). They should have started small and grown it organically if they wanted it to last.
If you can't find a way to pivot those staff on to something that may already be profitable and have them improve time to market or make those products that much better then yeah sure lay offs makes sense. That's a fault of the company in an area their not measured on
ActiBlizz is still intact. They're purging devs that had nothing or little to do with ActiBlizz's problems, while keeping a bunch of the corporate management that actually caused them.
@@ekki1993Just means that good talent will go somewhere that isn't ActiBlizzKing. I do have sympathy, but I think it'll be better for them in the long run.
@@SolidSt8Dj For these kind of jobs, there are way less job offerings than applicants. These jobs not being taken by ActiBlizz means some otherwise capable people will be left out somewhere else too.
@@ekki1993 yeah i think people don't realize we had a big generation of kids that wanted to make video games, so we have tons of applicants in a field that doesn't really need them anymore, technology is making some jobs obsolete and making othr jobs manageable with less people.
Im sympathetic to the people that got laid off, but how many of them were actually useful to game development? Esports never make anyone money. Even the best Esport games barely make money. How many ABK Esports actually make money? Sadly, their contributions to the actual companies were minuscule to the greater development of titles. It's also January, which tends to be the time most people get laid off/quit; it's corporate standard.
Esports won't make a good amount of money until it becomes more normalized. The only way to do that is to continue doing it, but figure out how to make it profitable while doing as such. if you look at the culture of Korea or China, it's obvious there CAN BE a market for it, but the West needs to change how they view video games as a whole.
@@markhohenbrink5230 Sports =/= Esports. Gaming has become more and more normalized for years now, and is no longer something extremely looked down upon (it obviously still is looked down upon to an extent, but nowhere near the level it was even just 10-15 years ago). The next step is normalizing a form of Esports. If it can garner money in other regions, it can in the West, so long as the right steps are taken.
@@Th1sUsernameIsNotTakenYea would also help if more Western casters were as nice and fun to listen to as their Eastern counterparts parts. As that causes atleast me to never be interested in it.
@@Th1sUsernameIsNotTaken Not just how we view video games, but how our society works on a foundational level. Kind of had to build a large and profitable audience when most people are working themselves to death to make rent and buy groceries.
Not entirely surprising. Blizzard flopped E-Sports so badly that they've literally killed almost all of the games they've tried it with. While I do feel for the people that lost their jobs, If I was in Microsofts shoes all I'd see if failed project after failed project with a wildly overreaching budget and likely come to the same conclusion.
Everyone saying these layoffs were a "bloody nose" against the companies making them is a clown. They're racking in the dough while the workers are hurting.
How much dough were they raking in from the esports? If you think that was a good thing, then the next time you go shopping, make sure to pay extra for the lowest quality food filled toxic chemicals.
@@jonpro9637 so is Riot's and they are pretty open about it. They learned early on that esports can work as a gigantic marketing operation. I'm not saying that's how it should be done, I'm just saying that there is more to a department than cash profit, sometimes there's more intangible payoffs and Activision Blizz never learned that.
This is good news. Fabricated and/or inflated numbers because everyone was stuck inside for 2 years is no way to make projections for your company’s future.
Yes and we shouldn't act like it was a surprise. Actibliz has been farming Ls and bad publicly for a long time. Their sales are down, the IPs are in the trash.
It's been known for years that esports is not profitable, and it's also been known for years that activision blizzard is a bloated company. They axed 1,900 employees, but let's be honest blizzard activision hasn't been good in years, a lot of talent left years ago to make games they wanted to make. Just because MS made money doesn't mean they should hold onto useless positions nor should they hold onto employees they don't need.
I feel bad for alot of the Blizz devs but I am having trouble mustering Sympathy for the Esports team considering the fact it's in my opinion a cancer nearly as bad as Microtransactions killing multiplayer games.
Yeah but at the end these are also the people that brought weird politics in to gaming and also where the first group of people to curtail free speech in games. They utterly destroyed gaming so .... They can just learn to mine
Eh... if I suddenly owned Blizzard, the first thing I would probably do is cut the eSports department too. I'd be a lot less of a dick about it, but I get it. Not only has eSports been largely detrimental to Blizzard game design but it's never had any success. With rates being what they are and the state of the industry I don't know how this blindsided anyone though. I expect a lot more belt tightening towards non-development.
Of course all the focus with the merger was around "how might this affect other billionaires ability to make money?" and zero on "how might this affect the people employed at actiblizzion" so zero safeguards were put in place for them.
Sucks to lose a job, but a lot of those jobs are bloat and not needed so it is what it is. Not surprising they lay off eSports positions after they've ruined any hopes of OW2 bringing in a decent audience to that sort of thing. The hell do people expect?
Microsoft is a completely scuffed company and it will only get worse. Despite being 3 trillions market cap, the damn login screen blurbs for my Windows randomly switched to Chinese today, and I looked up and it's a problem many people seem to have (some have it switched to Hindi, some to Swedish, complete nonsense), with absolutely no real solution in sight FOR A MONTH. The bigger a corp gets, the less anyone cares about anything within it.
When new management takes over, they will restructure. A lot of things that Activision does isn't the direction Microsoft wants to go. This is unfortunate but definitely not surprising.
e"sports": KEKW - Whilst it sucks to be made redundant, let's be pragmatic here ... Making a living from the production of e"sports" events is one of those "it's good whilst it lasts" gigs. Traditionally, when businesses are facing "economic headwinds" and bring in the toe-cutter, it's usually Sales and marketing that are first to walk the plank. I'd consider e"sports" events to fall into the bailiwick of the marketing types. More concerning is the amount and the geographical locations of Customer Support and QA folks that are being laid-off. These job functions directly impact the relationship between the companies + products and the paying customers. Comparatively speaking, marketing and e"sports" is fluff.
Esports is just a twitch stream of a match with extra ads. Amazing how thousands of useless people latched onto that and even made themselves believe they've built a career. lmao.
The main reason these large AAA studios are turning out crap is because they are bloated. Indie developers create games that rival 80+% of content of the AAA games for pennies on the dollar. The big studio's are very wasteful in time and talent and have lost their creative edge.
They lost a lot of money on Esports and it doesn't generate much revenue, why would they keep employees who don't make any money for the company? Everyone is so quick to criticize business decisions when it doesn't impact their money.
Hopefully Xbox won't blow off both feet at their next console reveal going deep into DRM and remember they have to sell their console to gamers not greedy executives.
This is a long time coming. It had to come eventually. Making terrible games and not trying to get better is a recipe for destruction, yet that’s what Blizzard staff has been doing for years. It’s time to pay the piper. You won’t be missed.
@@jerrytruckn you’re confusing profit with gross revenue. If Blizzard games were highly profitable then they wouldn’t have chopped their arms and legs off. Nobody at Microsoft is standing around, looking at the P&L’s saying: “Oh wow, we’re making too much money from this new company we acquired, we should reduce profit” What’s more likely the scenario is they looked at Blizzard’s P&Ls for the last 10 years and realized that Blizzard was bringing in more profit when they had a much smaller labor force. Bottom line is, massive chops happen when there’s disappointing performance, not when there is high performance. If Activision as a whole was performing highly, then their valuation would have been too high for Microsoft to acquire them. Microsoft swooped in when their valuation was low enough to make the whole deal feasible.
The truth of the matter is this, every single IP that Activision blizzard has is in a garbage state. Everybody quit World of Warcraft because the game sucked, they lied about overwatch two and then canceled the only thing that everybody was excited about, Diablo 4 garbage, and the new COD Wasn’t great either. When Microsoft bought Activision, we all thought I hope they clean house, well they did and I’m glad.
I dont think any of those 1900 people have any impact on any of those issues you raise. All responsible for the shitty state Blizzard is in is still sitting pretty safe around the excec tables.
They introduced a new e-sports format, I guess some expected to stay to be a part of the new venture. But still they made it clear that it wouldn't be nearly as big as OWL, so at least some cuts had to be expected.
It sucks but you'd have to be absolutely blind working under these companies, knowing about the acquisition, & not expecting layoffs almost right after.
Immediately following a company acquisition, *never* take a touring CEO’s niceties at face value when he’s checking out *your* offices. He’s looking for things to cut, and you are being measured. Either update your resume, or make yourself indispensable and update your resume. Update your resume either way.
"Learn to code".......advice given to many blue collar workers.....when their jobs we're closed, moved, outsourced etc.... I'll never feel sorry for these devs. They were all high and mighty.....and now.... paupers.... 🤣 I have a STEM degree. I earned after 25 year career as an Automotive Tech/fabricator. Earning my Doctorate currently. I didn't learn to code oops
I mean with Microsoft and Actiblizz it was kinda expected. In the end it's a merger and during mergers you have multiple positions that will be duplicated that you don't need more people in over what you already have in your own company.
As someone who worked in a union for years. I always like to laugh at people who think forming a union is some magical problem solver when in reality it cause more problems , less jobs and even more greed than it helps.
@@lazyfrogeyes5949the grass is always greener. People like to live in a fairy tale where if they can just get “that one thing” they’re obsessed with, everything will work out. If any of these human livestock ever got their “one thing” they would realize that nothing changes, the world is still fallen, man is still cruel, and the ages march on. Utopianism has probably done more damage to humanity than plain old animal cruelty.
It's interesting hearing some people's reactions to people being laid off. They act as though these people haven't been compensated for their work, and they are entitled to on-going compensation. Are we really surprised that people are being laid off? Blizzard has been going down hill for a long time, so why are people upset that they are going a different direction?
It's sad to hear people's lives have been flipped upside down however you are correct. Acti-Blizz has a huge workforce for seemingly very little development. There was clearly a lot of dead weight especially with those stories that came out a few years ago about people drinking and predating in the workplace. Fat needs to be trimmed so these companies can walk again and Blizzard specifically has grown very fat and sluggish in the last decade.
I think this is glorious. Fate loves irony. The people that ruined blizzard being brutally cut at the worst possible time. Most of blizzards titles are now in just their name, so as long as they have good developers in all their other companies, they don't need the ones that have destroyed their beautiful titles more recently in the past decade. And for atvi, the title names matter as well, but require less talent and vision to create for people to purchase. This will be amazing for fans of original blizzard titles, where we will get the next best thing to a larian-esque studio that blizzard once was.
These people decided they wanted to work a for an evil soulless machine. Then they act upset and surprised when the demons set them ablaze. I have no sympathy for any of them, bunch of immature cry baby adults, Its embarrassing.
its perfectly fine its natural they did not get the quota they are cut along with the duplicate job tittles, buying something that only gives liability , most of them are too busy with propaganda ,politics to care for the work
So we are upset that these studios, who have been objectively doing a terrible job, are being let go? I mean, I understand “optics”, but weve all watched blizzard constantly fumble for years, why would we feel bad for people who are in a competitive industry. Obviously some people got caught in the crossfire, but no one should be surprised.
In a lot of these situations people have issues with HOW it was done, not that it was done. It is entirely possible to let people go in a respectful way and give them a cushion to land on their feet. These optics will impact them in the future because anyone with talent who values job security will look at situations like this and decide to go elsewhere.
The issue, as ALWAYS, is that the staff who were let go are likely not the ones making the poor decisions. They just do what they're told so they can keep their jobs. The ones collecting 7-figure bonuses are left, after screwing those people over for years, and again by surprising them with unemployment.
So Microsoft cut off the no bottom money pit also known as "E! Sports!". Talk about 10 years too late LMAO 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂 Still got my old games and soon with A.I. I'll make my own rivals in those games.
Lol, this is just the start, am I supposed to feel bad for people who put up with DEI bullshit? Nah you reap what you sow. Too many developers and designers shit on the bases that they built their companies fortunes on. Now they openly ridicule fans who care about lore, or cannon. I don't feel bad, and we need more layoffs.
I don’t see a problem with that. these teams failed.. esports and blizzard games was just a mess for years and at the end of the day why would you keep more than you need when Microsoft already has people doing similar tasks
IDK, maybe its just me. But eSports stuff is such a niche market segment, maybe M$ doesnt see it a viable area to invest in. That and from what keeps coming up in gaming news is that eSports are becoming less and less popular, maybe? IDK.. I play WoW every days or hours on end and have never bothered to watch the MDI or RTWF events.. Maybe M$ is thinking the same. They are also likely looking at laying off areas where some design decisions may have not been popular and replacing them with their own workforce. Who knows.
I still think it would be worth exploring if Microsoft made promises to the regulatory agencies that approved the acquisition, not to lay off a bunch of humans. 🕊️
@@TorpedoScrewsI’m sure buying a major competitor and then gutting them wouldn’t have an affect on the regulation, not at all.. they gave many reassurance that they wouldn’t even be that hands on. How’s that then? The whole framing that they took up was a fabrication, it worked, the most that will happen to them now is a fine
In the business world, acquisitions are almost synonymous of layoffs, because redundant workforce. In those situations, the only business that avoid layoffs are the ones willing to expand an already consolidated workforce or have the good will to train the excess of human resources to other areas. The bitter part is that's fair game to governments. "Work aren't charity" and "the social aspect of labour is just an afterthought", they say.
@Nick-cs4oc nothing in the sale of activision blizzard gave legal protection to the employees. So far everything MS has done, has been a good thing, activision blizzard has been a bloated, toxic company for years.
@@mayconlcruz So what you are saying is that when asked directly: do you expect this transaction to create job losses and they say 'no' - it's just wink wink nudge nudge let's all just play the game? 🕊️
People have short memories. Actiblizzard pulled shit like this almost annually; repeatedly made headlines for huge cuts on the heels of record profits. These people didn't have real job security BEFORE the merger.
Why do you people in the comments act surprised that unsustainable jobs were axed lmao. If you want security get a job in something that is sustainable. The gaming industry has always been project based. If projects fail or make no money they get axed you lose your jobs its the way of life. Stop being crybabies about it.
and that is why most people don't give a rat's ass about their job. They do the minimum necessary to not be fired tomorrow. And that will be the same with studios from any AAA corpo. Most devs that want to create a good video game instead of a souless corpo product will try to get out.
Cleaning house after large acquisitions is pretty standard. It sucks it went down the way it did and could of been handled better but they will find new jobs (hopefully ones that pay better) and im sure/hope alot of them get severance pay as well
@@mrbubbles6468exactly, most of the Devs of our favorite titles, don't play them and have been making crap game after crap game. Not to mention, cut everybody, resign those you want to keep under a new contract. Happens on mergers all the time.
That is assuming those "game failures" were down to random developers being somehow suddenly incompetent and not broad structural issues with trying to shit out as many games as possible as quickly as possible. I am sure things will get way better after having 80% less manpower to to the job. /s@@mrbubbles6468
That's why they might be able to turn them around. Literally just get rid of everyone, random Indians are going to do a better job for 1/10th of the price. They probably like those games more, too.
@@mrbubbles6468 That would mean being able to trust microsoft (HR scandal prone, track record of acquiring gaming companies and burning them to the ground) in the middle of a HR scandal (Laying people off with 0 warning in a super scummy way) being able to assemble a team from the people that made those games good (Burned by Blizz etc HR scandals) or replacements (Major HR/PR cost) when firing the majority of on the ground staff who handle PR/HR. I'm gonna grab a list of my favourite things about those games, find the artists and designers who made the parts I like and go see their new projects, cause it sure ain't looking like this'll work out. Fingers crossed it burns microsoft investors.
None of these companies make good games anyway. So I really dont care about these layoffs. Just like most people dont care about the inner workings of the staff and their lives at manufacturing plants. But for some reason we are supposed to treat devs like close family members, Or like our future depends on their well being. The correct course of action for the remaining employees as they see their coworkers "massacred" (as its put). Is to leave the companies, Leave the industry. But that wont happen. It never does. They want someone else to do something about the companies actions. rather than having to look for a better, more fulfilling job. Imagine if all of these teams broke off to make their own games. Its quite common for that to happen. Even if they wind up just being bought out again by the same corporation they left to begin with, or another competitor from the one they used to work under. But at least in that case we get more games, and better ones at that. Titanfall exists because of this exact case. Their biggest mistake was staying with EA and not breaking off. The thing with Bungie is that their company culture was corrupted by the influx of the cancer of the industry being hitched to Activision.
This would have happened if any company bought activation blizzard. It's sad, but anytime there is a change In management there's always restructuring and cuts. Our industry is no different. It's just sad that they didn't give them a heads up or a warning.
One sided coverage, I repeat are there other news then layoffs? Because 80% or more off those layoffs are not people who develop games ! 1 coder 8 supervisors that running joke has a core of truth, will your team do >>> journalist work
@@poopsymcloopsy his point is all their products suck and are either already failures or are on steep downward trends. So why should we care about these people who dont know how to make a product people actually want.
@@jonpro9637 Harsh but kinda true, that survival game Blizzard were cooking that was axed was the product of 200 devs over several years. They just cannot develop games anymore, it is blatantly clear the talent moved on/was axed years ago.
While it is sad people lost their jobs and also true Microsoft has been ruthless, let's not forget this entire division was a juiced up monster that was artificially pumped to follow Bobby's orders. Blizzard haven't had a sustainable organic esport in decades (even when they had good underlying games). There was no way it was going to survive post Bobby.
“Lack of common decency” LMFAOOO. Not a single blizzard employee is worth common decency. If they stayed at that company any time after 2018-19 it’s their own fault.
Remember when Nintendo had troubles during the WiiU era, the late CEO Satoru Iwata took a 50% pay cut so that they wouldn't need to lay people off? As well as how most of the execs at Nintendo took quite sizable pay cuts at the time?
They spent 69 billion on activision. How else were they supposed to make that back without insane cuts? How nobody saw this coming from miles away is beyond me.
Their record profits rose instantly by hundreds of millions, maybe they could have dipped into that a little bit and still have some extra left over for another few yachts. Even that aside, Microsoft still has untold billions of money they did NOT spend on Activision. The amount they spent there was just what they had EXTRA. And obviously this purchase wouldn't have been made at all if they did not have the money to sustain the company's existing infrastructure into the future. That would be like buying a house that you can't pay the monthly fees for in just a few months. This idea that Microsoft is so broke that they can't afford 1900 peasants is hilarious. They could pay them all even if the staff doubled overnight, they already pay over 221,000 of them
That's not how it works. They need these cuts to look responsible for investors, not because they need them to be profitable. They could keep all the people and have no problems. It's standard big tech hype cycle.
I dont get how this is a suprise or how anyone expected anything different. The ones who keep their jobs should be viewed as critical or special, the ones who didnt should have expected it. and Also obviously the crews set to work until x date wouldnt be told they are fired until after their work is done. it was essentially gig work at that point. All of these "shockers" are just common sense firings and happenings for Microsoft after the acquisition.
@@sarahorton9223 Now? You been ignorant to how poorly run Microsoft has been? Xbox tanking? Windows progressively being worse and worse with each edition? What reality have you been living in?
@@fish5645 Windows is not Xbox, they are two different divisions of Microsoft. For years the Xbox division was not bad at all, like during the 360 era. I don't understand why you need to be disrespectful to randos on the internet either. 🤷♀
"Fixing" Classic WoW is not so simple. WoW is a theme park MMORPG. It has a defined world and story. It can complete content that was cut but creating new content is not so simple to seamlessly merge into the world. It's a formulaic system, "this guy is going to destroy the world, save us!" and then "this other guy is going to destroy the world, save us!" etc. OSRS is a sandbox MMORPG. It's not that big of deal to put a new shiny toy in the sandbox or make the sandbox bigger. It doesn't have a predefined story. It has little pockets of stories in the form of quests and some other unlocks. The true story is actually the player themself and their adventure in the world. They are 1 of many adventurers in the world doing stuff. What did they do? What did they accomplish? This is main difference in the style content and 1 of 2 major defining factors that makes OSRS a sandbox MMORPG. WoW needs to respect its predefined story while OSRS is free to just create content, the main story (each individual player's journey) will naturally explore the new content. The next major defining factor is the leveling and progression format. In WoW, progression is level up, get better gear, more skills and abilities, hit max level, prepare for end game content, do the end game content. Side content exists but ultimately usually doesn't progress your account. In addition, there is a predefined goal post (end game content) and that is where the majority of the player base will be. As a side effect, people don't really care about pre-end game content, and last time I played (mid-panda patch), the game itself didn't care about pre-end game content. Classic WoW is mostly the same but the pre-end game content did matter because in Classic WoW, you are 1 of many adventurers. The story is not so strictly defined like in later expansions but there is still a predefined goal post and little to no reason to return to lower level content. None the less, because you are 1 of many adventurers and the story is not so strictly defined, and the content is slowly, the journey matters to the goal post matters. It was a large portion of the experience. In OSRS, progression is all over the place. -Stats is a fundamental part of progression. Leveling up is important. It unlocks the ability to use more equipment, unlocks activities, quests, areas, etc. You also need stats to even have a viable strategy to do some content and even then, leveling up even more generally makes you more efficient at that content. -Gear is also a fundamental part of progression. Gear matters a lot. -Quests unlock content, unlocks other quests, unlocks gear, prayers, helps level up stats, etc. -Money making to buy resources and gear upgrades. Even ironman (can't trade or receive items from other players, or benefit from the directly in most cases unless a defined systems allows it) needs money, usually for runes (magic casting resource). For OSRS, progression goes in all directions, up to the sides, jump down to progress another foundation that later combines, etc, etc, etc. But one of the critical things is, what are you progressing to? In WoW you progress to end game. As mentioned before, OSRS doesn't have a predefined story. There is story in the form of quests and stuff, but as mentioned... The true story is the player and their adventure. That's the key thing about progression in OSRS. There is defined, arbitrary goal posts of progression - The list of progression options above. Then there is the true goal post - An arbitrary objective that each individual player decides on for themselves. Some players have multiple goal posts, when a player reaches a goal post, they decide on a new one, and so on. That's the goal post in OSRS, some arbitrary thing the player decides they want to achieve. A concrete example, I play Ironman. I had 3 crafting goal posts, 80, 90, and 93. 80 was to allow make to make Amulets of Glory. 90 for most of the zenyte jewelry (end game equipment) and 93 for the last of the zenyte jewelry. I didn't have a cash stack. So what I did I do? Seaweed Spores -> Giant Seaweed -> Soda Ash Sandstone -> Grinder -> Buckets of Sand Soda Ash + Buckets of Sand -> Molten Glass -> Unpowered Orb Buy Cosmic Runes, realize bots competion makes it slow, found temple trekking allowed me to get several thousand pure essence, then started crafting my own cosmic runes. Power Fire Orbs -> Buy battlestaves from NPC shops -> Make Fire Battlestaves - High alch Fire Battlestave After a few 10s of thousands of all of that, I have 92 magic and 90 crafting and made over 30m, on top of unlocking the ability to craft some of my own upgrades. 93 crafting is still a goal post. To that end, I listed a number of predefined means of progression only to call them arbitrary goal posts of progression. Why are they arbitrary? Because the player decides. I decided that 80 crafting was a goal post. The list I mentioned above, if you do any of them, then it's progression. But, it's arbitrary because that alone doesn't really mean much, instead you create meaning by deciding on an objective and then going after the requirements. My goal post was Amulet of Glory, and I needed 80 crafting. Along the way, I leveled up magic and made a nice cash stack. And that's a key thing. Sure the "optimal" way to play OSRS is to go afk train your combat stats to max and do end game bossing and despite that, at any time, you can pretty easily find people doing pre-end game content or not-maxed players doing stuff. Barrows brothers, minigames, quests, skilling, combat activities, PVP, clue scroll farming, etc, etc, etc, etc. It is all of these details that means that OSRS is free to add content for any tier of progression. If the content is good enough and engaging, regardless of the intended level, people will do it and they will enjoy it. So not only can OSRS just add more content without disrupting the "main story", OSRS can freely add content that is designed for any point of progression within the game. Wrapping back to "fixing Classic WoW". In Classic WoW pre-end game only matters so far as it's a large portion of the journey. But the game still has the predefined goal post of end game content and there is few reasons to go back to older content. On top of that, the theme must be maintained. Classic WoW needs to be careful with adding more end game content as it may disrupt the "main story" and can not freely design content for any point of progression as people generally won't care about pre-end game content once they have already past that pre-end game content. And I mean, sure they can add a new profession or do things like the battle pets, but at some point people is going to want new raids and dungeons and end-game questlines.
If only Bellular would actually be honest instead of appealing to emotion, then he would tell you that a majority of the jobs cut were either a) redundant or b) overpaid/overvalued. But nah, fragile jobs like E-Sports need their fee-fee's protected instead of reading the writing on the wall.
Aren't E-sports just an arm of marketing? Does it actually bring any revenue aside from selling the game? I'm not surprised that's an area that would be cut immediately with the Microsoft acquisition.
Just like you don't tell your boss a head of time you have found a new job (because they could screw you over) a company isn't going to tell their employees that they are getting laid off till the work has been done or they do as much as they can do until the last minute because why are you going to do your best if you know your losing your job. Can say it's disgusting but employees and employers both do it. After everything that's happened with the merger and the scum bag tactics of activsion blizzard also the assaults that happened in the company, how did anyone think their job was safe.
When an employee quits a company will fill in their spot with other employees working overtime until a replacement is hired. A company like blizzard won't even do much as have their bottom line tickled by that. When a company lays off an employee without warning they lose their income, derail their life, fall behind on the college debt they incurred to get that job, and probably lose at least half their social circle in the process. But yeah, at least the higher up warned them by way of sexually assaulting them first? I dunno what your point is, is that business advice? "If your boss gropes you that's how you know you may be laid off soon"?
10:48 - No shit. Game pass, and pc gaming is eating their sales. If there were game exclusives, that are fully featured and content rich, people would buy consoles just for those
Years ago this exact same behavior HALTED EA's rise to a monopoly. One that would have toppled names as they hoovered up studios. Absorbed and killed them, then SPIT OUT half baked sequels. I previously said Microsoft was the biggest threat to gaming for doing that again, I think they just hit critical mass and stalled permanently. THAT SAID; There is one thing left here that could be spurring on some of these lay offs: Bobby kottick. They could easily also be digging, finding people from Kottick's reign that are ACTIVE threats of another scandal, and replacing them. However, it is still signs they are reaching critical mass. And as we all know, when a corporation lays off people who are active threats and have others who will do the job without pay or the title, they just eliminate the position
The best idea, when looking at a future of high interest rates and expensive debt, is to keep behaving as if nothing has changed because a bunch of people on twitter (sorry, X) are mad that you're laying off some of the highest earning individuals in the country. There is a reason that these layoffs have in turn led to investor confidence - they're sound.
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It really wasn't that important... The Overwatch team was fine but the head CEO was destroying the game they destroyed it and now they are getting axed for bullshit
This wasn’t betrayal. It’s the copium finally being shut off. Blizzard is a failed company with an ip and 2 live services in decline. Esport failed, reforged failed, hots failed, StarCraft shooter failed, titan failed, shadowland failed.
One sided coverage, I repeat are there other news then layoffs? Because 80% or more off those layoffs are not people who develop games ! 1 coder 8 supervisors that running joke has a core of truth, will your team do >>> journalist work
I was right and Microsoft has began the dismantling of Activision. They are a poor service business and they have always been against free markets and consumer rights. Microsoft sucks as hard as bill bad breast gates. Search my comments lol
well what do you expect when they had 3 teams working on yearly crap COD games. hopefully this means quality instead of quantity. we don't need a new COD every year.
In my 20s I wanted to get into the video game world, now as a 40 year old accountant instead. I am glad I didn't. The instability would destroy me.
You're an accountant and don't realize how thin ice you're actually on, loll
Software development is a great field to be in rn as long as you are not a game dev.
Have you seen this current financial climate? Accountancy isn't as stable as it used to be.
@@fillerbunnyninjashark271yeah but he still has a job and those people at don’t
@@supersardonic1179nothing is safe anymore in this economy. At least they were around long enough to gather up some wealth, assuming they didn't spend it all. Kind of doubt it, because accounting is mostly about record keeping and not wealth generation like finance. Kind of in the job description of keeping your finances in order, something business will always need. People in general are financially illiterate, kind of why we have a consumer society.
Job might get replaced by AI but it sounds like op is old enough that they don't really need to worry about it too much. Not like they are just getting into the industry.
Either way it's bound to be a more stable job than being a game developer. Not saying it's safe in this economy, but more safe than working in the media/entertainment in general.
Record profit, record layoff. (Financial) Industry standard.
Big tech hype cycle goes brrrr.
Good, bloat is bad for everyone
In many mergers they look at overlapping jobs, how many jobs are currently there compared to how many are actually needed, etc. and decide if they actually are needed or not. Lay offs after any merger are expected.
I'd say the largest issue is how people are let off, but it's also somewhat understandable, given the issue with insider threats if you tell someone they're being let go in X amount of time. That said, they should definitely offer proper severance packages due to doing that.
Edit: changed this to say "severance" package, as I used the incorrect word when meaning severance.
@@Th1sUsernameIsNotTaken in EU you have 1-3 months of severance depending on country and somehow companies don't fall down by insider threats.
Capitalism, woo!
Status quo for Blizzard. They pulled the same thing with E-sports a few years ago, particularly with Heroes of the Storm. They assured both the team and the players that there were plans for competitions for the next year and to make plans for them. Then shut down everything, laid off the employees and effectively made the teams and players jobless as well. A week away from Christmas. They also sold a 1 year subscription pack to players a week before they said they were putting the game in maintenance mode.
Those working in the games industry need to start unionizing. This is abusive and a union can prevent this from happening.
@@vvitch-mist20my first and last experience with a union was the company wanting to fire 100 people at a plant. The union said nope. The company said ok, we will close the plant. The union decided 100 was fine.
@@keithb6344
Okay so explain to me how this means all unions are bad? Hm? Don't you think companies might benefit from people not being able to stand up for themselves? Like please go do your homework.
Depnds on how justified the union even is, @@vvitch-mist20
well they completely lied about Overwat h PvE too. This is a chronic condition
“Don't forget: you're replaceable.”
- The Management
Hopefully AI replaces the management first
Remember when in the simpsons "Don't forget you're here forever" was supposed to be a bad thing? I would KILL for that kind of job stability.
@@Mischievous_Moth Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Redundant.
Replaceable is too optimistic, implying someone will take that position.
Yet no one comments that most managers could be replaced with a spreadsheet.
UPS just announced they are going to lay off 12,000 employees. This isn’t just a games industry thing. People are seeing what’s coming down the road. Gird your loins
Reassured employees then just to fire them. Scummy af
If you are gullible enough to believe them then the fault is on your own.
Heck with my company they have been buying other companies left and right and yet still continue to lose contracts with each merger and acquisition. I'm already posting my resumes and filling applications. I plan to move on before the next axe falls 🪓
To be fair, we only have the employees word for it and there is reason for them not to be telling the whole truth or the truth at all
@@mrbubbles6468 Aside from the fact that it's standard corporate operational BS, so sure it's taking their word for it but at this point you could read from a script and have 85% of it apply to any number of these scenarios, regardless of industry.
When I worked for Gateway, we got bought out by Acer. Acer's CEO came over, gathered the entire company together, and promised to our face that there would be no layoffs.
Within six months, the only people working at Gateway were two security guards to prevent teens from tagging the now empty factory.
No company pre-announces peoples layoffs, not even public companies or departments do.
Even ones with concrete 100% predictable contract end dates play the “oh you never know, there could be some extra work” game.
They all pretend everything is a ok 👍 until the day.
If you are an employee anywhere for anyone, you will experience this at some point, guaranteed.
I mean, did they really say they werent going to lay them off? Blizzard's esports has been a public disaster and drama fest for many years. Im suprised microsoft has kept as much as they have. Cleaning house is expected.
stop sucking their frankfurter, they laid off non-activision employees too, they laid off employees from other departments too.
having 70 B for acquisition, but no money for saving their own employees? especially when AB generated extra profit increase, 50% from last year
Layoffs can be understandable, but there are ways of going about it with more grace and dignity than this. Some notice for the employees would be nice, especially after a crunch.
Its not the layoffs themselves that are incredibly awful about this situation. Its the fact they squeezed the hell out of everyone and then dropped the bomb on them LAST MINUTE just as a bunch of these peoples work was about to come to fruition.
Microsoft laid off Non-Activision employees too. Xbox division employees from another studio.
Add the fact that they fired people while having 70 Billion for acquisition. And after AB contributed extra 50% profit from last year
@@Therizinosaurus Sure. They chose to cut extra roles that were not part of what they needed in the future. Why pay for roles they dont need? Thats not good business.
Yeah of course they were ruthless. This company cares about literally only those earnings calls
That's how business works...welcome to the big boy world
Almost like a business' whole point is to make money, not coddle some millenial blue hair.
@@Psnsouls Everyone keeps acting shocked at the behavior of these companies… as if corporate responsibility has ever extended beyond profit. If Microsoft could just skip making video games with this purchase and just take your money directly, that’s what they would do. So would Blizzard
@@Hatchet-w6x Exactly. As a consumer, I don’t really care how many devs they fire if it means they return to making games I want to play
@@bart_fox_hero2863 but they won't. if they want to keep getting government money they have to keep giving you newer more diverse casts with every game and update. selling lots of games is cool, getting government slush money to have you not be reliant on selling a lot of games is easier.
I will admit the math doesn't add up. Much like how in The Big Short the stock prices continued to rise after turmoil already hit the market.
2 + 2 = 🐟
Investors buy stock on bad news in hopes that the price will be higher when the bad news "blows over". The problem is that when a lot of Investors have the same idea they all buy so many shares that it makes the stock value way higher than it should be. They are expecting a high stock price that will never come but dont want to sell at a loss so they resist selling until the stock is worthless.
There an entire aftermath momentum phase you just missed completely in both situations. The math does add up, you just arent good at math.
@@Victor-vj5ds Some investors will see bad news and sell. Some Investors will look at a companies track record and buy the drop. Others will hold a stock that is stable - especially if the stock gives dividends. The reason for selling can be varied - such as: If you have news on a potential stock you want to buy into, you are going to sell shares you expect will be least performant in your portfolio in order to achieve the diversification. Or, you might re-balance a stock portfolio if say one stock you hold has shot up to like 25% of the total value of your portfolio, especially if you prefer to maintain a maimimum value of any one stock to say 10% or under of your total portfolio.
As much as it's easy and often simpler to talk "One guy hopes they sold at a good time, the other guy hopes they bought at a good time" it is ALWAYS more complicated.
Kind of like car dealerships.
Look up how much the us prints each quarter look up the gdp growth of that quarter , look up the index prices
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
I am finding it very hard to feel sorry for Activision Blizzard here. They've treated their communities and customers like shit for so many years and delivered consistently terrible products, one would be forgiven if they said they thought they deserved a good purge.
Also esports suck anyway.
What makes you think the people who set the strategy/roadmap for these products are included in these purges?
Agreed. It'd be one thing if they did respectable work, but I say good riddance.
@@schism15
Who cares? When you work on something that's crap, you're an idiot if you think you won't be cut as well when the crap you're working on gets axed.
you miss the point literally entirely. It's not about Acti-Blizz, it's about the PEOPLE WHO LOST THEIR JOBS TO CORPORATE PIRACY. Jesus christ get some fucking empathy.
@@schism15 You mean the CEO? He was just let go as well
Companies typically cut the bloat from a new acquisition. Just because it is in the gaming industry doesn't change what happens.
A couple of years ago I watched a video where they were interviewing a acquisition expert. His job was to go into companies and determine what is profitable as well as what is not. In one situation, he travelled to a new acquisition's satellite company to determine what they do there. Apparently no one at the main acquisition branch had a clue. After finishing his investigation he determined that the satellite branch added nothing of value to the company. They literally did nothing there. This is what happens when companies get so big that they don't keep track of where the funds are going. It was an American company.
Just to say something many of us warned many gamers who where cheering for MS to get Acti/Blizzard! But now people cry that MS is evil and consolidation is not good, who would have thought that this would happen, hm. Kinda sad to see people scartching their heads why this is happening.
Majority of people are employees, they can't understand a business decision. It's a calculated move and projects can be stopped at whim. Sad it happened to them, unsurprised at the same time.
Seriously, Ive been screaming this but people dont learn even when they get slammed over and over
They're not old enough to have seen this before is why.
We aren't crying. This is exactly why we cheered when MS bought Activision. Because they are one of the few companies big enough to clean house at Blizzard. 😂😂
I was telling people that MS acquiring Acti Blizz is only good for MS and it will sooner or later bite everyone else in the ass.
OWL and Blizzard e-sports by extension were a massive bubble from the inception. Without people at the executive level continually pumping it up it wouldn't have lasted this long. MS could have kept it going but it would have hemorrhaged money for years. They really tried to pull a "If you build it, they will come" but the size of the project never matched the real level of interest (or profit). They should have started small and grown it organically if they wanted it to last.
I'm surprised that people are upset that an under performing for YEARS portion of the company gets laid off. These aren't charities....
If you can't find a way to pivot those staff on to something that may already be profitable and have them improve time to market or make those products that much better then yeah sure lay offs makes sense. That's a fault of the company in an area their not measured on
Hard to feel bad for Activision honestly.
ActiBlizz is still intact. They're purging devs that had nothing or little to do with ActiBlizz's problems, while keeping a bunch of the corporate management that actually caused them.
@@ekki1993meh. They are part of the issue
@@ekki1993Just means that good talent will go somewhere that isn't ActiBlizzKing. I do have sympathy, but I think it'll be better for them in the long run.
@@SolidSt8Dj For these kind of jobs, there are way less job offerings than applicants. These jobs not being taken by ActiBlizz means some otherwise capable people will be left out somewhere else too.
@@ekki1993 yeah i think people don't realize we had a big generation of kids that wanted to make video games, so we have tons of applicants in a field that doesn't really need them anymore, technology is making some jobs obsolete and making othr jobs manageable with less people.
Im sympathetic to the people that got laid off, but how many of them were actually useful to game development? Esports never make anyone money. Even the best Esport games barely make money. How many ABK Esports actually make money? Sadly, their contributions to the actual companies were minuscule to the greater development of titles. It's also January, which tends to be the time most people get laid off/quit; it's corporate standard.
Esports won't make a good amount of money until it becomes more normalized. The only way to do that is to continue doing it, but figure out how to make it profitable while doing as such.
if you look at the culture of Korea or China, it's obvious there CAN BE a market for it, but the West needs to change how they view video games as a whole.
@@Th1sUsernameIsNotTaken Esports won't ever be profitable when even Sports themselves are slowly losing money.
@@markhohenbrink5230 Sports =/= Esports.
Gaming has become more and more normalized for years now, and is no longer something extremely looked down upon (it obviously still is looked down upon to an extent, but nowhere near the level it was even just 10-15 years ago).
The next step is normalizing a form of Esports. If it can garner money in other regions, it can in the West, so long as the right steps are taken.
@@Th1sUsernameIsNotTakenYea would also help if more Western casters were as nice and fun to listen to as their Eastern counterparts parts. As that causes atleast me to never be interested in it.
@@Th1sUsernameIsNotTaken Not just how we view video games, but how our society works on a foundational level. Kind of had to build a large and profitable audience when most people are working themselves to death to make rent and buy groceries.
Not entirely surprising. Blizzard flopped E-Sports so badly that they've literally killed almost all of the games they've tried it with. While I do feel for the people that lost their jobs, If I was in Microsofts shoes all I'd see if failed project after failed project with a wildly overreaching budget and likely come to the same conclusion.
Everyone saying these layoffs were a "bloody nose" against the companies making them is a clown. They're racking in the dough while the workers are hurting.
How much dough were they raking in from the esports? If you think that was a good thing, then the next time you go shopping, make sure to pay extra for the lowest quality food filled toxic chemicals.
there are many other industries that make software. no need to work in the video game industry.
OW esports was in the red for its entire existence
@@jonpro9637 so is Riot's and they are pretty open about it.
They learned early on that esports can work as a gigantic marketing operation.
I'm not saying that's how it should be done, I'm just saying that there is more to a department than cash profit, sometimes there's more intangible payoffs and Activision Blizz never learned that.
It was sorta expected when they axed OWL. I don't know how people think they need be reassured for something that was known to be axed, and reformed.
I think the issue is more on how the layoff was handled rather than the layoff itself.
This is good news. Fabricated and/or inflated numbers because everyone was stuck inside for 2 years is no way to make projections for your company’s future.
Yes and we shouldn't act like it was a surprise. Actibliz has been farming Ls and bad publicly for a long time. Their sales are down, the IPs are in the trash.
It's been known for years that esports is not profitable, and it's also been known for years that activision blizzard is a bloated company. They axed 1,900 employees, but let's be honest blizzard activision hasn't been good in years, a lot of talent left years ago to make games they wanted to make.
Just because MS made money doesn't mean they should hold onto useless positions nor should they hold onto employees they don't need.
I feel bad for alot of the Blizz devs but I am having trouble mustering Sympathy for the Esports team considering the fact it's in my opinion a cancer nearly as bad as Microtransactions killing multiplayer games.
Yeah but at the end these are also the people that brought weird politics in to gaming and also where the first group of people to curtail free speech in games. They utterly destroyed gaming so .... They can just learn to mine
“senior manager of esports” yea, so mostly useless positions were purged
Eh... if I suddenly owned Blizzard, the first thing I would probably do is cut the eSports department too. I'd be a lot less of a dick about it, but I get it. Not only has eSports been largely detrimental to Blizzard game design but it's never had any success.
With rates being what they are and the state of the industry I don't know how this blindsided anyone though. I expect a lot more belt tightening towards non-development.
Of course all the focus with the merger was around "how might this affect other billionaires ability to make money?" and zero on "how might this affect the people employed at actiblizzion" so zero safeguards were put in place for them.
Sucks to lose a job, but a lot of those jobs are bloat and not needed so it is what it is. Not surprising they lay off eSports positions after they've ruined any hopes of OW2 bringing in a decent audience to that sort of thing. The hell do people expect?
Microsoft is a completely scuffed company and it will only get worse. Despite being 3 trillions market cap, the damn login screen blurbs for my Windows randomly switched to Chinese today, and I looked up and it's a problem many people seem to have (some have it switched to Hindi, some to Swedish, complete nonsense), with absolutely no real solution in sight FOR A MONTH.
The bigger a corp gets, the less anyone cares about anything within it.
When new management takes over, they will restructure. A lot of things that Activision does isn't the direction Microsoft wants to go. This is unfortunate but definitely not surprising.
e"sports": KEKW - Whilst it sucks to be made redundant, let's be pragmatic here ... Making a living from the production of e"sports" events is one of those "it's good whilst it lasts" gigs.
Traditionally, when businesses are facing "economic headwinds" and bring in the toe-cutter, it's usually Sales and marketing that are first to walk the plank. I'd consider e"sports" events to fall into the bailiwick of the marketing types.
More concerning is the amount and the geographical locations of Customer Support and QA folks that are being laid-off. These job functions directly impact the relationship between the companies + products and the paying customers. Comparatively speaking, marketing and e"sports" is fluff.
Esports is just a twitch stream of a match with extra ads. Amazing how thousands of useless people latched onto that and even made themselves believe they've built a career. lmao.
The main reason these large AAA studios are turning out crap is because they are bloated. Indie developers create games that rival 80+% of content of the AAA games for pennies on the dollar. The big studio's are very wasteful in time and talent and have lost their creative edge.
Wasn't Activision Blizzard's esports a cluster cluck?
Just in case you forgot ActiBlizz was the award winning Scummiest Company for 3 years straight.
Let's be honest, this industry has a huge turnover of employees and when the bosses promise something, you know not to hold your breath.
"assurances this wouldn't happen" unless its in a contract, nothing is assured.
They lost a lot of money on Esports and it doesn't generate much revenue, why would they keep employees who don't make any money for the company? Everyone is so quick to criticize business decisions when it doesn't impact their money.
Hopefully Xbox won't blow off both feet at their next console reveal going deep into DRM and remember they have to sell their console to gamers not greedy executives.
This is a long time coming. It had to come eventually. Making terrible games and not trying to get better is a recipe for destruction, yet that’s what Blizzard staff has been doing for years. It’s time to pay the piper. You won’t be missed.
Blizzard makes some of the most profitable games on the planet. Business wise that’s all that matters right?
@@jerrytruckn you’re confusing profit with gross revenue. If Blizzard games were highly profitable then they wouldn’t have chopped their arms and legs off.
Nobody at Microsoft is standing around, looking at the P&L’s saying: “Oh wow, we’re making too much money from this new company we acquired, we should reduce profit”
What’s more likely the scenario is they looked at Blizzard’s P&Ls for the last 10 years and realized that Blizzard was bringing in more profit when they had a much smaller labor force.
Bottom line is, massive chops happen when there’s disappointing performance, not when there is high performance. If Activision as a whole was performing highly, then their valuation would have been too high for Microsoft to acquire them. Microsoft swooped in when their valuation was low enough to make the whole deal feasible.
To be honest blizzard seemed like it needed a fresh start. Tired of hearing them complain, they all seemed to have a problem with there job anyway
The truth of the matter is this, every single IP that Activision blizzard has is in a garbage state. Everybody quit World of Warcraft because the game sucked, they lied about overwatch two and then canceled the only thing that everybody was excited about, Diablo 4 garbage, and the new COD Wasn’t great either. When Microsoft bought Activision, we all thought I hope they clean house, well they did and I’m glad.
I dont think any of those 1900 people have any impact on any of those issues you raise. All responsible for the shitty state Blizzard is in is still sitting pretty safe around the excec tables.
I find it hard to believe anyone a part of OW esports didn’t see the axe coming.
They introduced a new e-sports format, I guess some expected to stay to be a part of the new venture.
But still they made it clear that it wouldn't be nearly as big as OWL, so at least some cuts had to be expected.
22000 developers is insane. They probably could have cut way more than 1900 people.
10:30 / -1 Menu changes, -1 Add spam, -1 DVR changes/save limits, -1DVR Game clip Bans, -1Censorship, -1Bad Halo's, -1Console exclusives exports to pc(Great for gamers) , -1 Management, -1 Appealing to wider audience (not gamers).
It sucks but you'd have to be absolutely blind working under these companies, knowing about the acquisition, & not expecting layoffs almost right after.
Everybody thought things would be better with Bobby Kotick gone, but the spirit of Bobby seems to remain.
Immediately following a company acquisition, *never* take a touring CEO’s niceties at face value when he’s checking out *your* offices.
He’s looking for things to cut, and you are being measured. Either update your resume, or make yourself indispensable and update your resume.
Update your resume either way.
"Learn to code".......advice given to many blue collar workers.....when their jobs we're closed, moved, outsourced etc....
I'll never feel sorry for these devs. They were all high and mighty.....and now.... paupers.... 🤣
I have a STEM degree. I earned after 25 year career as an Automotive Tech/fabricator.
Earning my Doctorate currently.
I didn't learn to code oops
I mean with Microsoft and Actiblizz it was kinda expected. In the end it's a merger and during mergers you have multiple positions that will be duplicated that you don't need more people in over what you already have in your own company.
Unionize while you still can
As someone who worked in a union for years. I always like to laugh at people who think forming a union is some magical problem solver when in reality it cause more problems , less jobs and even more greed than it helps.
Unions do nothing.
They cost me my job twice now in the past few years.
Unions don't work, they used to.
The Pinkertons will come for you
@@lazyfrogeyes5949as someone who has worked with a good union for years, I always laugh at those who have a shitty union
@@lazyfrogeyes5949the grass is always greener. People like to live in a fairy tale where if they can just get “that one thing” they’re obsessed with, everything will work out.
If any of these human livestock ever got their “one thing” they would realize that nothing changes, the world is still fallen, man is still cruel, and the ages march on.
Utopianism has probably done more damage to humanity than plain old animal cruelty.
It's interesting hearing some people's reactions to people being laid off. They act as though these people haven't been compensated for their work, and they are entitled to on-going compensation. Are we really surprised that people are being laid off? Blizzard has been going down hill for a long time, so why are people upset that they are going a different direction?
It's sad to hear people's lives have been flipped upside down however you are correct. Acti-Blizz has a huge workforce for seemingly very little development. There was clearly a lot of dead weight especially with those stories that came out a few years ago about people drinking and predating in the workplace. Fat needs to be trimmed so these companies can walk again and Blizzard specifically has grown very fat and sluggish in the last decade.
I think this is glorious. Fate loves irony. The people that ruined blizzard being brutally cut at the worst possible time. Most of blizzards titles are now in just their name, so as long as they have good developers in all their other companies, they don't need the ones that have destroyed their beautiful titles more recently in the past decade. And for atvi, the title names matter as well, but require less talent and vision to create for people to purchase. This will be amazing for fans of original blizzard titles, where we will get the next best thing to a larian-esque studio that blizzard once was.
That's about as classless a way of firing ppl as I've heard. Here's to karma coming home to roost for those behind it.
These people decided they wanted to work a for an evil soulless machine.
Then they act upset and surprised when the demons set them ablaze.
I have no sympathy for any of them, bunch of immature cry baby adults, Its embarrassing.
its perfectly fine its natural they did not get the quota they are cut along with the duplicate job tittles, buying something that only gives liability , most of them are too busy with propaganda ,politics to care for the work
So we are upset that these studios, who have been objectively doing a terrible job, are being let go? I mean, I understand “optics”, but weve all watched blizzard constantly fumble for years, why would we feel bad for people who are in a competitive industry. Obviously some people got caught in the crossfire, but no one should be surprised.
Corporations are easy to hate. Not that most of them don't deserve it, but still.
In a lot of these situations people have issues with HOW it was done, not that it was done. It is entirely possible to let people go in a respectful way and give them a cushion to land on their feet. These optics will impact them in the future because anyone with talent who values job security will look at situations like this and decide to go elsewhere.
Because they never let go the higher up that really cause the problems. It's only reasonable if you buy their propaganda.
The issue, as ALWAYS, is that the staff who were let go are likely not the ones making the poor decisions. They just do what they're told so they can keep their jobs. The ones collecting 7-figure bonuses are left, after screwing those people over for years, and again by surprising them with unemployment.
everyone contributed to it, yes the management is shit but each dev shapes the actual game@@mattjohnson8585
So Microsoft cut off the no bottom money pit also known as "E! Sports!".
Talk about 10 years too late LMAO 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
Still got my old games and soon with A.I. I'll make my own rivals in those games.
What payment options are there to subscribe to the ghost website and newsletter? Credit card only?
Lol, this is just the start, am I supposed to feel bad for people who put up with DEI bullshit? Nah you reap what you sow. Too many developers and designers shit on the bases that they built their companies fortunes on. Now they openly ridicule fans who care about lore, or cannon. I don't feel bad, and we need more layoffs.
I don’t see a problem with that. these teams failed.. esports and blizzard games was just a mess for years and at the end of the day why would you keep more than you need when Microsoft already has people doing similar tasks
Blizzard been at rock bottom for a long time...bout time it got its house cleaned...
For better or worse we will see...
IDK, maybe its just me. But eSports stuff is such a niche market segment, maybe M$ doesnt see it a viable area to invest in. That and from what keeps coming up in gaming news is that eSports are becoming less and less popular, maybe? IDK.. I play WoW every days or hours on end and have never bothered to watch the MDI or RTWF events.. Maybe M$ is thinking the same. They are also likely looking at laying off areas where some design decisions may have not been popular and replacing them with their own workforce. Who knows.
Xbox should fire Sweetbaby instead.
I still think it would be worth exploring if Microsoft made promises to the regulatory agencies that approved the acquisition, not to lay off a bunch of humans.
🕊️
@@TorpedoScrewsI’m sure buying a major competitor and then gutting them wouldn’t have an affect on the regulation, not at all.. they gave many reassurance that they wouldn’t even be that hands on. How’s that then? The whole framing that they took up was a fabrication, it worked, the most that will happen to them now is a fine
In the business world, acquisitions are almost synonymous of layoffs, because redundant workforce. In those situations, the only business that avoid layoffs are the ones willing to expand an already consolidated workforce or have the good will to train the excess of human resources to other areas.
The bitter part is that's fair game to governments. "Work aren't charity" and "the social aspect of labour is just an afterthought", they say.
@Nick-cs4oc nothing in the sale of activision blizzard gave legal protection to the employees. So far everything MS has done, has been a good thing, activision blizzard has been a bloated, toxic company for years.
@@mayconlcruz
So what you are saying is that when asked directly: do you expect this transaction to create job losses and they say 'no' - it's just wink wink nudge nudge let's all just play the game?
🕊️
@@TorpedoScrews
That's not how I remember the hearings. It will take me a day or so but I'll reread the transcripts and get back to you on that.
🕊️
What did any of you all think Microsoft would do?
Which company would have done differently?
People have short memories.
Actiblizzard pulled shit like this almost annually; repeatedly made headlines for huge cuts on the heels of record profits.
These people didn't have real job security BEFORE the merger.
Why do you people in the comments act surprised that unsustainable jobs were axed lmao. If you want security get a job in something that is sustainable. The gaming industry has always been project based. If projects fail or make no money they get axed you lose your jobs its the way of life. Stop being crybabies about it.
and that is why most people don't give a rat's ass about their job. They do the minimum necessary to not be fired tomorrow.
And that will be the same with studios from any AAA corpo. Most devs that want to create a good video game instead of a souless corpo product will try to get out.
Cleaning house after large acquisitions is pretty standard. It sucks it went down the way it did and could of been handled better but they will find new jobs (hopefully ones that pay better) and im sure/hope alot of them get severance pay as well
Internet gaming people: Microsoft is going to turn Acti/Blizz/King around! They’re going to save our favorite games.
Real people: 😒 😂 🤦🏽♂️
I mean getting rid of all the people involved in basically nothing but game failure seems like a good way to start saving their favorite games
@@mrbubbles6468exactly, most of the Devs of our favorite titles, don't play them and have been making crap game after crap game. Not to mention, cut everybody, resign those you want to keep under a new contract. Happens on mergers all the time.
That is assuming those "game failures" were down to random developers being somehow suddenly incompetent and not broad structural issues with trying to shit out as many games as possible as quickly as possible. I am sure things will get way better after having 80% less manpower to to the job. /s@@mrbubbles6468
That's why they might be able to turn them around. Literally just get rid of everyone, random Indians are going to do a better job for 1/10th of the price. They probably like those games more, too.
@@mrbubbles6468 That would mean being able to trust microsoft (HR scandal prone, track record of acquiring gaming companies and burning them to the ground) in the middle of a HR scandal (Laying people off with 0 warning in a super scummy way) being able to assemble a team from the people that made those games good (Burned by Blizz etc HR scandals) or replacements (Major HR/PR cost) when firing the majority of on the ground staff who handle PR/HR.
I'm gonna grab a list of my favourite things about those games, find the artists and designers who made the parts I like and go see their new projects, cause it sure ain't looking like this'll work out. Fingers crossed it burns microsoft investors.
None of these companies make good games anyway. So I really dont care about these layoffs.
Just like most people dont care about the inner workings of the staff and their lives at manufacturing plants.
But for some reason we are supposed to treat devs like close family members, Or like our future depends on their well being.
The correct course of action for the remaining employees as they see their coworkers "massacred" (as its put). Is to leave the companies, Leave the industry.
But that wont happen. It never does. They want someone else to do something about the companies actions. rather than having to look for a better, more fulfilling job.
Imagine if all of these teams broke off to make their own games. Its quite common for that to happen. Even if they wind up just being bought out again by the same corporation they left to begin with, or another competitor from the one they used to work under. But at least in that case we get more games, and better ones at that. Titanfall exists because of this exact case. Their biggest mistake was staying with EA and not breaking off. The thing with Bungie is that their company culture was corrupted by the influx of the cancer of the industry being hitched to Activision.
This would have happened if any company bought activation blizzard. It's sad, but anytime there is a change In management there's always restructuring and cuts. Our industry is no different. It's just sad that they didn't give them a heads up or a warning.
One sided coverage, I repeat are there other news then layoffs? Because 80% or more off those layoffs are not people who develop games ! 1 coder 8 supervisors that running joke has a core of truth, will your team do >>> journalist work
What does Blizzard make that you need to play? Seriously, I'm asking. And for that matter, what does Activision make?
Nobody makes anything that anyone ever needs to play. What's your point?
@@poopsymcloopsy his point is all their products suck and are either already failures or are on steep downward trends. So why should we care about these people who dont know how to make a product people actually want.
@@jonpro9637 Harsh but kinda true, that survival game Blizzard were cooking that was axed was the product of 200 devs over several years. They just cannot develop games anymore, it is blatantly clear the talent moved on/was axed years ago.
While it is sad people lost their jobs and also true Microsoft has been ruthless, let's not forget this entire division was a juiced up monster that was artificially pumped to follow Bobby's orders. Blizzard haven't had a sustainable organic esport in decades (even when they had good underlying games). There was no way it was going to survive post Bobby.
Absolutely insane that Soe and Matt were thrown out. Phil Spencer, it was said that you would bring balance to the Force, not destroy it.
What Spencer views as balance might be different to what you view as balance
"What I told you was true... from a certain point of view."
-- Phil Spencer
Who tf is still trusting corporate decisionmaking? Are you all 12?
@@ekki1993 A negative comment for no reason. If I'm twelve, you're a toddler.
@@KeanuChrist the toddler managed to see the writing on the wall before you somehow
Oh no!!!! Not the finance departments! What a real shame. They will probably never work again! 🙄
“Lack of common decency”
LMFAOOO. Not a single blizzard employee is worth common decency. If they stayed at that company any time after 2018-19 it’s their own fault.
We tried to tell people that the merger was BAD NEWS.
anyone working in "esports" should always be wary of their job.
Isn't this the guy that tried to sell that the merger was a good thing to us at the time?
To be fair he's a "content creator"
Well yes, but he's here for views
He's just a guy that's terminally online, what'd you expect? it's not like he has a PHD in economics.
But it is, Kotick is out
It was. Activision/Blizzard hasn't made a good game in almost 20 years
No one makes videos when these people are hired so why should I care when they are fired? I care about the products at the end of the day.
Just consume
Remember when Nintendo had troubles during the WiiU era, the late CEO Satoru Iwata took a 50% pay cut so that they wouldn't need to lay people off? As well as how most of the execs at Nintendo took quite sizable pay cuts at the time?
They spent 69 billion on activision. How else were they supposed to make that back without insane cuts? How nobody saw this coming from miles away is beyond me.
Their record profits rose instantly by hundreds of millions, maybe they could have dipped into that a little bit and still have some extra left over for another few yachts. Even that aside, Microsoft still has untold billions of money they did NOT spend on Activision. The amount they spent there was just what they had EXTRA. And obviously this purchase wouldn't have been made at all if they did not have the money to sustain the company's existing infrastructure into the future. That would be like buying a house that you can't pay the monthly fees for in just a few months. This idea that Microsoft is so broke that they can't afford 1900 peasants is hilarious. They could pay them all even if the staff doubled overnight, they already pay over 221,000 of them
@@cosmosofinfinity but why would they sustain those 1900 peasants if they don't need to?
That's not how it works. They need these cuts to look responsible for investors, not because they need them to be profitable. They could keep all the people and have no problems. It's standard big tech hype cycle.
I dont get how this is a suprise or how anyone expected anything different. The ones who keep their jobs should be viewed as critical or special, the ones who didnt should have expected it. and Also obviously the crews set to work until x date wouldnt be told they are fired until after their work is done. it was essentially gig work at that point. All of these "shockers" are just common sense firings and happenings for Microsoft after the acquisition.
Exactly, it's like the people commenting on this have never worked in a corporate setting before
The main question is, are they going to ban bots in wow?
Are they going to go an OSRS style and actually fix classic?
I am pretty sure minimal viable product is going to become the norm. Xbox is focused on profit over people now.
I want good controller support on par with final fantasy 14.
@@sarahorton9223 Now? You been ignorant to how poorly run Microsoft has been? Xbox tanking? Windows progressively being worse and worse with each edition? What reality have you been living in?
@@fish5645 Windows is not Xbox, they are two different divisions of Microsoft. For years the Xbox division was not bad at all, like during the 360 era. I don't understand why you need to be disrespectful to randos on the internet either. 🤷♀
"Fixing" Classic WoW is not so simple.
WoW is a theme park MMORPG. It has a defined world and story. It can complete content that was cut but creating new content is not so simple to seamlessly merge into the world. It's a formulaic system, "this guy is going to destroy the world, save us!" and then "this other guy is going to destroy the world, save us!" etc.
OSRS is a sandbox MMORPG. It's not that big of deal to put a new shiny toy in the sandbox or make the sandbox bigger. It doesn't have a predefined story. It has little pockets of stories in the form of quests and some other unlocks.
The true story is actually the player themself and their adventure in the world. They are 1 of many adventurers in the world doing stuff. What did they do? What did they accomplish?
This is main difference in the style content and 1 of 2 major defining factors that makes OSRS a sandbox MMORPG.
WoW needs to respect its predefined story while OSRS is free to just create content, the main story (each individual player's journey) will naturally explore the new content.
The next major defining factor is the leveling and progression format.
In WoW, progression is level up, get better gear, more skills and abilities, hit max level, prepare for end game content, do the end game content.
Side content exists but ultimately usually doesn't progress your account.
In addition, there is a predefined goal post (end game content) and that is where the majority of the player base will be.
As a side effect, people don't really care about pre-end game content, and last time I played (mid-panda patch), the game itself didn't care about pre-end game content.
Classic WoW is mostly the same but the pre-end game content did matter because in Classic WoW, you are 1 of many adventurers. The story is not so strictly defined like in later expansions but there is still a predefined goal post and little to no reason to return to lower level content. None the less, because you are 1 of many adventurers and the story is not so strictly defined, and the content is slowly, the journey matters to the goal post matters. It was a large portion of the experience.
In OSRS, progression is all over the place.
-Stats is a fundamental part of progression. Leveling up is important. It unlocks the ability to use more equipment, unlocks activities, quests, areas, etc. You also need stats to even have a viable strategy to do some content and even then, leveling up even more generally makes you more efficient at that content.
-Gear is also a fundamental part of progression. Gear matters a lot.
-Quests unlock content, unlocks other quests, unlocks gear, prayers, helps level up stats, etc.
-Money making to buy resources and gear upgrades. Even ironman (can't trade or receive items from other players, or benefit from the directly in most cases unless a defined systems allows it) needs money, usually for runes (magic casting resource).
For OSRS, progression goes in all directions, up to the sides, jump down to progress another foundation that later combines, etc, etc, etc.
But one of the critical things is, what are you progressing to? In WoW you progress to end game.
As mentioned before, OSRS doesn't have a predefined story. There is story in the form of quests and stuff, but as mentioned... The true story is the player and their adventure.
That's the key thing about progression in OSRS. There is defined, arbitrary goal posts of progression - The list of progression options above. Then there is the true goal post - An arbitrary objective that each individual player decides on for themselves.
Some players have multiple goal posts, when a player reaches a goal post, they decide on a new one, and so on.
That's the goal post in OSRS, some arbitrary thing the player decides they want to achieve.
A concrete example, I play Ironman. I had 3 crafting goal posts, 80, 90, and 93.
80 was to allow make to make Amulets of Glory. 90 for most of the zenyte jewelry (end game equipment) and 93 for the last of the zenyte jewelry.
I didn't have a cash stack. So what I did I do?
Seaweed Spores -> Giant Seaweed -> Soda Ash
Sandstone -> Grinder -> Buckets of Sand
Soda Ash + Buckets of Sand -> Molten Glass -> Unpowered Orb
Buy Cosmic Runes, realize bots competion makes it slow, found temple trekking allowed me to get several thousand pure essence, then started crafting my own cosmic runes.
Power Fire Orbs -> Buy battlestaves from NPC shops -> Make Fire Battlestaves - High alch Fire Battlestave
After a few 10s of thousands of all of that, I have 92 magic and 90 crafting and made over 30m, on top of unlocking the ability to craft some of my own upgrades.
93 crafting is still a goal post.
To that end, I listed a number of predefined means of progression only to call them arbitrary goal posts of progression. Why are they arbitrary?
Because the player decides. I decided that 80 crafting was a goal post.
The list I mentioned above, if you do any of them, then it's progression. But, it's arbitrary because that alone doesn't really mean much, instead you create meaning by deciding on an objective and then going after the requirements.
My goal post was Amulet of Glory, and I needed 80 crafting. Along the way, I leveled up magic and made a nice cash stack.
And that's a key thing. Sure the "optimal" way to play OSRS is to go afk train your combat stats to max and do end game bossing and despite that, at any time, you can pretty easily find people doing pre-end game content or not-maxed players doing stuff.
Barrows brothers, minigames, quests, skilling, combat activities, PVP, clue scroll farming, etc, etc, etc, etc.
It is all of these details that means that OSRS is free to add content for any tier of progression. If the content is good enough and engaging, regardless of the intended level, people will do it and they will enjoy it.
So not only can OSRS just add more content without disrupting the "main story", OSRS can freely add content that is designed for any point of progression within the game.
Wrapping back to "fixing Classic WoW".
In Classic WoW pre-end game only matters so far as it's a large portion of the journey. But the game still has the predefined goal post of end game content and there is few reasons to go back to older content.
On top of that, the theme must be maintained.
Classic WoW needs to be careful with adding more end game content as it may disrupt the "main story" and can not freely design content for any point of progression as people generally won't care about pre-end game content once they have already past that pre-end game content.
And I mean, sure they can add a new profession or do things like the battle pets, but at some point people is going to want new raids and dungeons and end-game questlines.
To be fair they’re pretty bloated and for that many people, They put a lot of trash out.
Thanks!
Why don't you start hiring them?
"You'll never know what would have happen if you didn't..." That's true of any decision you make in life.
If only Bellular would actually be honest instead of appealing to emotion, then he would tell you that a majority of the jobs cut were either a) redundant or b) overpaid/overvalued. But nah, fragile jobs like E-Sports need their fee-fee's protected instead of reading the writing on the wall.
He did that in the first layoff video already. No need to repeat that.
Good. This was long overdue. Keep em coming Microsoft
Thank God the shareholders have been appeased. Could have been a tragedy where the only got 89% of the wealth instead of 99%.
Hard to feel sorry for the learn to code people when karma gets them. Learn to weld
Aren't E-sports just an arm of marketing? Does it actually bring any revenue aside from selling the game? I'm not surprised that's an area that would be cut immediately with the Microsoft acquisition.
>esports
Nothing of value was lost
Just consume
Good times are just around the corner
More like a recession actually.
Just like you don't tell your boss a head of time you have found a new job (because they could screw you over) a company isn't going to tell their employees that they are getting laid off till the work has been done or they do as much as they can do until the last minute because why are you going to do your best if you know your losing your job.
Can say it's disgusting but employees and employers both do it. After everything that's happened with the merger and the scum bag tactics of activsion blizzard also the assaults that happened in the company, how did anyone think their job was safe.
When an employee quits a company will fill in their spot with other employees working overtime until a replacement is hired. A company like blizzard won't even do much as have their bottom line tickled by that.
When a company lays off an employee without warning they lose their income, derail their life, fall behind on the college debt they incurred to get that job, and probably lose at least half their social circle in the process. But yeah, at least the higher up warned them by way of sexually assaulting them first? I dunno what your point is, is that business advice? "If your boss gropes you that's how you know you may be laid off soon"?
10:48 - No shit. Game pass, and pc gaming is eating their sales.
If there were game exclusives, that are fully featured and content rich, people would buy consoles just for those
Years ago this exact same behavior HALTED EA's rise to a monopoly. One that would have toppled names as they hoovered up studios. Absorbed and killed them, then SPIT OUT half baked sequels. I previously said Microsoft was the biggest threat to gaming for doing that again, I think they just hit critical mass and stalled permanently.
THAT SAID; There is one thing left here that could be spurring on some of these lay offs: Bobby kottick. They could easily also be digging, finding people from Kottick's reign that are ACTIVE threats of another scandal, and replacing them. However, it is still signs they are reaching critical mass. And as we all know, when a corporation lays off people who are active threats and have others who will do the job without pay or the title, they just eliminate the position
The best idea, when looking at a future of high interest rates and expensive debt, is to keep behaving as if nothing has changed because a bunch of people on twitter (sorry, X) are mad that you're laying off some of the highest earning individuals in the country. There is a reason that these layoffs have in turn led to investor confidence - they're sound.