The layoffs dont have anything to do with development, and Diablo development is actually recruiting, this is just a consequence of no major releases planned for 2019
The layoffs dont have anything to do with development, and Diablo development is actually recruiting, this is just a consequence of no major releases planned for 2019
I find a bit dangerous to call it "healthy cutback". Also, Activision taking care of marketing is making me scared to the max - Activision has some of the most unhealthy, bad, and unsustainable business models in the industry (see Call of Duty). I'm not sure we want to let Diablo slide into that at all.
Also, while we're Diablo fans, some of us also care (or used to care) about Blizzard as a company. And while Diablo seems to not have seen as many cuts in this round of firings, this might be more because there isn't much to cut. The people that were let go were mostly non-developers, and Diablo doesn't have many of those (maybe one, in Nevalistis?). But the issue is a bigger one: Activision Blizzard decided that a record win was "not enough", they need more. That is unsustainable growth, built on short-term profit gains, and therefore the opposite of "healthy cuts".
What made Blizzard so great over the past 3 decades was the fact that they cared about their community. Their games were good, sure; but it was the support around the game that truly made some of them stand out. With the deafening silence about Diablo since Blizzcon that is already not the case anymore for our franchise, and it might now be equally silent for others. To understand the magnitude of some of those firings and why I think they're absolutely unhealthy and essentially confirm what we've already been talking about for a while - Blizzard as we knew it is gone - please watch this week's part from the Pylon Show where inControl and especially Artosis (bottom right), who's "one of the faces" of StarCraft 2, talks about the significance of some of the people that were let go:
As he says - the people making the decisions are "out of touch". Basically, community managers, people who improved the quality of the games and the support for it were let go; Blizzard is hiring, on the other hand, tons of developers. They're not paying above industry standard anymore though, they're have a ton of internships out (super low-paid short-term programming jobs), and they outsource development (NetEase collaboration). All of this points to a really dark future - maybe not necessarily for Diablo, if you just want a random hack'n'slay game; whatever comes next, some people are gonna love it. But the unique feel of a Blizzard family cannot possibly be maintained in this atmosphere of faceless programmers, working under the whip of a corporate overlord for average salary (living in SoCal is RIDICULOUSLY expensive, like you cannot imagine), and constantly in fear of losing your job if your short-term goals might fail. All of Blizzard's big achievements would not have been possible under such atmosphere.
All of this is really, really concerning, if you care about more than just the business. Again: if you just want a cool short-term Diablo game to play in between your Fortnite and LOL sessions, this is awesome news. But please understand that many of us aren't like that.
I suppose its open to interpretation yet again but my take after reading the whole article here is that the new hires are being offset by layoffs elsewhere and with WoW immune and Diablo recruiting that leaves HotS having to make the cull and weve already seen the cuts happening there with ESports already terminated and it starting a slower release cycle for the foreseeable future.
On that subject, I may be leaping to conclusions, but the current timing has HotS starting its event towards the end of our season (and maybe the lull between patches for WoW) and if that timing is maintained Blizzard may be repositioning HotS as a way to maintain player-count within the Blizzard stable. Although if that does prove right im not sure its purely honest intentions since HotS is basically a micro transaction delivery platform.
idk since diablo immortal im pretty sure they just wanna rush d4 because they are greedy and want more money, but honestly i hope it will be bad so blizzard is ruined and we can see them falling apart.
idk since diablo immortal im pretty sure they just wanna rush d4 because they are greedy and want more money, but honestly i hope it will be bad so blizzard is ruined and we can see them falling apart.
I don't want a new Diablo game to be bad, tbh.
I want Blizzard to get off Activision and try to be the company they were. I know, probably never happening...but one can hope.
https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/22887360/message-from-j-allen-brack
Where are you getting that 800 number from? It doesn't say how many in the post.
And may the odds be ever in your favour.
Emmo#2406
775 people to be exact.
Again... where is that number coming from?
And may the odds be ever in your favour.
Emmo#2406
From Internet posts. "Officially", as stated above, 8% of the staff were fired.
Assuming that 9600 is the total # of employees, 8% rounds up to about 800 ppl.
Source: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/heroes/t/activision-blizzard-to-lay-off-800-from-todays-call/14665
The "correct" #, according to other internet articles, seems to be 775.
The layoffs are mostly PR and advertising/public works. It's not a big cut to anything Diablo programmer wise, but HotS took a big hit.
EDIT: It's kinda a "healthy" cut back. It's not core people. Activision takes care of most of the marketing.
8% sacked
was on several websites and youtube channels
was also in the new section of battlenet , newsletter
also there are non game dev roles (prolly secretary,moderators , etc)
Executives don't like to give up secretaries.
Moderators are likely not employees to begin with.
I don't think you really know what you're talking about here.
Also it's probably.
The layoffs dont have anything to do with development, and Diablo development is actually recruiting, this is just a consequence of no major releases planned for 2019
Source
I find a bit dangerous to call it "healthy cutback". Also, Activision taking care of marketing is making me scared to the max - Activision has some of the most unhealthy, bad, and unsustainable business models in the industry (see Call of Duty). I'm not sure we want to let Diablo slide into that at all.
Also, while we're Diablo fans, some of us also care (or used to care) about Blizzard as a company. And while Diablo seems to not have seen as many cuts in this round of firings, this might be more because there isn't much to cut. The people that were let go were mostly non-developers, and Diablo doesn't have many of those (maybe one, in Nevalistis?). But the issue is a bigger one: Activision Blizzard decided that a record win was "not enough", they need more. That is unsustainable growth, built on short-term profit gains, and therefore the opposite of "healthy cuts".
What made Blizzard so great over the past 3 decades was the fact that they cared about their community. Their games were good, sure; but it was the support around the game that truly made some of them stand out. With the deafening silence about Diablo since Blizzcon that is already not the case anymore for our franchise, and it might now be equally silent for others. To understand the magnitude of some of those firings and why I think they're absolutely unhealthy and essentially confirm what we've already been talking about for a while - Blizzard as we knew it is gone - please watch this week's part from the Pylon Show where inControl and especially Artosis (bottom right), who's "one of the faces" of StarCraft 2, talks about the significance of some of the people that were let go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sbu7pqk1QO0
As he says - the people making the decisions are "out of touch". Basically, community managers, people who improved the quality of the games and the support for it were let go; Blizzard is hiring, on the other hand, tons of developers. They're not paying above industry standard anymore though, they're have a ton of internships out (super low-paid short-term programming jobs), and they outsource development (NetEase collaboration). All of this points to a really dark future - maybe not necessarily for Diablo, if you just want a random hack'n'slay game; whatever comes next, some people are gonna love it. But the unique feel of a Blizzard family cannot possibly be maintained in this atmosphere of faceless programmers, working under the whip of a corporate overlord for average salary (living in SoCal is RIDICULOUSLY expensive, like you cannot imagine), and constantly in fear of losing your job if your short-term goals might fail. All of Blizzard's big achievements would not have been possible under such atmosphere.
All of this is really, really concerning, if you care about more than just the business. Again: if you just want a cool short-term Diablo game to play in between your Fortnite and LOL sessions, this is awesome news. But please understand that many of us aren't like that.
I reckon its the beginning of an outsourcing program to NetEase
I suppose its open to interpretation yet again but my take after reading the whole article here is that the new hires are being offset by layoffs elsewhere and with WoW immune and Diablo recruiting that leaves HotS having to make the cull and weve already seen the cuts happening there with ESports already terminated and it starting a slower release cycle for the foreseeable future.
On that subject, I may be leaping to conclusions, but the current timing has HotS starting its event towards the end of our season (and maybe the lull between patches for WoW) and if that timing is maintained Blizzard may be repositioning HotS as a way to maintain player-count within the Blizzard stable. Although if that does prove right im not sure its purely honest intentions since HotS is basically a micro transaction delivery platform.
idk since diablo immortal im pretty sure they just wanna rush d4 because they are greedy and want more money, but honestly i hope it will be bad so blizzard is ruined and we can see them falling apart.
I don't want a new Diablo game to be bad, tbh.
I want Blizzard to get off Activision and try to be the company they were. I know, probably never happening...but one can hope.
People are people...it doesn't matter what kind of job they were doing. They all lost their jobs...