ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
edited March 2021
I remember back in the 90s when I started working for Babbage's, our Sierra rep was basically the Blizzard marketing guy. I contacted him a couple times for employee order sheets (discounted orders for some of their titles), and he was always super nice to talk to and had nothing but glowing things to say about working there. I even had thoughts about going there too, and he told me I should send my resume to him first.
One time I got in touch with him, he asked what we were looking to order. Two days later a box showed up, no order form, but with five copies each of Starsiege, Starsiege: Tribes, Caesar III, and Half-Life.
It is weird that they didn't lay them off until the tail end of the pandemic considering they were part of the live event department.
Wouldn't surprise me if they've decided to scale back the live events post-pandemic after learning how to do them online. Probably saves them a bundle.
I'm wondering how successful BlizzConline was. It's possible that they're planning on remaining in an all-digital format for a couple years or more. Laying people off sucks, and it definitely sucks to lose your job during this shitty time.
But this might be one of those instances where it isn't just an evil corporation being evil. I feel dirty even thinking of defending Activision because they are the scum of the earth. But if they decide to stop hosting live BlizzCons, there isn't much need for a live events team. It sucks, but that's a real possibility.
It is weird that they didn't lay them off until the tail end of the pandemic considering they were part of the live event department.
Wouldn't surprise me if they've decided to scale back the live events post-pandemic after learning how to do them online. Probably saves them a bundle.
Yeah this is kind of where I'm getting at. It's just your standard reorg from a business and they are shifting focus from live events. Hopefully they got a good severance package out of it.
I'm wondering how successful BlizzConline was. It's possible that they're planning on remaining in an all-digital format for a couple years or more. Laying people off sucks, and it definitely sucks to lose your job during this shitty time.
But this might be one of those instances where it isn't just an evil corporation being evil. I feel dirty even thinking of defending Activision because they are the scum of the earth. But if they decide to stop hosting live BlizzCons, there isn't much need for a live events team. It sucks, but that's a real possibility.
I imagine it was successful enough for their business objectives (getting lots of eyes on their products and selling digital passes) that live BlizzCon starts to look like a waste of money in comparison. Most of the value in a convention is for the attendees, they're not the best way to distribute big news anymore.
0
Johnny ChopsockyScootaloo! We have to cook!Grillin' HaysenburgersRegistered Userregular
More on today's Activision Blizzard layoffs:
- Dozens of people at the whole company were impacted, not just in live events
- In addition to 90 days severance and a year of health benefits, laid-off staff received... $200 Battle.net gift cards
If we're being realistic: it's a pretty damn good severance package. 1 year of healthcare is huge, and 3 months severance is quite a bit. I work in a "churn and burn" kind of industry that has a reputation for solid severance, and that ain't bad! The only people I've seen get more than that are people that are with a company for 5+ years and in fairly senior positions (and the year of healthcare is beyond anything I've seen).
The giftcard is cartoonish and dumb, aaand I do think that "old blizzard" is dead and Activision is 100% running the show.
The gift card is so wrong I don't know where to begin. But a year of health care can be really good, depending on their coverage.
+5
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited March 2021
I think at least the 3 months is mandated by the EU and having offices over there. I believe if you have offices there, the severance laws apply wherever you have offices. When I got laid off at my last job our new owners had a couple offices in Germany so we ended up getting much better severance here in the US than we would have gotten otherwise, or any severance at all really.
ApogeeLancks In Every Game EverRegistered Userregular
Eesh. "Shareholder value creation incentive" strikes me as the kind of thing that makes a CEO prioritize short term profit over long term sustainability, exactly the kind of thing that has doomed so many other big public companies.
I wonder if there is a universe where Blizzard somehow breaks off and goes private again...
Eesh. "Shareholder value creation incentive" strikes me as the kind of thing that makes a CEO prioritize short term profit over long term sustainability, exactly the kind of thing that has doomed so many other big public companies.
I wonder if there is a universe where Blizzard somehow breaks off and goes private again...
Blizzard as it is doesn't exist anymore , nothing to break off. It’s just activision mouth breathers in a different office .
Eesh. "Shareholder value creation incentive" strikes me as the kind of thing that makes a CEO prioritize short term profit over long term sustainability, exactly the kind of thing that has doomed so many other big public companies.
A group of ex-Blizzard employees, including the former CEO of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Morhaime, have started a new game development company under the name Dreamhaven.
Joining Morhaime at the startup are Blizzard veterans Jason Chayes (Hearthstone), Dustin Browder (StarCraft 2), Ben Thompson (Hearthstone), Chris Sigaty (StarCraft 2, Heroes of the Storm), Alan Dabiri (Warcraft 3, StarCraft 2), and Eric Dodds (Hearthstone, World of Warcraft), among others. Dreamhaven currently comprises two studios, Moonshot Games and Secret Door.
I've tried taking the moral high road against the "big 3" before. But it's hard. It's real hard. Because all of them are still making games I want to play.
Even though ActivisionBlizzard is horrible, I still do like WoW, Diablo, and Starcraft. And I will still want to buy and play new games in those IPs even if the original talent is gone.
Likewise, EA is the absolute worst and there is no game company worse than them. They have left a trail of corpses of dead studios in their wake, killing and destroying all they touch. And FIFA Ultimate Team is an abomination and is a pox on mankind. But even still, I will continue to want games made by Respawn Entertainment (such as the inevitable sequel to Jedi Fallen Order), and games made by Bioware, such as the inevitable Mass Effect 4.
Ubisoft has more harassment, intolerance, misogynist, homophobic, and hostile work environment scandals than any other game company. The senior leadership of that company are all a bunch of horrible, horrible people. But even still, I love Assassin's Creed dearly.
The moral of the story is that as a consumer whore, it is hard for me to make a lasting moral stance against these companies because in the end my desire to play fun games outweighs my conscience.
+5
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
Eesh. "Shareholder value creation incentive" strikes me as the kind of thing that makes a CEO prioritize short term profit over long term sustainability, exactly the kind of thing that has doomed so many other big public companies.
I wonder if there is a universe where Blizzard somehow breaks off and goes private again...
Blizzard as it is doesn't exist anymore , nothing to break off. It’s just activision mouth breathers in a different office .
I mean, there's still some major talent. Off the top of my head Jeff Kaplan is still there, & Samwise Didier is still the art guy. In the music department, Russel Brower is gone, but Derek Duke, Glenn Stafford, and I think Jason Hayes are still with them (Hayes left around WotLK but came back to work on MoP). So I wouldn't be quite that harsh. But basically yes.
Important to note that Blizzard has been bleeding talent since 2003 when Bill Roper and the Schaefer's left to start their own studio.
Edit: ripped from Wikipedia
Over the years, some former Blizzard Entertainment employees have moved on and established gaming companies of their own:
Flagship Studios, now defunct, creators of Hellgate: London, also worked on Mythos.
ArenaNet, creators of the Guild Wars franchise.
Ready at Dawn Studios, creators of The Order: 1886, Daxter, God of War: Chains of Olympus and an Ōkami port for the Wii.
Red 5 Studios, creators of Firefall, a free to play game MMOG.
Castaway Entertainment, now defunct, after working on a game similar to the Diablo series, Djinn.
Carbine Studios, now defunct as of September 2018, after releasing a massively multiplayer title WildStar.
Hyboreal Games, founded by Michio Okamura.
Runic Games, now defunct, founded by Travis Baldree, Erich Schaefer, and Max Schaefer; creators of Torchlight.
Bonfire Studios, founded by Rob Pardo.
Second Dinner, founded by Ben Brode.
Dreamhaven, founded by Michael Morhaime.
Frost Giant Studios, founded by Tim Morten and Tim Campbell.
Undead Scottsman on
+2
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
Important to note that Blizzard has been bleeding talent since 2003 when Bill Roper and the Schaefer's left to start their own studio.
Edit: ripped from Wikipedia
Over the years, some former Blizzard Entertainment employees have moved on and established gaming companies of their own:
Flagship Studios, now defunct, creators of Hellgate: London, also worked on Mythos.
ArenaNet, creators of the Guild Wars franchise.
Ready at Dawn Studios, creators of The Order: 1886, Daxter, God of War: Chains of Olympus and an Ōkami port for the Wii.
Red 5 Studios, creators of Firefall, a free to play game MMOG.
Castaway Entertainment, now defunct, after working on a game similar to the Diablo series, Djinn.
Carbine Studios, now defunct as of September 2018, after releasing a massively multiplayer title WildStar.
Hyboreal Games, founded by Michio Okamura.
Runic Games, now defunct, founded by Travis Baldree, Erich Schaefer, and Max Schaefer; creators of Torchlight.
Bonfire Studios, founded by Rob Pardo.
Second Dinner, founded by Ben Brode.
Dreamhaven, founded by Michael Morhaime.
Frost Giant Studios, founded by Tim Morten and Tim Campbell.
I mean, having that many people leave is sad but other than ArenaNet & Runic Games, that's not a very impressive track record for their expats, is it?
Late edit: I forgot Eric Sexton (multi-discipline guy who worked on Diablo I & II), who was with Gearbox for a good long while, then left to work on Grim Dawn. He's had a pretty good run.
The Bonfire one is interesting, since it’s been like 5 years of working on... ???
This bit from Rob Pardo is on wikipedia from almost two year ago:
“Pardo also described the pitch process. Everyone in the studio had the opportunity to pitch a game. Of the 40 original ideas, the studio chose 7 to expand into full fledged pitch decks. Everyone then stack-ranked their favorites, and when they chose the game the result was fairly unanimous.”
Important to note that Blizzard has been bleeding talent since 2003 when Bill Roper and the Schaefer's left to start their own studio.
Edit: ripped from Wikipedia
Over the years, some former Blizzard Entertainment employees have moved on and established gaming companies of their own:
Flagship Studios, now defunct, creators of Hellgate: London, also worked on Mythos.
ArenaNet, creators of the Guild Wars franchise.
Ready at Dawn Studios, creators of The Order: 1886, Daxter, God of War: Chains of Olympus and an Ōkami port for the Wii.
Red 5 Studios, creators of Firefall, a free to play game MMOG.
Castaway Entertainment, now defunct, after working on a game similar to the Diablo series, Djinn.
Carbine Studios, now defunct as of September 2018, after releasing a massively multiplayer title WildStar.
Hyboreal Games, founded by Michio Okamura.
Runic Games, now defunct, founded by Travis Baldree, Erich Schaefer, and Max Schaefer; creators of Torchlight.
Bonfire Studios, founded by Rob Pardo.
Second Dinner, founded by Ben Brode.
Dreamhaven, founded by Michael Morhaime.
Frost Giant Studios, founded by Tim Morten and Tim Campbell.
Eesh... not a lot of winners on that list. Hellgate, 1866, Firefall, Wildstar... I never even heard of Djinn.
A few good ones (Guild Wars, mainly) but a lot of misses.
I fuckin loved Hellgate London a whole lot. I wish they hadn't gone with the pseudo-MMO service structure. If it was like Diablo then I bet it would have done better.
I'm hoping for great stuff from a number of those companies that are still extant.
I'm still bummed about what happened to Carbine's WildStar.
I thought they had some cool ideas but they wildly misinterpreted what players actually wanted from their gameplay.
I never feel like I have enough context about the industry as a whole to properly judge churn lists like that. Like that seems like a ton of studios/projects from former Blizz peeps but it's over 18 years so you'd expect a ton of churn in that time. It gets complicated by the fact that most studios don't even make it half that long.
By definition every company loses all of its founding talent over time, whether they're well managed or not. That doesn't mean the company is now just an empty shell. The people who joined late are much less likely to be celebrities than the founders, but many of them are just as talented.
Zek on
+4
H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
edited March 2021
Losing a few people here or there over a relatively long period of time is just industry churn. Where it gets alarming is when a studio loses a bunch of key people in a relatively short period, because there's a certain amount of... legacy? Indoctrination? Let's go with heritage. There's a kind of heritage where people coming into a studio learn how to do what makes that studio special from working alongside old-timers, and can then pass it on in turn when they've become the old-timers. But if you lose too many of the influential old timers too quickly, then the heritage can be lost, and now you have a new/different studio wearing the old one's skin as a mask.
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
The video game industry is notorious for not fostering new talent to take over the positions the notable people have. If Kaplan left tomorrow, guess what? Whoever takes his place, they haven't been getting any sort of business place / talent nurturing to live up to the title or at least be notable in their own right.
Posts
One time I got in touch with him, he asked what we were looking to order. Two days later a box showed up, no order form, but with five copies each of Starsiege, Starsiege: Tribes, Caesar III, and Half-Life.
:whistle: Those were the days :whistle:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Wouldn't surprise me if they've decided to scale back the live events post-pandemic after learning how to do them online. Probably saves them a bundle.
But this might be one of those instances where it isn't just an evil corporation being evil. I feel dirty even thinking of defending Activision because they are the scum of the earth. But if they decide to stop hosting live BlizzCons, there isn't much need for a live events team. It sucks, but that's a real possibility.
Yeah this is kind of where I'm getting at. It's just your standard reorg from a business and they are shifting focus from live events. Hopefully they got a good severance package out of it.
I imagine it was successful enough for their business objectives (getting lots of eyes on their products and selling digital passes) that live BlizzCon starts to look like a waste of money in comparison. Most of the value in a convention is for the attendees, they're not the best way to distribute big news anymore.
Yeah, about that...
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
The giftcard is cartoonish and dumb, aaand I do think that "old blizzard" is dead and Activision is 100% running the show.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
https://kotaku.com/activision-blizzard-ceo-to-get-even-bigger-bonuses-whil-1846493910
I wonder if there is a universe where Blizzard somehow breaks off and goes private again...
Blizzard as it is doesn't exist anymore , nothing to break off. It’s just activision mouth breathers in a different office .
By leaving blizzard.
That's exactly what it is
yeah this is what finally convinced me. I'll never spend a cent on blizzard games again.
Yup.
https://www.polygon.com/2020/9/23/21452257/blizzard-mike-morhaime-dreamhaven-secret-door-moonshot-games
Even though ActivisionBlizzard is horrible, I still do like WoW, Diablo, and Starcraft. And I will still want to buy and play new games in those IPs even if the original talent is gone.
Likewise, EA is the absolute worst and there is no game company worse than them. They have left a trail of corpses of dead studios in their wake, killing and destroying all they touch. And FIFA Ultimate Team is an abomination and is a pox on mankind. But even still, I will continue to want games made by Respawn Entertainment (such as the inevitable sequel to Jedi Fallen Order), and games made by Bioware, such as the inevitable Mass Effect 4.
Ubisoft has more harassment, intolerance, misogynist, homophobic, and hostile work environment scandals than any other game company. The senior leadership of that company are all a bunch of horrible, horrible people. But even still, I love Assassin's Creed dearly.
The moral of the story is that as a consumer whore, it is hard for me to make a lasting moral stance against these companies because in the end my desire to play fun games outweighs my conscience.
I mean, there's still some major talent. Off the top of my head Jeff Kaplan is still there, & Samwise Didier is still the art guy. In the music department, Russel Brower is gone, but Derek Duke, Glenn Stafford, and I think Jason Hayes are still with them (Hayes left around WotLK but came back to work on MoP). So I wouldn't be quite that harsh. But basically yes.
Edit: ripped from Wikipedia
I mean, having that many people leave is sad but other than ArenaNet & Runic Games, that's not a very impressive track record for their expats, is it?
Late edit: I forgot Eric Sexton (multi-discipline guy who worked on Diablo I & II), who was with Gearbox for a good long while, then left to work on Grim Dawn. He's had a pretty good run.
This bit from Rob Pardo is on wikipedia from almost two year ago:
“Pardo also described the pitch process. Everyone in the studio had the opportunity to pitch a game. Of the 40 original ideas, the studio chose 7 to expand into full fledged pitch decks. Everyone then stack-ranked their favorites, and when they chose the game the result was fairly unanimous.”
I'm still bummed about what happened to Carbine's WildStar.
Eesh... not a lot of winners on that list. Hellgate, 1866, Firefall, Wildstar... I never even heard of Djinn.
A few good ones (Guild Wars, mainly) but a lot of misses.
I thought they had some cool ideas but they wildly misinterpreted what players actually wanted from their gameplay.
I never feel like I have enough context about the industry as a whole to properly judge churn lists like that. Like that seems like a ton of studios/projects from former Blizz peeps but it's over 18 years so you'd expect a ton of churn in that time. It gets complicated by the fact that most studios don't even make it half that long.
Metzen retired in 2016.