The lay offs... the 8%, is everyone just going to ignore it?

[lockybalboa]

Juts normal restructuring, nothing to worry about. Let's move on. Activision is in great shape.

[DookuDookuTree]

It'll make loads of money, just not in America. It was originally intended for the Chinese audience. Customer service deals with more than hacks and in-game issues.

D3 is made for consoles & soon theres a Diablo for mobilephones, maybe next they can make a Diablo for calculators or iPads & everyone will pretend it's raining like with D3.

[rrayy]

You don't fire people who did nothing wrong amidst record profits, because you don't need to, certainly not customer service and CR people. Apparently they're doing a good job if you turned record profits in a time where Fortnite exists and BFA is a steaming pile of dung.

Boy you just insist on being clueless, don't you? They aren't laying people off because they have to. They are laying off people becauswe they realize they are not being efficient and they are cutting off the people they do not need so that money can be diverted to places that can make more money for the company. This company is not a welfare state.

Again, stop posting because you clearly don't have a clue on how to run a business.

[korijenkins]

It's intended for ALL mobile game audiences and that includes mobile gamers in the US.

D:I was intended only for the Chinese audience during its development, which is why the game was outsourced to China. There were legitimate fears it wouldn't be received well in the US. This changed a month before Blizzcon when they were told to make something for it and present it.

It was never intended for the US mobile game audience until 3 weeks before Blizzcon.

[RobertMugabe]

They're ignoring it because the 20% increased development staff is nowhere close to 800 people.

They could've hired 20% more developers without firing anyone, but the execs need bigger bonuses.

Yeah and 20% more developers can just mean that they've hired a couple of people (which might be the case, since WoW doesn't have many developers)

[Toppy]

That isn't bloat. That is what keeps Activision-Blizzard competitive with other companies in attracting top level executives. Slashing bonuses and making your company far less competitive with others means those top executives will go elsewhere leaving you with 2nd rate executives. The bloat is where you are spending money that is a waste. All the extra employees that aren't needed are a waste. No reason to keep them on and you sure as hell don't keep them on simply because you can afford to. You cut them to stay effecient and gain the ability to spend the money you saved by reallocating it to places that will help the company better.

Having massive layoffs amidst record profits actually kills competitiveness as it makes your company an unsafe place to work. Especially when you're already known for having poor benefits.

[korijenkins]

Boy you just insist on being clueless, don't you? They aren't laying people off because they have to. They are laying off people becauswe they realize they are not being efficient and they are cutting off the people they do not need so that money can be diverted to places that can make more money for the company. This company is not a welfare state.

Again, stop posting because you clearly don't have a clue on how to run a business.

I'm done wasting my breath on white knights like you. The point stands. You don't fire customer service and CR people when the company is already so out of touch that D:I was considered a good idea.

If I was running this business, the profits wouldn't have been hammered by the existence of Fortnite, a f2p game with 1 pvp game mode.

[Vexilius]

I see plenty of white males that appear straight. Maybe you've got it backwards, they need to fire white people to fit the quota.

Get your bigoted racist shit out of here.

[korijenkins]

Yeah and 20% more developers can just mean that they've hired a couple of people (which might be the case, since WoW doesn't have many developers)

I feel like not enough people understand this.

There's a reason they used a percentage to define the developer hiring spike, because 20% for some teams is not very much at all, and 20% of the dev team does not equal 8% of the company.

[oxandrolone]

There can be so many reasons for these lay-offs. As businesses grow, they change the way the operate. This can lead to roles becoming obsolete and/or no longer required in a new system of format that the business has implemented, you can alleviate smaller salary employees to pay for more skilled ones (maybe the case for the new hires that have been mentioned).

As a business owner, this happens often. It is terrible to see people lose their jobs, but you can't keep people on the payroll because "you feel bad bro" it's not good business and in time you won't be in business. I'm not saying this is what happened here, we don't know, we won't know. The truth is, unless you're director level or higher, you will never know the inner workings or reasons why they do what they do. It's ignorant to use this as a foothold to say "Big Bad Cooperate Blizz" if a company doesn't adapt to new markets they do, just ask Kodak.

There's no point in speculating.

[Overlordd]

I'm done wasting my breath on white knights like you. The point stands. You don't fire customer service and CR people when the company is already so out of touch that D:I was considered a good idea.

If I was running this business, the profits wouldn't have been hammered by the existence of Fortnite, a f2p game with 1 pvp game mode.

Dude like, maybe that's the reason community was so shit?

[reauxmont]

Seems like trimming the fat to me. Nobody was let go that will be missed.

Really? Ythisens won't be missed? Check again.

[eduwneso]

He cherry picked 28 people and that is your proof? There were far more than 28 laid off and he happens to pick almost all women and minorities. Yep, no evidence of a jackwad on twitter trying to push a BS narrative. Nope.

I think he is just picking people that were laid off exclusively from blizzard, since the 8%, or 770 employees are from all entities that form ATVI.

[Martymark]

No, but apparently everyone WILL be ignoring the 20% increased development staff for stuff including Warcraft

"Warcraft", not WOW. Are you excited for the Warcraft Chinese phone game knockoff? Do you not have a phone?

[rrayy]

I'm done wasting my breath on white knights like you. The point stands. You don't fire customer service and CR people when the company is already so out of touch that D:I was considered a good idea.

If I was running this business, the profits wouldn't have been hammered by the existence of Fortnite, a f2p game with 1 pvp game mode.

If you were running the business, it would be dead as you have no clue how to control spending because you think your business = a welfare state.

And using the term "white knight's" = you quitting because you lost the argument. And I am glad you are not wasting your breath anymore because you were using it to illustrate your cluelessness how to run a business.

- - - Updated - - -

I think he is just picking people that were laid off exclusively from blizzard, since the 8%, or 770 employees are from all entities that form ATVI.

I accidentally lumped in the person on twitter with the one who posted it here The person here who posted it here is pointing to that as proof they are getting rid of the diversity quota. He was the one trying to spin the BS narrative.

- - - Updated - - -

Really? Ythisens won't be missed? Check again.

To be fair, the only ones who will miss him are the ones who post on the blizz forums or access them. Most of the general gamers at large probably don't know him at all.

[thilicen]

Restructuring massive organizations happens, if they want less people working sales etc. and more on dev they obviously can't just shift all of them due to the required skill sets. Though in this case Bobby Kotick comes off as about as sympathetic as Hitler was towards the jews, that guy is a grade A fuck. Surely at least a large portion of those people could have been re-focused to something else.

[rrayy]

Restructuring massive organizations happen, if they want less people working sales etc. and more on dev they obviously can't just shift all of them due to the required skill sets. Though in this case Bobby Kotick comes off as about as sympathetic as Hitler was towards the jews, that guy is a grade A fuck, surely at least a large portion of those people could have been re-focused to something else.

It's not Bobby Kotick's job to be sympathetic It's his job to steer the companies success and profits.

And almost all of the people they laid off have limited skill sets. IT's likely none of them could be re-focused, especially if the re-focus is largely in game development.

[The Stormbringer]

Okay, I see a lot of people complaining here that Activision laid off a ton of people. Which is awful indeed. I feel sorry for these people, but come on, a quick look throughout the people who are getting laid off should give you one idea, that obviously everyone else is afraid to say.

These are exactly the people that were hired to fit their diversity quota's and the bubble finally popped. It's sad that people lost their job, but you have to be reasonable and think that this shit wasn't going to last forever.

You have no possible way to know this. For one thing, a large number of the people saying they got laid off on Twitter were men.

[korijenkins]

If you were running the business, it would be dead as you have no clue how to control spending because you think your business = a welfare state.

And using the term "white knight's" = you quitting because you lost the argument. And I am glad you are not wasting your breath anymore because you were using it to illustrate your cluelessness how to run a business.

- - - Updated - - -

But he is still cherry picking from the whole list. And it doesn't prove the nonsense about getting rid of the diversity quota which is what the person who initially posted it was sing it to claim.

Uh, no. I recognize that customer service employees have value, which Actiblizz would too if they looked at the state of it in EU after the layoffs there.

But okay. I quit the argument because I didn't want to argue with a complete tool that just ignores and refutes anything someone says, despite having no actual argument.

Literally all you are doing is saying "No, you're wrong, how could you be right?" And assuming that qualifies as an argument.

Do you realize that just the salary of Kotick could pay for almost every employee fired to retain their job?

Do you realize if million dollar salary executives didn't get unnecessary bonuses, the 800 people laid off could've been paid?

No. You don't. You don't even understand where this country's debt came from.

[Twdft]

This looks like a thinly veiled "learn to code". OP is disgusting.