I hold all streamers/Influencers accountable and responsible for the layoffs.

[JessicaJones]

This is a bit of a straw man argument, albeit because of the lack of context.

People do indeed lose their jobs all the time. What makes the Activision-Blizzard cuts insidious is that they were literally bragging about how profitable they are while performing rather substantial cuts. 8% of a workforce at once is very large, and usually only done when a company has been losing money for quite some time...not while they are bragging about their financial performance.

To further emphasize how disgusting this move was, in January the CFO was paid out nearly $4 million as a signing bonus with more than $11 million of restricted stock (tied to targets, but these kinds of bonuses are typically tied to rather weak targets). The cash payout alone would pay a years salary for around 100 of the 800 that were laid off (250 of them if you really believe they were paid federal minimum wage, or more than 1/4 of those laid off).

I'm perfectly okay with you pointing out that layoffs happen, but at least look around enough to understand that Activision-Blizzard pulled a d*ck move here.

Furthermore, it does affect the quality of the game. You don't like the answers you get from CMs and GMs today? You'll be waiting even longer now to get *any* answer from them now. And, guess what? You'll see even less effective development now because enough of the support staff got laid off that the developers will have to spend even more of their time on tasks that have nothing to do with development.

You do have a valid point about the increased lack of communication.

Thing is, all companies pay their execs silly salaries. Activision is worth $20bn or something. If execs weren't on pay packages like that I'd think there's something wrong.

[Protean]

I don't get why people care so much about a bunch of mostly customer service people losing their (minimum wage - is that a thing in the US?) jobs. They're hardly industry specific. People lose and find new jobs all the time.

It sucks for those people, but it's not going to effect the quality of the game. Pretending that the CMs and GMs etc were doing a great job is silly. Half the time you asked a GM something, they'd say no, you make a new ticket and the next GM says yes. CMs have been mostly clueless about the game for a while. Ysthensis - or however you spell it happened to be a minor exception in some cases.

Are you subbed to the game currently? Have you purchased the new Lunar Pig mount? No? Well I hold you accountable and responsible for the layoffs. If everyone spent £300 a month on Tokens, race and faction changes like me, then they could hire 800 more CMs!

See how fucking stupid that sounds lol.

It's cute that you think they're minimum wage.

[Volitar]

It's cute that you think they're minimum wage.

I mean is it not minimum wage? Most of the time I get a ticket response it feels extremely minimum wage they just copy pasted some paragraph that has literally nothing to do with my ticket, lmao.

[Unholyground]

Activision-Blizzard is a huge corporation who only care about profits, we can move on.

[Wildberry]

Is there honestly ever a feature that receives universal praise? I can't think of any. Even the popular ones like Mythic+ receive a fair amount of criticism. I mean in BC arena got a pretty lukewarm reaction, heroic dungeons were mostly positive. Badges and arena rewards were pretty much universally panned for being welfare gear. Daily quests weren't well received either.

I'm not expecting BfA's features to be universally praised. I'm just saying they haven't even managed lukewarm reactions. Unless there's some community that I'm simply not aware of, who are fairly positive about Warfronts, Island Expeditions and Azerite.

To focus just on the first one, we had a thread up on the front page yesterday, where the OP's argument in favor of Warfronts amounted to "They're not fun right now, but they have POTENTIAL."

Class design was still horrendous. Remember when they gave certain specs a mana regen buff just so that people would take them along instead of actually improving the spec? Lol.

I enjoyed my class in BC, but there's a reason I typically don't cite that expansion as one where class design should be emulated.

So by your logic BC must have been garbage.

Not really, because even in making your case you've admitted that Arenas had a lukewarm reception, and heroic dungeons were largely positive. There are other things that could be contested (Daily reception, reward structure [I remember people defending badge gear, I'm sure you do, too]), etc.

BC wasn't the strongest expansion in the world, I'm not the type to claim that. There were a lot of legitimate criticisms that could be brought against it, from just about every perspective the community has to offer. But there's still a difference between some of BCs features having a mixed reception, with a few generating a lot of criticism, and all or most features doing so.

WLK was even worse because vehicles were universally hated, the entire first tier was hated for being rehashed / faceroll / lol vehicles, heroic dungeons were hated because they were too faceroll, fake world PvP zone WITH VEHICLES.

Vehicles flopped, the first tier received a lot of criticism (some of it unfair, in my view), heroic dungeons had a number of defenders though. With regard to Wintergrasp, I don't remember an overwhelming amount of hostility. A chunk of people disliked it, sure, but the biggest gripes I remember reading were about the lag. Which is a problem entirely on the end of the complainer.

It met or exceeded expectations including post release sub drops. Hate it or not it's still a success for them.

I mentioned sub retention, specifically because I'm curious to see what happens once their panic button via the boat mount wears off, and if there's a noticeable drop. Obviously forums are slanted, but I do remember reading through post after post on the official forums of people saying "I got the dreadwake mount, but I don't log in anymore, once my sub expires I'm gone" and things of that nature.

[Ielenia]

If you read that statement straight, that'd be a you problem.

How is it "their" problem? Criticism is offered, but you claim it's "not enough". And then you said that "you need to criticize if you want to be taken seriously".

You literally said "they do not criticize as much has I deem necessary, therefore they should be ignored."

[Wildberry]

How is it "their" problem? Criticism is offered, but you claim it's "not enough". And then you said that "you need to criticize if you want to be taken seriously".

Someone who criticizes the symptom of a problem (Azerite), without actually addressing the problem (class design), regardless of their reaction to the problem, isn't worth listening to.

I don't see how this is a difficult concept. They really can't be patted on the back as "fair and balanced™" for hopping onto the "Azerite Sucks" bandwagon way after everyone else, offering some mild, thoughtless commentary on the matter (scrap it and bring back tier sets!) and moving on to making videos about whatever else it is they do.

[RoKPaNda]

I'm not expecting BfA's features to be universally praised. I'm just saying they haven't even managed lukewarm reactions. Unless there's some community that I'm simply not aware of, who are fairly positive about Warfronts, Island Expeditions and Azerite.

To focus just on the first one, we had a thread up on the front page yesterday, where the OP's argument in favor of Warfronts amounted to "They're not fun right now, but they have POTENTIAL."


I enjoyed my class in BC, but there's a reason I typically don't cite that expansion as one where class design should be emulated.


Not really, because even in making your case you've admitted that Arenas had a lukewarm reception, and heroic dungeons were largely positive. There are other things that could be contested (Daily reception, reward structure [I remember people defending badge gear, I'm sure you do, too]), etc.

BC wasn't the strongest expansion in the world, I'm not the type to claim that. There were a lot of legitimate criticisms that could be brought against it, from just about every perspective the community has to offer. But there's still a difference between some of BCs features having a mixed reception, with a few generating a lot of criticism, and all or most features doing so.




Vehicles flopped, the first tier received a lot of criticism (some of it unfair, in my view), heroic dungeons had a number of defenders though. With regard to Wintergrasp, I don't remember an overwhelming amount of hostility. A chunk of people disliked it, sure, but the biggest gripes I remember reading were about the lag. Which is a problem entirely on the end of the complainer.


I mentioned sub retention, specifically because I'm curious to see what happens once their panic button via the boat mount wears off, and if there's a noticeable drop. Obviously forums are slanted, but I do remember reading through post after post on the official forums of people saying "I got the dreadwake mount, but I don't log in anymore, once my sub expires I'm gone" and things of that nature.

Expeditions and Warfronts got at least a lukewarm reaction. Not overly favorable, but not horrible. A bad reaction would be Azerite.

Also lets not delve into unfounded conspiracy theories with the boat mount. We knew months before BFA launched that a 6 month promotion was coming. Player retention met or exceeded expectations, that's way more than just active subs, it's active users. Their beloved MAUs.

[Ielenia]

Someone who criticizes the symptom of a problem (Azerite), without actually addressing the problem (class design), regardless of their reaction to the problem, isn't worth listening to.

Again: "they do not criticize as I deem worthy, therefore they should be ignored".

Dude, get off your pedestal, please.

I don't see how this is a difficult concept.

Because you're just stating your opinions as "objective truth" and anyone who deviates "are not worth listening to".

Criticism is criticism. Just because they're not criticizing at the intensity you want them to, and/or as much as you want them to, does not make their opinions any less valid when they're being honest.

[Blade Wolf]

Activision-Blizzard is a huge corporation who only care about profits, we can move on.

This more or less. They want all the money in the world but cannot make all the money in the world so they fire people to please investors. 2019 is probably gonna be really rough since they have nothing new.

[Exkrementor]

It's very simple, I won't bore you with the typical long-winded rant. I only want express these 3 principles with you.

1. I can't hold Big Bobby's feet to the fire, so instead I will hold all Streamers/Influencers/Blizzard propagandists responsible. I want you to remember as you're sitting there exsanguinating the last few drops of relevancy from WoW that people had to lose their jobs so that you could have yours. If you continue to lie about the quality and content of the game then your fate will be the same as theirs.

2. If you support these WoW sycophants and Influencers then you get to partake in the shame as well.

3. If you hate this sickness, if your guts turn to knots when you think about the 800, then you need to take action. You need to re-evaluate your relationship with Blizzard products and ask yourself, "Is this the game I want to play? Is this the kind of company I want to support? Is the juice worth the squeeze?"

Thanks for reading, if it pleases the court-I won't come around here no more.

This is a troll right?

If not: its not any streamers fault that BFA is shit. Its Blizzards fault. Legion wasnt shit.
Also these 800 people are not dead. They get new jobs.
Also Also Blizzard made an insane amount of money even though BFA is the worst expansion so far and still fired those people. These people didnt get fired because BFA was shit and didnt sell well. They got fired because high rank Blizzard people are greedy monsters that steer the company in a direction that is good for them but bad for the customer. Like EA.
Low quality products with massive amounts of monetisation.

[Casthiel]

If you continue to lie about the quality and content of the game then your fate will be the same as theirs.

Lie? This expansions sucks all around, so maybe they should create a better product so people would be having fun instead of this this... thing they call battle for azeroth.

[OopsReality]

It's very simple, I won't bore you with the typical long-winded rant. I only want express these 3 principles with you.

1. I can't hold Big Bobby's feet to the fire, so instead I will hold all Streamers/Influencers/Blizzard propagandists responsible. I want you to remember as you're sitting there exsanguinating the last few drops of relevancy from WoW that people had to lose their jobs so that you could have yours. If you continue to lie about the quality and content of the game then your fate will be the same as theirs.

2. If you support these WoW sycophants and Influencers then you get to partake in the shame as well.

3. If you hate this sickness, if your guts turn to knots when you think about the 800, then you need to take action. You need to re-evaluate your relationship with Blizzard products and ask yourself, "Is this the game I want to play? Is this the kind of company I want to support? Is the juice worth the squeeze?"

Thanks for reading, if it pleases the court-I won't come around here no more.

1: People have opinions, and should be allowed to express them. Even if that was the sole reason these people were let go, you could not form an argument where it would be right to silence other's rights to free speech.

2: There is no shame to be had, you're making up things that don't exist. Maybe you should look into starting a cult\religion.

3: If anyone's gut turns to knots over strangers being let go from a job, well... there are really no words to describe how silly that would be.

[tacoloco]

The people who lost their jobs aren't victims of anything more than Blizzard's changes in business direction. And maybe cost cutting measures.

[exochaft]

People were laid off because a couple of years ago this industry looked forward to the mobile market, MTX, and Esports as the next big revenue stream. During which time they planned to expand into the new revenue, which is how you are supposed to do it, otherwise you will be behind when that time comes. Recently governmental attention of MTX, a shrinking mobile market, and Esports being the fuckall stupid idea that it's always been (as a money maker) all reared their ugly head. Now these same companies that had planned on expansion into these fields have to realign their expectations.
Basically they aren't firing people for the performance this year or last year, they are letting people go because of their expected projections in 2021+.

It's not anyones fault other than a pretty interesting set of circumstances that has seemed to derail the gravy train.

I mentioned this in another thread, but people seem to have this weird notion that the quarterly report came out, and Scrooge McDuck at the head of Activision Blizzard said "Lay off some people right now to save money!" right after the quarterly report was announced... maybe some menacing finger archings were performed, as well. As you mentioned, anyone who has been paying attention for even the past year knew that these layoffs were coming, not only from their previous state direction of their company not going as planned but also from other actions done by the company when it came to staffing changes and other related announcements. Such changes are rarely impulsive activities that people envision in their heads, but rather calculated and/or strategic changes in operations that were realized long before this quarterly report even came out. People have some crazy romanticized ideas about companies and jobs, but the point is this: companies don't exist to make jobs, jobs are a side effect of the needs of a company. If a company has a new need arise, they'll hire people to take care of it. If a company's needs change or the need no longer exists, any job related to that need is going to get cut.

Someone else echoed what I mentioned in another thread, as well: layoffs happen all the time, you just don't hear about it. Especially in customer service departments, where turnover rate is already high and job security really low (mostly because anyone can do it). Did no one else other than me notice that when Blizz starting changing the customer service pipeline and UI in their games a while back? When I saw that, I knew immediately that Blizz was trying to streamline and automate the customer service response system, and this would result in them laying off customer service people eventually. Such structural changes obviously were occurring before the changes were released, so their plan to downsize customer service existed long before then. For most of the Blizz population, they don't run into complex ticket requests where this newer automated system really suffers, so this kind of shift makes sense from an efficiency standpoint. But in all honesty, how often do people actually interact with customer service in Blizz games? I consider myself a frequent user of the customer service systems, and even then it's extremely rare when compared to the actual time I spend playing the games.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Content creators have zero relevance and impact on the business.

They're just convinced of their own relevance, and their fans agree.

[Zoldor]

Basically they aren't firing people for the performance this year or last year, they are letting people go because of their expected projections in 2021+.

This. It never ceases to amaze me on MMO-Champ how little some of you know about business, shareholders, and the markets in general. Please, go take a econ/business course. You don't course correct because of a bad or good year, you course correct based on projection for the future.

Think of it like driving. Do you anticipate the turn? Or miss the turn then turn around and go back? The more financially successful anticipate the turn, the bigger failures turn around and go back because they missed the turn.

As the previous poster pointed out the market was huge bubble and all these new roads became possible. They prepped for those roads, when they closed they laid the lowest priority workers off. Also, CM work can be automated a lot easier than dev work, hell most industries just outsource the shit, be glad we ever got real people from the top end answering questions. The other work that got laid off is moving faster toward automation as it is as well. Publishing is becoming less human and more machine.

Basically, this layoff is because they see the next couple years as either flatline or decline, so to prep for those decline in sales they axe salaries of the lowest on the totem pole to offset those losses to keep the share price stable. If you invest in this company you see this as a smart move as an active company, but you prep for either share stagnation or a small portfolio decline. Is it good on a human level? No, but it is part of the nature of the beast of corporations and business.

I feel bad for them, but that is the danger in joining a quickly growing company, but the resume build for those folks is fantastic. You've now spent time at one of the most premier companies and if you did a good job, moving on to your next job should be no problem.

[Dolus]

Perhaps, Blizzard needed to trim the fat. Engineers, etc. were not fired. Only positions such as "Social Media Strategist."

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.ph...ssacre.126153/

[Zandalariprelate]

You are gaving too much power and credit to randoms from internet but then again this is a good bait post.

[Mayia]

It's very simple, I won't bore you with the typical long-winded rant. I only want express these 3 principles with you.

1. I can't hold Big Bobby's feet to the fire, so instead I will hold all Streamers/Influencers/Blizzard propagandists responsible. I want you to remember as you're sitting there exsanguinating the last few drops of relevancy from WoW that people had to lose their jobs so that you could have yours. If you continue to lie about the quality and content of the game then your fate will be the same as theirs.

2. If you support these WoW sycophants and Influencers then you get to partake in the shame as well.

3. If you hate this sickness, if your guts turn to knots when you think about the 800, then you need to take action. You need to re-evaluate your relationship with Blizzard products and ask yourself, "Is this the game I want to play? Is this the kind of company I want to support? Is the juice worth the squeeze?"

Thanks for reading, if it pleases the court-I won't come around here no more.

I blame you for starting world war one, my reasons are as made up as yours are but my outrage is real.
but not because you started world war one, but because you think as above.

The CM lay offs are rough and its true in a way that "youtubers" have taken their place, however Blizzard has not reached out beyond the CM's to these players and the events are held DESPITE Blizzards efforts not because of them when they do happen (Method world first race) so honestly its Blizzard FAILING so badly at cornering the market here, by having a Dev stream where they play the PTR talk about things they wanted to do.. but couldn't or things in progress..
They wasted their opportunities to support the raiding scene by trying to shut down the world first raiders at every turn has only created more work for them time and again, and zero support in terms of raid design or bug support.

This is 100% on Blizzard they wanted to find fat to cut they found some areas that could be removed as long as their overall goals changed the better CM's wont be missed if the less active now fill their roles.. but i suspect we'll have even less connection to Blizzard now, because they're so dense they don't get what they need to do.