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

[Gaidax]

Ehh... I am a first person to say that many influencers are scum on the face of the earth profiting from toxic hate spreading.

But they are not responsible for Blizzard's failings. It's not influencers fault that Blizz did not manage to develop and release even one game last several years and has nothing to show in 2019 either, which is the reason for trimming the fat to begin with.

[JessicaJones]

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

Game Masters make $13/hour, that's minimum wage. lol

[Gaidax]

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

GM is a fancy name for customer service agent. You think they get any sort of decent salary?

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

You realize that the layoffs are Activision-Blizzard wide...not specifically focused on Blizzard or WoW?

[FelPlague]

I blame you for not changing the youtubers/streamers minds about BFA being a big pile of doodoo

HHEUHEUHE Logic checks out.

you do know hes calling out youtubers who "lie to themselves that BFA is good" right?

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[SpiffyGriffy]

The fact that you don't understand the failure of an auxiliary system is a symptom of a much larger problem (horrible base class design, since you apparently need it spelled out for you) speaks volumes about your understanding of the complaint here.

No wonder you're going up to bat for people like them.

What games do you currently play and enjoy? I would be interested to know which games you support.

[Protean]

GM is a fancy name for customer service agent. You think they get any sort of decent salary?

I think they do at Blizzard. People who are good at PR and customer relations are worth their weight in gold.

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Game Masters make $13/hour, that's minimum wage. lol

They aren't game masters though.

[Thagrynor]

you do know hes calling out youtubers who "lie to themselves that BFA is good" right?

Where does he state that in his OP, his only post in the thread?

He says that he blames youtubers and streamers and content creators. Full stop. Not youtubers who lie about the game being good. Just youtubers. Most of them, since virtually Alpha, said that while there were a couple decent aspects, BFA appeared to be trash. They said BFA was trash up until it released. They mostly all continue to say BFA is trash. Bellular and T&E do try to find the silver linings in certain things and T&E talk about their personal experiences being different as they are finding fun in doing things they never really got involved in previously (such as World PVP in WarMode and stuff) but generally speaking, most streamers talk about BFA being trash.

So if he is blaming youtubers (who are mostly all saying it is trash), why would anyone assume he is talking about those that are saying it is good? Furthermore, he talks about how "sickening" it is to see people fired, which means he should, in theory, want people to keep playing and thinking the game is worth playing, but then asks people to figure out for themselves if the game is worth playing, which would potentially only lead to more WoW employees getting fired. Which is the opposite of what he starts off with.

The fact is, his post is nonsense and illogical, and full of vague statements. But nowhere does he even imply that he is talking about people who were saying that BFA was good were those who "lie to themselves" about the content and quality.

Plus, he literally starts his first point by saying, "I cannot blame the person who is at fault so I will blame someone else instead". How is that logical?

(btw, my response specifically to you is only the first question, not the entire thing >.> the rest is more looking at the OP and his arguments)

[chrisnumbers]

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

YOU hold them accountable?
Who exactly are you lol?

[Deadite]

This is the only thing that had to do with the layoffs...



They made more than ever and to get even more next time they cut as many non-essential people as they probably could. It does make them horrible cunts but that is business. They are out to get as much cash as they can.

[Fabinas]

What a LOL thread.

No, ain't talking about League, kk?

[Thelxi]

OP is giving streamers way too much credit, especially considering WoW was never a popular game to stream to begin with.

It would be nice if we could just blame Blizzard's failures on things like streamers, but that would just be dumb.

[GreenJesus]

I kinda agree with that, Streamers and youtubers basically just jumped on the hate-bandwagon to make a few quick bucks, which hurt the game in the process and so people lost their job.

Or maybe... just maybe... the game actually sucked... hmmmm... People said "i am speaking with my wallet" like you white knights tell them to do. And now you say "it's your fault Blizzard fired people". It's Kotick's fault for firing 10% of the workforce after a record year of profits. You people dismiss complaints by saying "fine then why don't you just quit" and then say "why did you quit? Now employees can't feed their families!". Can't have it both ways. DO you want "complainers" to stay subbed or not?

[McFuu]

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.

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.

Many people often don't realize how much it costs companies to lay off personnel. People assume their worth to their company is their salary, the reality is to a company you are worth many times your salary yearly to the companies payroll. And when you getting laid off, you still cost the company many times your salary for the year you were let go, often into the next year, and depending on how you invested into the company, 401k, pension, etc... you cost the company money for years to come. And when you are let go, you are worth absolutely nothing to your company, you are essentially a debt that the company spends a couple of years recovering from.
Companies often gain stock value during layoffs not because the company is suddenly not having to pay a salary, but because it shows future planning and forward thinking.

[Queen of Hamsters]

I wonder what makes thoses two white knights? They have made videos about there problems with wow is any one who doesn’t put out negative click bait 24/7 a white knight now?

Pretty much.

At least in the minds of X simpletons on this website. But hey, their behaviour and many years of repeating themselves over and over without result is a testament as to why they're not worth considering.

BfA will not even be remotely remembered as "one of the worst", but these same people will be spewing their same BS about the next expansion as well. Repeat ad nauseam.

[FelPlague]

Where does he state that in his OP, his only post in the thread?

He says that he blames youtubers and streamers and content creators. Full stop. Not youtubers who lie about the game being good. Just youtubers. Most of them, since virtually Alpha, said that while there were a couple decent aspects, BFA appeared to be trash. They said BFA was trash up until it released. They mostly all continue to say BFA is trash. Bellular and T&E do try to find the silver linings in certain things and T&E talk about their personal experiences being different as they are finding fun in doing things they never really got involved in previously (such as World PVP in WarMode and stuff) but generally speaking, most streamers talk about BFA being trash.

So if he is blaming youtubers (who are mostly all saying it is trash), why would anyone assume he is talking about those that are saying it is good? Furthermore, he talks about how "sickening" it is to see people fired, which means he should, in theory, want people to keep playing and thinking the game is worth playing, but then asks people to figure out for themselves if the game is worth playing, which would potentially only lead to more WoW employees getting fired. Which is the opposite of what he starts off with.

The fact is, his post is nonsense and illogical, and full of vague statements. But nowhere does he even imply that he is talking about people who were saying that BFA was good were those who "lie to themselves" about the content and quality.

Plus, he literally starts his first point by saying, "I cannot blame the person who is at fault so I will blame someone else instead". How is that logical?

(btw, my response specifically to you is only the first question, not the entire thing >.> the rest is more looking at the OP and his arguments)

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?"

is what the op said... pretty obvious he is mad people are positive about the game.

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lol (forced) "positivity and faith". At this point in WoW's life, angrily tearing it all down is what would work the best.

no one is saying forced.
just dont fucking witch hunt.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

-snip-

Nothing you just posted made an ounce of sense. Instead of telling people who enjoy WoW to quit playing the game you could just quit and move on.

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Look, BfA is absolute garbage, it's completely indefensible, but the idea that BfA being one of the worst expansions in WoW's history is somehow responsible for the layoffs is ridiculous. We're talking about 1 game, from 1 company in a larger partnership.

Secondly, I was under the impression that aside from the whiteknight brigade Taliesin and Eviwhatever, most "influencers" and streamers thought the expansion was garbage.

"It's completely indefensible" is something you say when you try play off your opinion as fact. Stop, it's just silly.

[Accendor]

But... they are not lying?

[Wildberry]

"It's completely indefensible" is something you say when you try play off your opinion as fact. Stop, it's just silly.

Nah, BfA class design, for example, is completely indefensible. You know what is silly? Having a positive opinion of BfA.

[Th3Scourge]

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.

Not sure if serious or an idiot.

Blizzard is too resource-heavy for their profit focus model. Simple as that. First things to get cut in any organisation are your customer service and frontline staff. That has nothing to do with "streamers/Influencers"

Bye.