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

[FelPlague]

What a load of nonsense. No one is going to suddenly hate a game they like if they read some random nobody make a mean post about it.

No one is saying that. What I am what Chris metzan said was that people are quick to make a mob, and make blizzard their enemy. And that includes all of the employees.

[Big Thanks]

MIDiA, one of the media and technology market analyst companies published interesting piece of research (or perhaps just analysis) which has some relation to the subject
https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/m...ing-attention/

To summarize:

Their research suggests that engagement has declined throughout the (video-gaming) sector. Consumers simply do not have any more free time to allocate to new attention seeking digital entertainment propositions, which means they have to start prioritising between them.

Publishers and developers (EA, ATVI etc) are blaming declining engagement and revenues on Fortnite, but this is short-sighted.

MIDiAs research suggests that publishers are facing several headwinds at the same time. Fortnite is only one of them, and it's arguably one of the less harmful ones to the long-term outlook of the games industry:

According to the article, this is because Fortnite’s model utilises the attention economy dynamics: It’s a high-grade gaming experience and it’s free to play, which means there is little barrier for consumers to allocate attention to, compare to its paid counterparts. While it has undoubtedly cannibalised some revenue and engagement from other major publishers, Fortnite engagement still contributes to the bottom line of the global games industry.

The real culprit according to the article is the fact that more gamers engage with games videos and events (youtube, twitch etc) than Fortnite: Not only is engagement declining across mobile, PC and console gaming; at the same time, video is winning the race against gaming in capturing attention on multipurpose devices such as PC.

Additionally they suggest that focusing too much on competing against Fortnite is short-sighted: The games industry needs to wake up to the fact that its competition is currently sitting across entertainment formats(in video/streaming) and that competitive powers within gaming may not be the most important drivers of engagement and revenue slowdown.

--
This is quite interesting and I've been thinking about this - I play quite a bit of Blood Bowl 2 on PC and frequently when I watch streams and youtube videos, I see people who comment and criticize moves - but when asked what they'd do instead, they say they've never actually played the game and just watching it is enough entertainment. I'm sure similar things happen with WoW, OW and HS streams - people watch Method and have lot of opinions about raiding, but they don't actually raid or maybe they're not playing WoW at the moment at all - for them it's enough entertainment value to watch a broadcast and interact in the chat.

So in a way, I should probably re-consider my cynical stance to this topic, perhaps OP has a valid point.

@Greyscale
Nice post! Studies are always fun to analyse.

Have you notice most gaming companies now are not happy with the revenue of the "box-sales" or "product-sales" alone?
Is all about the microtransactions.

Did you saw the revenue of Blizzard and Activision-Blizzard?
They make TWICE more revenue with subscriptions and microtransactions than with the box sales.

All they want now is to find a way to keep you paying consistently.

Anyway, just my personal opinion. Im not presenting you any studies

[youswas]

Responsible is greed, desperation for MORE profits, and capitalism.

without capitalism wow wouldn't exist, nor would any video game. the fuck are you talking about?

[HuxNeva]

It is sad for those people. I"m sure many of them did their job with passion and love when the business was less than supportive.
It has nothing to do with streamers ffs, Activision Blizzard had a record revenue year.
But lt's be real.
Their customer relations approach is outdated; Forums? 'Blue' posts? In 2019, seriously? Also from the sound of it the relation with the 'influencers' (ugh) sounds more like some personal mavericks keeping in touch despite the utter lack of a strategic plan.
The Ion & Lore interview stints are nice, but come on. Their technical setup is beaten by even the average YouTube 'talent' with less than 100 subs.
Their WoW 'eSports' thing is complete and utter failure (don't follow the other games sry). Arenas? Who cares? MDI, a tiny success despite Blizzard doing near 0 effort, excusable maybe the first time, but 0 follow through after that is suffocating it slowly with a fluffy pillow. Live raiding? 0 investment again. A two bit gaming org and a few midlife boyscouts had to take it onto themselves.

[MoanaLisa]

The Ion & Lore interview stints are nice, but come on. Their technical setup is beaten by even the average YouTube 'talent' with less than 100 subs.

I had to highlight this although I don't think it has anything to do with layoffs. Their in-house stuff with the giant mikes that they sometimes pass back and forth is terrible. It's amateur hour and a real sign that whoever is handling that end of their PR (if anyone is) needs to step up. It's unlikely to change now but for heaven's sake, get some collar mikes or something and a nice inviting room to talk in. I listen these days but never watch. The Amateur Hour stuff that is the video side is just too painful to watch.

[Raysz]

I will assume you were smoking and/or drugged up when posting this, you are talking absolute garbage xD

- - - Updated - - -



Looking at your post history you spout the same nonsense reply to anybody unhappy with the pathetic state WoW is in, maybe just ignore these people and/or learn that people that loved the game at one point - currently think it's an absolute sack of shit in it's current state.

Opinions differ.

The main issue I have with people like you, I assume you're one of them, is you want things to be better in WoW yes, but you're assuming that what you want is the only way to go. Like the other hundreds/thousands of people that claim to have given good criticism. You are just one player wanting something perhaps another player doesn't want. And most of you use hyperboles and don't care for nuance, which is evidenced by your usage of the words 'absolute sack of shit'.

Wow has never been an absolute sack of shit, in any iteration. You might be frustrated, I can understand that, but hyperboles get you nowhere. What I mostly don't get though is: why do you keep posting here, why do you keep torturing yourself? I've played since Vanilla, actually took a break in Vanilla, and some expansions were better than others. Whenever I didn't like an expansion I didn't play it. I didn't feel the need to go hyperbole mode or be salty, I just left. Perhaps you should do that as well.

[Schattenlied]

Don't blame the poor quality of the game, blame the people who pointed it out.

10/10 solid logic. /s

[Raysz]

Yeah, I know you really want to argue with a caricature, but the post of mine that you took issue with and quoted included a bit correcting the OP on the idea that BfA's quality had an impact of the layoffs.

Surely if I were one of the types that "just wanted to spread toxicity," I'd be on the "BFA IS SO BAD IT GOT 800 PEOPLE FIRED" bandwagon.

But you're not going to recognize that, because you're not interested in an honest or sincere discussion of ideas. That's why you're trying to paint my post as something it wasn't, ignoring statements in the quoted post that don't conform to your narrative, and it's why you're pushing the "Why are you here" nonsense.

How am I to engage in a civil conversation with someone that claims that 'BfA is "absolute garbage". That's as hyperbole as it's gonna get, just ignoring all the good stuff BfA brought. You might disagree with that, that's fine, but then you would have been better off saying 'I don't think BfA was good, and here's why'.
Is BfA the best expansion ever? Nope. Is it the worst? That's the debatable. One thing it certainly isn't is, is garbage. Garbage to me would mean that no single aspect of the game is enjoyable, and if you really feel that is the case, there is nothing Blizz can do to save WoW for you.
So yeah, if BfA is truly garbage, what the hell are you still doing here?

I really don't get why people like you are lingering around. Are you trying to find justification for ending your sub, finding like minded people that can validate your opinion? I would be ok with that if you weren't so terribly salty and were a bit more nuanced.

[xStevooo]

The main issue I have with people like you, I assume you're one of them, is you want things to be better in WoW yes, but you're assuming that what you want is the only way to go. Like the other hundreds/thousands of people that claim to have given good criticism. You are just one player wanting something perhaps another player doesn't want. And most of you use hyperboles and don't care for nuance, which is evidenced by your usage of the words 'absolute sack of shit'.

Wow has never been an absolute sack of shit, in any iteration. You might be frustrated, I can understand that, but hyperboles get you nowhere. What I mostly don't get though is: why do you keep posting here, why do you keep torturing yourself? I've played since Vanilla, actually took a break in Vanilla, and some expansions were better than others. Whenever I didn't like an expansion I didn't play it. I didn't feel the need to go hyperbole mode or be salty, I just left. Perhaps you should do that as well.

Oh buddy if only i had time to tear your post apart. To put you down i played half of TBC, all of WOTLK, 75% of Cata, about 2 months of MoP, about 2-3 months of WoD, 75% of Legion and the first month of BFA.

When i think the game is in a terrible state i unsub, simple as that - it's just a game and there's many more out there that are much better. I have no problem quitting those digital pixels and playing something else, i own PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, in the region of 600+ PC games and almost everysingle console ever made including handheld.

I would love the game to return to a decent state, but it's not and i don't play something i am not enjoying so no worries. Money isn't much of a problem so even if i have a long standing sub, or when i spent hundreds of dollars transferring characters etc and then realised the game is in such a shit state just quitting and wasting all of that bread.

Don't ever assume, you know why.

As for what i want, i have only ever enjoyed making gold - the rest of the game i couldn't care less, i raided a lot in WOTLK and Cata but this was down to having such an amazing guild at the time and wanting to play. Since then I find the game in a very stale state and the quality lacking, I have no intention of doing such content when I think it's in such a bad state. I played BFA and made a few million, transferred it to balance and reaped some dollar back.

Also, sometimes I do enjoy checking the forum to see what's new, mostly the Hunter section as that's been my main since TBC. Very rarely I will take part in a thread if I feel like. Thanks for your concern.

[Bladesyphon]

It's not garbage though, it's mediocre.

This. BfA is perfectly average in about everything it does. The only thing that's really "Meh" about the expansion is the Azerite gear system. The rest of the expansion is pretty par for the course - it doesn't do anything major to shake up the status quo, but it does enough to make it feel like this isn't a copy paste job like FFXIV. But it also didn't take huge risks like Legion did, or large strides in questing like Legion did.

It...just does everything perfectly average, and the things it does very well, are the same things that Legion did very well.

If you want to talk about a garbage expansion, that would be WoD, an expansion that did not do anything well other than questing. How people can look at WoD, than turn around and say BfA is somehow worst when it's done quite literally everything better than WoD is beyond me but...here we are.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

about 2 months of MoP,

Man I'm really sorry you missed out on most of MoP. One of the best expansions in my opinion, it's a tragedy to not experience it.

[MHMabrito]

Why do people not like BFA? I understand the neck and AP system, but I don't quite think the dungeons are bad. Sure theres a lot of trash and a lot of mechanics but, people have been asking for harder dungeons since Vanilla. The raid is awesome, the questing was great, the story is great, new races.. I'm confused.

[Psygon]

Living in his own littleworld.

[MisterBigglez]

Why do people not like BFA? I understand the neck and AP system, but I don't quite think the dungeons are bad. Sure theres a lot of trash and a lot of mechanics but, people have been asking for harder dungeons since Vanilla. The raid is awesome, the questing was great, the story is great, new races.. I'm confused.

It's an absolute buggy mess. The content is drier than a nuns fanny. The stability of the servers are shocking in open world. Class design is one of the worst it has ever been, besides a few specs. Uldir was garbage, least BoD is good.

[Shelly]

Why do people not like BFA? I understand the neck and AP system, but I don't quite think the dungeons are bad. Sure theres a lot of trash and a lot of mechanics but, people have been asking for harder dungeons since Vanilla. The raid is awesome, the questing was great, the story is great, new races.. I'm confused.

It's split into two camps, though there's a lot of overlap.

1 - The Bad Writing Camp. This is the group that just thinks both the writing and plot are just way off.

2 - The Systems Camp. This is the group that's unhappy with the GCD changes, M+ armor swapping changes and overall class pruning.

Most people just by their nature are in one camp or another, even if you're happy or at the most content with the state of the game.

Frankly they also have a point. The story is ok but also feels loose and undone. Having things like time-gates on unlocking the allied races has certainly not helped because frankly - FOR THE ALLIANCE AT LEAST - it feels like the entire Kul'Tiran unlock questline is meant to be done right when you finish leveling and complete the first stage of the war campaign. With the ship either serving as your command HQ or at the very least it being the lead ship in the attack on Zandalar.

Systems-wise there's a lot of repetition right now for what feels like less reward in comparison to Legion. On the plus side we now have a currency for Azerite armor but to run down the list - resources are more constrained overall and you have fewer followers so you don't do as many mission tables, you can't send rep tokens to alts which slows down their progress, the missions are far less rewarding giving hundreds of gold instead of thousands, world bosses also only give hundreds of gold instead of thousands, world quests in general are just a rep grind for your cache - a cache that is less interesting now because it doesn't include a chance at a mount and we're feeling the effects of lack of flight earlier in BfA than we did in Legion, doubly so if you're alliance and haven't done the quests in Drustvar so your flight whistle keeps dropping you off into places with no flight master.

So that's a lot of trouble for just world quests and mission table, it doesn't get into how poorly implemented Azerite armor has been, the GCD changes, the loss of an Artifact Weapon and in many cases the loss of the ability it conferred on your character.

Which does bring up one big thing.

We haven't had character progression since WoD. This is a pretty big deal for a lot of people, myself being one of them, so without another talent tier next expansion I'm not sure I'll stay subbed. Right now I'm just playing a level 100 character as far as my traits, talents and abilities go. That's the time when everything stopped.

On top of all that for many people that level 100 character plays a lot slower than it did at level 100. So you can see why long term fans might be put out by that.

TL;DR, some people are unhappy with the story, others are unhappy with the systems. The people unhappy with the systems have a better case.

[dacoolist]

If you’re terrible at the game, it doesn’t mean you should come to mmo-c.com and complain that the games garbage - you should look in the mirror and throw yourself into the trashcan where the rest of the haters belong.

Go back to playing cucknite

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I blame my 4th grade teacher for all the layoffs. I mean.. think about it.. if she had just applied herself better and became CEO of Activison Blizzard none of this would have panned out like it did. She was different. Was used to living in a RV and barely eating because of shit pay while dealing with kids all day. Would have been happy with just a few million.

Fuck you Ms Smith... fuck you..

[tripleh]

I view the layoffs as a wakeup call that was much needed within the company. To remind the workers and devs that they are replaceable. Maybe now people will actually focus on work instead of being on twitter . I also recall an announcement a while back of them hiring more devs to generate content faster. They had to cut the cost from someplace in order to pay for those extra new workers. I would also imagine that they were keeping watch of how many reports the CS reps were handling and how many were slacking off on the job. Yethins(don't recall how to spell his name) was a good cm he actually responded more. My guess was that Ion decided to save Lore by throwing Yethins under the bus . Why else would you keep someone (Lore) that hasn't posted or responded to anything on the forums in months? People really should start asking why Lore wasn't the one to get let go instead.

[OokOok]

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.

yeah and guess what, had they not given ONE GUY a 13,000,000 signing bonus, they would of been able to fund those minimum wage employees who got laid off. So please, don't be so ignorant as to say it's the players fault for not buying a pig mount when one guy in a day just got the signing bonus that 100 people wouldn't make in a year of salary combined

[Stormspellz]

I blame greed and bad developers/management for the layoffs.

people talking about the bad state of the game because the game is in a bad state, has little to impact on layoffs.

- - - Updated - - -

yeah and guess what, had they not given ONE GUY a 13,000,000 signing bonus, they would of been able to fund those minimum wage employees who got laid off. So please, don't be so ignorant as to say it's the players fault for not buying a pig mount when one guy in a day just got the signing bonus that 100 people wouldn't make in a year of salary combined

13 mill in stock options is not the same as 13 mill in straight cash.