Blizzard wants to cut out World of Warcraft overwork on their workers

[Jastall]

I didnt say no work was put in. Im just saying it's nowhere near the same amount of work or creativity as an entirely new game. Most of the base game mechanics are already in place. A great deal of their work is copy/pasting existing assets and applying slight modifications.

Both in terms of groundwork and design a LOT of their foundation is already done. The amount of work required for a new expansion is nowhere near that required for a new game, and the amount of content provided isn't anywhere near a new game worth the same amount of money($50 + 15sub) outside of the distorted scale of the MMO genre.

Game mechanics don't necessarily take up the most man-hours. A lot of it is number-crunching and playtesting; it's non negligible for sure, but it's not like an xpack adds nothing gameplay wise irrespective of what it might remove; dungeon and raid bosses don't appear out of thin air, nor do Azerite effects. Stuff like art assets, music, animations, cinematics, that's where the lion's share of the work is, and in that regard BfA is no worse than any expansion, and better than anything apart from Mists and Legion if you ask me.

Does it take up exactly as much man-hours as crafting a game like, for example, Sekiro? overall I doubt so, but I think it's roughly in the same ballpark in terms of art assets because that game also reuses said assets a whole lot, as does literally every single game in existence, plus WoW goes back and updates old assets as well which mos games do not do. Gameplay-wise obviously Sekiro took more work, but BfA was also less expensive. Then again it requires a sub, but then again Sekiro might get one or two DLC's worth of content with a few areas and bosses, a WoW expansion gets several new zones, tons of activities, vast amounts of new rewards and collectibles which all take time to make, doubles its raid boss count at the very least, new cutscenes and story quests, etc. bought and paid for by subs.

I do think the Blizzard guy is exaggerating, but it does prove a point. WoW expansions are no joke, a lot of labor is put in them, and doing their best to avoid crunch time while maintaining the steady stream of content an MMO demands must indeed be a challenge which they take on, to their credit I must say.

[cparle87]

Back in the day they had passion. Now they are just a large corperation. Guess what happened when they left: Wildstar

You mean the game that died so hard and so fast it because an instant meme?

[Eleccybubb]

Back in the day they had passion. Now they are just a large corperation. Guess what happened when they left: Wildstar

There is nothing wrong with overwork, but you shouldnt do it to much.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl...hronic-fatigue

Or....
You may get visited by a god:
(insert image from Senko dealing with a workaholic -- from kitsune no senko san anime/manga)
Only anime fans will get this joke.

And how is Wildstar doing? Oh right shut down after 4 years with the last year being a year of drip feed/life support.

That game may have been made by Ex-Blizzard devs who probably did have passion. But it was mismanaged to hell and NCSOFT gave them chance after chance.

[Ohmmega]

yes they deserve some days off but the game director and writers deserve to be laid off

[Logwyn]

Why ?? No crunch or OT is a good thing to strive for.

I bet what happens is like all other industries. They say we have a date set out 2-3 months out. The first month or two some work gets done but more sitting around and talking around the water cooler happens. One month out everyone goes oh shit and the "crunch/overtime" happens.

Because generally if you finish up early you don't get what's left of the 3 months to screw around you get a new project and get rewarded with less time to do it because you are such great workers. Whether we as humans drag things out intentionally or just do it subconsciously is a debate. All comes down to management and their bosses.

[Unholyground]

Don't make me laugh! Islands and Warfronts are bloat. Filler bullshit that stopped being interesting after the second time you see it. Warfronts are so divested of content or depth Blizzard had to limit them to twice a month!


BfA might appear to be large on the surface, but none of it has depth. To claim that it equates to a new game is exceptionally ignorant or disingenuous.

Island expeditions were definitely cut down from what they were meant to be, you can tell they had planned them to be much more but had to axe it.

[eduwneso]

You cant work smarter if your brain is burned out tho. You cant make a great idea if you keep getting pushed.

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Problem is that people who want to work 8 hours and have normal life cant. As the ones on top force them by a gun to their head (well not in reality -- just that they will lose their job). Not every person is cut for truckload of hours a week.
A bit of overwork to finish a project is fine, but not if you do it all the time.

8 hours a day is a truckload of hours for you? it's the standard for most workers with 0 extra time.

[roboscorcher]

I took a 4-year major for videogame development, but the horror stories of endless crunchtime were abundant in the industry. I told myself that I wouldn't allow a big firm to hold all my free time hostage, so I changed my career path slightly and now have a comfy, well-paid 40 hour/week programming job. The work is not as fun, but it's challenging, rewarding and stable.

I fully support the reduction of overtime in the industry. If this was a thing 8 years ago, maybe I would have stuck it out.

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I bet what happens is like all other industries. They say we have a date set out 2-3 months out. The first month or two some work gets done but more sitting around and talking around the water cooler happens. One month out everyone goes oh shit and the "crunch/overtime" happens.

Because generally if you finish up early you don't get what's left of the 3 months to screw around you get a new project and get rewarded with less time to do it because you are such great workers. Whether we as humans drag things out intentionally or just do it subconsciously is a debate. All comes down to management and their bosses.

Years ago, it was regular for many big devs to have "endless crunchtime" when the higher-ups made promises they couldn't keep. If the new hires complained about the crazy hours, their managers threatened to replace them with other eager newbies. EA and Rockstar were really bad for this. Not sure if anything has changed since then.

[Jester Joe]

Aye.

Blizzard seriously need to get their backside in gear and start being a company for the players again.

How are you taking this out of an article that actually puts Blizzard in a good light, where they're not overworking their employees

[eduwneso]

This.

The problem is the current team is so focused on timegating and RNG metrics they don't realise that it's pushing players away and not bringing new ones in.

There is absolutely no reason a 10-20 minute story should be gated by a week or month in a damn RPG.

There is absolutely no need for the layers of RNG on gear either. Bring back guaranteed sockets, let us control upgrades from raids and other sources and for god sake bring back Glyphs. Bring back the customisation for our character. Because right now developing a character is shallow and bland.

My god, does square enix pay you?

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How is any of this relevant to Blizzard aiming to create a better working environment for their employees?
I get that you're on the WoW-hate path for reasons unknown because you drive the same goddamn agenda in every thread you post in, but this isn't very topical or constructive.

Why don't you start your own thread about "all things Blizzard has done wrong" and you can get it all out in one go instead of sniping every thread with offtopic remarks?

We were all so happy when he was banned.... then he returned and stronger than evah!

with even a new profile picture even

[froschhure]

its a lazy excuse. improve your core ideas and people are going to be satisfied with their work. meaning you dont need more personal, you need better work for them to do!

[Galathir]

How are you taking this out of an article that actually puts Blizzard in a good light, where they're not overworking their employees

Now they just need to start paying them decently.

[Eleccybubb]

Now they just need to start paying them decently.

I mean they are making more money than ever so they have no actual excuse.

[Jester Joe]

Now they just need to start paying them decently.

Gonna back up that they get paid badly or anything?

[Galathir]

Gonna back up that they get paid badly or anything?

Mostly The Quartering's video from half a year ago. I haven't heard anything about things having changed for the better (and with the giant amount of layoffs I doubt they did):


Also found a few Glassdoor reviews but they are quite old already.

[Trumpcat]

No, those are not the decision makers that he has to go around to tell to go home. Those are programmers and designers that only execute the given tasks. They have nothing to do with deciding game systems and gameplay. Whether they overwork or not doesn't affect the quality of the expansion, at worst it may affect release dates.

Don't be naive and looking how to excuse the bad game design.

[Yunru]

I mean i am all for fairer working environments.
However i get a laughing fit when people here or on forums like resetera are against "crunch cultur in videogames" while some poor kid in china making their fucking iphones. Truly the epitome of first world problems

One step at a time. Also, social media doesnt have power in china. You cant help them even if you wanted to. Only thing you can do is protest the X export from China. but then they will just move it to India.

[Video Games]

Good now do unions

[FelPlague]

Only thing it lacks is that we don't get class set visuals.

pretty much, the issue is the cosmetic not the actually playable.

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Now they just need to start paying them decently.

what? they have been paid bloody fucking amazing, even getting yearly bonuses shoved into every paycheck to make sure it is well distributed instead of them being just suddenly dropped with a massive check at christmas.

[Weeps]

The way the company is looking financially right now, and for the year , I would not expect the workers to be putting too much of themselves into their product. ATVI is looking really bad right now

That makes me feel sad.

I love WoW and I want it to be great. I hope the next expansion shines