Kotaku: WoW Senior Game Designer Jonathan LeCraft (and others) have been let go

[Nyel]

Maybe for some managers. Regular folk are likely doing their jobs. As well, at times like this, being productive is the best way to keep your job. It's not like artists and coders sit around making things up. They have assignments and tasks. You put your head down and do the work.

Minus the frequent parties and other goings-on discussed about their office culture, I imagine it would be possible to get more done now than ever. Losing managers is a big deal though. I've gone through that a bunch of times and it's upsetting for a day but you mostly get right back down to work ASAP. You don't want to make a bad impression on whoever is promoted to be your boss. So you get shit done.

I'm pretty sure it's a lot calmer in the offices than it is with people shrieking their agendas on forums.

Changing managers and team leads most likely means changing how you work or what to prioritize as well. I don’t believe that only the heads are replaced and everything stays the same. Every new manager usually has new brilliant ideas on how to improve stuff. Even if your lower level job is safe, the entire restructuring of projects and teams might be more than just something to brush off and continue working. Employee A gets promoted, B gets fired, C gets into another position - warranted or not, I don’t think they’re now more productive than before, I even doubt that they’re even as productive. This entire process costs not only resources, but also work time, until everything is settled.

[Fullmetal89]

I hate to be cynical about this but this looks to me like Bobby is cleaning house of all the old Blizzard employees. Two of the guys they fired were mentioned in the lawsuit, but all I got about Barriga is that he has been working at Blizzard since 2006. There's more to this than just the sexual harassment lawsuit. I think Bobby Kotick was looking for the perfect storm to completely take over Blizzard. The fact that Ion is still holding his position as game director for WoW despite the trainwreck that was BfA and now Shadowlands pretty much confirms this for me.

[Metta World Peace]

I hate to be cynical about this but this looks to me like Bobby is cleaning house of all the old Blizzard employees. Two of the guys they fired were mentioned in the lawsuit, but all I got about Barriga is that he has been working at Blizzard since 2006. There's more to this than just the sexual harassment lawsuit. I think Bobby Kotick was looking for the perfect storm to completely take over Blizzard. The fact that Ion is still holding his position as game director for WoW despite the trainwreck that was BfA and now Shadowlands pretty much confirms this for me.

I mean, Blizzard has been tanking it for several years now without any accountability. In any other company people would be fired for poor performance, especially from those in a leadership position.

[rhorle]

Changing managers and team leads most likely means changing how you work or what to prioritize as well.

Diablo does have someone who "oversees" the franchise. I am not aware of the official title but the head of Gears of Wars studio joined Blizzard in 2020 to take a lead role over the entire franchise. So replacing the lead dev might not change that much over all depending on how much the production was being micro managed already.

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I think Bobby Kotick was looking for the perfect storm to completely take over Blizzard. The fact that Ion is still holding his position as game director for WoW despite the trainwreck that was BfA and now Shadowlands pretty much confirms this for me.

So full on conspiracy? I don't like X so everything I think is confirmed is a silly way to approach anything. Mr. Kotick already has full control of Blizzard. He doesn't need anything to take control because Activision Blizzard out right owns Blizzard. They didn't need to wait for a lawsuit to fire a bunch of random "long time" employees.

[MoanaLisa]

I hate to be cynical about this but this looks to me like Bobby is cleaning house of all the old Blizzard employees. Two of the guys they fired were mentioned in the lawsuit, but all I got about Barriga is that he has been working at Blizzard since 2006. There's more to this than just the sexual harassment lawsuit. I think Bobby Kotick was looking for the perfect storm to completely take over Blizzard. The fact that Ion is still holding his position as game director for WoW despite the trainwreck that was BfA and now Shadowlands pretty much confirms this for me.

Here's a controversial thought: Blizzard managed to get itself into this mess with the management they had. Most of the old Blizzard founders and managers left on their own, many of them during the time that Blizzard was aware that the State of California was investigating them. Add to that the fact they haven't released a new game in over five years, tanked the WC3 remake, have used the "release it when it's ready" to justify going over budget, have over-promised on features that they've later had to claw back, have nothing but remakes and reworks of old games to announce, and continue to lose users over the last couple of years, and Kotick might have a case to do something about that. CEO's usually take a hand when a corporate division manages to fuck up as much as Blizzard has.

He's got every right and reason to be up their ass based on their performance over the last few years. You might not like that but facts are facts. Blizzard has not been managed well. If they can't fix it, then he'll give it a shot and move in people he trusts to set things right. He might be wrong but doing nothing isn't really an option for him at this point.

Also, don't assume that because there's some name that hasn't come up with this lawsuit that they're clean. There were 10 anonymous employees (John Does) mentioned in that lawsuit and no one here knows who most of them are.

[OokOok]

You realize that Blizzard lost HALF of their MAUs over the course of Legion and BFA, they lost money during those expansions, that's indisputable lol. Just saying there is factual information stating his claim that neither of the expansions were financially successful.

Ignore him, people like them think WoW is AB's cash cow. Despite the fact that Candy crush brought in more money

[Cosmic Janitor]

To be honest, Blizzard has the full corporate zoo of redundant job discriptions. Between manager, director, producer, project leads and various others descriptors, all in the various ranks from junior over senior to sun-king, I'm not even sure who is responsibel for what. Not to mention all the MBA clowns who hold the actual power; the financial one. I doubt only one of these leading figures (was LeCraft that even?) would change much, same for the other franchises.

There's more to this than just the sexual harassment lawsuit. I think Bobby Kotick was looking for the perfect storm to completely take over Blizzard. The fact that Ion is still holding his position as game director for WoW despite the trainwreck that was BfA and now Shadowlands pretty much confirms this for me.

I'm not sure how Ion would prove the full acti take-over though? The disgruntled employees that left alot earlier were already complaining about their oversight from activision drones, it looks more like they replace one bloated overhead with another who isn't going to cause massive negative PR in the forseeable future.

[Zyky]

Ignore him, people like them think WoW is AB's cash cow. Despite the fact that Candy crush brought in more money

See this is where you're wrong. Nobody is talking about what brought in more money. WoW IS Blizzard's cash cow. Candy Crush is King's cash cow. And CoD is Activision's cash cow. We are specifically talking about Blizzard, not Activision-Blizzard as a whole company. Have some basic knowledge before you post nonsense.

[Kathranis]

Ion isn't bad at designing raid encounters but he sucks at everything else. He needs to delegate more and focus less on system micromanagement while keeping up the work on raids because that is his strength.

As if you have any idea how hands-on he is with any one part of the game. As far as we know he already delegates those tasks. There are tons of leads working under him. Just because Ion is the one who presents the roadmap for the game doesn't mean he's solely responsible for every design decision.

[DarkAmbient]

No they did not. You people know nothing and are always so quick to jump at anyone sprouting what you want. Wow kncreased in subs. The losts were from overwatch and the others. Wow gained the lowing is fron blizzards other IPs

lol

They have the same MAUs now than before Overwatch and Classic WoW existed. Imagine thinking they've actually gained players.

[Couchpotato2013]

Ion isn't bad at designing raid encounters but he sucks at everything else. He needs to delegate more and focus less on system micromanagement while keeping up the work on raids because that is his strength.

He needs new office test “dummies” meant to represent certain player demographics.

So like cook something up for the game given input from his systems/reward/class designers and then give it to these people. They already have focus groups but honestly whoever the hell these people is leading many people toward apathy at looking at end points or feeling they have their work undone if 1-3 months pass by. Like ok more than half a year or even a year, your work will be outdone. You can’t have your first pieces of gear in an expansion remain BiS for the entire duration and even into the next. Like why even make new items if the earliest iterations of content are numerically the best.

[Sorshen]

Rip Diablo 4?

It was looking good too.

It really wasn't when they were 'excited' about horses at blizzcon, while the itemization got reduced to some mobile game level crap.

[Masser]

Apple lost Jobs and they are doing fine.

Financial yes. But the Soul of the company is gone.

[arkanon]

I still suspect this is just the beginning - Will they totally redesign and rename the OW character? How many more heads will roll? What other changes to their games need to be made now? Will all the females in D4 now sport business suits? "Congatulations! you unlocked [Pant Suit of Diversity]"

[Machismo]

Apple lost Jobs and they are doing fine.

They also spent years planning it, and grooming his replacement.

It wasn't damage control, it was estate planning.

[arkanon]

It really wasn't when they were 'excited' about horses at blizzcon, while the itemization got reduced to some mobile game level crap.

I think D4 looks......"ok" at best. It doesnt really look bad, but nothing about it excites me any more or less than the other ARPG titles out there. For me, there was no "oh shit! thats awesome!" moments at all. And if im honest, that goes for D4, OW2, War3 Refunded, Shadowlands, hell, even BfA. D2 excites me about the same as KOA: Re-Reckoning, War3:Refunded, and the masterchief collection - sure, more modern graphics, but thats about it.

However, I am not against Remakes/Remasters/Rereleases - i poured a lot of time into Resident evil 2 remake, and absolutely loved it. But i fully accept that is not the standard graphical update that other companies are doing. Its certainly an example of how to bring back a classic though.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

More people thrown under the bus to placate the twitter mob.

Rip Diablo 4?

It was looking good too.

I personally don't think D4's prospects were ever good. D3's second expansion was cancelled and the entire sales pitch of D4 was based on responding to shallow criticisms of D3.. "D4 is going to be really dark! Not like D3!" (Even though it was). And then the actual gameplay... was just more of the same. And then over the following years, we got barely any info on D4 as it languished in development hell. The director leaving half way through development is the icing on the cake.

The jury's still out for SL, but neither BfA nor Legion reports support what you claim here. This is not about MMO-C's ignorant view on what constitutes a financially successful product.

In 4 years, Blizzard has lost almost half of its monthly active users (46 million to 26 million MAUs), according to Blizzard's Q2 2021 earnings call. WoW for the bulk of Blizzard players (as HotS, Diablo, and Starcraft have been dead for years, Overwatch is pretty dead, and Hearthstone is nowhere near as big as it once was. Pretty obvious at this point that if the MAUs are still declining then it's WoW that's the problem). MMO-C is not ignorant; they've been pointing out glaring problems with WoW over the past decade that the WoW devs continue to double down on.

So? Contrary to popular belief amongst Gamer mobs, these games are NOT just 1 person's work. They'll assign someone new, and the project will carry on.

A game director leaving halfway through development does have a pretty big impact on the final product. Matsuno and FF12 being the most obvious example off of the top of my head... oh, and WoW ofcourse. I don't think I need explain WoW.

Diablo IV will probably be fine. Rod Fergusson is still with the project. He's the grandfather of the Gears of War franchise and is famously an industry closer; if your game has problems internally, he'll make sure it launches (ex. Rod helped finish Bioshock Infinite).

Infinite launched.

It wasn't a good game.

Yep, and thse MAUs loss are probably from overwatch. Not saying that WoW has not lost some, it probably has, but it definitely not spinning out of control just yet.

They measure engagement and their in-game bookings.

Overwatch's playerbase nosedived years ago due to the balance changes that almost everyone hated and the lack of meaty patches.

[uuuhname]

I still suspect this is just the beginning - Will they totally redesign and rename the OW character? How many more heads will roll? What other changes to their games need to be made now? Will all the females in D4 now sport business suits? "Congatulations! you unlocked [Pant Suit of Diversity]"

at this point if that's what it takes to get you paranoid weirdos to stop playing their games I welcome it.

[arkanon]

I personally don't think D4's prospects were ever good. D3's second expansion was cancelled and the entire sales pitch of D4 was based on responding to shallow criticisms of D3.. "D4 is going to be really dark! Not like D3!" (Even though it was). And then the actual gameplay... was just more of the same. And then over the following years, we got barely any info on D4 as it languished in development hell. The director leaving half way through development is the icing on the cake.
.

I remember the initial outrage over the rainbow in D3 - thats what started it all off. Was D3 less "gritty" and gothic than D1/2? Yeah, absolutely. Did the expansions address that? To some extent, but D3 already had stacks of bodies and gore, but it absolutely did move away from the gritty, gore infested sludge pits that were D2, and thats a shame, imo.

[Machismo]

More people thrown under the bus to placate the twitter mob.



I personally don't think D4's prospects were ever good. D3's second expansion was cancelled and the entire sales pitch of D4 was based on responding to shallow criticisms of D3.. "D4 is going to be really dark! Not like D3!" (Even though it was). And then the actual gameplay... was just more of the same. And then over the following years, we got barely any info on D4 as it languished in development hell. The director leaving half way through development is the icing on the cake.





In 4 years, Blizzard has lost almost half of its monthly active users (46 million to 26 million MAUs), according to Blizzard's Q2 2021 earnings call. WoW for the bulk of Blizzard players (as HotS, Diablo, and Starcraft have been dead for years, Overwatch is pretty dead, and Hearthstone is nowhere near as big as it once was. Pretty obvious at this point that if the MAUs are still declining then it's WoW that's the problem). MMO-C is not ignorant; they've been pointing out glaring problems with WoW over the past decade that the WoW devs continue to double down on.



A game director leaving halfway through development does have a pretty big impact on the final product. Matsuno and FF12 being the most obvious example off of the top of my head... oh, and WoW ofcourse. I don't think I need explain WoW.



Infinite launched.

It wasn't a good game.



Overwatch's playerbase nosedived years ago due to the balance changes that almost everyone hated and the lack of meaty patches.

This isn't just about "the Twitter mob."

They are pissing off shareholders, and that's when things become serious.