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

[rrayy]

Based on what metric? According to a BBC article, this is the worst dip they have ever seen and the downward trend started when he replaced Tom Chilton as game director. We are talking about losing half of your monthly active users. If anything, evidence suggests that he's extremely incompetent at directing the game. He's a brilliant encounter designer though.

That is not on him. Everything is done as a group. And there are many things outside of Ion's control that can cause the dip. Alslo, directing the game means getting everyone on the same page and coordinating multiple teams into one project. None of the "evidence" you provide that he is extremely incompetent at directing the game.

[Kuntantee]

That is not on him. Everything is done as a group. And there are many things outside of Ion's control that can cause the dip. Alslo, directing the game means getting everyone on the same page and coordinating multiple teams into one project. None of the "evidence" you provide that he is extremely incompetent at directing the game.

Seniors bear the full responsibility of those who work under them. This is how it always worked, not just in modern companies but throughout entire human history. I will not prolong this discussion but there is one thing I agree with you. If Ion was overruled by a senior, then they will not get rid of him because it that's the case, it stopped being his responsibility.

[Icelin]

Whatever it takes to sandblast the rot out of the company. However many heads need to roll, let 'em roll.

How many heads "need to roll" for you to think it is a healthy work environment? Generalization is a terrible injustice. Not all the employees were/are rotten. Same goes for the customers.

The playerbase has been saying the "rot" of the game is systems for years .. if BBC is aware of it and making articles. There is no way Blizzard Entertainment is unaware of this issue. Yet I still haven't seen it addressed.. just more articles about demands from the company and demonizing of employees.

The World of Warcraft team has been working hard on accomadating its playerbase. Why I feel the story might feel so inconsistent at times. I personally feel the last Tyrande cinematic was nice but unfortunately the story suffered. I did appearciate them not portraying feminity as weakness, without stepping all over male characters in the process.(which we been getting bombarded with cinematics like that for a while...) It was a refreshing and positive message. Not promoting the massive onslaught of violence..well I guess in a sense... Elune had to take a hit. Still haven't been able to address the main issues.. not certain why this is.

Digressing, not all employees would be considered rot. Same with customers. It bothers me when I do see an employee promoting violence against customers. I don't have this behavior. I don't expect other people to promote violence on this extent. The extent that the customers and employees feel antagonized. I think it is also considered pretty much common sense that harassing/violent behavior to a customer is bad for business.

Isn't it getting kinda weird that these real issues ones promoting wrong messages. The individuals that promote sexism, racism, bullying..a long with not addressing the systems. Get swept silently under a rug?

[MoanaLisa]

Seniors bear the full responsibility of those who work under them. This is how it always worked, not just in modern companies but throughout entire human history. I will not prolong this discussion but there is one thing I agree with you. If Ion was overruled by a senior, then they will not get rid of him because it that's the case, it stopped being his responsibility.

I saw a lot of people calling for GC's head after Cataclysm. I saw very few calling for Chilton's head. Chilton was game director, after all. Why do you think that was? I mean I can agree with you in principle from the standpoint of a corporate flow chart but what's really being talked about here is who's being held responsible from their customer's point of view. Do you think it's John Hight? He's the Executive Producer for World of Warcraft and is Ion's boss. Ion Hazzikostas is not sitting in an office, an island unto himself with no responsibility to a superior.

Who gets the blame from customers is whoever is unlucky enough to be the designated messenger to players. It's whoever talks the most. When it was GC, it was GC that was incompetent. When CM Zarhym was answering a lot of player complaints it was his fault. Don't even need to talk about Micah Whipple (Bashiok) who took as much crap as anyone and was the subject of numerous forum requests that he be fired. I saw people who imagined that Zarhym and Bashiok were telling the devs what to do. It was and is nuts.

In a corporate sense, yes. Ion is responsible for managing his teams. I doubt that he 'designs' much of anything. But let's not quibble about what people are saying when they call for Ion's head. If someone else was talking for WoW it wouldn't be Ion who would be the center of attention.

[Candy Cough]

Great, now we have to get rid of Ion. Any ideas how? I think it's self-evident that he should go but apparently you have to be a sex pest these days to lose your job, not an incompetent idiot.

Ion isnt the problem, management is

Ion is probably the best encounter designer on the mmo market but he has no place being the lead game designer

Change his position and we get amazing raids and a good game lets go

[Cosmic Janitor]

Ion isnt the problem, management is

Ion is probably the best encounter designer on the mmo market but he has no place being the lead game designer

Change his position and we get amazing raids and a good game lets go

Isn't he the game director right now?

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He's the Executive Producer for World of Warcraft and is Ion's boss. Ion Hazzikostas is not sitting in an office, an island unto himself with no responsibility to a superior.

Two things: First of all, if the superior is at fault then the CEO would be the first to go every time, so there is already a flaw in that thinking. That being said, what the hell does an exec producer even do in a videogame that is already fully financed, planned into the company budget and has most work being done in-house? I see the point of the role in film, because these still involve alot of begging for money/fund raising, coordinating (read: rip-off) third party companies, etc, but in a case like WoW? Is he just signing the sheets for the office expenses and the software licenses?

[Candy Cough]

Isn't he the game director right now?

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Two things: First of all, if the superior is at fault then the CEO would be the first to go every time, so there is already a flaw in that thinking. That being said, what the hell does an exec producer even do in a videogame that is already fully financed and planned into the company budget. I see the point of the role in film, because these still involve alot of begging for money/fund raising, coordinating (read: rip-off) third party companies, etc, but in a case like WoW? Is he just signing the sheets for the office expenses and the software licenses?

What? I said he has no business being the LEAD game designer, he is more suited to encounter design

It would be like having an engineer do brain surgery

But I guess encounter designer doesent pay as much as lead game designer but he's doing a bad job so a demotion should be in place

[Cosmic Janitor]

What? I said he has no business being the game designer, he is more suited to encounter design

It would be like having an engineer do brain surgery

I'm saying he is not the lead game designer, his role right now is game director afaik. Which means he doesn't design stuff and instead just points into a direction and says "we march this way".

[Candy Cough]

I'm saying he is not the lead game designer, his role right now is game director afaik. Which means he doesn't design stuff and instead just points into a direction and says "we march this way".

my bad then

[Cosmic Janitor]

my bad then

Well it's still a waste of his encounter design talent. :/
Though I'm not sure if they are even credited and what is latest work was.

[TheRevenantHero]

Africans make up 13% of the population in the US.. how much representation do they need to make you happy? Seems like unless they make up 50%, woke people go insane.

"Woke people" don't go insane if it's not 50%. That's literally a mindset that racist people have because they hate diversity.

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Why would they lie?

Is everyone lying but the accused? Really?

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Diversity is not only about black people.

Don't bother with arguing with Daish. It's clear he's deadset on being a victim blamer.

[Soon-TM]

Well it's still a waste of his encounter design talent. :/
Though I'm not sure if they are even credited and what is latest work was.

I'm really tempted to attribute everything (game-related) to Peter's Principle /thinking

[Sluvs]

"Woke people" don't go insane if it's not 50%. That's literally a mindset that racist people have because they hate diversity.

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Don't bother with arguing with Daish. It's clear he's deadset on being a victim blamer.

Yeah, probably, I thought maybe he could change his mind, but at this point...

[Cosmic Janitor]

I'm really tempted to attribute everything (game-related) to Peter's Principle /thinking

I definitely think Blizzard has experienced this in the past like most corporations, though I think alot of the issues are also related to the usual modern corprorate greed and some even just delusions of grandeur.

[TheRevenantHero]

you classify as their testimony as honest but what evidence backs their testimony up? did any of them go to the police and make a report when a incident happened or recorded anything?

if you believe people so easily you are going to make a fool out of yourself

what was the worst thing afrasnabi did for example?

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do you think that is impossible? yes or no

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this has nothing to do with women if a person makes an accusation i want evidence before im going to believe them

You really have no fucking idea what forced arbitration means do you? They CAN'T go to the police to file a report because their contract prevents it. Stop fucking victim blaming. It's disgusting.

[TheRevenantHero]

the accused can be innocent
the accuser can be guilty

this is not an impossibility

you don't know who the real victim is

you are assigning victim status without any evidence why would you do that i would rather wait

i could be wrong and you could be wrong
but if im wrong i haven't attacked a innocent person
if you are wrong you have attacked a innocent person

Once again, there have been NUMEROUS COMPLAINTS. You have been victim blaming in every single post you make. You are also utterly ignorant of Blizzard's contracts because you keep saying things like "they can file a police report". If you're wrong, and you likely are, you victim blamed and gaslit a whole bunch of people and defended sexual predators. That's a far worse thing than me "attacking an innocent person".

[deenman]

Hm... Maybe something will come forward about them that isn't known right now, but I wouldn't put it past them to kick people that spoke out against the culture of the company...



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.

financialy succesful game doesnt mean there wasnt a mass exodus of players or that the expansions werent dogshit,with the token all blizzard has to do is snach a feww good whales,a few good whales can easily be more proftable for blizzard than 100.000 normal subs

[rhorle]

You really have no fucking idea what forced arbitration means do you? They CAN'T go to the police to file a report because their contract prevents it. Stop fucking victim blaming. It's disgusting.

NDA's, Arbitration, and other contractual things can not prevent the disclosure of illegal things. They might not have felt like the could go to the police because of a fear of repercussions but they certainly could have reported any crime.

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financialy succesful game doesnt mean there wasnt a mass exodus of players or that the expansions werent dogshit,with the token all blizzard has to do is snach a feww good whales,a few good whales can easily be more proftable for blizzard than 100.000 normal subs

They still need players willing to farm the gold for those whales though. Those whales would need to spend a combined 1.5 million a month to replace 100,000 subscriptions. Which is 75,000 tokens. It is possible a few (whatever number that actually means) whales could do that. Like I said though you need people earning gold to supply the gold for whales. At some point if it drops the token as it exists now can't support the whales or it becomes cheaper to go third-party gold sales.

[deenman]

i don't think you understand what victim blaming is
asking for evidence has nothing to do with victim blaming

if you are willing to attack people based on an accusation alone you are helping create victims you are now an abuser

a bit sad

the state of california doing a 2 years investigation and then taking it to court based on what was found is as close to 100% proof as you will get that some really bad stuff was going on,no state is gonna take one of their big ass companies to court for shits and giggles unless they know they got the goods

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They still need players willing to farm the gold for those whales though. Those whales would need to spend a combined 1.5 million a month to replace 100,000 subscriptions. Which is 75,000 tokens. It is possible a few (whatever number that actually means) whales could do that. Like I said though you need people earning gold to supply the gold for whales. At some point if it drops the token as it exists now can't support the whales or it becomes cheaper to go third-party gold sales.

the whales buy tokens with $ and sell em for gold,they use the gold to pay for boosting services,its one big cycle

i dont know how its going these days but in wod we were making milions every day

[TheRevenantHero]

i don't think you understand what victim blaming is
asking for evidence has nothing to do with victim blaming

if you are willing to attack people based on an accusation alone you are helping create victims you are now an abuser

a bit sad

once again i support the legal system working with the accusers to gather information so action can be taken
if evidence can be collected action should be taken

if no evidence is found nothing should happen

if evidence of the accuser lying is found action should be taken against the accuser who is now the attacker

You have said people lie all the time. You've even said that massive groups of people will all lie. You are refusing to believe that there are sexual predators working at Blizzard despite Afrasiabi being fired for numerous sexual harassment complaints and now other people at Blizzard are being revealed to have ALSO sexually harassed people.

The two year investigation found the evidence. The fact that you are still saying "we need evidence" just shows you are a sexual predator sympathizer. The evidence has already been found. You're just choosing to ignore it.

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NDA's, Arbitration, and other contractual things can not prevent the disclosure of illegal things. They might not have felt like the could go to the police because of a fear of repercussions but they certainly could have reported any crime.

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They still need players willing to farm the gold for those whales though. Those whales would need to spend a combined 1.5 million a month to replace 100,000 subscriptions. Which is 75,000 tokens. It is possible a few (whatever number that actually means) whales could do that. Like I said though you need people earning gold to supply the gold for whales. At some point if it drops the token as it exists now can't support the whales or it becomes cheaper to go third-party gold sales.

And if they went to the police, they'd have the mother of all lawsuits on their heads from a company with enough money to bury them.