Activision Blizzard Q4 2018 Earnings Call and Layoffs

[macphistofly]

I notice in that call they're laying off staff but Bobby Kotik and the other executives aren't giving up any of their millions in salary each year. What a shocker.

[Walross]

Sorry, but every time I see something explained like "we have record results this year, so let's fire people §§§§§" I understand why more and more people around the world loose confidence about capitalism.

This pairs perfectly well with my comment above.

[Saeran]

Sad day for the people laid off... capitalism at its worst imo.

[Doomislav]

YES! I was looking for someone to comment on that line, hoping I wasn't the only one that saw it! Thank you!
"Because we only made inconceivable amounts of money, but we could make even more inconceivable amounts of money, we're gonna fire a whole 8% for staff!"

See there, you too can run a corporation!

[Krimsonmyst]

Sorry, but every time I see something explained like "we have record results this year, so let's fire people §§§§§" I understand why more and more people around the world loose confidence about capitalism.

It's non-development staff. They just closed the e-sports division for HotS and gave the publishing rights for Destiny back to Bungie. There are staff that were in these roles which are no longer needed. This is a perfectly sound business decision.

[Benomatic]

"Maybe with the new lore that BfA brought, people do want WC4?"

[Voidwielder]

Activision Blizzard wants to de-prioritize games and initiatives that aren't meeting expectations

lol fuck rip wow

[Gadzooks]

i.e. Big investments in Diablo China ... Big investments in micro-transactions, games as a service content, etc. Milking existing customers even more, in the absence of new customers..

More mobile games...

To be expected, they don't have anything in the pipeline for box sales for at least a year, if not more. Not applauding it, but they're kind of between a rock and a hard place for sales right now.

[chooi]

So what I get from this is: forget about BFA and Blizz 2019 in general and wait for the next expansion/games in probably 2020/21 when they got their shit sorted out after 'transition year'.

[Benomatic]

But still, at least those who are worth it, earn their worth "Despite the apparent belt tightening, Activision Blizzard saw fit to award its new chief financial officer, Dennis Durkin, a bonus worth $15 million for accepting the job, on top of his $900,000 salary and $1.35 million target bonus. Analysts expect Activision's sales to slide by about two percent for the year, to $7.28 billion."

[FlasKamel]

Candy Crush is enjoyable tho.

[Dawon]

Sad day for the people laid off... capitalism at its worst imo.

Yeah, better to keep all employed and eventually bankrupt the whole company?! Learn the basics of "capitalism" before making statements like that... jesus!

If shit aint profitable enough, would you rather fire some and have 92% still employed to make the company live, or keep all and eventuall 100% lose their jobs?

[Hitei]

lol fuck rip wow

How are people so bad at reading between the lines. Wow pushes expansions hard. BfA, Legion, and WoD all sold about as many boxes as Wrath did, and more than Cata did, at the game and genre's highpoint. Tokens and ever increasing incentives for paid services (like allied races) mean that a large portion of sub losses are offset, and despite all the whining about how the game is dead, there will be another 3 million prepurchase/day one says for 9.0 too. Wow is fine.

They are talking about HotS, which was just truncated, Hearthstone, which has had very bad numbers, and SC which has struggled with staying relevant since SC2 release.

[RichardRoe]

Sorry, but every time I see something explained like "we have record results this year, so let's fire people §§§§§" I understand why more and more people around the world loose confidence about capitalism.

"Yeah, we made a record billion dollar profit... But the investors expected a a gazillion in profit so. Time to start the layoffs"

...

[Bhanzai]

They made more money in 2018 then any other year in their history but because they didn't make even more money then they wanted they're going to layoff employees.... This is why publicly owned corporations are just evil.

I agree. I work for a large multi-national. A few years ago the company made the most profit in its 200 year history and I had the best annual review of my career...then got the lowest raise I've ever received because of 'regional downturns' in divisions of the company that I have no impact on. That was a wake up call and changed how I work.

Now I am just a regular worker who gets normal reviews and gets normal raises but don't spend an extra 15+ hours at work each week. So all in all I'm better off, really.

[Malikath]

-durrrrr-

yeah, I'm sure an online game that already has persistent stability issues can take it's support staff being cut.

fucking tards will eat shit every time, Sparta did nothing wrong.

[GMZohar1]

"Diablo's headcount will grow substantially, as the teams work on multiple projects."

Well yeah.. You know that Monday Morning after Blizzcon in the meeting room someone was like (in Sam Kinison voice) "ALRIGHT HURRY UP! WE HAVE TO GET TO WORK MAKE IT LOOK LIKE WE BEEN WORKING ON MULTIPLE DIABLO PROJECTS FOR AWHILE!!"

[AngerFork]

Yeah, better to keep all employed and eventually bankrupt the whole company?! Learn the basics of "capitalism" before making statements like that... jesus!

If shit aint profitable enough, would you rather fire some and have 92% still employed to make the company live, or keep all and eventuall 100% lose their jobs?

Personally, I'd ask myself how many of those jobs we could keep for the next year rather than giving our new CFO $15 million of rewards simply for coming on board. But that's just me.

[mvaliz]

That 20% increase in development resources sounds like good news to me, they are doubling down and solidifying WoWs worth, me thinks?

Or changing WoW to become a new kind of marketing franchise.

[VanishingAct]

#LEARNTOMINECOAL AND GOOD RIDDANCE YOU DIVERSITY HIRE TERMITES THAT NEVER CARED ABOUT GAMES OVER YOUR SHIT AGENDAS

Of course they ruined gaming for me so I won't be going back to nublizz games but fuck em and the rest of these termites that have infested the other game studios.
Get woke go broke etc etc.



RIP real blizzard, you are already missed because you've been long gone