CMs do a lot more than just reply to forum posts. They're the ones that relay info from devs, create the patch notes, plan and coordinate community events (including most of Blizzcon), that make sure fansites get interviews, arrange press events, etc. They're fulfilling exactly the kind of roles that anyone who is reading a fansite should care about because they are entirely the reason we have any information at all about what's going on in the game and what will be going on in the future. Devs, engineers, art team, etc are all really important for creating games but fostering the community surrounding those games -- especially on multiplayer games like Overwatch, Heroes, WoW, etc -- is still really critical.
WoW in particular lost almost its entire CM team between Warlords and the layoffs this week, and I think the effect of that was pretty apparent. Losing more CMs and from across all their games is probably going to have a noticeable impact to anyone whose relationship with the game extends past the game client itself and onto third party sites, apps, and forums.
It does beg the question what they're thinking here, when their investor call is all about doing things for players, and then they pretty much destroy an important aspect of that relationship. That's why I can't just go "rah rah, everything is awesome now", because they have to DO what they were talking about doing on the call - make better games.
And, as usual, it's radio silence from the actual Blizzard people who still have a job. People like Ion and Kaplan need to be out in front of this assuring people that everything is going to improve because of these cuts. One PR release statement from Brack ain't gonna cut it. They kicked the anthill over for ALL of their communities here, and set the remains on fire doing squat to reach out and calm people down - which as usual will lead to more unbridled accusations, rumors, and conspiracy theories.
It's a bit eyebrow raising that several people, like Bellular, have said their usual contacts within the company, people who's job it was to manage that kind of contact, are gone. The only thing I can think is they're going bunker mode - which has worked so well for them, in the past.
"Why of course the people don't want war…. But, after all… it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
And BM and SV hunters.
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Sad that MMO Champ is leaving hatespeech like his comment up.
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Yeah seems good. Funny too that most of the same people whining about how "communication was bad" are now mad that the people responsible for the bad communication got fired.
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Banned for this, but the guy issuing literal death threats is still up.
Maybe someone should report the death threats to the police.
Snarky: Adjective - Any language that contains quips or comments containing sarcastic or satirical witticisms intended as blunt irony. Usually delivered in a manner that is somewhat abrupt and out of context and intended to stun and amuse.
Oh yea, totally justifiable to can everyone on the bottom rung so that the CEOs can afford more gold plated Yachts, right?
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/st...728048640?s=21
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/co...their_parking/
You can't live without a heart. If you're a heartless person, exactly how are you alive? It's psychotic that you casually agree that the lives of hundreds of people is worth less than the lives of one or two people. Lemme guess, were the detainment camps and removal of all the children from families justified or is it fair to be upset (even to the point of wanting to retaliate) against Trump and ilk for causing such harm upon the thousands of families involved? Or is that just "justified" to you as well, and it's "psychotic" to wish harm upon those who actively ripped children from their mothers?
If you have record profits, why do you need to then turn around and fire people? Are you that obtuse that you don't see what's happening yet again in modern America? Richer needs to get rich, so let's fuck over the poor. It doesn't matter if they need insurance or money, or if they did a damn good job. We need to get rid of them to appease the people at the top and give them even more money.
Your way of thought is reaching its extinction event real damn close. And I am serious.
"Why of course the people don't want war…. But, after all… it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
Snarky: Adjective - Any language that contains quips or comments containing sarcastic or satirical witticisms intended as blunt irony. Usually delivered in a manner that is somewhat abrupt and out of context and intended to stun and amuse.
Fair point.
Don't get me wrong I understand that, but at a certain point trying to make the excuse that "you're just doing your job" doesn't cut it. You know who is able to take cuts without being affected? The top people making millions, hand over fist, without putting in the effort that all the developers, CMs and people that actually interact with the customers do every single day.
There is nobody that can justifiably be considered that much (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, etc). Just recently we had Insulin shoot up 600% in price without any regard to the lives of millions affected, all because some CEO wanted to make more money. Sure he eventually got arrested on other charges, but how is that legal to begin with? At what point does manipulating and extorting the majority go from "its just business" to "that should not be tolerated"?
"Why of course the people don't want war…. But, after all… it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
All of the replies here shitting on Ythisens are hilariously bad. You people are the reason Tseric flipped out, with your baseless hate, ignorant claims of uselessness, and absolutely idiotic attitudes. You have no idea what kind of work they do beyond the blue posts. It's stupid to assume their entire job was to post blue text. There are almost a dozen NA CMs yet people think Ythisens was the only one because they can't wrap their tiny minds around more than blue text. The worse ones are the rabid keyboard warriors blaming CMs for lack of blue text in threads their opinions have placed importance on, like the one idiot in this very thread and the other idiot that actually posted a death threat. Community engagement is more than the precious blue text in which you want to see your main's buffs, you greedy fucks.
They aren't developers and they can't read the minds of the Blizzard employees responsible for the game, so they can only post what is given to them. Empty blue posts are worse than no posts at all. Does anyone actually understand how oversaturated a blue feed would be with a ton of "we'll look into this" or "we have nothing to say" replies clogging it up? Actual blue posts would be buried. But noooo, let's act like children and bitch and whine that we aren't being heard. We've have dozens of confirmations over the years that Blizzard is listening, even if you don't like the results or the communication.
You people, you know who you are, disgust me.
How is he responsible? He isn't the one deciding what information is given out to players, so it's not his fault the communication is bad.
You really think he was sitting on information he wasn't sharing beause he is that bad at his (former) job?
When there is information to be shared, it is shared. The problem is that very little is shared, so there's nothing to report on - and that is the problem.
Not even the best communicator in the world would be able to change that.
Blizzcon will still go on, but we've already seen the cutbacks, with the lack of a headlining band. I think those days are over, and 2019's will be scaled back, in some areas.
Listen to the shareholder's call. It sounds like they're redoing their entire marketing program, and that could impact the CM team, with new people taking their place as gatekeepers between the company and the general public, journalists, and events. CMs did a lot of work in those areas.
Keep in mind, the layoffs aren't the only changes happening. It's a restructuring, so job duties are being changed, departments being deployed in different directions, etc.
They have a long ways to go to prove to the public, investors, and the media that these changes will work out better, long term. And I'm skeptical. Restructures can take years to settle down from the changes...or ever.
While it sucks, layoffs in a publicly traded company happen. Blizz was actually pretty generous, compared to many companies, in that they didn't just fire the people, they gave them severance pay, will continue to provide them with insurance and other benefits, and are actively helping them find new jobs. Though, based on your posts, I'm sure you don't believe any of that.
/Catchphrase!
That information has been publicly available and news'd as each person left (either to other games, other departments, or other companies). Over the last few years, the WoW CM team alone has lost Zarhym, Bashiok, Crithto, Daxxarri, Rygarius, and Ythisens. Right now, Bornakk and Lore are the only confirmed remaining (although Nethaera might still be there; we just haven't heard from her in awhile). One can argue that WoW with its current playerbase doesn't need a CM department of ten plus people, but effect of each of them leaving has been noticeable in both subtle and overt ways, and I can't imagine any of those functions will be improved by having less people covering all those tasks.
That list of things I shared is accurate as far as the things CMs were in charge of, but that doesn't mean none of them will happen now. Some of it might cease to happen, some of it might be shifted to other people or the PR department, and the rest might be carried by the remaining few CMs. I agree it is unlikely that Blizzcon is going to be cancelled, for example, but that doesn't diminish the amount of coordination for it that was done by those in the community departments.
My point was simply that people who read or use fansites and other third party news pages or apps should care about losing CMs for their games since those CMs are responsible for a lot of things that impact those sites and their user experience in general, and that saying all they were responsible for is forum posts is flat-out inaccurate. Sure, if your only relationship with a given game exists while you're actually playing it then probably you wouldn't care, but that obviously doesn't apply to anyone who is reading news on MMO-C.
Look at #3, pretty obvious dig at activision and their predatory practices and greedy ways have finally infected blizzard.
You are a idiot and by reading this post we all have become dumber... Thanks for contributing nothing and may you catch fire and hopefully no one will piss on you to put it out... See how dumb i sound now go back a reread what you wrote.... Ill wait at least until i get a silence...
looks like I wont be PvPing then
TFW you boycott the game because you want things to change but hard-working employees get sacked instead. Well played, Activision.
I do not like Ythisens and have no respect for him. He is very unprofessional and comes across like someone's kid getting on their mom's account for the day than as a community manager and representative of Blizzard to the online public.
Even aside from my dislike for that person, I still feel like this 'shake up' is a good thing and that good things will come from it; so overall I am very happy about it. I shared this sentiment in a post on the WoW forum also and, no surprise to me, I received a week's suspension.