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Activision Fires hundreds on Valentines Day week!
virtualfog
Member Posts: 92
Sources: http://www.joystiq.com/2010/02/11/luxoflux-shuttered-as-layoffs-hit-activision-dev-studios-publis/
Happy Valentines Day! You're Fired!
This weekend won't be so happy for many former Activision Blizzard employees. Aparently Activision has seen a 4th Quarter loss of 286 million. So, as a result of the losses the company has decided to cut ties with various studios or projects. Those affected are Luxoflux (Transformers), which saw a complete shut down. Radical Entertainment and Neversoft saw up to half of their staff get cut back as well (Guitar Hero, Prototype, Tony Hawk). This is after news that Guitar Hero sales have whimpered, even though it is one game the company banks on, in addition to COD and WoW.
And why, dare you ask, did they fire so many?
" we are directing our resources against the largest and most profitable business segments, and as part of this initiative, we are realigning our resources to better reflect our slate and the market opportunities"
This sounds like they relying more heavily on Cataclysm and Starcraft 2 at this point. Starcraft 2 is going into Beta this month, and Cataclysm is slated for a 2010 release (probably early fall). However the fact that they fired so many so close to Valentine's Day seems cruel, not to mention they referred to their hard working Dev's as 'resources.' Still want to work for Blizzard? (http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/careers/) There ya go 
[Mod Edit]
Edit: No one that works on COD, Warcraft, Starcraft, or WoW is getting fired. Those mentioned in my post and in the cited articles are the ones who've been laid off.
Do not try to be a great gamer, just be a gamer. Cause, I don't care how good you are anyway.
Comments
Yeah that's pretty harsh, but it's not like it hasn't been done before with the big games house buying up the smaller ones styfling there creativity then downsizing or complete chopping them.
You'll probably see a few new company's popping up with ex-acitivision employees running them, and after a couple of big games guess who'll buy them out.
Well, zero lay-offs on Blizzard's side.
Guitar Hero gets what it deserves, 20 (yes, TWENTY) versions released since 2007, the moment it started slowing down the lay-offs would be inevitable, considerable development studio size there to keep pumpin' the releases.]
About the others, I have no idea, never purchased or kept an eye on.
If the company is loosing a quarter of a billion (with a
dollars, downsizing was most likely the right move. There's nothing cruel about it. It's simply business, and it happens. There's never a "good time" to do it when it has to be done though. However, maybe they waited until AFTER the Christmas season was over to do it. Give them the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure they saw this coming in December.
First it is Activision Blizzard.
Secondly the lay offs were indeed in the Guitar Hero department. The CEO of that division already was fired (sorry departed from Activision Blizzard) in January. His results were catastrophic to say the least, because the guitar toys just didn't sell.
The other studios were not very convincing either.
Perhaps 99% of the MMO's published .... need a Bobby Kotick.
So we wouldn't have to pay for all those duds. Seeing the state of the latest MMO games in both polishment and playing value, it is easy to understand that in the world of the blind, a one eyed man is King.
Want a real mmorpg? Play WOW with experience turned off mode and be Pve_Pvp King at any level without a rat race.
Thread title is slightly misleading, as Blizzard wasn't involved or effected by this downsizing at all.
I agree that Activision's timing could have been abit better, but they may very well have been under a deadline to make these changes, and as such this just happened to be when the deadline was reached.
Obviously just speculation on my part, but more than likely an accurate assumption.
Unfortunately these things happen. Hopefully it will focus activision's efforts onto producing solid games and away from some of the trash titles that have come out (transformers i'm looking at you). While alot of users here may be critical of business decisions like this you have to consider how long a company can run if its losing millions. Better perhaps to lose some employees now then to lose activision altogether in the future and some great titles that they have produced. (I for one enjoy the guitar hero series but the constant iterations of it are rediculous).
Wolfenpride: <--Giant fucking sword syndrome.
Probably cause im trying to compensate for miniscule manhood.
Actually, no it isn't. It's Activision Publishing, and had absolutely nothing to do with Blizzard at all.
Please take the time to read the actual articles that have been linked.
I can understand and appreciate that a huge corporation has to make tough choices, but I think they could have waited until after this week or perhaps a couple before giving the bad news. But it is also just to let everyone know what's going on with Blizzard, especially since they like to only show you mostly good news about themselves. And yeah a quarter of a billion is a lot! I have read as well that their subs for WoW might have finally leveled out, since they remain at around 11.5 million. With the Warcraft fanbase now able to kill the Lich King, and the fact that old azeroth is about to be dumbed down some more by Cataclysm it doesn't help their numbers. But who knows Cata might shoot up numbers of subs by the millions in the U.S. and Europe!
Starcraft 2 on the other hand should be box office gold.
Do not try to be a great gamer, just be a gamer. Cause, I don't care how good you are anyway.
Actually, no it isn't. It's Activision Publishing, and had absolutely nothing to do with Blizzard at all.
Please take the time to read the actual articles that have been linked.
Exactly, I am not saying that Blizzard laid off WOW staff or even any for that matter. But since they are their own publisher the argument seems moot in my opinion.
Do not try to be a great gamer, just be a gamer. Cause, I don't care how good you are anyway.
Good moves and hope the restructing benefits them and the consumers mostly. Having said that, in the real world, particulalry a capitalistic one, people are fired at any given time, regarldes of whether its a Hallmark holiday or not.
Yea they were all activisions employees many of whom worked on the many guitar hero versions. No on from blizzard was fired. Do your homework correctly next time.
First it is Activision Blizzard.
Secondly the lay offs were indeed in the Guitar Hero department. The CEO of that division already was fired (sorry departed from Activision Blizzard) in January. His results were catastrophic to say the least, because the guitar toys just didn't sell.
The other studios were not very convincing either.
Perhaps 99% of the MMO's published .... need a Bobby Kotick.
So we wouldn't have to pay for all those duds. Seeing the state of the latest MMO games in both polishment and playing value, it is easy to understand that in the world of the blind, a one eyed man is King.
It's Activision that had the lay-offs. Activision still exists, as a subsidiary of the Activision Blizzard Inc. holding (it's a holding company, not a developer or publisher). This is why I said "on Activision side", as there were zero lay-offs on the Blizzard Entertainment subsidiary.
I agree with you on the state of the latest MMOs.
Always good news when a company downsizes.
I don't see anything bad with the timing of this. I mean its Valentines day, not like its something worth meaning such as Christmas or Thanksgiving. So whats the big deal about laying people off around the "holiday"?
Seems like some of the replies here are people complaining simply for the sake of complaining. The title didn't seem to be misleading to me at all and I look at Activison/Blizard in much the same way as I would look at General Motors. They each have other divisions, whether it be different studios, or seperate car brands such as Cadalac, or Chevrolet. So if Chevrolet cut a thousand jobs I think many would still say GM cut jobs. So only fair to say the same thing when refering to Activision/Blizard.
But the title doesn't say "Activision/Blizzard" or "Activision Blizzard". It lists Blizzard first, suggesting a much stronger involvement on Blizzard Entertainment's part than what is fact.
Sensationalist, ignorant, or just a simple mistake (I personally think the latter) - I think people feel entitled to at least correct it. ;-)
Yeah, always nice to see people lose their jobs.
Activision has produced release after release of junk. They should simply fade away. I don't think there is a single Activision game out there that is actually *good*. That being said, I was totally shocked to see Activision and Blizzard together. Even though Blizzard works independently from Activision, it makes me cringe to see that cursed name "Activision-Blizzard"
<insert sad face>
This reminds me of the Square-Enix partnership of way back when. That actually made SENSE because Enix produced some of the most awesome of awesome RPGs of the time. Putting both that talent together really helped push Square into the future.
Activision ( in my opinion ) would just hold Blizzard back if they had any joint projects.
I can see them cutting losses from the GH slump, but didn't they just release MW2? I call total bullshit on them having lost money this year, and I think it's just an excuse to cut dead weight. The funds have probably been moved around to the point that nobody knows how much the publishing giant actually made this last year.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
It's never good when people lose their jobs, but it's not like it's shocking news or anything. Seems like I have been hearing for the past few months that the rhythm game market was tanking. I think the whole Rock Band/Guitar games have just run their course. I never was in to them, but it seems to me that they kind of flooded the market with them and burned everyone out on them.
I wish all of those who lost their jobs the best of luck in scoring a new gig.
They actually didn't run a loss in Q4. It appears that way because they took a 1 time write-down which turned their profit into a loss, but for the quarter they made money.
www.marketwatch.com/story/activision-beats-fourth-quarter-targets-2010-02-10
I hate to see anyone lose there jobs but when you make crap games like Transformers (Come on who the heck thought that game was even remotely worth money and time it took to develop the game. Them guys should have been fired after the releaseing that huge mess and crap of a game.)
Guitar Hero come on now. Most of the talent of that team left and formed the Rock Band team. You can only continue to take the same game engine and game and rename it / add new songs to it for so long before people get tired of it. It's like these hundreds of WoW Clone MMO's. It gets old after awhile.
Tony Hawk.. I thought that game dried up after the forgot how to improve the game after the last 4 rehashs with the same game engine and junk to it.
No I am all for people losing there jobs if they can not make a quality product. These are people that more then likely shouldn't have been in the industry to start with. I know that sounds harsh but programmers, designers, artest are a dim a dozen and anyone with a pencil and paper thinks they have what it takes to be the best in the industry. If you can't make / release a product with making / releasing then you need to find a new line of work. I am sure everyone on the teams wasn't a joke at there job. But making a game product is a TEAM effort and your only as good as your weakest link on the team. One person can make the entire team look like trash.
I say good on them for trying to keep the company a float and stopping problems for they become huge problems. I am sorry anyone had to lose there job but at the end of the day its all about the bottom line and innovating. You have to keep pushing ahead to stay ahead of the other company's. Sometime you need new / fresh talent to do that.
And all the silly fanbois thought Blizzard was raking in 100's of profit-free Millions.
There is such a thing as expenses, you know. Servers, bulidings, people, bandwidth, all cost money. Just because revenues are huge, does not mean costs are not equally on par.
Except the excerpt doesn't read anything about Blizzard. It only reads about Activision. That may have some merit if it involved Blizzard, but it doesn't. >.<
I'm not buying Cataclysm unless WoW gets guild housing and / or personal housing sorted out and implemented. I don't give two shits about the latest epic sword gear drop in a 25 man raid which I probably will never play, or the latest stuffed pet toy which has an ingame code, or the frosty crimson deathcharger mount that has an extremely low drop rate from the Lich King's sisters friends chambermaid toilet cleaner Boss.
Put in more social aspects of the game to bring you up to spec with others like RoM and LotRO, Blizz. It looks like you do need my cash after all. If Activision go down, it will knock into Blizz's accounts due to merging. They can never have enough money, it seems.