They fired 800 of them while posting profits in billions.
Awesome company
For as much insight into game development as you bring to the table, you utterly lack insight into the economics and business of things.
If the company (or the CEO) decides to take the company in another direction, as in adapting, shifting business strategy, planning to put resources in other places, then that is what they do and they let employees that were doing the now defunct jobs go. Whether they make billions in profit or billions in losses, it doesn't matter.
I'm sure there were managers saying, I can keep x, y, and z employee for another job because they have unique skills and i'll let the now obsolete people go.
It's called good lean business management. It has nothing to do with profit, CEO salary, CEO bonus, etc. The company went in a different direction, employees doing a specific job are now obsolete.
You get rid of it. That's just what you do. If he kept them on for whatever reason, that would be very bad business.
It's sort of like, you have 2 horses for horse riding, you no longer go horse riding, but you got a new job with double your income and you can easily afford the now useless horses, but you get rid of them instead of keeping them. That's justified right . . . businesses doing the same thing.
It is an awesome company (at making money). . . because if i was on their board of directors and they did something as stupid as keeping 800 now obsolete employees, that don't bring in the value that they need, then I'd look into getting a new CEO.
Pro-tip: If you're an employee, it is in your best interest to make yourself unique or to keep adding unique skills to your resume so you can be versatile and survive these types of things.
*it's a great headline to say company makes billions in profits and lays off 800 employees while CEO gets a huge bonus. But I guarantee you in the framework of a business it makes total sense.
**I dislike blizzard (a little bit) only because they are unoriginal as hell. Their games are bloody amazing though.
Catch me streaming at twitch.tv/cryomatrix You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Seeing how all of it is purely optional (which it will be) where is the problem? Look at D3, look how many years D3 needed online play. Money has to roll in somehow. Without a monthly fee, your asking them to take on the weight of years for maintence/fixes/updates without an income to support it? Oh, but they can sell us xpacs, um, those xpacs will pay for the team/company to produce that dlc and a little flavour left over for them.
Dont use the "Its blizzard they have money" excuse, thats unfair, there a bussiness and need to have a good bottom line or there is no D4, or a D5. Whine all you want, if this OPTIONAL thing keeps the doors open, by all means, do it.
People often don't realize how much they spend on uTX. 5$ here, 10$ there, 2x3$ somewhere...and you end up spending above 100$ on a SINGLE game.
Just a notice.
Over $1,000 on League of Legends back in Season 1 & 2 when it was actually a good game. Just from buying the new character skin bundles.
Then I quit the game forever when the game became stagnant. Every match was jungler, tank top, mage mid, support & carry bottom. So fucking boring and repetitive.
People often don't realize how much they spend on uTX. 5$ here, 10$ there, 2x3$ somewhere...and you end up spending above 100$ on a SINGLE game.
Just a notice.
You might spend 100$ for a game and get 1000 hours of play from it and also you can pay 25$ and get only an hour or two of good play from it which is better
The value of a game isn't just in hours played, and that attitude does a diservice to the industry.
I beat Bastion in one night. But I still have fond memories and it still made me cry my eyes out on a certain brilliantly interactive story choice on the final level. Money well spent.
People often don't realize how much they spend on uTX. 5$ here, 10$ there, 2x3$ somewhere...and you end up spending above 100$ on a SINGLE game.
Just a notice.
You might spend 100$ for a game and get 1000 hours of play from it and also you can pay 25$ and get only an hour or two of good play from it which is better
The value of a game isn't just in hours played, and that attitude does a diservice to the industry.
I beat Bastion in one night. But I still have fond memories and it still made me cry my eyes out on a certain brilliantly interactive story choice on the final level. Money well spent.
Bastion costs 12$ would feel the same if you had paid full AAA price for it (60$)
Bastion didn't release at full AAA price, so that isn't a relevant question. I wouldn't pay $60 for any indie game, regardless of length.
But in the vein of similar story-driven linear experiences, God of War 2018 and The Last of Us did release at full price and I most certainly feel those were worth their price on the emotional experience alone (and I didn't even like The Last of Us that much as a game).
I didn't really care that Diablo 3 had a real-money AH and I don't really care that Diablo 4 will have microtransactions. I have never once felt compelled to pay for an in-game purchase of any kind, nor do I get worked up that I may be gaining experience a bit slower or getting worse loot than I would otherwise if a game didn't include MTX.
Gamers used to [have their parents] pay $50 for a 70 minute game that required repetition to the point of muscle memory if you ever wanted to see the last 30 minutes, then would go on to hail the game as a masterpiece and cornerstone of their childhood. Now gamers pay $60 (but usually less) for a game, play it 3 hours a night for 4 months, then spend the next 5 years trashing it online because it got boring after 400 hours.
Diablo 3, hello? We got big free updates and we still get, for FREE. They should of enable MTX on D3 if you're asking me a long time ago. Of course, just cosmetics.
So before jumping on the hate train, just .. have a bit of common sense. You will not see any form of "boosts" in D4 that's for sure and I see no problem if they sell weapon/armor skins, mount skins, etc. If they keep the same agenda as with D3, damn, let them sell whatever cosmetics they want as long as free updates are plenty with big paid x-pacs like RoS.
I mean, if you see WoW mounts/pets shop as something which stops you for playing the game, then yea, ignore D4 and move on.
the more everyone enables these companies to monetize the worse the games will get not just in terms of being nickel and dimed but also in terms of quality were already seeing it, breakpoint is a great example the quality of the title is really bad but the monetization is fully realized. Companies will always try to make the cheapest product that produces the most return on investment, by supporting in game MTX whether cosmetic or not only further encourages this behavior, personally these companies need to go back to making quality games and once they prove themselves then sure add in some well earned cosmetic mtx's its backwards now they make a mtx system tack on a barebones alpha build of a game onto it and charge you for the displeasure of enduring it.
Diablo 3, hello? We got big free updates and we still get, for FREE. They should of enable MTX on D3 if you're asking me a long time ago. Of course, just cosmetics.
So before jumping on the hate train, just .. have a bit of common sense. You will not see any form of "boosts" in D4 that's for sure and I see no problem if they sell weapon/armor skins, mount skins, etc. If they keep the same agenda as with D3, damn, let them sell whatever cosmetics they want as long as free updates are plenty with big paid x-pacs like RoS.
I mean, if you see WoW mounts/pets shop as something which stops you for playing the game, then yea, ignore D4 and move on.
Wow, you really like to White Knight hard for Blizzard. Is that cool thing Edge Lords do these days?
So, if I don't jump on the Blizzard hate train, I'm a White Knight? Well, sorry for not joining the "Hate Guild" extravagantza. Call me White Knight, I'm good. A lot better then to have a "crystal ball" to say the dark future of D4.
I think rather is the way you try and single out anyone that isn't kissing Blizzards arse. You ever consider that not liking something and saying so doesn't make you a hater any more than your stringent defense of corp america make you a blizzard white knight or shill.
I myself don't think you are "white knighting" blizzard but rather you are white knighting corporate america and some of what I feel is shoddy practices.
You seem to really get up in arms about certain things, in my case you seem to take some kind of great exception to the fact I really dislike this whole trend of "always online" games that really should be offline with some optional mulitiplayer.
You seem to take great exception to how I feel games as a service, and forcing always online, so they can force MTX on people is not a great direction for gaming especially when they start to want to encroach on single player type games to the detriment of the game overall and the ability to mod games.
Take Failout 76 and their shitty attempt at allowing "private" servers instead of doing it the tried and true old fashion way that works just fine.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Microtransactions for a game that should take them 6 months tops to make.Why would there be a cash shop in a arpg anyhow,it is not like the game has layers of content or even any rpg elements,it is a SIMPLE,VERY simple game design that in reality 3-5 people could make.
"Honest games"Well sir,the game industry is no longer about gaming,it is about ways to MARKET shallow products.There is an angle all about money in every game release with very little care going in to the thought of designing the BEST possible version of a game.
I can look at ANY Blizzard game,pick one,pick ANY of them,they all lack some very basic fundamentals and severely lack effort.So you should be asking WHY are people supporting a cheap developer,well there lies a huge problem in society,popularity is supported over quality.
Ask yourself what mmorpg makes or has made the most money?Then ask WHY that game doesn't even have housing?They don't need to add it in,people will pay for whatever shallow product they sell.Ask why D1>D3 actually got worse?No nee to improve,peopel will buy whatever they sell.Ask why Hearthstone still doesn't have a multiplayer design,like 2 versus 2 or even a tournament UI>>LAZY and no pressure to do a better job.
This goes on and on throughout Blizzard,spend less,charge more,marketing over game improvements.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
If it's just cosmetics, like Path of Exile, then fine....if not, oh well, another Blizzard scam.
The difference with PoE is that PoE is free though.
Knowing Blizzard this will be a $60 game, with an optional Collector's Edition for $100 or something.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
I love the people defending the mtx. The game isn't coming out for a few years yet they already know they will have mtx. Not like this is a real shocker since it is >>>Activision<<<-Blizzard after all but it has to tell you something about the game's development.
This is very disappointing for me. Even though I am not very excited about Diablo 4, I wanted to do at least one hardcore playthrough as I have always been a big fan of the Diablo franchise (mainly D2 LoD).
Micro-transactions just ruin the games for me. I cannot really get immersed in a game where ingame assets are sold for real cash...cosmetics or otherwise.
I would be willing to pay extra 40 bucks for the game if I could play on a server with no cash shop, but this will not be an option.
And you're worried about the uTX influence on Hardcore, bzt with Always Online's impact? You sure those disconnects, desyncs etc don't bother you?
Not nearly as much as the MTX. I have played HC also in D3 and I have never died because of lags / DCs.
Same. I play as much HC in D3 as I do regular and I've never had a death due to DCs. My deaths are all related to jacking up the difficulty too much or too soon
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Comments
For as much insight into game development as you bring to the table, you utterly lack insight into the economics and business of things.
If the company (or the CEO) decides to take the company in another direction, as in adapting, shifting business strategy, planning to put resources in other places, then that is what they do and they let employees that were doing the now defunct jobs go. Whether they make billions in profit or billions in losses, it doesn't matter.
I'm sure there were managers saying, I can keep x, y, and z employee for another job because they have unique skills and i'll let the now obsolete people go.
It's called good lean business management. It has nothing to do with profit, CEO salary, CEO bonus, etc. The company went in a different direction, employees doing a specific job are now obsolete.
You get rid of it. That's just what you do. If he kept them on for whatever reason, that would be very bad business.
It's sort of like, you have 2 horses for horse riding, you no longer go horse riding, but you got a new job with double your income and you can easily afford the now useless horses, but you get rid of them instead of keeping them. That's justified right . . . businesses doing the same thing.
It is an awesome company (at making money). . . because if i was on their board of directors and they did something as stupid as keeping 800 now obsolete employees, that don't bring in the value that they need, then I'd look into getting a new CEO.
Pro-tip: If you're an employee, it is in your best interest to make yourself unique or to keep adding unique skills to your resume so you can be versatile and survive these types of things.
*it's a great headline to say company makes billions in profits and lays off 800 employees while CEO gets a huge bonus. But I guarantee you in the framework of a business it makes total sense.
**I dislike blizzard (a little bit) only because they are unoriginal as hell. Their games are bloody amazing though.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Dont use the "Its blizzard they have money" excuse, thats unfair, there a bussiness and need to have a good bottom line or there is no D4, or a D5. Whine all you want, if this OPTIONAL thing keeps the doors open, by all means, do it.
Then I quit the game forever when the game became stagnant. Every match was jungler, tank top, mage mid, support & carry bottom. So fucking boring and repetitive.
I beat Bastion in one night. But I still have fond memories and it still made me cry my eyes out on a certain brilliantly interactive story choice on the final level. Money well spent.
I mean, as long as D4 is f2p, then sure
But in the vein of similar story-driven linear experiences, God of War 2018 and The Last of Us did release at full price and I most certainly feel those were worth their price on the emotional experience alone (and I didn't even like The Last of Us that much as a game).
Gamers used to [have their parents] pay $50 for a 70 minute game that required repetition to the point of muscle memory if you ever wanted to see the last 30 minutes, then would go on to hail the game as a masterpiece and cornerstone of their childhood. Now gamers pay $60 (but usually less) for a game, play it 3 hours a night for 4 months, then spend the next 5 years trashing it online because it got boring after 400 hours.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
"Honest games"Well sir,the game industry is no longer about gaming,it is about ways to MARKET shallow products.There is an angle all about money in every game release with very little care going in to the thought of designing the BEST possible version of a game.
I can look at ANY Blizzard game,pick one,pick ANY of them,they all lack some very basic fundamentals and severely lack effort.So you should be asking WHY are people supporting a cheap developer,well there lies a huge problem in society,popularity is supported over quality.
Ask yourself what mmorpg makes or has made the most money?Then ask WHY that game doesn't even have housing?They don't need to add it in,people will pay for whatever shallow product they sell.Ask why D1>D3 actually got worse?No nee to improve,peopel will buy whatever they sell.Ask why Hearthstone still doesn't have a multiplayer design,like 2 versus 2 or even a tournament UI>>LAZY and no pressure to do a better job.
This goes on and on throughout Blizzard,spend less,charge more,marketing over game improvements.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Knowing Blizzard this will be a $60 game, with an optional Collector's Edition for $100 or something.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED