Approximately 600 employees of Blizzard have been fired by the company. Blizzard says it anticipates approximately 90% of the affected employees will come from departments not related to game development. The World of Warcraft development team will not be impacted. Blizzard's release schedule won't be affected either.
"Steve, I thought Blizzard was making a crap-ton of money. What gives?" you may be asking. Well, the video game business is a little more complicated than that. Here's how Blizz explains the firings:
"Constant evaluation of teams and processes is necessary for the long-term health of any business. Over the last several years, we've grown our organization tremendously and made large investments in our infrastructure in order to better serve our global community. However, as Blizzard and the industry have evolved we've also had to make some difficult decisions in order to address the changing needs of our company," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "Knowing that, it still does not make letting go of some of our team members any easier. We're grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the people impacted by today's announcement, we're proud of the contributions they made here at Blizzard, and we wish them well as they move forward."
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DaBigFatCow
Perhaps the parent company of ActivisionBlizzard, which is Vivendi, has decided to merge Blizzard into Activision and these 600 people would become redundant. That or the current people at Activision will fill those 600 jobs instead of Blizzard having their own dedicated team. That s only my best guess as to why these 600 people were let go.
RenegadeB03
i always like how they say "move forward" these companies would rather fire someone then retain and retrain good workers they already hired. If I was working for a company that I liked and my job position was no longer needed. i'd rather change over to sweeping the floors and taking out the garbage then doing nothing. im currently unemployed so i feel for all those people and families. 600 people got layed off, that means at least over 1000 lives were just changed by this company's lack of planning. way to go blizzard. sincerly, former wow player who cant afford to play your game because im layed off too
crocodilius
i didnt ask any questions steve.
Blizzard was done with their services and
gave them severence packs.
DrowNoble
So I'm sure this had nothing to do with WoW losing 1.8 million subs in less than a year, lackluster response to WoW's expansion or the fact that Diablo 3 is STILL not out.
So instead of the big wigs actually doing some work or taking a pay cut from their salaries, they sack 600 hourly workers. Yeah this will surely help Blizzard get some work done now.
/facepalm
thejman85
basically you don't make the game get the f@@# out in a mean way
Bitshift3r
The longer you wait to put out Diablo 3, the longer it's not making you money. It's the company's own fault, and they should take the hit, not their employees.
BobitoZ
Couldn't they have just reduced salary?
It seems like such a dick move to straight up fire people.
It's not easy to find a new job right now, even with the best qualifications.
CareyGrant
600 people? Are they farming all their non-essential labor overseas to India, Asia or South America?
Capitalism: Taking Care of Shareholders is Job #1!
600 people got the axe so they could reduce salary (a huge drain on the budget) and keep profits high, and those stock prices up.
What this also tells me is that either A) WoW took a bigger hit from SWTOR than they've admitted publicly, or they're bleeding WoW subscribers in a significant amount; and or B) Blizzard is about to take a big financial hit/loss from something in the very near future, hence the pre-emptive lay offs.
I'm sad that 600 people are losing their jobs, but maybe this will force Blizzard to stop taking a decade to release every new title, which is far too long for the games they build and design. Nothing about SC2 or Diablo 3 needed to take anywhere near that long, but they had no pressure to get them finished with their fat WoW checks every month.
Freakcase
The dirty truth is Blizzard used to get a ton of subsidies from the government under the pursuit of art and the expansion of technology clauses in the Constitution coupled with the idea of Pay it Forward.
Now that Blizzard is clearly making far too much money, the government is cutting Activision Blizzard off and then they turn around and fire people.
I'm sorry, the idea of pay it forward is to help get you started,not help get you started and also give you money to keep jobs you would otherwise get rid of. Not to mention, I think 25 years is a little too long to get those subsidies :-\.
Shuklar
Not surprising when they make desperate sales tactics like the Diablo III free for subscribing to the pile of crap that WoW for a year.
xplayfan1500
Sounds like outsourcing to me. More and more companies are turning to other outlets for some jobs. Like Alpine Access which promises to take over your customer service. They then hire people to work at home, and can charge their clinets less. So now maybe when you call with a problem in WOW, you'll talk to someone sitting on their couch, or someone in India. Who knows?
lowkevmic
Basically, if you don't help make the games, then they have no use for you.
"Constant evaluation of teams and processes is necessary for the long-term health of any business."-
which pretty much translate into, we went over the books, and way too many people are getting payed to do nothing. It was all good when WoW was at it's peak, but now we need to start trimming the fat.
Which is sad, but at the same time, that's the nature of business. But they'll be fine, to have a comapny like Blizzard on your resume is pretty much a ticket into any gaming studio that's hiring Adminstrative Assistants...
JowyBlight
It isn't just that new MMOs are taking away some of the people from WoW but WoW is getting old and dull and for many it is just time to move on even if it is not to another MMO. Lots of people are looking for co-op games and the best thing about those is you don't have to put out 14.99 a month.
FelixTheCatt
This , coupled with the recent news of subscriptions being down make me wonder whats up with Blizz on the horizon. Eeryone claims that SWTOR hasn't hurt WoW but i'm beginning to wonder if this is just fanboys looking through rose-colored glasses.
I've seen the exodus whenever a new "WoW killer" is released , but things aren't looking too good at the moment at all. Coincidence?
sarid
"90% of the affected employees will come from departments not related to game development. The World of Warcraft development team will not be impacted"
well thats good but were any of the balance team fired? because those people deserve to be out of a job with their constant FotM ideals of balance
"Blizzard's release schedule won't be affected either."
they had one?
vaajtswv
I hear Bobby Kotick needed to build an extra room in his NY penthouse for his parrotkeet.
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