this too. it's the subtext beneath the content of this video. you can't say 'then workers should unionize!' with a straight face because it's 100% not a solution that the heads at corporate can ever allow.
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Fire Bobby Kotick (The Jimquisition)
- Thread starter lashman
- Start date
this too. it's the subtext beneath the content of this video. you can't say 'then workers should unionize!' with a straight face because it's 100% not a solution that the heads at corporate can ever allow.
A CEO making bad bets is only one part of a large screw up. Watching how Kotick shifts Activision focus will determine if he is unfit to be an executive. I think unionizing would help company culture and would provide an actual solution than wanting a gesture of "all-togetherism" from executives taking pay cuts.
Activision is a beautiful example of the neo-feudalism that capitalism in the west has unfortunately manifested; nothing happens to the people at the top, even if they are responsible. Tragedy only befalls the common worker. It's utterly despicable.
Iwata's paycut was symbolic, it didn't save a bunch of jobs. I really wish people would stop acting like it did. The brass at the top are beholden to the shareholders, they are accountable to them. If the shareholders lose faith in them, then they get the boot. Also, how do you know that other managerial staff were not part of the layoffs? Additionally, drops in share prices means less compensation for Executives, they are personally incentivized to keep the company healthy and growing. Lastly, Kotick has already faced repercussions do to the restructuring of his compensation package to better incentivize him to do better.
do you actually think unionizing is a realistic proposition, and what makes you think it is, if you do?
Only if the skillset is relevant.
If they are looking for a game developer and they let go of a community manager that doesnt have that skillset, what you said wouldn't make sense.
Why on earth havent game developers unionised yet?
They get shit on an every turn but they don't help themselves.
They get shit on an every turn but they don't help themselves.
Bobby Kotick would have to do awful for multiple years running to be fired at this point. He's built up a lot of good will with shareholders as far as I can tell, and for good reason I guess.
I don't think firing him would help any employees. They would honestly probably replace him and also still do the layoffs anyway before paying even more money to the next person. The system sucks for employees more than any one CEO
I don't think firing him would help any employees. They would honestly probably replace him and also still do the layoffs anyway before paying even more money to the next person. The system sucks for employees more than any one CEO
Does he? He maybe did, but his recent tenure and the IP state of the company have been awful. Not to mention the missed financial goals.
People coming together and voting to unionize is a realistic proposition. You do not need Kotick's blessings. You need people who want their labor rights.
Do you think executive taking a pay cut is a realistic proposition?
backseat business expert is probably more intelligent than the normal business experts, makes you think
That's a little bit rich when we're talking about the gaming industry at the end of the day
If I was a shareholder I'd trust Kotick far more than Sterling
They can, but considering they were just laid off from the company I don't think their prospects are very good. Also this is exactly what I mean when I say the company undervalues its employees. You don't lay off your employees then expect them to join in the rat race for open positions in the company immediately after, you see what resources you have and then figure out how to best reallocate them to your shifting goals. But since Activision doesn't see that value in their employees, they'd rather just cut them loose to save money in the short term.
The culture in Japan is also against layoffs. The laws make it extremely difficult to save money by doing layoffs; you basically have to bribe them to quit. Nintendo had no problems laying off a huge percentage of their staff in Korea and Europe, for instance. And this is only my assumption but I'm fairly sure they run very lean.
As far as Blizzard goes, one factor is that I'm fairly sure that it's still an in-demand place to get a job, even after what just happened. I doubt there's a shortage of talent that wants to go there.
And maybe we should try and question whether that's a good thing or not, wouldn't you agree? It's not like these rules are laws of nature, they're very much artificial principles that people have designed to fit their needs and if we decide that those needs have changed or that the rules we've come up with no longer work, then we should think about changing the rules and changing the system. And this is not just about laid off game devs or the entertainment industry, the best argument for why our current approach to capitalism is not working is climate change. That is such a great example of how short-sighted, blind and dangerous big corporations can be when all they're designed to care about is profit and there's not enough external regulation to keep them in check.
You are discussing with the assumption that Activision would not have done what would be best for business: asking people to move over to departments where they have relevant skills in.
And if people do not have relevant skills, there is not a role for them at the company.
Even companies that are unionized face lay offs when departments are hurting the business. Activision isn't acting outside of the scope of typical business practices, especially seeing how they offered severance packages and didn't screw over their employees by finding slick ways to withhold those packages.
But they are not hiring for same positions that's the point. There is no rat race.
I'm not sure why people are defending Kotick here. Sure, the guy rakes in money, but how much of that is because of him? The success of Call of Duty and the talented people working on that franchise is the main reason for all his success. Everything else is just burning trashfire.
Think of this. Spider Man has been owned by Activision for decades. Every video game featuring Spider Man was rushed out in about a year. We've always had middling Spider Man games with meh sales figures as a result (Spider Man 2 was a fluke). As soon as the license was passed off to a publisher that actually gave a shit, Marvel received one of the best reviewed and selling open world super hero games of all time.
That's just one example of the many franchises that were mishandled at Activision. Everything always had to have a quick turnaround for simple short term gain.
Think of this. Spider Man has been owned by Activision for decades. Every video game featuring Spider Man was rushed out in about a year. We've always had middling Spider Man games with meh sales figures as a result (Spider Man 2 was a fluke). As soon as the license was passed off to a publisher that actually gave a shit, Marvel received one of the best reviewed and selling open world super hero games of all time.
That's just one example of the many franchises that were mishandled at Activision. Everything always had to have a quick turnaround for simple short term gain.
They are still going to need community managers for their upcoming projects. Same goes for QA, publishing staff, etc. Plus they laid off development staff too. The only way this argument works is if they only laid off eSports staff, and then completely got out of eSports entirely. But that isn't what happened, and some of that staff could probably be transitioned to other roles.
i think executives taking a pay cut is a realistic proposition because i've seen it happen at least twice this decade in this industry. i do not think people unionizing is super realistic with how much fear is around the concept and how stigmatized it is in the us.
Sure. But if Activision wasn't solely beholden to shareholders they'd keep that workforce and invest in new titles to maintain their strong position. Companies that have enjoyed long-term success in the tech industry tend to do that. These firings will only net them short term improvements but will have long lasting negative impact on their products. My hope is that their sales figures reflect that so that they consider a change of management.
The posters point was wrong, there is laws and regulations in business that keep companies ethical, which that user doesn't seem to understand, hence why they jumped to an example of something that is completely irrelevant to business and illegal, serial killing. Cheers.
It really didn't seem like there were a ton of upcoming new projects, but that they were doubling down developers on existing projects.
There's a number of issues wrong with the video though:
- No mention of loss of Destiny franchise. Lots of People tied up in this which no longer exists.
- No mention of Blizzards output in 2019 which has support functions at Blizzard literally doing nothing.
- Mentions the industry is seeing major declines in developer jobs yet they didn't let go of developers.
- No mention of the forecasted decline in revenue of some $1b in 2019.
- Only talks revenue and rarely talks profits.
- Keeps faulting the stock market inflation on Bobby when that's a fault of speculative and irrational investors. The entire market nose dived in October of last year.
I mean the layoffs are fucking awful and no company should have to deal with them if they don't have to but videos like this are why I don't put a lot of weight in business discussion among video game enthusiasts. They don't know what the hell they are talking about. They don't understand income statements. They very rarely have ever worked in a major corporation. They don't understand stock markets. They don't understand compensation plans. He's literally just reacting to headlines of news outlets without really putting my effort into understanding the economics and story himself.
- No mention of loss of Destiny franchise. Lots of People tied up in this which no longer exists.
- No mention of Blizzards output in 2019 which has support functions at Blizzard literally doing nothing.
- Mentions the industry is seeing major declines in developer jobs yet they didn't let go of developers.
- No mention of the forecasted decline in revenue of some $1b in 2019.
- Only talks revenue and rarely talks profits.
- Keeps faulting the stock market inflation on Bobby when that's a fault of speculative and irrational investors. The entire market nose dived in October of last year.
I mean the layoffs are fucking awful and no company should have to deal with them if they don't have to but videos like this are why I don't put a lot of weight in business discussion among video game enthusiasts. They don't know what the hell they are talking about. They don't understand income statements. They very rarely have ever worked in a major corporation. They don't understand stock markets. They don't understand compensation plans. He's literally just reacting to headlines of news outlets without really putting my effort into understanding the economics and story himself.
Unionize, fire Bobby Kotick and reform laws to hold capitalist greed accountable as a criminal act. Or just delete capitalism. I'm fine with either.
Good luck with that Jim
Great post but you left out my emotions!
Great post but you left out my emotions!
You are ignoring that Activision laid off staff in the very areas they said they need to staff up in. They laid off people to save money in the short term.
They laid off development staff and High Moon, despite saying they need to ramp up development. They laid off publishing staff for Destiny, even though they could've been moved on to other projects.
The laws and regulations to keep companies ethical in this country are abysmal.
They specifically said they need to develop more games.
A union would still cover them, the entire industry should be unionized. It's not only actors that have a union in Hollywood, the techs and makeup artists and choreographers and stunt people have unions too.
Do you have any reporting that state those staff members had the skills needed for the future of those departments?
Nothing I have came across claims that Activision is trying to achieve short term gains by firing roles they need.
All of these problems are a direct result of Kotick's leadership and decisions though. They company is forecasting decline because Kotick made bad bets and misallocated development resources on projects that the company will no longer see revenue from.
A game charges $20 for a skin and gamers rage at capitalism. A company fires 800 people while paying their CEO ridiculous amounts of money, and that's just good business.
Gamers are swine as far as labor rights go. They'll bitch and moan to the skies if they can't get Darth Vader in a game without paying extra, but they shrug when people lose their jobs to feed the beast that is these corporations.
Gamers are swine as far as labor rights go. They'll bitch and moan to the skies if they can't get Darth Vader in a game without paying extra, but they shrug when people lose their jobs to feed the beast that is these corporations.
The reporting says they fired staff from High Moon studios and publishing staff that worked on Destiny. Those are roles that will be needed in the future, along with community management jobs and QA. The only things that are not a sure bet are the eSports jobs, but only because Activision may get out of eSports entirely. They are still doing Overwatch League though, and they use eSports to promote Call of Duty as well.
Rather than having studios like Raven and High Moon work only as support staff on games like Destiny and Call of Duty, they should've had them work on their own projects which could potentially drive revenue for the company. They've had success doing this with Toys for Bob and Vicarious Visions with the Spyro and Crash remakes.
True, but Blizzard did that too, i think some of the Blizzard execs deserve blame for thinking no Diablo sequel in almost a decade was a good idea & that Overwatch could keep trucking with it's 2016 profits despite the Battle Royale genre.
It's the same story though, no Blizzard execs will get fired for this, just the workers.
You guys really don't think Activision would have transitioned these employees to other divisions if they had relevant skills? It's way easier for companies to leverage exiting talent than to hire new unknown employees.
As for Kotick's responsibility, yes he is indeed responsible for making some bad bets this generation. That being said, when you're a consistently great CEO for 3 decades you definitely earn the benefit of the doubt from shareholders and management. The people getting laid off aren't being replaced with higher performance employees, their jobs are simply disappearing from the company.
As for Kotick's responsibility, yes he is indeed responsible for making some bad bets this generation. That being said, when you're a consistently great CEO for 3 decades you definitely earn the benefit of the doubt from shareholders and management. The people getting laid off aren't being replaced with higher performance employees, their jobs are simply disappearing from the company.
I think the argument against him being a decent person are less towards preference of vidya games and more towards him shitcanning hundreds of people after stating that Activision had their most successful year on record.
But hey we're all just petulant children for wanting companies to act ethically I guess.
Read more and you'd understand why those "record profits" means nothing.
You are shifting from discuss what is happening in the future and what has happened in the past. These roles are no longer existing. They are gone. Activision isn't doing anything shady for short term gains.
But they are being shitcanned because they are predicting the next year will be one of the worst ones on record.
Sure, they are also responsible, but Kotick is the leadership of the company.
Yes, because they didn't want staffing costs to go up. I think it's entirely possible that Activision cut these people loose to save money for the upcoming down year, and then will need to fill the positions after that.
What happened in the past is why they are in this situation. The employees are paying the price for Kotick's bad decisions. I find that unacceptable.
You can find it unacceptable. But this entire discussion has been you running around addressing your false claims.
Yup yup yup. I don't at all mind people on Era not being knowledgeable about business (because people have to focus on cultivating their own interests, and business, to most people, is 'boring'). What I am shocked by is an arrogant, almost fetishistic embrace of that ignorance some people here have - as though they are not only fully comfortable and cognizant of speaking where they don't know what they're talking about, but are actually better than you morally or intellectually for doing so. It is like the mirror opposite of those right-wing politicians who swear there is no climate change, and actually insist their opinion carries more weight because they are not qualified scientists.
That Activision has let go of people within roles they will need in the future for short term gains.