More on Kotaku.
This news follows a report from Bloomberg in early January that Activision gave its new CFO a $15 Million bonus for coming onboard.
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Kotaku: Activision Blizzard begins massive layoffs (Offering "Comprehensive Severance Packages" to affected)
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More on Kotaku.
This news follows a report from Bloomberg in early January that Activision gave its new CFO a $15 Million bonus for coming onboard.
Let this be a lesson to us all. Support a small dev- that dev grows and hires more staff. Support a large dev- execs get multimillion dollar bonuses, your support doesn't make a dent in unrealistic shareholder expectations, and nonunion employees get fired. Any time you are torn between two games you want and have to choose, think about where your money is going and what impact it can have.
This is a gross overgeneralization. Some of the shittiest human beings I know are indie developers.
It kinda has to be that way. Sometimes people react violently when laid off. If given notice others will slack off or sabotage during their remaining time. My wife's old company laid off the IT department on a Monday (outsourced it) but had them finish out their week. Needless to say, the company's internal server and website ended up going down for several days after they left.
I believe unemployment benefits are intended to cover living expenses during the transition period.
Yeah definitely sounds crazy. Coming in for work and getting ready to start the day to boom, you're fired and you have no job just like that in a span of a few hours.
Same as any big company fighting bloat.
Developer makes some smash mega hits, gets cocky. Developer tries to follow up on mega hits with a newfound lack of budget and staffing restrictions, forgetting the scrappy attitudes that made them successful in the first place. Developer realizes they're now hemorrhaging money and need to downsize.
In this case probably very little. Activision has money but they shut down few games and divisions and they don't need that many workers for those they will keep running. All people who worked on Division marketing or e-sport division for HotS ar not needed anymore, and all other departments have their own people.
true. But generally, small companies have room to grow and tend to focus on that, while big companies tend to focus on optimizing profits. At least in my experience on earth.
Bungie wouldn't have been effected. Some of these layoffs are probably happening because of the publishing deal ending aswell.
Bungie was never in danger. They were never owned or managed by Activision Blizzard. Their relationship was through a contract and partnership that Bungie was able to cut short.
Blizzard has always had a corporate owner (it was never truly independent).
They were just unusual in that they published their games independently.
No, the goal of most small companies is to grow to become big companies. I can't count how many pitches I've heard of wanting to be the next Riot/Blizzard/Supercell/etc.
Small companies have to worry about financials even more than big companies because they're much more dependent on investment.
I mean I guess there's this rare breed of indie studio where they just want to make cool games and also they had to mortgage their house and sell their cars but at least they're independent and get to keep their integrity and maybe sell 1000 copies on Steam?
Comment from ATVI's earnings PR:
In 2019, the company will increase development investment in its biggest franchises, enabling teams to accelerate the pace and quality of content for their communities and supporting a number of new product initiatives. The number of developers working on Call of Duty, CandyCrush, Overwatch, Warcraft®, Hearthstone and Diablo® in aggregate will increase approximately 20% over the course of 2019. The company will fund this greater investment by de-prioritizing initiatives that are not meeting expectations and reducing certain non-development and administrative-related costs across the business.
In 2019, the company will increase development investment in its biggest franchises, enabling teams to accelerate the pace and quality of content for their communities and supporting a number of new product initiatives. The number of developers working on Call of Duty, CandyCrush, Overwatch, Warcraft®, Hearthstone and Diablo® in aggregate will increase approximately 20% over the course of 2019. The company will fund this greater investment by de-prioritizing initiatives that are not meeting expectations and reducing certain non-development and administrative-related costs across the business.
From the view of a stockholder, a company not growing in value is losing them money. To keep stockholders happy, Activision must grow their value by any means possible. Today, they are "growing" their value by subtracting hundreds of salaries from their expenses.
Oh, I get it, thanks. Still, I hope everyone laid off can get back on their feet as soon as possible.
It doesn't have to be that way at all. In fact it isn't that way many places around the world.
Fucking wild that the entire revenues of 3 whole publishers can be reduced to 6 IPs.
The stock is in the crapper and they need to look like they are trying.
They simply dont have the diverse lineup compared to rivals like EA or Ubisoft and its starting to show.
COD has been on the slow decline. They have no replacement in sight. Destiny was meant to be that for this generation but we saw how that went.
Letting Destiny go which is probably the smart move in the long term considering how lukewarm its sales have been, in the short term it looks bad.
Blizzard is in a transition phase. WoW is no longer the free ticket it once was. Overwatch has peaked. Diablo 4 is years away.
eSports sounded nice but in reality how does that make a company money.
All that makes the stock drop to half its value he last 6 months. Now they gotta react and do things to be looking like they are trying and trimming some fat is a quick fix for the casual investors.
OP
OP
Plus in this case it seems like they'll get severance, which is basically paying you not to come in, which I assume is what people really want when they say it's crazy to lay you off without notice.
Game Dev Jobs
"Meanwhile, in a press release to investors this afternoon, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick wrote: "While our financial results for 2018 were the best in our history, we didn't realize our full potential. To help us reach our full potential, we have made a number of important leadership changes. These changes should enable us to achieve the many opportunities our industry affords us, especially with our powerful owned franchises, our strong commercial capabilities, our direct digital connections to hundreds of millions of players, and our extraordinarily talented employees."
Disgusting
Disgusting
"The number of developers working on Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Overwatch, Warcraft, Hearthstone and Diablo in aggregate will increase approximately 20% over the course of 2019".
So the key phrase is "in aggregate", right? Meaning that the 20% increase is across all franchises, not each franchise. So some some franchises, theoretically, may be getting no boost, while others could be getting a significant boost in terms of resources.
So the key phrase is "in aggregate", right? Meaning that the 20% increase is across all franchises, not each franchise. So some some franchises, theoretically, may be getting no boost, while others could be getting a significant boost in terms of resources.