
Activision Blizzard Begins Massive Layoffs - endofcapital
https://kotaku.com/activision-blizzard-begins-massive-layoffs-1832571288
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AlexandrB
A strong example of corporate double-speak:

> 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.”

We did great! But we can do better with the help of our "extraordinarily
talented employees"! Many of whom we are laying off!

~~~
falcolas
Pure speculation: Given their doubling down in the Asian market by partnering
with NetEase, I imagine that a lot of jobs (or that money) is going off shore
to fund development, marketing, and sales there.

~~~
TheGRS
Expansion of contract employees as well I'm sure. Which is pretty common in
the gaming industry as far as I can tell.

TBF that makes sense for a lot of gaming projects. Its tough to keep an FTE
artist when all the art for a project is completed, but it doesn't really make
for a great environment for talent.

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falcolas
In an time where Activision/Blizzard is making billions (with a "B") of
dollars of profits annually, layoffs seem a bit out of place.

~~~
beerlord
In every large company there are always excess personnel, or departments or
individuals who are not performing. I'm sure there are other large companies
that semi-regularly fire a single digit % of their workforce, but because they
are not games companies it doesn't hit the news.

The redundancies are mostly in 'publishing and esports', by the way.

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SpaceManNabs
I remember being in middle school when Blizzard mentioned they were being
bought by Activision on the Warcraft III strategy website
([http://classic.battle.net/war3/](http://classic.battle.net/war3/)). There
was some mention of Vivendi, and I had no idea what it meant; I was an idiot
and knew no economics, but it was clear from the wording of this announcement
that WCIII and other RTS games would not be their focus. Then WoW staganation
came, and blizzard pretty much gave up on SCII (see 2012) and on Diablo III
(various things).

It has been interesting seeing Blizzard slowly become a shell of its former
self.

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NovaS1X
It's unfortunate, as Blizzard used to be one of my most respected companies as
some of the core attributes to their games was their high degree of polish
unseen in many other developers.

Now it's increasingly being eaten by micro-transactions and riding popular
franchises.

~~~
TheGRS
Looking back though, they might have made the right choice. So many respected
PC gaming shops either closed or were consumed, chewed up and spit out. To
name a few off the top of my head: Westwood Studios, Black Isle Studios,
Looking Glass Studios, Rare. Making games is just excruciatingly hard and
really tough to make into a consistent business model. Blizzard positioned
themselves pretty well all things considered, but one can't help thinking the
quality of their games might be at another level if they stayed away from
Activision. But on the other hand Activision might have kept them alive. Let's
not forget Blizzard put a lot of time into some big IPs that never even saw
the light of day (Starcraft: Ghost and Titan).

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sctb
Previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135559](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19135559).

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yasp
Is it just my imagination or has there been a major uptick in layoffs lately?

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wvenable
The next recession is on its way.

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mschuster91
While the warning signs are definitely there for a new recession (especially
Brexit, the whole Trump vs China fiasco and China's own economical problems),
the recent layoff wave that GP alludes to was rather certain "new media"
outlets discovering that their business model was not as profitable as
thought.

The Activision Blizzard case here is just short-sighted corporate greed. "Best
financial results in history" but the bonus coffers of the C-level executives
are not filled enough it seems.

~~~
fenwick67
GM had some big layoffs recently as well.

~~~
mschuster91
I definitely count this one as Trump-caused and not by natural economic
causes, though.

~~~
TheGRS
Steel tariffs will probably have some pretty wide-ranging effects that I don't
think we've totally seen yet.

~~~
mschuster91
Sure but they're the first thing I expect a Democrat-led government
overturning in 2020.

The only thing saving us from an all-out (trade) war is that international
leaders are wise enough to see Trump as a temporary disturbance which has to
be endured for only one and a half more years until sanity takes place in the
US government again.

~~~
TheGRS
I would put money on that bet as well, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't
speak up about the long-term ramifications of these tariffs still.

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stunt
They lost the battle to create a successful Battle Royale!

Epic is making more money with Fortnite alone!

And the new game (Apex Legendary) had a successful start as well which is
created by people behind the old Call Of Duty series!

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shroom
Feels like Activision is keeping Blizzard from making content. Content that
players would gladly pay for.

Hope they atleast get to keep their phones... shame really I assume they don’t
fire the management first...

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methodover
Only esports and “publishing” is going to be cut from Blizzard, supposedly.
I’m not sure what publishing means precisely. Game development isn’t being
cut, I believe.

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Simulacra
How often is this occurring? I feel like we've been seeing lots of massive
game companies releasing big titles, reaping huge profits, and then they
fizzle and start laying people off.

