reinking
Gold Member
Have you heard if you are going to be impacted yet? Thoughts & Prayers.
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Microsoft is laying off 1900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees (8% cut from the Gaming Division)
- Thread starter saintjules
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- News
GHG
Gold Member
If that individual you know wasn't supportive of the merger then they have my sympathies.
However if they were supportive, history would have showed them acquisitions of this size rarely result in anything good for the company that gets swallowed up. It's well documented at this stage, hence it was *gasp* one of the concerns outlined by all of the regulatory bodies that gave this a thorough look.
Time and time again the only people that profit and benefit from these big ticket acquisitions are the executives at the top who can ride off into the sunset with big bags of cash in tow.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
The less devs the less bad gamin ideas
Banjo64
cumsessed
Very valid and hilarious point. The same people that think spending $80b on acquisitions and giving away brand new first party games for as low as Ā£7.99 is a profitable strategy now think they are masters of economics.
Varteras
Gold Member
Elog
Member
Since it is obvious from social media that these layoffs cut rather deep into the development teams (not just legal, HR duplicates etc), this is a rather weird step.
MS has failed at developing strong AAA development teams over the years. Totally failed. They acquired some really good ones with associated culture with this merger and their first shot from the hip is to cut deep into these with layoffs?
Strategically, I find this completely counterintuitive based on the communicated strategy. Maybe the rumours about going multiplatform and simply be a developer among many with profit rather than growth focus are true? If that is the case, this move makes much more sense.
MS has failed at developing strong AAA development teams over the years. Totally failed. They acquired some really good ones with associated culture with this merger and their first shot from the hip is to cut deep into these with layoffs?
Strategically, I find this completely counterintuitive based on the communicated strategy. Maybe the rumours about going multiplatform and simply be a developer among many with profit rather than growth focus are true? If that is the case, this move makes much more sense.
Salty Popsicle
Banned
I make commission for each reply I get. Thank you.Have you heard if you are going to be impacted yet? Thoughts & Prayers.
H From Steps
Member
I understand your point. But many employees have no control over such mergers, and it's primarily a decision made at higher levels. Let's refrain from demeaning the employees who are often caught in circumstances beyond their control. Also Living in a capitalistic world, expecting a different system can be considered ignorant. If you desire change, it's crucial to focus on reforming the system through voting and altering the structure. Constantly dwelling on the same issues without action can indeed become repetitive and frustrating.
Killjoy-NL
Member
This sums up MS pretty well.
Also, where is Phil Spencer?
His silence is starting to speak volumes.
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James Sawyer Ford
Gold Member
Our favorite journalist on TV talking about Microsoftās gaming division in utter chaos right now
cormack12
Gold Member
We give him a lot of shit, but we have to admit. He does have a face for radio, and a voice for the deaf school
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TheThreadsThatBindUs
Member
You don't buy a company for $70b and not pay off the worker's union leads.
Let's just say each of these 2,000 employees made $50,000 a year (which is probably extremely off-base, most of them, especially managers and higher-ups, are probably making double that), 2,000 * $50,000 = $100,000,000. 100 million dollars, and thats before healthcare costs (idk if MS charges employees for healthcare or not), bonuses, equipment costs, etc.
100 million dollars is a totally different ballpark even for a giant company than $500,000. That was my point. Those "events" and executive bonuses absolutely dwarf actual employee salaries. It only looks bad because nobody actually does the math and because of the proximity to the layoffs. But I'm not really interested in defending MS of all companies like I said before, so their poor optics are a warranted criticism.
Thats fair, but I think that also depends on your definition of "hard work". Imo flying out everywhere for clients/stockholders/other executives/regulatory bodies, constantly negotiating deals, and also providing high-level management for a massive company is absolutely hard as hell work. Especially when unlike normal salaried staff, you are likely not coming home to your wife and children every day of the week, you'd be lucky to have a few days home a week. But yes, milage does vary, completely depends on the size and complexity of the company.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
But they lost other games that generate billions upon billions in revenue such as....checks notes...Crash Bandicoot, Hexen, Heretic, Singularity....
Naw...Call of Duty is the only significant franshise from ABK. I guess you could include Warcraft/Starcraft and Diablo. Unfortunately for MS another Diablo game wont come for another 10 years or so, long after Xbox is 3rd party. Warcraft was never on Xbox or PS, so that changes nothing.
graywolf323
Member
itās just crazy to me that Microsoft didnāt actually bother to inform all those affected directly before announcing the layoffsā¦ instead theyāre freaking out after hearing the news & like Jason mentioned some find out just because suddenly their Slack account has been deactivated, sounds like a total nightmare over there and definitely feel bad for anyone effected by this BS
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JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
The sad fact is that we don't truly know how much profit Xbox made since MS hides their numbers. We can be quite sure that it isn't that profitable, it at all. If it were profitable MS would share those numbers since that is business 101. Yes, they bring in a TON of revenue from gaming, but how much of that is profit is what truly matters.
JackMcGunns
Member
While you play with your pal King Thrash, Linus and the rest of the PS shills, but at least he's getting paid for it lol.
SF Kosmo
Al Jazeera Special Reporter
This tells me they're expecting this acquistion to be less of a "limited integration" compared to their others. Like Bethesda still more or less operates their own (redundant) publishing arm, with its own PR and marketing and is fairly autonomous, I'm guessing they're looking to make large portions of Activision redundant.
Which is awful for the people working there. Some of the stories I have heard about individuals laid off are heartbreaking.
But as a business strategy I maybe understand it more, particularly when we're talking about a company with the kind of institutional dysfunction and baggage as Activision Blizzard.
Which is awful for the people working there. Some of the stories I have heard about individuals laid off are heartbreaking.
But as a business strategy I maybe understand it more, particularly when we're talking about a company with the kind of institutional dysfunction and baggage as Activision Blizzard.
SEGAvangelist
Member
PSF's speaking voice is so beautiful.
cormack12
Gold Member
Unfortunately that's probably an admin issue. They have to have a cutoff point when all accounts are disabled in batch. And in the plan there will be assumption of when that is. So it will be the comms that have wrong.
Would prob make sense if they disabled them one evening and either had a meeting first thing or send out an email in the day saying expect a message after 8pm but w/e
Would prob make sense if they disabled them one evening and either had a meeting first thing or send out an email in the day saying expect a message after 8pm but w/e
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
MS doesn't share profits by specific product line. I think they only do it at pillar level and every product line in that pillar gets lumped together into a grand total.
Apple doesn't either. In fact Apple doesn't even state profits per pillar. They only state it in two vague buckets. Products (includes all Mac, Phone, Watches etc...) and Services (which I think is downloadable stuff and warranty/repair fees).
Just because Apple and MS dont state exact profits per product doesn't mean it's not profitable.
SEGAvangelist
Member
Ybarra didn't go to Nokia. That was Stephen Elop, you're thinking about.
Dr. Samuel Hayden
Member
Why did they even fire Mattrick back then? They're pretty much sneaking back in everything he originally planned.
SEGAvangelist
Member
GHG
Gold Member
The plans never really changed. They just needed a friendlier face and a revised methodology to go along with it.
Hawking Radiation
Member
I'll take it with a grain of salt with regards to being complete chaos.
He's a journalist. He's going to try and make the story seem bigger than it really is.
SEGAvangelist
Member
I will miss feeling included.
Topher
Gold Member
rhodesianshepard
Member
Yeah, they just got to learn Japanese and move to Japan
SEGAvangelist
Member
Maybe I'll just join him?
Mibu no ookami
Member
These employees hated ABK and got fat compensation for their RSUs. Many wanted to leave anyways, but the industry is in flux in terms of hiring.
Rumor is that Sony set up a new studio under Blundell to recruit top talent from ABK. We'll see if that comes to be.
adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
GHG
Gold Member
I don't think there can be any doubt of the direction this is all heading in now.
It didn't have to be like this, they had over a decade to sort things out.
Stooky
Member
Hard work for me is hours put into a day. and the duration you are working over that 8 hr day. Ive seen artist crunch for year+, were the execs doing that? no. Periodically they fly out businsess, but not many execs are in the "trenches" The divide that i see has always been with responsibilities. i just have to do good art work which depending on the project can be hard work with long hour however I'm not responsible for 2000+ people and the overall success of the project.
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DaGwaphics
Member
Well, it probably will be for the 91% that are left. LOL
The cut backs are quite clearly an industry wide phenomenon, and something that doesn't require any kind of merger or anything like that. The economy isn't in that great of shape for industries that are purely in the discretionary category. Seems like everyone in the gaming space is bracing for the next couple years to be less than ideal for them.
GHG
Gold Member
Oh I'm sure all of this fills those remaining with so much confidence.
It's looking more and more like the person who benefitted the most from this is Kotick. The "bad guy" won, once again.
Fission Mailed.
Fredrik
Member
This is a real stinker to be honest. Would the folk at Activision Blizzard had lost their job if ABK werenāt acquired?
And Jez about retail, Xbox games going away from retail is more or less pulling the plug on Xbox as a traditional console. I knew it would happen but not this soon and not without a new generation launch. I guess they think the rumored slim is enough but thatās really not the box to do this transition on. Lots of strange moves here.
And Jez about retail, Xbox games going away from retail is more or less pulling the plug on Xbox as a traditional console. I knew it would happen but not this soon and not without a new generation launch. I guess they think the rumored slim is enough but thatās really not the box to do this transition on. Lots of strange moves here.
Blizzard is getting hit hard with this. and its not execs like some are posting on here.
Heisenberg007
Gold Journalism
lol I had totally forgot about the "unions". What a farce that was.
Killjoy-NL
Member
*snips*
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