Massive layoffs at Activision-Blizzard

[Blutwurstritter]

You can't just fire someone as easily there as you can in the US.

No, but you can make them work from the toilet on a 1996 laptop until they quit.

Not if they get some positive reinforcement.

 

[frajaq]

devs are literally dying out there, and you're all laughing?

 

[Artyoan]

devs are literally dying out there, and you're all laughing?

Edit: She deleted it. Didn't take a screenshot but she admitted she was just angry that DEI policies let her go since she was the only token woman in her division.

 

[Hobknobling]

devs are literally dying out there, and you're all laughing?

A short look into her posts reveals that her(?) favorite past-times are badmouthing her employer and co-workers plus of course telling everyone that she has massive meltdowns every week. Apparently she has around seven different disabilities ranging from "fibromyalgia" to "postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome".

I simply cannot fathom how FUCKING DUMB AND ENTITLED you have to be to think that it is a good idea to post this shit on the Internet under your own name. This is what someone who has never had to face any difficulties in their life acts like.

 

[ferratilis]

"Token woman." She kinda admitted that's the only reason she got the job in the first place.

 

[Artyoan]

"Token woman." She kinda admitted that's the only reason she got the job in the first place.

DEI is a jobs program for (usually) children from wealthy families who would never get a good paying job on merit. It took off because standards and measurements are dropped in favor of simply being a token. It is a good sign that such people are being trimmed away. Credit to her for acknowledging her tokenism. But any sane person would like their businesses to still be functional.

Twitter trimming most of its workforce and still working is an example of just how fat the parasites have gotten.

 

[Cologno]

Compare this with Japanese work culture, where they take more care of employees' welfare.

Lol. Lmao.

Would you care to elaborate?

Workers in Japan are treated horribly. They aren't fired, but they are mistreated to the point of quitting. And the social-work life culture is such that whenever the boss decides he wants to go out to drink, you MUST go with him. And be at the office tomorrow at 6 in the morning, wagey.

Not anymore. Corona took a bastard sword to much of that and it's looking like the younger generations aren't too interested in doing it either.

 

[Nutmeg]

the younger generations

What younger generations? Japan's average is 50.

 

[9ted6]

What does this mean for Overwatch 3?

 

[Cologno]

the younger generations

What younger generations? Japan's average is 50.

So? Wasn't the point.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Lmao at modelling your work culture, especially office based one on Japan

My University friends work in Japan and no, in office it doesn't change much. You will still go home way past 7 pm everyday.

Shift based blue collar labour is the good one in Japan. They are very disciplined with work hour and OSHA in general

 

[Cologno]

Lmao at modelling your work culture, especially office based one on Japan

My University friends work in Japan and no, in office it doesn't change much. You will still go home way past 7 pm everyday.

Shift based blue collar labour is the good one in Japan. They are very disciplined with work hour and OSHA in general

Lol, they're fortunate. The last few years its not unusual to stay in office until 9, 10. Work-at-home was floated around when the Americans did it, but for a variety of reasons it got stomped.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Way past 7pm = you are going home much more later than 7pm, not sure if its my English or smth

So yeah they are still going home at 9pmish

 

[Cologno]

Oh no, I got ya the first time, bro. Just emphasizing I get their pain.

 

[whydoibother]

the younger generations

What younger generations? Japan's average is 50.

Maybe this will recreate the labour shortages of the Black Death in Europe, which improved working conditions for the now more in demand peasants, and led to the abolition of serfdom.
Also made it economically viable to purchase labourers from Africa as slaves, which Japan will soon start doing and import Pajeets.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

import Pajeets

They are opening a lot of opening for manual labour for Philliphine and Indonesia in the past 2 3 years

 

[Cologno]

the younger generations

What younger generations? Japan's average is 50.

Maybe this will recreate the labour shortages of the Black Death in Europe, which improved working conditions for the now more in demand peasants, and led to the abolition of serfdom.
Also made it economically viable to purchase labourers from Africa as slaves, which Japan will soon start doing and import Pajeets.

Dunno about all that, but they've been quietly letting in Arabs, or maybe Persians, can't tell some times, as well other people's from the former third world. There is also a noticeable uptick in Africans. I can tell you from my own anecdotal experience with shipping product the trucking industry in Japan is getting more diverse.

import Pajeets

They are opening a lot of opening for manual labour for Philliphine and Indonesia in the past 2 3 years

Hospitality and restaurants, too. It's not the same Japan as 20 years ago.

 

[Nutmeg]

Yeah I visited Tokyo 2019 and then again 2023. It's becoming like any other new world cosmopolitan city. Melting pot of everything and everyone.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

"Microsoft fired a bunch of people so they can off shore all their support the same way Amazon does" Fantastic. Even more pajeets shitting in the streets.

I don't see the danger hairs being the ones getting the chopping block. They're the ones fucking the managers and they're going to get picked over autistic code monkeys no one remembers.

 

[Infinitron]

Nah, programmers in gamedev will always be the last to be fired. The code monkeys have good job security because they're in a field that underpays compared to what they could get elsewhere.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Burn all the company down, including the code monkeys. Fuck it.

 

[Fedora Master]

Good riddance and I hope none of these people stay in the industry.

 

[Tavar]

Lmao at modelling your work culture, especially office based one on Japan

My University friends work in Japan and no, in office it doesn't change much. You will still go home way past 7 pm everyday.

Shift based blue collar labour is the good one in Japan. They are very disciplined with work hour and OSHA in general

Yeah, seems like a great role model for other nations.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-blizzard-game-after-six-years-of-development

Microsoft Cancels New Blizzard Video Game After Six Years of Development​

The long-in-the-works title Odyssey is a casualty amid broader cuts

Video-game maker Blizzard Entertainment canceled one of its biggest projects on Thursday as part of a reorganization under new owner Microsoft Corp. that led to mass layoffs of 1,900 people, or 8% of the gaming division’s total staff. The cancelation of the game, codenamed Odyssey, left Blizzard employees reeling as some lost their jobs and others were left wondering about the future of the studio.

Microsoft announced the news in an email to employees early Thursday morning, and many members of the Odyssey team were subsequently informed that they were being let go. The news arrived three months after Microsoft closed the $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in the largest video-game deal in history.

As part of the reorganization, Blizzard also parted ways with President Mike Ybarra and Chief Design Officer Allen Adham, one of the company’s co-founders. Blizzard said its new president will be announced next week.

The maker of many hit games, including World of Warcraft and Diablo IV, has mostly focused on its large, existing franchises. But in recent years, the company made a big investment in Odyssey, building up a team of more than 100 people to develop it. The game, set in a new universe, was in development for more than six years and outlasted many other Blizzard incubation projects. Now, the future of such efforts outside of existing franchises is uncertain.

In a statement, Blizzard spokesman Andrew Reynolds said the game’s development had ended “as part of a focus on projects that hold the most promise for future growth” and that the company would “move some of the people on the team to one of several exciting new projects Blizzard has in the early stages of development.”

Odyssey started in 2017 as a pitch from Craig Amai, a Blizzard veteran who worked on World of Warcraft. It was conceived as a survival game, like Minecraft and Rust, but with more polish and fewer bugs. In subsequent years, the team working on the game expanded, and it was announced publicly in 2022 as the company began hiring more staff.

Despite the additional resources, the project struggled largely due to technical issues surrounding the engine, or the suite of tools and technology that developers use to construct a game, according to people familiar with the process. Odyssey was originally prototyped on the popular Unreal Engine, from Epic Games Inc., but Blizzard executives decided to switch, in part, because it wouldn’t support their ambitions for vast maps supporting up to 100 players at once.

Blizzard instead directed the Odyssey team to use Synapse, an internal engine that the company had originally developed for mobile games and envisioned as something that would be shared across many of its projects. But that led to significant problems as the technology was slow to coalesce, and Odyssey’s artists instead spent time prototyping content in the Unreal Engine that they knew would have to be discarded later, said the people.

When the Microsoft acquisition was finalized, some Blizzard staff were hopeful that they might be able to switch back to Unreal Engine rather than trying to finish the game on Synapse. In an interview at BlizzCon in November, Ybarra said that their new parent company would offer them the freedom to use the technology of their choice without having to go through the board of directors as in the past.

“The tech leaders will decide what the engines are,” he said.

Despite the challenges, Odyssey appeared to be making progress. People who played early versions of the game enjoyed it and thought there was a lot of potential in the market for a survival game that hit Blizzard’s bar for quality. Still, Odyssey was years away from completion. At one point, Blizzard was looking to expand the team to hundreds of people in hopes of targeting a 2026 release, but even that seemed overly optimistic to some developers.

Instead, the project was canceled as the company concluded that Synapse was not ready for production.

“As difficult as making these decisions are, experimentation and risk taking are part of Blizzard’s history and the creative process,” spokesman Reynolds said. “Ideas make their way into other games or in some cases become games of their own. Starting something completely new is among the hardest things to do in gaming, and we’re immensely grateful to all of the talented people who supported the project.”

 

[Haba]

Hnnnnng