Kamasutra's article from 2009 says that there are 4 600 employees at Blizzard, so they'd be cutting 13% of their workers.

lol losing top dog status?  Uh, yeah come back when they are below 3 mil ten years from now, or if some other game manages to get above 5 mil in a few years.

The question has never been whether or not WoW would last forever, but whether or not the mmo genre would survive WoW. 

I hate hearing about anyone losing their job, let alone 600 people.   It's a tough market out here now. You can have 25 people to compete against for any given job interview.

Cutting their CS staff it seems. A shame since that is what mainly a subscription is good for. I wonder if they will outsource their CS now like some other companies do.

Understandable they might do a bit of belt tightening with fewer new titles on the horizon, revenues flat or perhaps even down a bit, they can always bring back more CS help once things pick up again.

I wonder if Morhaime's $16.5M compensation package will be reduced as well?  Or does he and other uppity-mucks just want to keep preserve their bonuses at the expense of 600 other people?  Is this all about EBITA or are these jobs really just "redundant"?  Finances of companies should be much more transparent than they currently are.  I'd pick and choose which companies to support based not only on the quality of their products but the quality of life of their employees as well.

The times they are a changin.

This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Did it?!

I do feel for the ones with their heads on the chopping block though. 

Originally posted by Gudrunix

Originally posted by teakbois

. . .   but why cut the jobs? 

. . .   Its not like Blizzard is hurting for money.

As for the money:  it's gone.  Companies may keep some money sitting around, but most pay out their income to their shareholders.  Activision didn't buy Blizzard so that Blizzard could just sit on all the money they were making.

 

edit: read your post incorrectly and this god damn forum's formatting doesn't allow me to remove your quote and it's child quote

It really puts things into perspective that Blizzard can cut 600 employees and still remain one of the largest developers.

Their milking cow WoW is 7 years old. Nothing lasts forever. Diablo will net them a lot of new income but if they want to remain the giant behemoth and grow again in the future their hope lies in Titan.

Originally posted by uohaloran

Originally posted by Gudrunix

Originally posted by teakbois

. . .   but why cut the jobs? 

. . .   Its not like Blizzard is hurting for money.

As for the money:  it's gone.  Companies may keep some money sitting around, but most pay out their income to their shareholders.  Activision didn't buy Blizzard so that Blizzard could just sit on all the money they were making.

 

edit: read your post incorrectly and this god damn forum's formatting doesn't allow me to remove your quote and it's child quote

It really puts things into perspective that Blizzard can cut 600 employees and still remain one of the largest developers.

It really does... 1000's of employess and they can't seem to do anything creative between all of them. You can put a 1000 monkeys in a room with typewriters and evenetually they will come up with Shakespeare. Put a couple thousand Blizzard employeesin a room and they all start regurgitating into eachother's mouths.

I just spoke to a former collegeue of mine who works customer support for Blizzard in Ireland. He said they have been expecting an announcement like this for a couple of months, but no official announcement was made in their offices yet nor has anyone been laid off.

I feel bad for the guy, he loves his job with Blizzard so much :(

WoW reached her peak at Wrath of the Lich King and when Arthas was defeated many people just kept a sub to socialise.

But WoW managed to push out crap after crap witch resulted in a stagering 2 million sub lost in 1 year, and the real big hits are still incomming.

Tera - GW2 - Archage - etc - etc are comming this year or the next.

WoW was a great mmo once, when i think back at 2004 / 2005 i can only think of a hardcore mmo game witch turned into a cash cow for the casuals.

Subs are dropping more and more as people are fed up with Ghostcrawler who think he is doing a good job.

I bet Kalgan former lead desinger is not amused :P

Not to speak of blizzards CEO, but its their own faulth when you drop around 60% of your best desingers to Titan and expect a turd to improve the game.

it will be a very sad day when and if they ever loose the #1 spot, few if any companys could have done a better job than Blizzard.

Originally posted by stormseekaz

BRING THE BEAST DOWN!!!!

*runs over to help a group of men pulling on one of the chains wrapped around the large behemoth*

THIS BEAST WILL TERRORIZE OUR WILDS NO MORE!

 

lol...just lol

WoW has taken such a terrible step. The panda expansion? I honestly thought it was a joke at first.

WoW's player base is getting older. They already have loads and loads of content. If I was the lead developer, I'd be pushing for new continents that allow players to unite and form player cities and the ability to wage war with rival player cities etc. I would try to expand beyond the linear model that we all know so well.

I've never heard the expression: "10% of our jobs are going redundant."

What a pleasent, optimistic way to say we're laying off hundreds of people. Blizzard comes up with new language whenever it feels like it, I'm convinced.  I mean, they almost make it sound like a good thing. They're economizing the system so well that jobs are getting redundant!

Ah Blizzard. I love you. 

Originally posted by nyxium

Nasty. Will it cause a chain reaction in other company's to lay off?  Ouch anyway.

 

LOL !!  what planet you been living on the past 8 years ?

Originally posted by adam_nox

lol losing top dog status?  Uh, yeah come back when they are below 3 mil ten years from now, or if some other game manages to get above 5 mil in a few years.

The question has never been whether or not WoW would last forever, but whether or not the mmo genre would survive WoW. 

 

thats all well and good -- but, its kinda pathetic how you so easily and readily dismiss literally MILLIONS of paying customers and the $$$ that are being lost in the process.  If mcdonalds lost half of its revenue it would still be top dog, but they would most certainly be feeling the loss of all that revenue.  Amazing how some people think.

"Redundant" is standard terminology in Europe.  Yes, it's a terrible euphemism, but it's more or less standard.

I feel bad for the folks losing their jobs, but Blizzard should have realized that at some point the money train would start slowing down.  They got too big, now they are going to have to get down to size.

Originally posted by umcorian

I've never heard the expression: "10% of our jobs are going redundant."

What a pleasent, optimistic way to say we're laying off hundreds of people. Blizzard comes up with new language whenever it feels like it, I'm convinced.  I mean, they almost make it sound like a good thing. They're economizing the system so well that jobs are getting redundant!

Ah Blizzard. I love you. 

 

ummm...just wow.  u serious right now ?