EPTThe Games Industry And ATVI - Page 6
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Sermokala
United States10596 Posts
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House43485 Posts
The issue is, Blizzard need something new, it has not made a decent game since StarCraft II. HOTS is dead now they killed its Esports scene but it also was not a popular game to begin with. Overwatch they messed up more than PUBG did in not making the game Free to Play and add in tons of buyable skins. If Overwatch was free from launch it would have been twice as big. Then they have continued to "mess" with WoW to the point that people are just done with it and keep quitting, the only way to save this game imo is a WoW 2 with a complete reboot of the engine and doing something drastic like a 3rd faction added to try and fix that game. StarCraft & StarCraft II are never going to make them any money that they need because they are just Esport titles. Activision side is even worst, CoD blackout was the biggest thing they have done with that franchise in years and it has not fixed the problem, all these people are now back playing the free Royale games or the next FOTM Royale game that comes out. Destiny as mentioned is gone, that game has now been culled. They also need to do something fast. As mentioned in the thread, at least with the likes of EA they bring out games every year which are sports based so they are bought no matter what. New NBA game so u can play with Lebron with Lakers, new NFL game so u can play with the new heroes from the latest super bowl. FIFA is huge in Europe and then NHL to round it off. They also have exclusive rights to Star Wars games which means they always have a potential to milk the market as people are drawn to Star Wars games in hope they will be decent. Then add in Battlefront to compete with CoD every year. They are in a much better place than Activision-Blizzard due to this. The future will be interesting as now as said there needs to be some changes or something huge to come from this company and fast. | ||
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FueledUpAndReadyToGo
Netherlands25994 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada14489 Posts
On February 13 2019 18:07 Pandemona wrote: They removed a whole game franchise in Destiny, i am sure most of the layoffs are people to do with that game as they are done with Destiny after its failings. This is a good point. Its not "most" of the layoffs... it is 200+ people though. The non-game development staff devoted to Destiny were laid off. The game development staff previously devoted to Destiny at Vicarious Visions in upstate new york and High Moon Studios are being moved to other Activision game development projects. On February 13 2019 18:07 Pandemona wrote: The issue is, Blizzard need something new, it has not made a decent game since StarCraft II. . Blizzard has gone from 47 Million MAUs to 35 Million MAUs and seen a decrease in profits of $27 Million. An 8% decrease in headcount is reasonable given that you don't require any where near the same level of customer service functions for a customer base that has decreased 25% over the past year. Posters relating an 8% staff layoff to the endstages of capitalism are probably viewing too many real world events through the lens of Karl Marx theory. These moves by ATVI are super-standard stuff and nothing to get alarmed about. However, declaring the end of the world as we know it ... is probably good for generating views and clicks. That is how people talked about EA for 2 days. Until their stock went right back up again. Then the silence was deafening. Going from 47 million MAUs to 35 million MAUs in one year isn't that big of a deal. Its a "hit driven" business. We are watching a single game , Apex Legends , accumulate 25+ Million MAUs in a week. With a decline in profits and a decline in player base cuts were coming no matter what. ATVI is not a charity. As a game player and game fan I'm happy ATVI is keeping its game making staff and laying off admin people. On February 13 2019 13:15 Plansix wrote: The thing is, consumers can’t do anything. Labor needs to fight for labor. The best we can do is support the fight when they decide to do it. But the industry can’t keep this up. People are getting wise to the fact that at any moment they could be the one on the chopping blocks to pay dividends to share holders. The easiest way to avoid that is to unionize. If you want a serious shot at unionizing game company workers.. the place to do it is Quebec and France. It is far more pro-union than any place in the USA. If unionization ever takes root, and I doubt it ever will, but if it does.. it'll be in Quebec and/or France. https://business.financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/quebec-unions-prepare-for-election-battle-as-top-two-parties-seen-as-anti-worker. So if you're serious about "supporting labour" ... its Ubisoft you need to hit. They have major studios in Quebec | ||
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frontliner2
Netherlands844 Posts
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House43485 Posts
I hope they are working on something and i hope they see that the way to go in the industry is F2P with micro transactions. Unless your game is WoW based which is something of a model that is still surviving even though the game needs a re work (I have and still play this game for the last 14 years or whatever it is T_T) | ||
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Plansix
United States15207 Posts
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Evilnemesis7
1 Post
On February 13 2019 22:18 Pandemona wrote: Exactly, standard business protocol would say, wait our turnover was huge but our GP% is lower than last year, way lower what is going on. So the restructuring process comes into effect as well as staff cuts. I hope they are working on something and i hope they see that the way to go in the industry is F2P with micro transactions. Unless your game is WoW based which is something of a model that is still surviving even though the game needs a re work (I have and still play this game for the last 14 years or whatever it is T_T) It was already in their game plan to cut cost early last year. The now departed Blizzard CFO that came from Activision side took the position back in March of last year stated that to look at operating costs was a priority. That means Activision was already projecting that projects wouldn't show, development wasn't going well in whatever is being made at Blizzard. We all remember how people were upset at Blizzard Immortal for a tone deaf announcement. While it might've been imagine how weak the opening would've been without it. What was really announced? No WoW expansion(one had just been released), no big HotS,OW, SC or Diablo news. The biggest thing was WC3 remaster. Blizzard wished they could've skipped Blizzcon again but they can't because e-sports is a thing now. Even when you've got nothing you have to have a party. We've heard of two D4 projects that became nothing. D4 is at number 3 currently. Investors are going to be upset when they see zero big hitting product in the yearly reveal-a-thon convention. I keep seeing people say Activision is the worst. Who are the laying off? All non-dev people. Who are they hiring? Devs, they just poached one of the CDProjekt guys. There's another big name as well in the same timeframe but I can't recall on top of my head. That's just directors, you bet they hired a bunch of people for lower positions. If anything, Activision Blizzard is making the right moves to get back on track. In the real world you need products that consummers want. You can't have all those "extra" employees when you've got no games. A game publishing company is refocusing all on making games with their major franchises and somehow it's real bad. This isn't the first time Blizzard was caught in a "down" cycle. It's just that compared to even just 5 years ago gaming is just that much bigger and investors can't be too happy that a big name publisher is growing at a lesser pace than smaller entities. Cuts had to be made. I reserve my judgement for this year's Blizzcon. If the showing is poor that means the process of making game at Blizzard is really going real badly and that means studio structure and culture and that's really hard to change and get out of a bad spot. | ||
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House43485 Posts
This years BlizzCon will give us a WoW expansion and a release date for Vanilla unless that has already come out. So i am sure it will be pretty decent no matter what and generate the buzz it needs. Activision needs to bring out something other than CoD that will bring out a buzz again as well, CoD was good this year but the battle royale feature needed to be free to bring in even more players. | ||
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Plansix
United States15207 Posts
In contrast, when Nintendo took a bath on the WiiU(like Activision, which was profitable), their CEO took a pay cut to avoid layoffs because he knew it would hurt development to fire a bunch of people for decisions that were beyond their control. Edit: Destiny was successful by any commercial metric. It can sustain itself and allows further development of games from that studio. But not successful enough for Activision. Folks need to understand that the CEOs and activision set the targets they want to see the game hit. That doesn't mean those targets are realistic. | ||
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Pandemona
Charlie Sheens House43485 Posts
I think the people who would have had to go from Nintendo would have had to be people that would have been missed. | ||
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Plansix
United States15207 Posts
They could have kept paying these people and being profitable. They choose not to because they wanted to give stock holders a 9% bump in dividends. That is the reality. The question is if they keep doing it year after year until the company is a husk and then try to buy up another big name studio to replace it. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada14489 Posts
On February 13 2019 23:36 Plansix wrote: Folks really need to take the investor phone call with a grain of salt. The line “Only non-development employees were let go” could be total bullshit. They've already axed a bunch of people related to HGC. the HGC circuit is not a game making activity. its well known esports was hit hard. They can't bullshit about that considering all the laid off staff can easily go to reddit or twitter to call out BS. They said they were adding to their dev teams in several franchises. They can't get away with lying about that considering how many public facing top dev staff employees they have. There would have to be this giant conspiracy of bullshit to maintain some BS facade amongst all these different devs. To be really specific: I don't think ATVI is lying about adding to the Diablo development staff. I don't think the Diablo development staff would be willing to play along month after month and year after year in such a lie. I think they're adding to the Diablo development staff because a bunch of Diablo stuff is under construction. ATVI makes money by making games.... and that's what they're going to do.. focus on making games and laying off people who watch my social media to see if they can ban me from Overwatch based on what i said on twitter. https://us.battle.net/forums/en/overwatch/topic/20761087763?page=1 Running around proactively banning people is such a waste of resources.. i bet we never hear about this again.. because its been cut. | ||
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Plansix
United States15207 Posts
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States36054 Posts
The Blizzard we know died a long time ago. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada14489 Posts
On February 14 2019 00:11 Plansix wrote: Nothing you said conflicts with my assessment and they can totally can and will bullshit about anything they think they can get away with. This happens with sole proprietorships as well. Welcome to the real world... most adults are liars. The only thing you can do is slowly and painstakingly grow your own network of honest, authentic people. It takes work to do that though. Speaking of "no layoffs to game development staff".. LOL. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-02-13-activision-blizzard-reportedly-shutters-kings-seattle-studio I guess if they add game dev jobs elsewhere while cutting this small studio .. its a "net" of no game dev jobs lost. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Vicarious Visions and High Moon Studios. These two studios worked a lot on Destiny2. On February 14 2019 00:23 {CC}StealthBlue wrote: He listened in on the earnings call. No idea if he got to ask questions. https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1095700925593866240 The Blizzard we know died a long time ago. "In fact, the Diablo Immortal announcement that pissed off so many Blizzard fans is happy news for shareholders" , Schreier Schreier is incorrect with this point. Blizzard was admonished for being oblivious to their customer base. Shares fell as investors were displeased Blizzard could be so out of touch with their customers. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-05/activision-analysts-see-china-growth-from-diablo-mobile-game | ||
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Plansix
United States15207 Posts
Never change Jimmy. You are always a source of amusement. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada14489 Posts
On February 14 2019 00:40 Plansix wrote: I am very happy to finally be welcomed into the real world after 39 years on this planet. Now I get to have real life experiences, unlike the fake, baby experiences I have had up until now. Never change Jimmy. You are always a source of amusement. As you've stated , you are aware of the BS that is possible. Therefore, you've been in the real world for a while. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States36054 Posts
On February 14 2019 00:25 JimmyJRaynor wrote: This happens with sole proprietorships as well. Welcome to the real world... most adults are liars. The only thing you can do is slowly and painstakingly grow your own network of honest, authentic people. It takes work to do that though. Speaking of "no layoffs to game development staff".. LOL. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-02-13-activision-blizzard-reportedly-shutters-kings-seattle-studio I guess if they add game dev jobs elsewhere while cutting this small studio .. its a "net" of no game dev jobs lost. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Vicarious Visions and High Moon Studios. These two studios worked a lot on Destiny2. "In fact, the Diablo Immortal announcement that pissed off so many Blizzard fans is happy news for shareholders" , Schreier Schreier is incorrect with this point. Blizzard was admonished for being oblivious to their customer base. Shares fell as investors were displeased Blizzard could be so out of touch with their customers. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-05/activision-analysts-see-china-growth-from-diablo-mobile-game Hence the increasing number of stock buybacks. Activision-Blizzard is trying to keep their stock price inflated despite negative financial news and sales. They can love Microtransactions, and loot boxes all they want as long as they keep their stock artificially inflated. | ||
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Plansix
United States15207 Posts
And in another, more French reality, we have Ubisoft. I dislike U-play, but that company seems to have a much better idea of how to make games in this service based video game era. | ||
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