The Games Industry And ATVI - Page 7

On February 14 2019 02:20 Plansix wrote:
Bobby Kotick is from the box retail industry and that is how he functions.

On February 14 2019 02:36 JimmyJRaynor wrote:

You could argue all i know is cars because my first part time job was sweeping the floors of an autobody shop.
Kotick has been in the video game biz for 32+ years and he is 55. Kotick is a video game guy.

On February 14 2019 02:43 Plansix wrote:
My guy, I've followed the video game industry for my entire adult live.

When he wasn’t promoting the company’s games or technology, Kotick was celebrating its laserlike focus on the bottom line. He pointed to changes he implemented in the past as being particularly beneficial, such as designing the employee incentive program so it "really rewards profit and nothing else."
"You have studio heads who five years ago didn’t know the difference between a balance sheet and a bed sheet who are now arguing allocations in our CFO’s office pretty regularly," Kotick said.

He later added, "We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."

If that sounds like it would create a corporate culture that isn’t all sunshine and hugs, then it’s mission accomplished for Kotick. The executive said that he has tried to instill into the company culture "skepticism, pessimism, and fear" of the global economic downturn, adding, "We are very good at keeping people focused on the deep depression."

On February 14 2019 03:04 Plansix wrote:
Who cares? Bobby Kotick is the following person:

On February 14 2019 03:04 Plansix wrote:
But yes, he does make money for shareholders and that makes him meritorious in the eyes of people who buy into that shit. I don't because he isn't cutting me a check and I like good games made by creative people.

On February 14 2019 03:20 Plansix wrote:
Somewhere there is a CEO of a payday lending service that build this company from nothing and is very successful. That dude is still a piece of shit because payday lending is a garbage industry for predators.
Bobby Kotick build a big company that I want to stay far far away from my favorite games and studios because he sucks super bad and kills good game studios.

Yesterday, at the exact moment Activision Blizzard chief executive officer Bobby Kotick hopped on a quarterly earnings call to inform shareholders that his company had just gone through a “record year,” employees across the publisher of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and more were being brought into conference rooms and informed that they were losing their jobs.

“It’s a bloodbath here,” one Blizzard employee told me last night. “A lot more cuts than we were expecting.”

As Kotick and other executives were telling investors that the next Call of Duty was shaping up to be the best one yet, employees across Activision Blizzard’s various divisions nervously sat at their desks, waiting to see who would be next to get the severance envelope. In Blizzard’s publishing department, management had booked a series of meetings from 1pm to 3pm Pacific. On the calendar, they were all blank. Everyone knew what that meant.

“The look on people’s faces as they’re pulling in through the [campus] gates is just awful,” said another Blizzard employee. “This is the fucking worst.”

Later on the call, Kotick delivered the grim news: Activision Blizzard, which employed around 9,600 employees last year, would reduce its workforce by 8%. That equated to around 800 people. Some were junior employees, having started at the company just recently; others had been with Activision Blizzard for 15 years or longer. Some were informed yesterday; others, particularly in Europe and other non-U.S. divisions, didn’t find out their fates until this morning.

It was carnage. People were laid off at Activision’s main office in Santa Monica, California, where an entire team of Destiny publishing staff had been coming to work with nothing to do. (Some of them were laid off; some were moved to Call of Duty or other teams. Some in other departments were also laid off.) People lost their jobs at King, the developer of Candy Crush, and at Activision’s various development studios including Vicarious Visions (Albany, NY) and High Moon Studios (San Diego, CA), both of which had handled support on Destiny 2. Activision Blizzard staff in Europe, Latin America, and other regions across the world also lost their jobs. Some who were laid off wrote messages on social media to say goodbye, while developers all across the video game industry tried to help by posting job listings on Twitter and Facebook. Although the bulk of laid-off employees were support staff, some were in departments like art and design as well.

Blizzard’s publishing department, which is comprised of PR, marketing, community, and other game support divisions, was also hit hard. Around late 2015 or early 2016, Blizzard had split North American and global publishing into two departments, according to long-time employees. It was seen as a bad move by those who worked there, one that caused resentment, redundancy, and unnecessary bureaucracy. As part of this week’s layoffs, Blizzard reconsolidated those divisions, laying off dozens in the process. Executives like chief operating officer Armin Zerza and marketing boss Todd Harvey, both of whom are heavily connected to Activision, are running the show.

So what does this all mean for the future of Blizzard? Since the beginning of 2018, Activision has been exerting more influence on Blizzard, pushing the company to release more games and find more ways to make money. General consensus, even among rank-and-file employees, is that Blizzard’s lack of new game output over the past few years hasn’t been healthy or sustainable. But Activision’s influence has raised questions among Blizzard staff about whether the studio can retain its culture. Said one former Blizzard employee to me last December: “There’s a real struggle now between developers and the business people… Strategic decisions are being driven by the finance group.”

On February 14 2019 03:48 hunts wrote:
I've been following ATVI stock for a couple years now, was in it for a while and made some profit, thankfully got out before they shit the bed. Looking at the past year and 5 year charts I'm really starting to think they aren't going to go back up to the $70+ range, at least not for a long time. I really loved blizzards games, at least their older ones, and it makes me very sad to think that neither their product nor their stock will likely bounce back, but that seems to be the way they are headed. With them not even mentioning SC2 or anything starcraft related in any of their game mentions, having canceled D3 expansion and canceled announcement of D4 at the last blizzcon, their diablo announcement driving many people to PoE and ggg games, MTGA being a much better game than HS and also free, I really don't have much hope for blizzard returning to being the best or one of the best game developers.

On February 14 2019 06:00 Zambrah wrote:


I wouldnt be surprised if Blizzard got more talent leeched off by Epic and Riot. A lot of people that start out at Blizzard go over to Riot anyways, if they treat their development teams poorly they'll likely hop ship unless they're the team leads.

On February 14 2019 06:19 Zambrah wrote:


I'd wager every single artist at Blizzard is an incredible talent, but the ones that I know shift over to Epic/Riot have been high tier Overwatch and WoW folks.

On February 14 2019 06:23 Zambrah wrote:
Im not sure where this is going anymore. :D I assume youre being sarcastic, but I don't like to assume that on the internet any more.

I hope Blizzard doesnt bleed a ton of talent though, thats how we wound up with Warlords of Draenor and to be frank another WoD would probably irreparably fuck WoW.

On February 14 2019 06:56 Zambrah wrote:


I know they often go to Epic and Riot because I keep track of the art community. A significant number of Epic artists that work on Fortnite were from the OG Titan/Overwatch team and they left because Titan was a clusterfuck.