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pendeho
10 Posts
On February 14 2019 07:13 Zambrah wrote: I officially have absolutely no idea what you're on about, so I think I'm going to peace out What are those amazing talents doing at Riot and Epic? Where are the results? By the way, you know what those amazing Ex-Blizzard talents also done? Hellgate: London and Wildstar | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
On February 14 2019 07:15 pendeho wrote: What are those amazing talents doing at Riot and Epic? Where are the results? Have you heard of this game called Fortnite, the most popular game in the world? Or League of Legends, another of the most popular games in the world? Have you seen the amount of high quality art created for both games, especially league of legends? Are you at all serious with this question? | ||
Excalibur_Z
United States12224 Posts
About labor: It's understandable that people are upset that layoffs happened. After Blizzard launched WoW, they expanded their support staff a lot. Now that there are fewer subscribers, there is less need for a large support staff (they've also invested in more automated solutions). It's the same with esports and publishing: it's a shift in corporate strategy. It's not inherently bad, but it's also not exactly fair for the employees who are being laid off, which is why they're offered severance packages and job placement assistance. About layoff strategy: I've worked for two companies that have experienced layoffs. The first company cut 15% of staff, then 3 months later another 20%, then 2 months later another 50%, then 6 weeks later another 70%. It was exhausting and frightening. The second company cut 70% of staff in one fell swoop, and it was scary. The reason the second company didn't use a gradual approach was because layoffs cause intense uncertainty and discomfort in employees, and it's better to do major restructures if you have to lay off staff than a series of minor restructures that could call into question the overall corporate strategy. In short, if you are laying off staff, then it's better to do a single deep cut to ensure long-term success so that you don't have to continue laying off employees in waves. About Blizzard leadership: Allen Adham, Mike Morhaime, and Frank Pearce are all passionate gamers with impressive corporate vision. Allen is definitely the most entrepreneurial and ambitious of the three, and shortly after Blizzard's early successes, he became more of a "financier" and moved onto new challenges as a hedge fund manager, leaving Mike to handle operations as CEO. Allen is back now, overseeing prototyping pods, and it's unfair to assume that projects will be built differently without Mike around. This is the same trio that forged the core values to which Blizzard still adheres today, it's ingrained in their culture. I don't expect J. Allen Brack to run a very different ship. About Activision's influence: It's been mentioned that Activision is taking a more direct role in setting Blizzard's financial goals. When companies have down periods, they are going to look over their expenses and investments with increased scrutiny. When Diablo 1 was in development, Condor ran out of money from Blizzard multiple times and had to start or ship side projects in order to pay the bills and their employees. When Blizzard was purchased and they acquired Blizzard North, money was no object and they were able to take some extra time and add some extra polish to ensure the quality standards of the team. Now with this week's wave of layoffs at Blizzard, they're keeping a closer eye on the profitability of each project and team. Blizzard is already a company where they create a lot of internal projects and ship few to none of them. It's unclear whether that prototyping approach will change since that's an investment arm rather than something that directly delivers value through live service. I also want to dispel a myth that the "finance people" are making all the decisions. The leadership simply says "hold your projects accountable, make sure every decision is revenue-positive" and leaves it to the teams to reshape their respective backlogs accordingly. Sometimes that's investing in increased efficiency/automation/tooling (to reduce man-hours on a task), sometimes it's increasing monetization, sometimes it's increasing value to entice fence-sitters into making a purchase. I don't want people to think "ATVI is a multi-billion dollar company, they can afford some departments that are known losses." Companies aren't successful for long if they continue operating inefficiently, and just because someone holds others accountable doesn't mean that person is bad. They have the greater survivability of the company and the success of everyone in mind. Just want to make sure we're all speaking the same language here. As someone who is a project manager in the game industry who has to think about these things from all angles (business-side, team-side, organization-side), it hits close to home, and it's way too easy for outsiders to demonize in situations like this. | ||
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lozujgf
3 Posts
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Zambrah
United States7094 Posts
On February 14 2019 07:44 lozujgf wrote: Fortnite and League of Legends are examples for amazing art (and gameplay?). This is sad. I wanted to dip out, but god dammit this statement is bad. League of Legends has fantastic art by some of the actual best stylized artists on the planet. | ||
Nakajin
Canada8988 Posts
On February 14 2019 07:52 Zambrah wrote: I wanted to dip out, but god dammit this statement is bad. League of Legends has fantastic art by some of the actual best stylized artists on the planet. And Fortnite is not a badly design game, it has some neat gameplay idea with the crafting and is generally very fluid, probably won't pass too history but it's a way better game then something like PUBG. | ||
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srj
Canada134 Posts
On February 14 2019 06:13 pendeho wrote: Yeah, they must have been incredible talents: "Battle Royale/Moba is popular....Lets do Battle Royale/Moba!". They just waited in the shadows. If Blizzard would just be more like Valve: We would play 1 game for the next 50 years We have SC:R. It's all I need for the rest of my life. | ||
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Falling
Canada11258 Posts
Age of Kotick Shamus Young Given the amount of money they are paying for him Activision should be getting someone remarkable. If you're going to take the budget of a mid-size game and give it to one guy, every single year, then the person cashing the checks should be bringing something amazing to the table. Highlights of his major points. (Worth reading the whole thing): 1. He should be exceptional at coming up with new business ideas. From the start, Kotick's business ideas have been ham-fisted and obvious. His only plan has been to nickel and dime gamers by charging them money for stuff they used to get for free. Everything he does is just a variation on this theme. Charging for cutscenes. Charging for multiplayer. Cutting up the three acts of a single-player game and selling each at full price. 2. He should be good at finding and attracting talent, and at inspiring and motivating his people. The list of disgruntled former Activision employees is long. The relationship he has with his people is an antagonistic one. There are few people who aren't getting checks signed by Kotick that have nice things to say about him, and people who leave his employ usually have a lot of animosity for him. 3. He needs to posses a keen understanding of the gaming industry. Remember when Kotick said that, "With respect to the franchises that don't have the potential to be exploited every year across every platform with clear sequel potential that can meet our objectives of over time becoming $100 million plus franchises, that's a strategy that has worked very well for us." The idea that you can't make money with non-sequels is a ridiculous one 4. He should be skilled at public relations. Just do a search for Kotick and you'll find dozens and dozens of public statements from the guy that are followed by indignation and outrage from gamers. (Who could also be thought of as, "potential Activision customers.") It's not wrong that he wishes he could charge more for games. Every company wishes they could charge more for their products, and will do so if it makes sound business sense. But most of them aren't so clueless as to brag about it in public. A Lack of Vision Shamus Young (In counter to 'well they are making money, so they can do no wrong' -Shamus looks at the cost of opportunity lost.) Part of the conclusion: So yeah. It is possible for an entire industry of experienced executives to completely miss the boat and make billion-dollar blunders. It is my belief that the publishers have been led poorly, and continue to be led poorly, because the people in charge do not have a background in gaming and are thus unable to see trends as they form. Instead they can only respond in a reactionary way. Their understanding of the market comes from earnings reports, not from buying and playing games. Honestly, if Activision was smart, they'd consider pulling a Disney-Pixar. Sure Disney owns Pixar, but the story creating talent generated in Pixar was undeniable so top Pixar people ended up running things on the Disney side. Disney knew how to leverage the talent they just acquired (at least in the Pixar case). Seems we're going the opposite route- Activision flunkies are coming to bring Blizzard to heel. I'm sure they'll squeeze out some more profit for a short period of time. But like a vampire, they'll leave a husk in the long term, not to mention the opportunity costs as they chase unsustainable short term gains. | ||
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DeepElemBlues
United States5079 Posts
The market is there, demand for video games in general isn't flatlining or falling off a cliff and it isn't going to Entrepreneurs and investors aren't going to tolerate a vacuum if ATVI and the rest go down the road with a business model that produces diminishing returns | ||
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WolfintheSheep
Canada14127 Posts
On February 14 2019 16:03 Falling wrote: Regarding Bobby Kotick... I've always liked Shamus Young's take on him. The problem with Bobby isn't that he's greedy. That's his job. The problem is he isn't particularly good at his job, except by responding to the market in a very reactionary way. Bobby Kotick was very good at his job. He basically rebuilt Activision from the ground up in 1990, from a broke and bankrupt company post video-game crash of '88 to one of the names in the video game industry. There's no reason ignore what he accomplished with the company. Thing is that his success was in recognizing strong assets and acquiring them, which Activision has not done for a while now, and it's also not the kind of thing that players of games generally care about until it's their favourite games getting the axe. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17182 Posts
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Pandain
United States12984 Posts
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Archeon
3251 Posts
There is no real advantage to more than 3-4 large IPs, it's enough to cover different age-groups/target audiences. With a few strong IPs marketing gets a lot easier since every old title gets a push with a new release and vice versa and style, soundtrack and characters have templates, which reduces the creative work by a lot. Imo the amount of remakes from Blizz is very high atm, but the feedback they've been getting for their Add-ons/Sequels since WoW has been mostly "the old game is better, remake it!" so now they are doing that with decent success. Obviously you need to get the Community x Gametype right, which is f.e. why Diablo Immortal received that much flag. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16367 Posts
https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=39431 I disagree. Activision was open for purchase in 1990. Great buy by him. From 1980 to 1983 teenagers' voices reverberated with awe and wonder when discussing Activision games. Check out Atari 2600 games up until 1981 and compare them to what Activision made in 1980 and 1981. The Activision games are 1000X better. Activision's brand strength during that short time period was INCREDIBLE. Activision acquired a reputation as a rule breaking, balls as big as beach-balls, bad asses. Telling Warner Media to go fuck themselves. Making games for the #1 game platform with no rules, no licensing deals, no permissions. "The question is not who will let me... the question is... who will stop me?" Again , Activision's brand strength during that short time period was INCREDIBLE. Compare River Raid and Grand Prix and Chopper Command to Circus Atari or Asteroids or Breakout or Combat. Regarding Kotick's idea to make the C64 A Game Machine: every serious video game hobbyist stopped buying the Atari 2600 or Intellivision around 1983, They opted for the C64 or Atari 800 for ~$200. Then, instead of buying a bunch of games for $40 they bought a 1541 5.25" Floppy drive for ~$250 which opened up the most massive piracy market ever seen in the history of American software. Again, teenagers voices reverberated in AWE and WONDER when discussing the C64. Great idea by Kotick. Move to 1990. Those early 80s teenagers are now earning real money and are decision makers. Kotick bought those memories that were burned into their subconscious minds. He bought the memories of pulling all-nighters playing Pitfall, River Raid, and Chopper Command. Kotick's decision to never make another Infocom game .. ever again. Brutal, ruthless, and the exact right decision. His ability to read changes in market demand... top notch. imo, Kotick's Vision ... both long-term and short term is incredible. https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=39431 Shamus Young's bringing an examination of the poor 2003 book "MoneyBall" is way off the mark. The book contains all kinds of misinformation. Its filled with faulty conclusions drawn from "facts" that are incorrect. If any one wants to challenge that I can go into great detail. On February 14 2019 07:20 Excalibur_Z wrote: I think this whole thread is really difficult to read .... ... Just want to make sure we're all speaking the same language here. As someone who is a project manager in the game industry who has to think about these things from all angles (business-side, team-side, organization-side), it hits close to home, and it's way too easy for outsiders to demonize in situations like this. Thanks for taking the time to make this great post. I'm an independent contractor who makes database software. Its good to get the 10,000 foot perspective of a Project Manager. | ||
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Sermokala
United States13729 Posts
People arn't arguing over what bobby kotic did in the 80's and 90's. They're arguing over what hes done to build anything new in the 2010's. His last great idea was to create 3 massive game studios to crank out a version of COD every year. But COD isn't a reputable brand only a signifier that its an FPS because of this developmental chaos. God help them if they ever stop being profitable. WOW is the greatest cash cow the entertainment industry has ever seen and Its only ever slowly been bleeding over time under his watch. Destiny? HOTS? OW? HS? these were good games but for one reason or another they aren't that successful. And apparently, nothing being released in 2019 and the only thing they have on the horizon is remakes and doubt. Even bill gates had to step aside when he lost touch | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16367 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + Friedman and Gillick are savants who built long term success on zero resources using a great many conventional methods and a small # of ones. Gillick's nickname is "Yellow Pages" due to his ability to remember absolutely everything. Gillick and Friedman are just plain the smartest of a smart group of people running baseball teams. The A's did not compete "head to head" with the New York Yankees. They played in an imbalanced schedule against other small market teams on the west coast. They played against the Yankees very little. Its a lot harder to beat the Yankees over 162 than in any short playoff series. The Blue Jays and Devil Rays competed against the Yankees over 162 games. The Oakland A's did not. The Devil Rays and Blue Jays had fewer resources and more brutal circumstances going against them than Billy Beane ever faced. Gillick and Friedman led the charge against the New YOrk Yankees over 162 game seasons while every one else in the AL East got fucking slaughtered. Improved usage of stats occurred in tiny incremental improvements over many years. Nothing like what is presented in Moneyball. Watch old episodes of "Monday Night Baseball". Everyone knew Willie Randolph was a better hitter than Damaso Garcia in 1982. People didn't blindly recite batting average #s. Willie Randolph's huge walk totals were acknowledged and fully credited with tiring out starters by "working the count". OTOH Garcia's tiny walk totals and `swing on the first pitch` mindset was correctly criticized. If Moneyball were written in 2019, Donald Trump would point at the book and say "You are Fake News". He'd be right. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
They took all that creative talent and told them to crank out Call of Duty once every three years. And those games pretty good Call of Duty games. But they have nothing in R&D because all of their talent has been dumped into fueling the Call of Duty machine while the next generation of gamers are playing fortnite. | ||
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{CC}StealthBlue
United States41117 Posts
By now, many of the people caught up in this week’s massive Activision Blizzard layoff have been informed that they’ve lost their jobs. But at Blizzard’s office in Versailles, France, more than 400 people are still waiting for news. And, due to complex French labor laws, it might be months before they find out what happens to them. On Tuesday afternoon around 4pm ET, the publisher behind games like Call of Duty and Warcraft began informing employees all across its offices that they were laid off. In Europe, where it was already evening, staff had to wait until the next day to see what might happen. Then, on Wednesday, Blizzard’s French office told its staff that 134 of its 400 positions would be eliminated, according to two people who were there, speaking anonymously because they did not want to risk losing potential severance if they were laid off. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the company will lay off 134 people. Some might be given opportunities to take other positions. Rumor among employees is that those positions could be based in Blizzard’s other European offices in Cork, Ireland or The Hague, Netherlands, which would be tough for anyone who can’t or has no desire to move to a brand new country. “No one knows any details and this is taking a big hit on the morale of the folks over here,” one Versailles employee told me in a text message. “Not knowing if you will be laid off in a few weeks or months sucks and many people here are already updating their LinkedIn because they want to be prepared for when they will be told what will happen exactly.” Complicated French labor laws make it difficult to lay people off immediately and without notification, which is why Blizzard’s Versailles office is in this position following the massive layoffs that took place across all of Activision Blizzard’s companies this week. The legendary developer of games like Diablo and World of Warcraft was hit hard. Although rumors of incoming layoffs had circulated for months, the company did not inform employees at its main campus in Irvine, California until Tuesday afternoon, alongside Activision’s quarterly financial earnings call. Blizzard’s Versailles office handles PR, esports, localization, customer support, and marketing for their games in Europe. Those employees still don’t know which positions will be eliminated, who will be affected, or what kind of severance packages they’ll receive, according to the two people who work there. They don’t even know when they’ll find out. “It’s a two-edged sword,” said an employee. “On one hand it is good to be able to prepare, but the way it was handled and that no specifics were given, no names or dates, makes it really awkward.” Source | ||
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