Activision to be hit with Layoffs

[Thomas_JCG]

Yes, it works like this in every corporation, so "thats how things work". I dont know what else you want me to say.

I want you to stop trying to justify something that is terrible.

But i cant feel sorry for them either, just get another game to play, or get another job.

If they don't have bread, they can just eat cake, oui?

---------------------------

You don't know what their profit is.

Yes, I do. Activision is a publicly traded company, every penny they make can be easily verified in their annual and quarterly reports. Hint: they aren't on the red
https://investor.activision.com/fina...rterly-results

Let me take a wild guess....you making money is ok, but when others do it they're evil and greedy?

I like how you selected only one part of my comment and used it to assume I'm against companies making money. I clearly stated that the problem isn't companies making money, it's the idea that they have to make ALL the money that is problematic, which is the reason we have crap games riddled with MTX and people losing jobs to keep the executives rich.

Except that's not how companies work. By investors I assume you mean shareholders, however they have no say in how a company operates. And why would someone invest money in a company just to bleed it dry? That's not a very smart investor, is it? Doesn't it make more sense to have a profitable company that makes your investment a better one?

This must be the third time you attempt this argument and utterly fails. First off, a large shareholder CAN and WILL have a saying in a company. For example, Tencent owns 40% of Epic, you think Epic can just decide whatever and Tencent representatives aren't part of their board of directors? Second, even the insignificant investors can influence a company INDIRECTLY: If Activision starts to lose stock value, they will try to do something to attract investors again, like investing in mobile games.
Lastly, do you understand that investors want to see their money grow indefinitely? If a company doesn't make more and more money, they will pull it out and sell their stocks while the price is good rather than wait to see if things get better, that's how the stock market operates.

[Spect3r]

Except that's not how companies work. By investors I assume you mean shareholders, however they have no say in how a company operates. And why would someone invest money in a company just to bleed it dry? That's not a very smart investor, is it? Doesn't it make more sense to have a profitable company that makes your investment a better one?

I meant share holders, yes.
Indeed they dont, but the stock market has all the saying in how a company operates, so in a way, shareholders dictate how a company operates.

You see this nonsense on this form so much, all these naive people who seem to get their knowledge of business from movies and TV, who think everyone is "greedy" and "evil" and "sucking dry" profits. It's just all utter crap. That's not how the real world operates. I've worked in many many many public companies and I can tell you with 100% certainty no decision was ever made in anyone's interests but the company's long-term future. Never have I once heard it said "We want to do this but some guy with £20 of shares wants us to do something else so we're doing that instead". Or "some guy with a lot of money is telling us how to run our business. If he knew how to run a business he'd be doing that rather than investing in ours, but because he has a lot of money we have to do everything he says as having money is more important than knowing how to run a business". It's just nonsense.

Stock market dictates the direction a company follows.

[Aidy]

As soon as a company goes Public that is what will happen. Investors are blood sucking creatures, they suck but it is what it is.

Except that's not how companies work. By investors I assume you mean shareholders, however they have no say in how a company operates. And why would someone invest money in a company just to bleed it dry? That's not a very smart investor, is it? Doesn't it make more sense to have a profitable company that makes your investment a better one?

You see this nonsense on this form so much, all these naive people who seem to get their knowledge of business from movies and TV, who think everyone is "greedy" and "evil" and "sucking dry" profits. It's just all utter crap. That's not how the real world operates. I've worked in many many many public companies and I can tell you with 100% certainty no decision was ever made in anyone's interests but the company's long-term future. Never have I once heard it said "We want to do this but some guy with £20 of shares wants us to do something else so we're doing that instead". Or "some guy with a lot of money is telling us how to run our business. If he knew how to run a business he'd be doing that rather than investing in ours, but because he has a lot of money we have to do everything he says as having money is more important than knowing how to run a business". It's just nonsense.

[Aidy]

It is not about making a profit. They already made that, several times over.

You don't know what their profit is. I've only seen two videos on this (as only two people I'm subbed to have made them), The Quartering's and Boogie's. Both made the same fatal mistake, they both referred to "record profits". No....revenue was what had increased, and revenue means nothing. When revenue is climbing quite well but the profit is climbing quite slowly (from a graph I saw anyway) it's is an indicator that there is potentially a lot of waste.

It's the uncaring cesspool of greed they became that is the problem, where billions is too little and hundreds of peoples' livelihoods mean nothing.

So if you get offered a raise at your job would you take it or would you reject it saying you're not going to succumb to an uncaring cesspool of greed? Let me take a wild guess....you making money is ok, but when others do it they're evil and greedy? You have a very naive view of the world and how companies operate. As I said in my opening remark, when revenue increases but profits don't increase at the same rate then it's something that needs addressed. If a company identifies people in jobs that no longer need doing, and making those people redundant makes the company better financially then not only do they have a moral duty to do that (for the sake of everyone who relies on the company) but they actually have a legal duty to do it also. That's capitalism. That's life. If you think that's evil then go live in Venezuela.

[The Chosen One]

With the heat on Activision Blizzard right now, EA is trying not to look this gift horse in the mouth. EA, in spite of itself, via Respawn Entertainment has launched a very successful game, Apex Legends, which has cooled tongues for the time being regarding Anthem and the media's focus is now on their competitor Activision regarding these layoffs.

Anthem comes out Feb 22, I believe, so I wonder if Anthem will have an impact on offering a respite from PVP/BR with its PVE story mode missions?

Regardless, still going to wait it out on Anthem, but the heat on Activision right now has put EA in an intersting opportunity to juxtapose itself from it's competition.

[Aidy]

Must be great living in a world where to make your argument make sense all you have to do is accuse massive companies under incredible scrutiny in the public eye of extensively breaking the law.

[Spect3r]

It is not about making a profit. They already made that, several times over. It's the uncaring cesspool of greed they became that is the problem, where billions is too little and hundreds of peoples' livelihoods mean nothing.
I do understand that gamers and publishers think different, and that's the problem: the latter only looks at the bottom line and will destroy their products in a mad pursuit of more money, they no longer understand that a good game will remain profitable for years and encourage people to buy more of their products, they only see the here and now.

Also, I cannot believe you would say something so moronic like "that's how things work". That's the sort of apathetic sentiment that has held back civilization for years. That's not how things SHOULD work, it's a shitty way of life and people shouldn't stand for it.

As soon as a company goes Public that is what will happen. Investors are blood sucking creatures, they suck but it is what it is.
You can choose to buy or not buy the products of any given company, other than that not much else to do.

Yes, it works like this in every corporation, so "thats how things work". I dont know what else you want me to say.

Also, apparently most of the people are ok with how things are (considering how many play COD, etc) so who am i to say that such and such should not exist or happen, when a lot of people are ok with it?
Thats what SJW's do.

Obviously, they are obligated to. If they weren't, you think they would care?
And regardless of your opinions about pro-players, surely you must understand why Activision's decision was bad for them. Even if you think their "jobs" are silly, they still lose something they loved doing.

I dont think their job is silly, where did i said that?
But i cant feel sorry for them either, just get another game to play, or get another job.

[Thomas_JCG]

Oh look a company wants to have more profit... shocker :O

LOL, seriously, come on man, you seem an inteligent person, sure you understand that for a company profit is never enough.
You have to understand that people that play games and companies that publish game look at the same thing from very different perspectives.
Is it wrong of them? Sometimes, sure it is, but thats how things work.

It is not about making a profit. They already made that, several times over. It's the uncaring cesspool of greed they became that is the problem, where billions is too little and hundreds of peoples' livelihoods mean nothing.
I do understand that gamers and publishers think different, and that's the problem: the latter only looks at the bottom line and will destroy their products in a mad pursuit of more money, they no longer understand that a good game will remain profitable for years and encourage people to buy more of their products, they only see the here and now.

Also, I cannot believe you would say something so moronic like "that's how things work". That's the sort of apathetic sentiment that has held back civilization for years. That's not how things SHOULD work, it's a shitty way of life and people shouldn't stand for it.

Also, if you read that Telegraph article yuo see they paid severance packages, etc, so is not like they let the people hang up to dry.
And who the fuck cares about "pro players in the gutter"? Seriously? LOL

Obviously, they are obligated to. If they weren't, you think they would care?
And regardless of your opinions about pro-players, surely you must understand why Activision's decision was bad for them. Even if you think their "jobs" are silly, they still lose something they loved doing.

[Spect3r]

You think this would make the news if it was such a common occurrence? Restructuring, yes. Firing hundreds of employees, it's not something a company that is financially stable does. When EA closed Bioware Montreal, they didn't fire the employees, they were moved to a different studio. Why the same isn't happening here?

Happens every day through out every sort of Industry.
Car industry, contruction, etc, is a normal happening.

And as you mentioned yourself, they had a record year... So why cut down all those jobs?

Answer: Because all those records were nothing. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 made 500 million dollars at launch, it was still considered a failure. They parted ways with Bungie because, despite Destiny 2 making another half billion, they couldn't "explore new revenue streams", which is corporate talk for "rob people of every penny they own". They paid people to leave Blizzard and cancelled Heroes of the Storm without giving anyone any warning, leaving a bunch of pro-players in the gutter.

No matter how much money they make, it is not enough. To keep investors happy, they already pursued and exhausted every possible form of in-game monetization (remember when Black Ops 4 was selling a reticle dot for one dollar?), but because the rate of growth the investors expect is unattainable, they decided to eliminate all those workers. If you can't see the fundamental problem with this, I pity you.
Activision does need some restructuring, but not on their workforce.

Oh look a company wants to have more profit... shocker :O

LOL, seriously, come on man, you seem an inteligent person, sure you understand that for a company profit is never enough.
You have to understand that people that play games and companies that publish game look at the same thing from very different perspectives.
Is it wrong of them? Sometimes, sure it is, but thats how things work.

Also, if you read that Telegraph article yuo see they paid severance packages, etc, so is not like they let the people hang up to dry.
And who the fuck cares about "pro players in the gutter"? Seriously? LOL

[Thomas_JCG]

Happens in every industry, restructuring, firing up to 10% of your work force, etc are almost daily happening in the world economy, nothing new really.

Economically speaking every company needs to restructure every now and then, of course there are more than 1 way to do it and not all involv firing people, but most of the times it does.
Markets, customer habits, etc, can change a lot in 10/15 years, and much faster than what big companies can actually update themselves to, so if they dont end up closing, in 10/15 years there will be another round like this.

You think this would make the news if it was such a common occurrence? Restructuring, yes. Firing hundreds of employees, it's not something a company that is financially stable does. When EA closed Bioware Montreal, they didn't fire the employees, they were moved to a different studio. Why the same isn't happening here?

And as you mentioned yourself, they had a record year... So why cut down all those jobs?

Answer: Because all those records were nothing. Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 made 500 million dollars at launch, it was still considered a failure. They parted ways with Bungie because, despite Destiny 2 making another half billion, they couldn't "explore new revenue streams", which is corporate talk for "rob people of every penny they own". They paid people to leave Blizzard and cancelled Heroes of the Storm without giving anyone any warning, leaving a bunch of pro-players in the gutter.

No matter how much money they make, it is not enough. To keep investors happy, they already pursued and exhausted every possible form of in-game monetization (remember when Black Ops 4 was selling a reticle dot for one dollar?), but because the rate of growth the investors expect is unattainable, they decided to eliminate all those workers. If you can't see the fundamental problem with this, I pity you.
Activision does need some restructuring, but not on their workforce.

[Thomas_JCG]

I was actually about to comment on that.

[Spect3r]

I actually find it curious that the person who wote that article conveniently left out that Activision had the biggest net revenue ever in 2018 and also left out that they will be hiring ""aggressively hiring talent" to increase development teams on key titles, such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, World of Warcraft and Diablo, by around 20pc."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gaming/n...-jobs-despite/

So love them or hate them, they arent going anywhere anytime soon

[MadMummy76]

Must be great living in a world where companies has ethics and actually consider people's limits. When we get 2x workload dumped on us, and we argue, they say: "figure it out"

[Spect3r]

aileron Exactly.
People hear "firing people" and they immediately think the company is going down, when most of the times they really arent.

[aileron]

I agree with this. Swings up and down of 10% are not that big a deal for a huge corporation and tend to go in cycles of layoffs, hiring, layoffs, hiring... despite what it's like for the individuals involved.