Blizzard Announces Cuts for Active Positions

In a letter from Mike Morhaime, we learned that Blizzard is in the process of cutting a number of active positions throughout the company. The reason stated for this mass amount of job loss was to better maintain the health of the company. As a result of certain departments becoming overstaffed, they have decided to scale down these departments to allow for larger growth in others.

These job cuts come about a year after Activision eliminated 500 jobs when they shut down the studios responsible for the "Guitar Hero" franchise. While no developers that work on World of Warcraft will be affected, this job loss could in part be due to the near 1 million subscriber decline in World of Warcraft this past year.

Morhaime did emphasize that Blizzard is still committed to shipping multiple games this year. There is exciting news to be had in the coming weeks with Diablo III's release date as well as the Mists of Pandaria press tour. It's always sad to hear news of people losing their jobs and our hearts go out to those who are affected.

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Maybe some Social Economic Theory?
# Mar 16 2012 at 9:49 AM Rating: Good
37 posts
@ekaterinodar

Personally, I am wondering what 500+ jobs Blizzard cut. If they were internships, then that's nothing; but if they were real jobs that people staked their lives on, then Blizzard firing them to save money for the company is inexcusable. In a time where there is giant skepticism about large companies and corporations, making multiple-million/billion dollar a year, and CEO's, those making the "hard decisions," salaries in comparison to the average salary is enormous (much worse if you consider low-economic neighborhoods). This is a terrible thing for Blizzard to do. I know WoW goes farther than America, and once again I am curious to see what jobs were cut, but to mention that the cut is to "better maintain the health of the company" is BS in my opinion. Usually when companies need to remind us how much they are suffering for our good the opposite is usually the truth.

Reading up a bit on Engels, Chomsky, or even Marx might show how these companies are not looking out for anyone's best interest except for themselves. Oh, and that reminder's me, an interesting book to read about this topic is The Corporation; ya, when you can rationally consider companies like ActiBlizz, GM, Sprint, --insert company/corporation-- as separate entities (i.e. humans, dogs, anything that lives and breathes); it can seriously make you sick. Why (if your asking)? because then they share human characteristics; in other words, we would have label these companies sociopaths.

One last thing about your "...Corporate isn't always the bad guy. I know its an easy catchall to blame it on them, but all that really boils down to glorified class warfare. 'They are in charge and have money so they are bad because I don't have it.'" This is simply untrue. People do not get pissed at companies when they have work, they get pissed when their work gets taken away by them. Job loss is tied heavily to the economy and the health of free trade: when the economy is good there are job, and no jobs when it is bad (Engels Theory).

So, is the loss of these jobs because the economy is bad? I say no. World of Warcraft is bringing in TONS of money, possibly enough to feed an entire starving country (not in the way America eats though), and yet, right after completing Diablo III, all of a sudden job loss. I smell something fishy, but then again, I am a skeptic.
Not the issue?
# Mar 05 2012 at 3:36 PM Rating: Default
I really don't think losing 1 million subscribers is the issue?
You think the loss of 180 million in income is not an issue.
gee can I use your check book? Smiley: lol

hmm
# Mar 02 2012 at 10:19 PM Rating: Decent
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This seems to be the new thing. Cut jobs to increase stocks so that the rich may get richer. I work for the railroad and they are doing the exact same thing. Only bad thing if they are cutting too many jobs and nto getting the work done. Then they act like they don't understand what the problem is.
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hmm
# Mar 03 2012 at 6:40 AM Rating: Decent
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fronglo wrote:
This seems to be the new thing. Cut jobs to increase stocks so that the rich may get richer. I work for the railroad and they are doing the exact same thing. Only bad thing if they are cutting too many jobs and nto getting the work done. Then they act like they don't understand what the problem is.



I'm just wondering how the rich will continue to get richer if people don't have any money to spend on said companies because people are losing their jobs and thus have no money to spend. See the problem here?

Money doesn't grow on trees (unless you're the government and can print money, but that's a different story). If people aren't making money to spend then the rich have no way to get rich because that money had to come from someone who still makes money.

Instead of demanding the rich give us more money, how about we demand that the poor make more money? Redistribution of wealth isn't a good idea. A good idea is discovering ways to increase the total wealth gained and making sure that increase goes to those who need it.
Bad Karma
# Mar 01 2012 at 4:51 PM Rating: Default
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Wouldn't mind it so much if those 600 people wouldn't amount to about 10% of their total employees. So calling that "overstaffing" doesn't really seem to fit it.

Oh well... Hope those suits responsible for the layoffs will choke on their bonuses. Karma can be a *****.
Bad Karma
# Mar 02 2012 at 5:20 PM Rating: Decent
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I'm really not seeing the logic behind your statement. 10% is a decent chunk... and that could be considered overstaffing... Corporate isn't always the bad guy. I know its an easy catchall to blame it on them, but all that really boils down to glorified class warfare. "They are in charge and have money so they are bad because I don't have it."

If they receive bonuses for doing good work and being an asset to the company than so be it. If that 10% was redundant bloat it is far better not to pay them and pay the person who isn't "too much".

I don't know if that's the case, but just outright attacking the suits because you don't like corporate is really bigoted.
Sure....
# Mar 01 2012 at 11:46 AM Rating: Good
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Blizzard is not GM, they do not have untold obligations to pay out to thousands of workers in pensions and health care. Nor are they so creatively drained that they are very much incapable of competing with superior competition, from the way things are going sure but now, no.

After years of doing nothing but recycling at the laziest pace ever and lying about WoW sub numbers, Blizzard finally takes a small hit in profits. Most companies, specially those considered beyond reproach by the industry such as ActivisionBlizzard, could easily hype up into profits with just the most minute measure of additional effort.

But this being modern corporate life of course they don't do that; they just toss a bunch of people out like yesterdays trash to keep investors happy and preserve their golden toilet bonuses.
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Sad but probably necessary
# Feb 29 2012 at 9:02 PM Rating: Decent
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As sad as this is, it is probably not bad news for players. It may actually be a good thing. Although, I really don't think losing 1 million subscribers is the issue. Blizzard is still making some hardcore profit off the game and 1 million people is pretty low. They are probably pre-empting having to make bigger cuts because they didn't take care of the excess.


A lot of the problems with the car companies, especially GM, was due to this very problem. My dad has worked for them for nearly 30 years. The years leading up to the bankruptcy his direct bosses had been making some hard cuts. When the major layoffs came; his group was one of the few not to suffer any losses because they had already made the tough decisions.
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