That’s not how it works. Layoff employees has nothing to do with competition which is the main reason to block an acquisition.
1900 people laid off is an extremely violent situation. It’s not cleaning at this point. I hope they know what they’re doing and it’s for the best.
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Maybe Phil is serious about changing the culture over there. Will be curious to see who those 1900 are. Maybe this is some internal review thing to try and weed out the bad actors and enablers.
Other gaming companies have massive layoffs as well. Combine this with the biggest acquisition in gaming history with a lot of redundant positions.
It’s gross but it’s also sadly business.
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Jason on otherera
Odyssey was many years away from being done. More soon
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Dunno, sounds like wishful thinking, I imagine this is just like the rest of the industry, everyone is cutting jobs
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Like I said in another thread…
People championed ms causing a culture change…
Sadly big execs get the privilege to leave… The rest get fired…
Not celebrating the loss of these jobs as I’m sure many who don’t deserve to be let go will be… But I won’t be surprised if alot of bad actors get the boot.
As someone who hoped that Activision would change, I’m disappointed. With Odyssey cancelation, now I’m 100% sure that Activsion/Blizzard will continue to be a yearly cod machine. Why make other games when cod does the trick?
Blizzard doesn’t work on CoD so Odyssey being cancelled has nothing to do with the CoD machine.
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That’s an overreaction. We actually don’t know anything about the game and Schreier said on otherera that the game was years aways.
That was my first thought, but there are plenty of others I imagine being affected that have nothing to do with said culture (and we know some aren’t even at ABK). Regardless of the reasons, I’ve been consistent every time this happens (and not just when I can use it as a list war/FUD item like we’re seeing with plenty of people who were mysteriously silent last year): there is absolutely no logical or moral justification for just about any of these layoffs to be occurring in this industry, but especially when it’s the platform-holders making more money than any of us can fathom. It’s disgusting, inexcusable, and the only way I see this changing is for us to start acting (call out the execs, signal boost those in need, etc) and for devs to begin unionization efforts en masse. We have just as much responsibility, and agency, in this and we have to do our part.
Edit: yes, I know this is capitalism at work; I said there’s no ‘logical’ explanation and the unsustainability of capitalism sure fits that lack of logic to a T in my book.
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No offence but thinking CoD was changing it’s yearly schedule was delusional, don’t think this being cancelled has anything to do with this though
Games simply wasn’t working out and they didn’t have long term confidence in it
Shareholders:
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That’s not how capitalism works. They answer to shareholders who want to see number go up, no matter what. It’s a busted, evil system and Microsoft did this exact same thing last year.
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I think there is a lot of potential reasons to cancel a project like Odyssey without this reflecting their intention for Blizzard as a whole. The project could have just been not working, or maybe it was some push from previous management that wasn’t what the team wanted to make. Maybe this was Blizzards Redfall.
Or maybe they just needed to cut numbers and this project was a weak link. There are too many possible reasons to really say either way. I still think we will see a better future for Activision Blizzard under Xbox, despite all this.
Other companies are not the biggest company in the world. I was hoping Microsoft wouldn’t have to do this. 1900 people fired is extremely violent for Xbox. It’s a bad day.
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Zenimax again too?
All around just shit ass news, don’t know what else to say and won’t.
Yeah, but this is hardly my point. If Microsoft wanted to make things different at Activision, they should at least allow the project that was in development for multiple years to continue development. Cancelling the first new IP from AB since Overwatch back in 2016 is not a good look.
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What you are worth means nothing in a situation like this. Shareholder interest is above all, and you legally must help them earn more money. Yes, it is horrible but this isn’t surprising if you pay attention to how the United States works with our complete lack of employee protections.
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You don’t become the biggest company in the world if you’re not ruthless.
I fucking hate how it works but it’s sadly the truth.