Thread Truncated. Click to see all 123 replies.

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  Yup, was wondering when this was going to happen. World of Warcraft can't go free to play fast enough. ... : friedram
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    they still have over 9 million paying subscribers, why would they go free to play? : AllYourBase
    • Now folks can say "Blue post or your JOB!" :-) : friedram
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      Last financial call (less than a month ago?) still had them over 10 mil, I think. : walker270
      • 10.2m, lost 100k subscribers in Q4 2011. http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2644-WoW-stabilizes-over-... : walker270
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    Speaking of which, does the WoW ftp ads at the top of the chatty page remind anyone else of those dumb lo... : riptyde
    • Every time. : LeapingFool
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    You have no understanding of the situation at hand. : scatterblack
    • this. : Techy007
• With Diablo3 basically done they can thin out the herd until their next project hits crunch time is what ... : godm0de
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  This is what happens when you take your sweet ass time making games. : Furyofthefilmfan
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    Blizzard is still wildly successful. This is probably just about trimming fat, they had 4600~ employees a... : Zek
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      Probably GMs and related jobs that aren't needed anymore in WoW after losing ~2 million subscribers. : alias
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        Well, they did say departments "related to development." So I'm going to assume they wouldn't be GMs and ... : LoioshDwaggie
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          You'd be surprised at the number of non-technical/development jobs exist at a company Blizzard's size. ... : walker270
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            That's true. Also I mis-read the summary as 600 developers, not 10% of those 600 being developers. : LoioshDwaggie
            • The quote from the press release : The company anticipates approximately 90% of the affected employees wi : walker270
    • That was 4.6k in 2009, and they hired another 1k in 2010. Wouldn't be surprised if they were over 6k a... : walker270
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    Nah, its what happens when you are owned by shareholders and dont ship a title every year. If Blizzard... : Beady
    • Where do you guys get this information? : walker270
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      Blizzard has always been owned by someone. They were owned by Vivendi before the Activision-Blizzard mer... : slax0r
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        Blizzard isn't even publicly traded. : walker270
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          Look up atvi. Activision blizzard. : Crimson
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            .... that's not Blizzard. Prior to 2008, Blizzard Entertainment was a subsidiary by Vivendi. In 2008 : walker270
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              This is accurate. I didn't mean to imply that Blizzard was publicly traded, just that they have been own... : slax0r
              • Right. I was adding to the wrongness of Beady's post. : walker270
      • Not always, but yeah they have for the most part been traded around like a cheap ho. Even a car rental fi... : Beady
  • what? : mystikal
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  Eh, it's possible, though unlikely that it won't. Could be all dead weight or that could've been a team ... : one random winner
  • It's probably this. Diablo 3 is just around the corner. Cleaning up the left overs there and some wow l... : mobab
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  Looks like Blizzard *Shades* Has a storm coming... : get_navi
  • i get it : okellyc
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    Icy what you did there. : cerealSAM2
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      Making fun of a bunch of people getting let go is rather cold. : one random winner
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        All hail Blizzard! : shyguy74
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          They'll get another job if they stay frosty. : Kojak2000
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            Nope. They're as good as iced. : get_navi
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              Man, this thread is full of flakes. : David Craddock
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                There's no rime or reason to this, is there? : Grumbeld
                • We need to chill out : RikiTiki2
  • Don't you snow it. : Feisty Cadaver
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  DotM safe? : at0micgarden
  • Yes. : BlackCat9
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    Yeah, I'm fine. : DianeOfTheMoon
    • YAYY!!! : kbnerd
    • Nice! : smackpiece
    • woot!! : RogerDandy
  • hope the other shackers are ok as well : Foxhawk
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    for the longest time I was trying to figure out what Blizzard game this stood for, then I remembered. : pancake humper
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      Defense of the __________? : DrFlammable
      • Mancients : Zek
      • Mohicans : ShoCon
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        Manhood :( : Dave-A
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          Yeah, I'm ok too. : DefenseOfTheManhood
          • lol : iamgoat
    • I did the exact same thing. like a new game mode in WoW or something : Chandler55
• I wouldn't really care if keeping 600 jobs meant development and publishing schedules were impacted. That... : not work safe
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  :( Blizz and valve are two companies that really make me worry when they dish out layoffs. : VictoriouSecret
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    I don't think Valve has ever had layoffs. : Frozen Pixel
    • For reals. They're way too small and the only hire the very best. Blizzard on the other hand has a hug... : GoldfishInAJarOfPickles
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      I thought only 2 people worked at Valve. Gabe and the rest of Gabe. : cetra00
      • k : GoldfishInAJarOfPickles
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  Why the "subscribers" in quotes? Afaik Blizzard has always published active subscriber numbers. : Lukiopimp
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    Because a WoW "subscriber" is not necessarily what people think of as a subscriber: World of Warcraft : Alice O'Connor
    • Basically, anyone who has given Blizzard cash monies in the past month to play WoW. : walker270
    • I see, thanks Alice. : Lukiopimp
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  I blame Obama's policies. : Jobos
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    I blame Obama as a human being. : azshack
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      I blame Obama's secret midnight rituals to the Great Old Ones. : Arcanum
      • All this crazy shit started happening once Obama started singing : jonin
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  This makes sense, even the no impact to current development line. It's not current development they're c... : daggot
  • This makes me really sad =( : mobab
• I guess WoW can't pay for everything forever... : surley_monkey
• Interesting. I imagine this is a combination of WoW subscription loss that has been going on the last cou... : GoldfishInAJarOfPickles
• Fun. : Senate5000
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  Isn't Diane at Blizz? Hope she didn't get cut. : breadsticks
  • Like 12 posts up. She's bueno. : Senate5000
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  so this isn't just culling WoW QA then? It's actual artists/programmers/designers? Wow. that's pretty... : deathofrats
  • It's the Blizzconn team + people who were still getting paid to work on Starcraft: Ghost. ... they fix... : walker270
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  From the BusinessWire press release: "The company will announce specific release plans for Diablo® II... : usar naem
  • SC2 mod, announced at Blizzcon http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/game/maps-and-mods/mods/dota : walker270
• crap, a friend of mine just got hired several months ago on the low end of the Blizz totem, hope his job ... : uebersoldat
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  how many total employees does blizzard have? : action figure
  • After the cut it will probably be between 5 and 6 thousand. : one random winner
• If these were quality devs (which I doubt they were) I'm optimistic about this because this could lead to... : nakor_
• Still no release date for HotS : flagg209
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  I hope no Shackers lost their jobs. :( : HL3dsx
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    I was part of it. Though I don't post too often. Now I can though! : Senate5000
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      what were you working on? : deathofrats
      • Orchammer 400 : Godhatesfatpeople
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        It was essentially QA on the support side. We'd go through all bugs sent in via tickets from players and... : Senate5000
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          oh are you located in Austin? How many QA folk were laid off? I have a friend of a friend who works the... : deathofrats
          • Irvine and I have no idea how many from the rest of QA, though I know some of them got let go. The speci... : Senate5000
          • I have a friend who works there and he didn't post anything on fb so I imagine he's ok. : GoldfishInAJarOfPickles
        • Sorry bud :( : LoioshDwaggie
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          WAIT hold on I have an inventory bug. I'm missing all of the maximum ilvl item tokens. :D : Downforce
          • Haha. : Senate5000
        • If you're looking for a support job in Irvine let me know via sm. not gaming though! : Dave-A
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          QA is a bad place to cut. I wonder why now? Activision just trying to put on a good show for investors ne... : Fred Garvin
          • They left some of it intact. My job probably makes more sense than some other QA departments since a lot... : Senate5000
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      Aww, man, I'm sorry. :( : DianeOfTheMoon
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        Thanks. Glad you came out of it okay. How did Rob fare? I haven't seen a post from him yet. : Senate5000
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          rob told me to tell you before you go that I'm to receive an unlocked megahax diablo 3 character. : Downforce
          • lol... nice try! : hoopfam4
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          He's good, too. : DianeOfTheMoon
          • Awesome. : Senate5000
    • Sorry man. As much as layoffs seem to be part and parcel for the industry, it still blows for those affec... : ColoradoCNC
    • i wish you luck! : kingfish
    • if it makes you feel any better the DOW was over 13,000 yesterday... : chilln
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      if youre ex-blizzard you can go anywhere right? : spiderfill
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        I just applied to the CIA, interview on Friday. : Senate5000
        • awsome good luck!! : spiderfill
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      Oh no. :( I enjoyed having dinner with you when Cataclysm came out. Hopefully they can hire some peopl... : BlackCat9
      • Indeed, should meet up again sometime. I have lots of free time now. : Senate5000
    • did you steal 999999999 gold before you left? : bolneze
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  Obama. : Barleywine
  • totes : royalally
• I just ran into about 20 newly unemployed at the Spectrum. Sorry gents :| : Jabby
• Kind of scary when a company as successful as them do big layoffs like that : mnok
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  Mists of Welfaria : systatic
  • Trololol'd so hard. : JAgamemnon
• Notch will probably hire all of them. : excessus