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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Massive Layoffs at Activision incoming

Actiblizzard Just gave Green light to 800 possible leakers. Leak the hell Out of that company People.



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First EA. Now Activision. Are all these conglomerates so evil?



nemo37 said:
melbye said:
They rely way to much on COD which is a franchise that will start seeing less and less return at some point

This seems to be becoming a trend with pretty much all large third-party publishers. They are reducing their output and focusing on a few big games, which they support with content for a longer period of time (aka games as a service). I don't know if increased development costs without an increase in video game prices has anything to do with this trend or if it just comes down to reducing the number of projects and focusing on only a few in order to reduce costs (its probably a mix of both of these things, as they do overlap with each other), but it seems like large third-party publishers have largely become risk averse and hesitant to work on projects that are smaller than their big established AAA games.

I mostly agreewith this, in a very general sense. One of the big exceptions would be Ubisoft. They still crank put much smaller games regularly.

The reality is that these Publishers have become huge companies. They're not run by gamers, because they pretty much cannot be. They have to be professionally managed by business people, and those people can't run a 10000 person company on emotion.  They have to be data-driven.  They have to deliver quarterly and annual results that please the shareholders. They are legally obligated to try their best to do so.  Risking money on unproven IP, unproven mechanics, or really anything unproven is just not something that can be done very often when you're talking about tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.  

In the long run, I think this just creates more opportinities for smaller competitors to succeed. if you're working on a game at an Activision studio and that project is canceled, you don't decide to go take a job bagging groceries. You find a gig somewhere else in gaming, most likely. You still have your talents, and all the knowledge that you gained while working on a big-budget production. Now you just apply it elsewhere.  That's a big win for smaller studios.



Is also important to note that Activision has indicated they will increase the number of development staff throughout their studios. These cuts will be mostly to administrative positions, and a handful of development jobs on projects that have been wound down, or are otherwise unneeded positions.

From a gamer's perspective, this sounds like a positive move. More content creation, less bloat that Activision has to fund through their unpopular monetization schemes.



CaptainExplosion said:
LivingMetal said:
First EA. Now Activision. Are all these conglomerates so evil?

No, just EA, Activision, Rockstar, Konami, and maybe Ubisoft.

Why did you have to remind me of Konami?  You didn't have to pull them from the recesses of my brain.



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Fuck these clowns, they're pure evil.



It's just business.



My Etsy store

My Ebay store

Deus Ex (2000) - a game that pushes the boundaries of what the video game medium is capable of to a degree unmatched to this very day.

Well Jim Sterling had an interesting spin on it lol.

One publishers loss will be another publishers gain. Hopefully The talented guys get picked up somewhere and perhaps get a chance to work with a bit more freedom.



 

 

I really feel sad for all these hardworking people,i hope they find another job fast and maybe even for a better publisher.