More Blizzard Layoffs - It's Not Enough

[@alan.smitheeee]

Except, the layoff cadence in the game industry is happening too much and too often. I don't know how recently you've been laid off but The amount of hoops you have to jump through now if to even get an interview is insane. Recruiters still look down on you if you're apart of a mass RIF and unless you've attained unicorn status or have 5 recommendations for a position you're out of luck. Many good devs with families are dealing with losing their homes bcause of corpo greed. The C-suites aren't doing this too envigorate the quality of game projects or retain a good image, they're doing it to spike shareholder stock plain and simple.

[@OujirouYT]

I don't recommend people wait for layoffs because if it's a bad layoff package and you can't get a job fast enough you run the very real risk of being homeless. If you are young and single you can get creative with moving in with friends or trying to move back in with family, but for the older folks you really need to keep your skills up and a lot of money saved. I've worked side jobs in addition to working in games to make sure we had the extra money for our family. I've seen some senior marketing people talk online about being out of a job for over a year because they can't find one of a similar seniority. Loads of recruiters are pure garbage, because the good ones get promoted to manage the bad ones, it's been like that for the whole 15 years I've been working. Whenever I hear a friend is laid off and they have a family I make a point to reach out and ask if they need help. Sometimes if I ask around I can find out if we have internal postings coming up they can apply to or talk to others in my network. The good folks in the industry look out for each other the best we can because it's a very volatile industry to work in. I do not recommend people get into this industry for that reason.

[@OujirouYT]

Reread again after you made your edit. You are correct that 99% of the layoffs are being driven by corporate greed. Working at a company like that is a huge risk right now, and the more that get laid off the more hoops you have to go through. Business heads, VPs, and the like are pushing unrealistic targets and the ones that pay the price are the developers. The consumers can always just look elsewhere for games, because there is no shortage of games, and many will cheer on developers getting laid off because they lump the developers in with the bad actors at the top. The worst I dealt with was working at 4 different game companies in the span of 2 years. Layoff after layoff, average of about 2 weeks severance per layoff, each time having people say it looked bad or just ignore my application because it was so turbulent. In my case if I have trouble finding a new job in games I plan on looking into med tech or the like for a job where I can make games in my spare time. My family has to come first, even if it means leaving the industry.

[@Sly_404]

Nature is healing!

[@minakatahizuru]

Best for Blzzard IPs would be if they got transfered to Netease.

[@minakatahizuru]

Disagree I like Ips how they have more lay offs and heavy cleansing.

[@cathode6252]

Good to see that American flag in your videos!

[@OujirouYT]

The most important flag there is.

[@Jeff-ne1lh]

It may be schadenfreude....but I want the layoffs to happen, I especially want these smug developers that hate me for immutable characteristics to leave the industry never to return....that means especially the idiots at Blizzard.

[@OujirouYT]

I want stability in the games industry, but that doesn't come until the activists are driven out. Layoffs are painful, but necessary to get us there.

[@UltramarineDad]

Ubisoft ( sweet baby inc) is the wokest studio. Blizzard still makes games that millions play , wow isn’t dead .

[@OujirouYT]

I don't think wow will ever die. It scratches an itch for loads of people. Overwatch on the other hand, I could see that dropping off with a great competitor coming in over time. They have so many employees to support that they need all the players they can get, but without new products they can't support a huge headcount on wow alone.

[@ahegao4915]

How does a dev studio even get that bloated in the first place? I'd imagine it was something like twitter pre-Elon; just a bunch of nepotism and diversity hires for ESG kickbacks. But still, I have sparingly little pity for those who were laid off. Sure, the majority deserved it, but for the talented few affected, it's hard not to see it coming when you are pumping out garbage like Diablo Immortal. Get your affairs in order and have a contingency. I'm not in the industry and I understand beggars can't be choosers when it comes to landing a job, but if you truly have any passion for the craft, see this as an opportunity to put your skills to better use. In a perfect world, the talented devs would land on their feet or even start their own indie studios. But at the rate Microsoft is acquiring then axe-ing smaller studios, I guess it's really a tough time to be a game dev, period.

[@OujirouYT]

For most game studios they have a time where they make a ton of money and assume that if they just add more people the money will just magically appear via scaling. But when you scale you also have to hire people in support roles, and as the company size goes up the support side ends up growing exponentially (much like Twitter did). The most absurd example I can think of is from Zynga that hired over 5,000 people based off of Farmville only to lay off over 500 because revenue went down. For the best folks I really hope they start up indie projects, the amount of great games out of the indie space is only going up and it's such a breath of fresh air. After some of the older layoff rounds some of the OG Blizzard folks started up their own studios, and if they just focus on good games I have high hopes.