Message from Mike Morhaime

[Lisaara]

That's if all 10 million accounts are active. And pay with that fee. Not all do the $15 a month. I don't. I pay the cheaper way, which is 6 month plan.

Slightly cheaper, and it's just a rough number. I'll never get an exact number. Either way, they are not a company that is hurting for cash right now.

Edited my post to include other things that are very costly. And new tech isnt cheap at all. My computer alone(not the monitor and speakers and programs) was $1000. Can only imagine what theirs are...all their servers and stuff too.

[AdamSavage]

We still don't know how much they make from games sales, extra services and stuff. Either way, I'm sure they make a descent amount of profit. It's probably not the retard amounts of money the really big corps make, but still a good enough one I'm sure. It's still early to really guess the reason behind the lay off.

[AdamSavage]

Here is a quote I grabbed from the official post about it on the Bnet forums.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... 33?page=31

What we know thus far:
-600 jobs cut, company wide, so globally
-60 of those developers, going by percentages and article
-All games by Blizzard in 'pending' (or Beta) or 'Lull' status currently
-Blizzard employs a LOT of poeple and makes a LOT of money, from a Single Person's perspective (SPP for short)

What would be helpful to know, again from a SPP:
-Who of the 60 developers are offed and what roles they had where.
-The general gist of the other 540 and what they were involved in.
-how Blizzard's finances are compared to another gaming company, for example, SqaureEnix to put matters in perspective.
-Any pattern to international cuts and solid evidence to stop all conspiracy theorists in their tracks. (for example 600 fired for supporting gold farmers, and the daily blink comic from fab 10 2012 as another)

Ways to find out this information:
-look at what positions open up in the near future. We're Hiring X = Fired Crater
-timeframes for various things that Were in the works put on hold indefintely
-stock fluctuations up or down, and Soon
-direct intel from the company/the fired
-To The Googles! (beware references)

-No drastic effects At ALL= overstaffed areas, as they were stating, streamlined for better use (the Best case scenario, though unlikely with current information)

[Lisaara]

We still don't know how much they make from games sales, extra services and stuff. Either way, I'm sure they make a descent amount of profit. It's probably not the retard amounts of money the really big corps make, but still a good enough one I'm sure. It's still early to really guess the reason behind the lay off.

This is true. But all I was saying is they arent sitting on a big pile of cash and shooting the breeze. They spend it on stuff they need and pay their employees.

[Sukurachi]

by the way, you can't simply say $15 a month times 11 million subscribers...
for example, the Chinese subscribers don't pay that much.

[Lisaara]

by the way, you can't simply say $15 a month times 11 million subscribers...
for example, the Chinese subscribers don't pay that much.

You're correct. They don't.

[Congafury]

150million dollars a month.. im not sure it costs anywhere near that much a month to do what they're doing

Where did you get that math? O_o;

Even so, you'd be surprised. Developing new gaming tech alone costs a few mill...not to mention bills to pay, employees to pay....upgrades to buy, etc.

I totally agree with that! And don't forget about the money they spend to keep the servers up, upgrade them and so on. Besides as someone said - the chinese don't pay that much, russians don't either,it only seems that they are making tonns of money to stash in their pockets. The company is surely not poor but it's business and the world economy is not stable now. Before deciding to fire people the companies usually try to cut other costs, if it doesn't help to keep the company competable and running - well, to my mind it's much more fair to fire 600 workers then end up bancrupt and leave ALL the employees jobless.

[Sukurachi]

because we'd all much rather the monthly fees for WoW and other games went up, instead.

[Wain]

Here is a quote I grabbed from the official post about it on the Bnet forums.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic ... 33?page=31

What we know thus far:
-600 jobs cut, company wide, so globally
-60 of those developers, going by percentages and article
-All games by Blizzard in 'pending' (or Beta) or 'Lull' status currently
-Blizzard employs a LOT of poeple and makes a LOT of money, from a Single Person's perspective (SPP for short)

What would be helpful to know, again from a SPP:
-Who of the 60 developers are offed and what roles they had where.
-The general gist of the other 540 and what they were involved in.
-how Blizzard's finances are compared to another gaming company, for example, SqaureEnix to put matters in perspective.
-Any pattern to international cuts and solid evidence to stop all conspiracy theorists in their tracks. (for example 600 fired for supporting gold farmers, and the daily blink comic from fab 10 2012 as another)

Ways to find out this information:
-look at what positions open up in the near future. We're Hiring X = Fired Crater
-timeframes for various things that Were in the works put on hold indefintely
-stock fluctuations up or down, and Soon
-direct intel from the company/the fired
-To The Googles! (beware references)

-No drastic effects At ALL= overstaffed areas, as they were stating, streamlined for better use (the Best case scenario, though unlikely with current information)

From what did this person base their estimate that 10% of the cuts (=60) were developers? I can't see anything in the announcement to that effect. Just that development staff was "largely unaffected".

[GormanGhaste]

From what did this person base their estimate that 10% of the cuts (=60) were developers? I can't see anything in the announcement to that effect. Just that development staff was "largely unaffected".

Specific numbers were mentioned in the Gamespot link, but Gamespot did not list a source to back it up. My guess is that the developer cuts are mostly from Diablo, as it is pretty near the end of its development cycle, yes?

[cowmuflage]

Probley. I mean I know in animation when a shows near completion they cut back down to the minium they need.

[Lisaara]

From what did this person base their estimate that 10% of the cuts (=60) were developers? I can't see anything in the announcement to that effect. Just that development staff was "largely unaffected".

Specific numbers were mentioned in the Gamespot link, but Gamespot did not list a source to back it up. My guess is that the developer cuts are mostly from Diablo, as it is pretty near the end of its development cycle, yes?

That would be my guess.

[AdamSavage]

by the way, you can't simply say $15 a month times 11 million subscribers...
for example, the Chinese subscribers don't pay that much.

True, but I wasn't trying to get exact numbers. Just trying to come up with a ballpark figure. Basically just a number period as a rough reference point.

[Lisaara]

by the way, you can't simply say $15 a month times 11 million subscribers...
for example, the Chinese subscribers don't pay that much.

True, but I wasn't trying to get exact numbers. Just trying to come up with a ballpark figure. Basically just a number period as a rough reference point.

Eh...thats still not a very good number. You'd need to start by separating the countries, finding out what they pay....

[Rawr]

I was told by someone that those jobs were mostly tech and that they would be going over seas

[AdamSavage]

Eh...thats still not a very good number. You'd need to start by separating the countries, finding out what they pay....

That's more work then I really want to put into it.

What I would like to find out, is how many people don't play or hardly play but still have an active sub. I was in SW the other day around 6:30pm server and Stormwind was quiet. I flew over to the Trade District and same deal. Trade District is almost never quite at that time of day. Most of my friends are hardly online either now I've noticed.

[Schwert]

The economy is indeed doing very bad right now - And while it does seem Blizzard makes money in the droves most of that money goes towards several things and it'd be literally impossible to calculate just what their monthly costs to run are.

Businesses are businesses.

I feel horrible for the people that lost their jobs, however.
It's a shame when these things have to happen.

[Worba]

It's easy to look at job cuts as something horrible and intrinsically wrong - especially if yours was one of them, or if you've been through it before, no doubting it.

But sadly (and I mean "sadly" in the non-facetious, truly unhappy sense), economics is a very impersonal beast.

Companies that cut jobs in a bad economy tend to also be the quickest to add them when things are better, whereas those who hold the line at all costs tend to be less open to the more casual applicant (they have to be, knowing that once the person is in, they have to carry them in bad times), they suffer more in the stock market (which tends to spread and contribute to general economic downturn), or simply go under.

And when laws become involved, often companies will buy businesses overseas where layoff laws are more fluid, rather than hire locally, making it even harder to get into the trade (and also often making economic downturns more locked in).

But ofc it's a big gray area - because you also get companies who rampantly hire and fire regardless of the economy, purely so they can avoid having to support the larger salaries people get from being at the same company for an extended time period, which is a danger when employee rights are more lax.

because we'd all much rather the monthly fees for WoW and other games went up, instead.

Good point.

[cowmuflage]

With gaming like animation (atleast the developers and animators in the gaming indrustry) most work freelance and contract work so being layed off is perfectly normal part of the work. You only stay intill you finish that bit of work you where hired for then you have to find more work. Looking from a point of someone who may not know how the intrustry works it can look odd and sad and unfair but it's how gaming and animation compaines work. It's how they allways have worked.

They have a lucky few core workers who stay on (they tend to be the best) but they hire freelancers to do most of the work.

[Bulletdance]

I wonder how much money they made of the heart of the aspects alone. I know they must spend a boat load on advertising and develpment and all,but I feel for those who lost thier jobs and hope they can find more solid ones somewhere.