Blizzard recently announced that they analyzed their current business needs and have decided to perform a global reduction of their workforce to streamline operations. The bad news upfront is that this reduction in workforce entails the company letting go approximately 600 employees worldwide. They have stated that the majority of departments being cut are not related to the game development divisions
More specifically, they stated that 90% of the employee reductions will be from departments not related to game development. Also, they noted that the World of Warcraft (WoW) development team "will not be impacted." Blizzard believes that the cuts were a necessary part of decisions relating to a company with changing needs in an ever evolving industry. CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime, stated that they are proud of the contributions those effected by the announcement have made for Blizzard and they "wish them well as they move forward."
Job cuts are never an easy decision, especially for the employees. I wish them all the best of luck in continuing their careers and other future endeavors.
Gonna go out on a limb and
Gonna go out on a limb and say “…and the decline begins”
Eh… I’m not so sure.
They
Eh… I’m not so sure.
They are apparently hiring quite a bit as they are laying off.
This doesn’t necessarily mean
This doesn’t necessarily mean anything particularly bad happening to Blizzard. With today’s economy, many companies have been laying off workers.
I am sure they look at the
I am sure they look at the bottom line and see revenue decline but they know that even if WOW is in decline they need to look at cutting something else besides the bread and butter.
The game itself is really good, the population is not. Honestly seems like players contribute to alot of mmo failure. Just an opinion of course.
I’d have to agree with one of
I’d have to agree with one of the above comments – the game itself is pretty good (in general)(I realize the graphics rendering engines are outdated) but the ‘wow community’ has been over-run with absolutely horrible people. Blizzard created an in-game reward system that actually reinforces being greedy, cheating, and doing all one can to screw your fellow players.
Either Blizzard gets a handle on that or more and more people will chose to go to SWTOR or GW2 etceteras.