Blizzard Layoffs - President Leaves And New Game Cancelled

Blizzard just had massive changes
#diablo4

[abraxis]

A few points about the layoffs and Diablo:
1. There is no info that ANY of the layoffs were from the D4 team and no announcements of key D4 people have come to light. I suspect these people were not affected much.
2. These layoffs I think are a bit different from what is being implied by some. This is not your typical cost cutting layoff cycle. This is an after acquisition/merger streamlining. I am in market research and I work with several of the top 50 companies in medical and tech. Whenever there is an event like this there are always a large amount of layoffs and internal restructurings because there are so many people who have the same jobs/functions so its almost like you have double the support structure all the way up the food chain. It is inevitable this will happen. This one was very large because of the sheer size of the deal and I too feel for those who have been caught up in this process, but this is not "because of D4" or because the games division is failing. It is a very normal and sad process that companies go through to stay efficient. The fact that recognizable people in upper management are going screams reorg.

[tomtomkowski]

This is not Blizzard anymore, it's just the name of the company that made great games in the distant past.

[seanmacha]

This makes sense, they acquired a lot of different companies. That automatically means a bunch of positions, especially managerial were redundant and they had many people doing the same things. This is non news, normal part of acquisitions in any business.

[Johnnyboi]

Whoever is responsible for season 3 should be fired

[xDBoomer]

They walked into blizzard HQ and saw that there were 100 people working on 1 bug. While another 100 people changing the colors of NPCs so that they can say they added new enemies and bosses.

[nelson]

Good call to give D4 a break.
I bought the game on day 1, played for 2 seasons, grind 3 characters to 100 - good overall experience except the grind but shouldn't have paid early price But Palworld is giving me back the joy so far

[KHALK]

The fact that they still haven't fired the Diablo 4 team is actually surprising lol

[SHMlKE]

Blizz is a "take the bag and run" company

[thedoc]

You're seeing layoffs across "the gaming industry" because it isn't just DIABLO 4 that has been "sub par" the majority of games have been pretty mediocre when we compare them to the "golden age" of gaming. I personally hope the game market crashes and we see predatory game market practices fade away. Gamers are tired of battlepasses, they are tired of MTX shops, they are tired of buying unfinished games at FULL RETAIL PRICE.

THINGS NEED TO CHANGE.

[Multimedia_Magic]

Keep your chin up man. I watched your interview with Quinn and it was very good. Most of us watch channels for the personality as much or more than the game play. You're a good dude, you'll be just fine. Stop your torture and play more Palworld or whatever floats your boat, i'll watch it.

[Dzugoslav]

Good to know I am not the only person, who keeps some of the Christmas decoration in January.

[truedps]

Firing people isn't always a bad thing for the health of a game. D4 very well could become a better game due to it. It isn't about how many people you have making a game, it's about the quality of the people making a game. Path of Exile had better leagues and updates in 2014 when they had a minuscule amount of developers. Palworld came out of nowhere and people love it when it also has a very small development team.
That said layoffs always suck, and I do hope people are able to easily find new work. I just have zero reason to believe you'll notice a decline in game quality or quantity. Especially considering how garbage Blizzard has been, it's hard to get worse than that.

[Slowsilv]

It’s really hard to believe that so many people went into making this game suck

[hellfirebikerz]

I remember when we were disappointed with D3 and WoW
And were told *not to worry* because a completely new Team of *experienced devs that play their games* are working on it. Lmao

[teresmajor]

They must be getting rid of chief level positions to bring new management. Probably the bigger company want to pull more strings.

[rodeowerewolf]

The reality is, there's a lot of big Ls in the industry due to management leading game efforts down poor paths hiring people who shouldn't have been hired or pushing agenda from the top producing games and game features most don't want. Reality and reaction is setting in. Here's hoping direction forward is better handled.

[bloodCount]

I have two friends that were laid off there, and they forced you to return to the office even if you were hired as a remote worker. Both relocated from IL to CA, or they would lose their jobs. 6 months later laid off.

[Stardrifter]

Good choice to stop the D4 grind in season 3. All the negative reactions from the player base and content creators made me not even bother logging in for season 3. Hopefully season 4 changes something meaningful.

[justiceg]

They need to add to the base game, the concept of starting over with a big paragon grind for temporary seasonal content has kept me away since season one.. I want to experiment with and min/max existing characters, that's what keeps me playing, not this.

[Mr.Steve]

Diablo 4 team: over 9000 people
Baldur's Gate 3 team:450 people. Theres so much bloat in Blizzard considering the underwhelming crap they produce time after time.