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Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

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Re: Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

#111

Post by graphe »

gary_0 wrote: post #59
whoswho wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a grown ass man who played Vikings/rnrr/superman/War1/War2 / War2BNE /SC1/ SC1X/{basically every released and unreleased blizzard title including alphas}, I really really wish I could see a successor game that doesn’t have pinups of women that look like they have yoga tights and crop tops for armor. It would be nice to have a game that’s a bit less thirsty.

It's kind of weird how much of the gaming industry still caters to the teenage boy demographic.

Why it it strange to cater to a demographic and not stranger to shotgun everyone into liking something?

Re: Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

#112

Post by bostonsre »

seydor wrote: post #87

Last time the stock market was surging, everyone was hiring. This time it's different

Is it all due to inflation and the interest rates? Shouldn't these companies be able to issue stock to get some cheap capital to continue growth/hiring? Or anyone know why this is happening?

Re: Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

#114

Post by password54321 »

solardev wrote: post #90
jrockway wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Activision Blizzard was always chasing revenue at the expense of everything else. They got away with riding the coattails of Blizzard for a while, but eventually everyone figured out what was going on. My "favorite" part was watching them kill Overwatch with Overwatch League. Overwatch was popular because people played it casually. Activision thought it would be great to make it a professional sport. Eventually…

Larian, FromSoftware, Gunfire, Grinding Gear... the smaller studios are putting out great games still, with much of that 90s magic. There's that new game Palworld too apparently making a stir (haven't tried it yet), from another small studio. It's the big ones that have jumped the shark and gone full-in capitalist. I mostly just ignore them and haven't felt like I've missed much. So many good indie titles coming out…

>It's the big ones that have jumped the shark and gone full-in capitalist.

Nonsense for most single player games which there are still many of.

Re: Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

#115

Post by shrimp_emoji »

AlexandrB wrote: post #6
iammjm wrote: post #3

"primarily laying off roles at Activision Blizzard, some Xbox and ZeniMax employees will also be impacted / work out to roughly 8 percent of the overall Microsoft Gaming division that stands at around 22,000 employees in total." 2k employees look like a lot, 8% looks kinda better. I need Starcraft 3 badly :)

> I need Starcraft 3 badly :) I do too, but I don't think Blizzard are going to be the ones to make it[1]. [1] https://playstormgate.com

Anything coming out of modern Blizzard will be garbage, like with Bethesda.

Your best hope is that they license the IP to a company that actually cares, like Bethesda did with Black Isle for Fallout New Vegas.

Re: Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

#116

Post by gmerc »

safog wrote: post #52

FAO: People who're claiming GenAi will replace artist jobs. It might happen but it's extremely difficult even using state of the art models like stable diffusion v6 to get consistent results. There's usually some part or the other of the picture that's broken and it takes a lot of work with prompting, blending, varying to get it to work. Buy the subscription for 30$ or whatever and give it a shot. First you'll be ama…

there’s a lot more to game development - environment textures, normal maps, foliage, gui textures, background sounds, concept art, etc and AI has been making a lot inroads to these areas

People over index on the hard cases but those are not the majority of work.

Re: Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

#117

Post by cauthon »

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #51
iammjm wrote: post #3

"primarily laying off roles at Activision Blizzard, some Xbox and ZeniMax employees will also be impacted / work out to roughly 8 percent of the overall Microsoft Gaming division that stands at around 22,000 employees in total." 2k employees look like a lot, 8% looks kinda better. I need Starcraft 3 badly :)

If you love Starcraft just a quick reminder that the Korean Brood War scene is still going strong, and is now getting bigger. BW is a near perfect game and it's clear with how they handled SC2 "Blizzard" is not going to make anything close to BW ever again. I would highly recommend checking it out if you love Starcraft. For starters, Artosis casts a pro-level ladder game every day on this channel: https://www.youtube…

I’d love a brood war remaster

Re: Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

#118

Post by solardev »

oblio wrote: post #102
solardev wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I've personally seen ChatGPT produce better writing and more interesting game mechanics compared to D4. But I guess it's not that different from having young blood with good ideas overridden by profit hungry management who just want to milk the IP. I don't think it's so much AI vs human but how risk-averse the bean counters are. D4 felt stagnant an hour in...

It's novel. Give it 5-10 years for the "sameness"-y to kick in.

I don't think this is necessarily the case for fiction, where creativity is more important than perfect accuracy (ie hallucinations could be a good thing). LLMs have access to more training material than a human writer could reasonably read in a lifetime, and have a large statistical model of "drama" that's way more nuanced than your typical side NPC.

I don't see this as an either/or situation where they'll replace the lead writers of a title and create the entire narrative. But they can surely (already) make far more interesting characters and side quests than your standard "help kill these goblins for 3gp" filler or fetch quest. Working together with writers, instead of outright replacing them, will hopefully create better overall experiences for gamers.

Re: Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

#119

Post by saos »

crazygringo wrote: post #86
saos wrote: post #12

> It’s been a little over three months since the Activision, Blizzard, and King teams joined Microsoft Always on the table after an acquisition. Especially close to earnings I hope severance is nice for all impacted

Exactly. One of the major benefits of acquisitions is to reduce duplicated roles/teams and therefore save money. You don't need two HR teams, two teams of accountants, etc. +1 on wishes for good severance!

Yeahh its happened to me in past, my first ever job out uni. The company got absolutely gutted week after acquisition was finalised. It's painful but you eventually move on in life.

Re: Microsoft lays off 1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees

#120

Post by shrimp_emoji »

cauthon wrote: post #117
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you love Starcraft just a quick reminder that the Korean Brood War scene is still going strong, and is now getting bigger. BW is a near perfect game and it's clear with how they handled SC2 "Blizzard" is not going to make anything close to BW ever again. I would highly recommend checking it out if you love Starcraft. For starters, Artosis casts a pro-level ladder game every day on this channel: https://www.youtube…

I’d love a brood war remaster

... They already made one.

And it crowded out every historical playthrough video of the original Brood War on YouTube, such that full playthroughs of the original are impossible to find.

And so, through grasping at the straws of rehashing old stuff they can't make anew, they ruin the old stuff that was good. :D

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