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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

#291

Post by hipadev23 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #280
hipadev23 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skimming your comments: You deeply detest everything related to AI, cloud, and startups. It’s not age discrimination per-se, but it’s because you're actively dragging your heels on the technologies that companies are hiring for. You can probably find a job doing maintenance on some PHP or Rails app that hasn't been updated since Obama’s first term, but the pay is likely also going to come from that era.

>you're actively dragging your heels on the technologies that companies are hiring for. because only AI, cloud, and startups are hiring? What a weird interpretation to make of someone based off of a comment history on the internet. We don't even know what domain they work in.

I could give the standard “ah shucks brother keep your head up!” advice that most people do.

Or I can give tactical suggestions, which may be a bit hard to stomach, so he can improve his odds at landing a job.

It’s fairly easy to infer his job domain from comments. He mentions web technologies and SQL often. He refers to himself as a dev, not as an engineer, and he mentions running numerous websites. He probably got his start working in “IT” (nobody says IT anymore, but he still does) in the 90s in support or technician roles and moved into full-stack web developer roles around dotcom.

He also comes across as low self-confidence due to “I've almost always gotten good to great performance reviews” instead of telling us why he’s an excellent dev. That likely comes out in interviews and further hurts his chances.

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

#292

Post by BlueTemplar »

asylteltine wrote: post #238
solardev wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just played Diablo 4 season 3 (which launched a couple days ago) for a bit, and sadly I have to agree. It's such an empty, soulless game. Reminds me of Starfield, regurgitated sameness. Path of Exile, Last Epoch, Grim Dawn, etc. are all so much better, and made by tiny studios (though sometimes backed by Tencent, like with PoE). With the AAAs focusing only on safe sequels, maybe LLMs taking over would be a good thi…

I really liked the universe and characters which is why heroes of the storm was so cool. But of course they killed that off. Their classic games aren’t just about the gameplay it’s the universe too.

What do you mean "killed off", there seems to have been an update last week ?

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/heroes-of-the-storm/24056177...

(Now I will be the first to point out that online-only games have no future, but this one at least still has a present.)

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

#293

Post by BlueTemplar »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #247
mikeortman wrote: post #19

It blows my mind that many people worked there, only 8% of Microsoft Gaming?

Game development is an extremely labour intensive industry.

And at the same time you have best-in-class games created by one person. (Ok, two, if you add the various publisher/third party help.)

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

#294

Post by therealcamino »

exclusiv wrote: post #248
kirse wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s fucking hard, and it’s not glamorous "Fucking hard" compared to what? Things I'd qualify under the category of "fucking hard": - Agricultural Farming - Lifetime debilitating disease / health issue - Being enslaved or a POW - Living in a 3rd world country - Moving West in the 1800s - Fighting in the American Revolutionary or Civil War This narrative that starting a company is "fucking hard" is all part of the SV/…

I understand your sentiment, but one's experience does not need to manifest like the ones you listed to be considered hard. You listed one career choice and agriculture is actually the easiest industry. #2 lowest failure rate in 1 year, #1 lowest after 5 and after 10 years [1]. What you thought was fucking hard is objectively not compared to every other industry from BLS data. Although I'd still say it's a startup an…

"You listed one career choice and agriculture is actually the easiest industry. #2 lowest failure rate in 1 year, #1 lowest after 5 and after 10 years [1]. What you thought was fucking hard is objectively not compared to every other industry from BLS data. "

You are pretty clearly defining "hard" differently than the poster you're responding to, as somehow being related only to the chance of a venture failing. But obviously that's not what "hard" means when the other examples include being a prisoner of war.

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

#295

Post by bravetraveler »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #259
bravetraveler wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, I appreciate that :) I never felt that were true, personally, having mostly joined places without much consideration! For some perspective: it was often more important to get out of somewhere bad than in somewhere nice

Ok, glass 3/4 full! #1 You have an innate talent for avoiding bad workplaces, and #2 you're a lucky person!

Careful, the cup runneth over! :)

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

#296

Post by johnnyanmac »

hipadev23 wrote: post #291
johnnyanmac wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you're actively dragging your heels on the technologies that companies are hiring for. because only AI, cloud, and startups are hiring? What a weird interpretation to make of someone based off of a comment history on the internet. We don't even know what domain they work in.

I could give the standard “ah shucks brother keep your head up!” advice that most people do. Or I can give tactical suggestions, which may be a bit hard to stomach, so he can improve his odds at landing a job. It’s fairly easy to infer his job domain from comments. He mentions web technologies and SQL often. He refers to himself as a dev, not as an engineer, and he mentions running numerous websites. He probably got…

I don't know how often unsolicited advice on the internet is helpful. Sometimes a rant is just a rant.

Regardless, I don't exactly see the good faith when saying "well you don't like AI, just find some crusty old phpjobs and take the cut". Which is both over-presumptuous (we don't know the domain they work in) and not very helpful anyway ("old" companies may not be laying off thousands but still aren't exactly throwing jobs out like candy).

>It’s fairly easy to infer his job domain from comments

Even 20 years ago. Web has so many pieces of tech (some that didn't survive) that I wouldn't assume. Could be IT (which no one says because it evolved into its own separate domain. A 2000's IT engineer wouldn't really be doing what SDET or DevOps do today), could be old style vanilla JS website development, could be flash. Or something entirely different.

>He refers to himself as a dev, not as an engineer, and he mentions running numerous websites

Titles don't really mean much. My domain calls people developers, programmers, or engineers as the company sees fit (also, it's awkward to say "game engine engineer"). The terms are almost as flexible as "senior" these days.

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

#297

Post by indymike »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #234
indymike wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The's another factor: you now have to deal with getting 20% of the tax benefit from an engineering salary since R&D expenses are now amortized over five years.

Agreed, this has a really interesting effect on smaller businesses which may not exist in 5 years. Sure the S&P500 it's unlikely many or any of them go bankrupt in the next 5 years, so they at least know they can _eventually_ write it off. Meanwhile a company may hit bankruptcy in yr 3 despite lingering credits. This can happen when they have profit on paper, but negative cashflow.

> it's unlikely many or any of them go bankrupt in the next 5 years, so they at least know they can _eventually_ write it off.

I don't think this really matters all that much to small biz. It really has a lot of effect on the middle, where taking a $50/yr effectively leaves you having to deal with $40m you can't treat as an expense this year. It's a great way to cause unemployment.

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

#298

Post by razzi »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #222
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

I want to make some joke about Blizzard not releasing software/employees until they're ready, but I can't. Being laid off just plain sucks.

To me the Warcraft III Reforged saga dispelled any illusion Blizzard would still hold off on releasing unfinished/unpolished games

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

#299

Post by ajkjk »

WhackyIdeas wrote: post #288
ajkjk wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's not because of LLMs. This happens after every acquisition. Anyway do you think LLMs are magic or something?

What a daft thing to say. For my projects, I have decreased the dev time from things that would have taken me three months to build down to at max 1 month using LLM’s. I have built around 50 plugins for Woocommerce which I would never in a million years had the time to build. Magic? No, it’s like having a small team at my finger tips (and for no extra cost than the £75 I pay OpenAI each month).

The limiting factor on speed at large companies is not "time to write code".

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

#300

Post by selfmodruntime »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #280
hipadev23 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skimming your comments: You deeply detest everything related to AI, cloud, and startups. It’s not age discrimination per-se, but it’s because you're actively dragging your heels on the technologies that companies are hiring for. You can probably find a job doing maintenance on some PHP or Rails app that hasn't been updated since Obama’s first term, but the pay is likely also going to come from that era.

>you're actively dragging your heels on the technologies that companies are hiring for. because only AI, cloud, and startups are hiring? What a weird interpretation to make of someone based off of a comment history on the internet. We don't even know what domain they work in.

No, because even if you are at a pretty standard company, you will be expected to deal with these technologies
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