Activision Blizzard CFO Fired

Tom Ganks

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Activision Blizzard CFO was reportedly fired with severance of 9.4 million. Imagine how much more content Blizzard's games would have with that kind of money invested into the game. What a fucking joke..

 
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Adeimantus said:
They are increasingly out of touch and cynical but they definitely spend a healthy amount on game development. 9.5 million is peanuts.
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couldn't be more wrong. 9.4 million could pay the average salaries of 117 (give or take) game designers with an annual salary of around 80k

I'm not one to typically knock earnings of an employee if the company is growing in popularity and/or creative success. But with sub numbers lowering, I see these large payoffs as a loss in company assets that could have simply been alocated back into the company and/or the product. Instead it's building mansions. A lot of these big business men are well into their 40s and 50s and nearing retirement age. Most of them could give less of a shit if the company crumbles after they're out. Here's a documentary of a different company (Bungie) in their early years before they merged with Activision. They mention at the beginning they merged with activision, but you realize that most of the documentary is about before they did so. You can tell they cared much more about the craft of the game rather than big pay-offs. And when the game is REALLY good, it will obviously bring in enough profits as a result of that to pay the employees well whilst satisfying a fan-base and keeping the company alive for the long-term.

I'm all for capitalism, but this type of capitalism doesn't work for long for a business. They will die off like Enron, while the higher-ups reap the benefits and their workforce pays for the higher-ups' greedy decisions with job-loss.
 
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In terms of the amount they spend on upkeeping WoW or designing games like OW, 9.5 is demonstrably not much money. If they spent 9.5 more on WoW it's design philosophy would still be just a shit. Blizzard's problems are philosophical not resource related.
 
Hopefully whatever is going wrong at blizzard right now isnt a cultural thing which permeates through the entire dev staff but judging by who is the lead wow dev (you think you do but you dont) and the almost comical disdain he appears to have for players just by the tone he evokes when he does cushy q and a (or maybe he has asperghers or something, who knows) im not to confident. I guess when you have 2 + decades of solid gold behind you its easy to become arrogant and start ignoring what players actually want in exchange for what you tihnk they should want.
 
Adeimantus said:
In terms of the amount they spend on upkeeping WoW or designing games like OW, 9.5 is demonstrably not much money. If they spent 9.5 more on WoW it's design philosophy would still be just a shit. Blizzard's problems are philosophical not resource related.
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I agree with this. But that's only a factor. If it costs them more money to hire someone who has their interest in making the fans happy at the cost of large bonuses and quarterly earnings, they won't do it. And lets not forget that much of Blizzards income is from micro-transactions for things that should already be included in the game and not in the shop.

Cost of designing a measly mount in the shop: probably a few hundred thousand at most. Cost in marketing it, probably less. Earnings: millions. Those earnings will cease to come in when their fanbase has had enough of the bullshit. Content in a shop is not content in a game unless it's an expansion.
 
While any publicly traded company is first and foremost motivated by the financial interests of its shareholders (as it should) there is a tipping point where those interests start to undermine the 'interests of the shareholders' and I think this shift from 'buying a solid finished product for a rrp) in exchange for lootbox + endless paid content is going potentially become harmful to acompanies bottom line..........who am i kidding lootbox revenue is through the roof and the general public appear to lap that shit up, have you seen what has become of FIFA?

What will be the breaking point? In an industry soley eliant on players and sales is there a limit to what gamers will cop? Or is the vocal minority drowned out by the storemount buying season pass loving average gamer
 
Tweakedirl said:
While any publicly traded company is first and foremost motivated by the financial interests of its shareholders (as it should) there is a tipping point where those interests start to undermine the 'interests of the shareholders' and I think this shift from 'buying a solid finished product for a rrp) in exchange for lootbox + endless paid content is going potentially become harmful to acompanies bottom line..........who am i kidding lootbox revenue is through the roof and the general public appear to lap that shit up, have you seen what has become of FIFA?

What will be the breaking point? In an industry soley eliant on players and sales is there a limit to what gamers will cop? Or is the vocal minority drowned out by the storemount buying season pass loving average gamer
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Seeing how there's been so much controversy around it lately and headlines about governments banning lootbox gambling systems for certain games, I'd say there's a rising backlash. Especially when large twitch streamers and youtubers start talking about it.

Just a guess, but I think Classic wow will be a great learning point for blizzard when it comes to knowing what the fans actually want and what will keep them subscribed. Classic sub numbers will not only be more stable, but it will also take playerbase away from the current expansion. That is to say they don't start adding paid services or shop items into classic.
 
This is nonsense. A high end cfo at that level makes a difference of far more than $9.4M. He’s contributed more to the bottom line of that company more than you’ll ever know. They likely either think someone else can contribute even more or else he clashed with the ceo / board. Regardless you can’t look at salaries for top players as expenses - they’re investments that return enormous dividends.

If everyone focused on making themselves more valuable instead of bemoaning large salaries there’d be far more rich people. Life has choices and if you don’t want to make the sacrifices to be them fine - but complaining about it accomplishes nothing.

My $0.02
 
Phrontistery said:
imo @Roboartist if blizzard got given a ton of money wow would probably just get worse faster lmao
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True, and design philosophy is a large factor like @Adeimantus mentioned. But ultimately this is due to corporate take-over with more interest in revenue. As I said, a company can be successful at the expense of the fanbase, but can also be successful if they make a good product. I'm sure there are many game designers with great ideas that never come to fruition because the final decisions are coming from people who probably barely even play the games they make.
 
It's kind of funny how our dissatisfaction with the state of WoW (due to developer company greed), has a glimmer of hope in WoW Classic, which came about because of the developer company greed.
 
Who gives a fuck how much a blizzard CEO earns, thats the going rate for that position in the industry and blizzzard can choose to employ and pay whatever they see fit. I have no issue with it in the context of this topic, the 1% v average worker divide can get argued somewhere else.
 
MYT said:
This is nonsense. A high end cfo at that level makes a difference of far more than $9.4M. He’s contributed more to the bottom line of that company more than you’ll ever know.
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Blizzard made pay cuts back in the day with average employees, but made up for it with bonuses so they could stand on their feet. They removed that bonus program for their average employees and now they are left with scraps. Cost in living in CA is high and their salaries are barely able to cope with it. I'd say this CFO and their previous CFO was doing a terrible job for their bottom line in recent years.
 
I haven’t followed them so that may be the case (they personally did a bad job) but in general exec pay is far more lucrative to the bottom line than people think. There’s really no established successful business people that think overpaying for front line staff is what makes you succeed. That being said, underpaying relative to the market has consequences and you’re implying that’s what is happening. Although tons of companies go through that cycle.
 
@MYT Question is, will they get out of that cycle? I'm hoping they do with a good and healthy kick in the ass.
 
Indeed, imagine what would happen if the workers who produced the products were compensated to a greater degree than the equity vultures who inevitably buy their companies and direct that wealth upwards.
 
Nobody cares who is in charge... Activision, Blizz, Bioware, EA... The most important thing is to keep the game running (for twinks). Just keep the game alive and keep 20-29 lvl bracket alive.
 
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