No.5276
I'm retarded. I didn't realize they axed Blizzard devs. hahahahaha HOLY FUCK
No.5289
>>5275It's still just 1/10th of the company.
Still a bloated mess filled with cancer, hopefully there's more to come.
They should have 5000 at most.
No.5295
>>5289"Just"?
1/10th of a company is a fucking lot.
No.5298
>>5295It's 1.900 out of 22.000
It's a lot, but barely a dent
No.5301
>>5298I wonder if it's a handful from various departments or entire departments. Categorically speaking, I wonder if it's the useless team manager soy sluts or if they're replacing teams.
No.5302
>>5301>I wonder if it's the useless team manager soy sluts or if they're replacing teams.They're purging the few remaining straight white men.
No.5303
>>5302You can't possibly tell me there were any left after 2018 or whenever that sex scandal dropped.
No.5304
>>5303There were a few left hidden away from the HR and journos in the back. Someone had to do all the work while the diversity hires hang around the latte machine to complain about homophobia, racism and the patriarchy all day.
No.5305
>>5304I guess we have to go to twitter to find the fired drones and their reactions.
No.5308
>>5301Mostly HR but all departments are affected it seems.
No.5309
>>5302Good, the faster their companies will implode.
What AAA companies are even remaining and still independent?
Take2, Ubisoft and EA. That's fucking it.
Rest is either a conglomerate from the root ot got gobled up by a bigger entity.
Take2 can last quite a while on R* fumes, but EA and Ubisofr are beyond fucked.
Ubisoft won't last 10 years and I'll be impressed if EA can even last 20.
No.5311
>>5309EA and 2K are unstoppable, their mobile/sports divisions are money printers, and even outside of those, they are doing quite well. Ubisoft is headed off a cliff though along with Ubisoft
No.5314
>>5309>>5311It wasn't mentioned much in the media but Microsoft bailed out Ubisoft during the Activision/Blizzard merger for the next 15 years. When the next call of duty game gets bought on a playstation or nintendo service in the future it's ubisoft that's going to get a cut.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/business/ubisoft-secures-exclusive-cloud-streaming-rights-to-activision-blizzard-titles'cloud streaming' doesn't mean graphical rendering being done remotely. Any part that requires cloud usage to function turns it into a 'cloud streaming' title. That includes multiplayer or 'cloud saves' for single player games.
No.5315
>>5314I was wondering if the reverse of what people consider 'cloud streaming' was already in use and it is! It's called command streaming
>Command Streaming is an alternative to video streaming that does not require GPUs in the cloud. It works by intercepting the graphics commands the game issues to a graphics API - such as DirectX or OpenGL - and then compressing and sending them over the network for the client to render using its local GPU. No.5320
>>5314>Microsoft bailed out Ubisoft during the Activision/Blizzard merger for the next 15 yearsThe deal was for cloud streaming rights only (stadia shit). It was a token concession to the CMA and doesn't do anything for Ubisoft. At the moment they'd be lucky to make it 15 months, not 15 years
No.5322
>>5321Are there ever actually any details as to who these people are? It could be a diversity hire for quotas that they generically layoff to avoid racism.
No.5324
>>5322All of the leads are gone, Bonnie Ross and Mart O'Donell included.
No.5325
>>5324>>5322>MartyI meant Frank O'Connor, the guy who essentially stank up all of the lore and even the art design.
No.5331
>>5322Straight white men. If it were the diversity hires they'd be on twitter screeching about being oppressed.
No.5340
>>5295>1/10th of a company is a fucking lot.5% is around what other companies have laid off due to overextending, multiple by two for the merger and it makes sense
No.5343
>>5320I went into detail about how 'cloud streaming' still has a different meaning to these companies than it does to people like us chatting about the industry online. An offline game that requires online activation or uses online services(think Sim City in 2013) is considered a 'cloud streaming' title. Think of it this way; if they have the power to remove access to the game then it's considered a 'cloud streaming' even if it just connects to an authentication server that sends a few kilobytes of data.
There are lawsuits going on over this right now.
No.5348
>>5347>or Ubisoft would now have exclusive rights to Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo etc.Yup that's the idea. So realistically they'll never get access to the money that world of warcraft brings in or the in game payments in other titles while the next call of duty or diablo sold on any platform they get a cut as the publisher.
You have to remember that Ubisoft didn't pay anything for those rights either, it's a bailout to keep the industry looking like it's not entirely controlled by conglomerates. Same sort of concessions or paying competitors to stay afloat happens in many industries to keep regulators happy and off their backs. Back in the early 2000's Microsoft invested $150 million into Apple and stopped all their patent lawsuits to keep them around.
No.5349
>>5298It should be reaching holocaust levels of layoffs, wagecucks blacklisted from 109 videogame companies.
No.5352
>>5348>they'll never get access to the money that world of warcraft brings in or the in game payments in other titles while the next call of duty or diablo sold on any platform they get a cut as the publisher.That's not what the deal is, the rights are for game streaming only. They don't get a cut of physical/digital sales even if those games are always online. Go read it instead of just guessing what the deal is
>You have to remember that Ubisoft didn't pay anything for those rights eitherStop talking out of your ass, they paid a one off sum and have to keep paying Microsoft for access
No.5354
>>5352>they paid a one off sumOh yeah can't forget the undisclosed sum that could be a single dollar. Changes everything.
>Go read it instead of just guessing what the deal isHere's the deal, what happens when the next major diablo or call of duty is streaming only? In that case Ubisoft is the only one allowed to license it and what Ubisoft is saying about a consumer shift starts to make sense:
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-new-ubisoft-and-getting-gamers-comfortable-with-not-owning-their-gameIt really shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody that Microsoft is pushing this cloud first strategy; first their games become cloud aware then cloud native and eventually all is streamed from the cloud with middle men like Ubisoft kept in the loop to make it appear as if there's competition. You already can't play their offline games when the service is down for authentication so what is the real difference? Where the game is run? They can and do change that whenever they want, it's in the EULA.
The consumer shift that Ubisoft guy is talking about is when you buy a game and the choice of streaming or local install isn't up to you anymore. And then older games in your library start becoming streaming only. This isn't a guess they're saying it out loud this is the future. You agreed to it by clicking 'I accept'.
No.5360
>>5359Where do you think those games they sold the rights to are going to be streamed from? It's the same place Ubisoft already uses, Microsoft's Azure cloud platform. The small loss in revenue is nothing compared to the potential growth in users.
No.5394
>>5392They want developers hooked on their tools and cloud services. They'll subsidize game development using their services to the extent that it'll be cheaper and more lucrative to work with Microsoft to publish on Nintendo's or Sony's platforms.
If they don't Amazon is going to conquer the cloud gaming space. And growth in that sector is what all the major investors are looking at right now, they don't care if cloud gaming works poorly or not at all because they're convinced it's the future. Same reason why Google did that Stadia thing, the marketing of that service was aimed towards getting investors interested than actual users. Product or services designed to fail make sense as explained in this video.
No.5398
>>5397And less than a week ago this guy
>>5359 was pretending it was impossible that ActivisionBlizzard games would be cloud based and sold on sony and nintendo consoles with Ubisoft involved.
Just consider the development savings for not having to deal with 5-6 different platforms and distribution problems by just streaming from the cloud. Same game is sold on switch, mobile, PC, xboxes and playstations. Depending on the hardware some elements might be rendered locally while on others its entirely streamed.
No.5399
>>5398>>5398>was pretending it was impossible that Activision Blizzard games would be cloud based and sold on sony and nintendo consoles with Ubisoft involved.I didn't say that, I said that Ubisoft will not get a cut of physical/digital sales of Activision games which is true. The agreement pertains to cloud streaming services and not whatever shit you have cooked up in your own head. There is a provision in the agreement that Ubisoft can put Activision games on whatever they want VIA UBISOFT+ ONLY and sell it that way, but they still have to pay Microsoft for it. You are a fucking faggot who literally doesn't know what he's talking about
No.5401
>>5392How do you figure that Xbox is dead? It's the highest selling console. Microsoft owns everything. You think they bought out Todd just so they could turn around and close up shop? It would be hilarious but no, that's not the real world.
I'm not a cucksole cuckeogoomer anyway but still.
No.5432
>>5431Not trying to consolewar or anything. I'm really not. But I genuinely have no idea why the xbox one even exists. It doesn't seem to be anything a moderately high end PC isn't, it seems to have like a fifth the games as anything else, and I couldn't tell you a single exclusive game it has, and I'm saying that as someone who isn't gay enough to own a switch or playstation anything since the PS3. I do at least know some games for the switch and ps5. The One I genuinely have no clue. There doesn't seem to be anything on it that and there doesn't seem to be anything that will be for it. It's a worse steam.
No.5433
>>5432Console wars are just for people that have no extra money to dip into a second console's hidden costs.
No.5434
>>5431>Ps2 is #1Am I missing something? Or has youtube told so many people that it has the best catalog that people are buying them retail?!?
No.5435
>>5432Xbox One was the last generation, Xbox Series S/X is the current one, and you're right that it's basically a flop. This is why Microdots is cannibalizing all these developers and going multiplatform with them, nobody wants their consoles which don't offer anything over the competition. Switch has performed so much better despite being less powerful because people like the exclusives, not to mention the portability option, it's like a 2 for 1 deal, at a fraction of the cost of the competition.
No.5436
>>5434PS2 had everything going for it. It built on the success of PS1. It came out in 2000, and a big selling point was the ability to play DVDs, and it was actually cheaper than most standalone DVD players. For many, it was the household's first DVD player.
No.5437
>>5436Yeah I know but why is it still selling? It's still being manufactured?
No.5438
>>5436Never made sense to me to use a PS2 for dvd player for several reasons. Gay corded controller, loud fans compared to a dvd player, and wasting the life of your gaming console by watching a movie on it.
No.5439
>>5434Bygone era that can never be replicated again.
No.5440
>>5439Oh all time sales I guess
No.5441
>>5401>It's the highest selling consoleYou're not a cuckeogoomer at all if you actually believe this in any capacity
>>5434No?
PS2 killed the competition by being cheap and having every single game and filling every single niche.
>>5437155 is the cutoff point when they stopped releasing sales figures for it.
2011 or 2012 I think.
Fucking EA was still releasing FIFA for the PS2 to sell to thirdies back then I shit you not.
No.5443
>>5441>I shit you not.I completely believe it. Reddit began barring people from posting negative video game reviews in gamer subs probably for this exact reason. I mean everybody shit on EA around 2008 before they implemented the mod policy. That's probably what killed gaming, now that I think about it.
No.5445
>>5443>Mod policy on fucking reddit killed gaminglol
No.5446
>>5445You laugh but the walls closed in on smaller sites long before reddit fell. The policy was when the creator "killed himself." It wasn't uncommon for EA to be put on blast. After the policy, you couldn't stop posts praising EA annual sports games releases from getting to the top of a sub and on the front page.
No.5447
>>5446And as normalfags began getting on the internet with the advancement of social media (facebook), all the main "user generated content" sites outside of chans were completely controlled for docile, retarded people that didn't know what was good or bad, and sought out "reviews" and "popular opinion" for guidance on what to buy.
No.5448
>>5443>Reddit began barring people from posting negative video game reviews in gamer subs probably for this exact reason.Or maybe it has to do with Reddit being owned by a publishing company that runs on advertising dollars? Same thing happened on 4chan's /v/ board around the same time with viral marketers taking over.
Also demand for updated sports titles is so high that criminal gangs used to fund development of unlicensed titles to sell in street stalls throughout the third world. 2022 was the last year it happens thanks to advancements in digital distribution and better digital rights management protection on newer consoles. Point being that annual sport releases are big business outside of conventional video gaming.
No.5449
>>5448>High demand for sports gamesI'm suggesting that the monopolizing of content on websites as large as reddit and others fueled that retardation in the shitskin and nigger demographics.
Typically they will bandwagon or more specifically, follow white behavioral trends in terms of what to consume because whites know what's good. They just removed whites from the equation by controlling websites, and pretended white people thought these games were good.
No.5450
>>5448haha what the fuck is that cover in pic 2? It's practically grotesque.
No.5465
>>5443Also Youtube's algorithm keeps pushing for brainless shills who love sucking off corporations:
https://yewtu.be/watch?v=5pCcoyx41ywTRIGGER NIGGER WARNING:MIXED RACE MUTT IS SO RACEMIXED, HIS GENES ARE LIKE MASHED POTATOES WHO KEEPS HIM SHACKLED LIKE A GOOD GOYAlso every dickrider gets their daily dosage of upvotes.
No.5466
>>5465This person belongs in a bog
No.5475
>>5392It's all but confirmed now as branding for 'xbox' is quietly being removed from official sources. New job listings from Microsoft owned studios mention that the IPs being worked on are for all current platforms. There are other indicators too like Microsoft employees changing the description in their linkedin profiles.
This is very different then when Sega went third party as Microsoft is becoming a cloud gaming only third party service. They're not going start using Sony's or Nintendo's software development kits to build games for their hardware.
No.5541
>>5536>"Every screen is an Xbox,"Some people might think this is hyperbole or marketing hype but they're serious. A smartwatch will have game pass available on it. The smart fridge at home depot is going to have it preinstalled with a 3 month trial. By the end of the decade I expect inmates will start having access to their cloud gaming service.
Executives at Microsoft including the CEO have their bonuses measured by the most ridiculous metrics imaginable. The slight decrease last year in game pass/cloud gaming engagement cost him over $10 million in bonuses and other lower ranking executives lost the equivalent of hundreds of millions. The same is true for Sony and they're doing it all takes to please shareholders.
Gamers are practically the smallest part of the equation now. The fact that cloud gaming is crap that doesn't work isn't a problem for the people making and selling it.
No.5542
>>5541>The fact that cloud gaming is crap that doesn't work isn't a problem for the people making and selling it.Yeah because stadia is such a roaring successs. fucking dummy
No.5544
>>5543Go to bed Phil Harrison
No.7176
They're absolutely right, but Eurogamer is mostly funded by Sony.
Nothing but faggots sucking off Soyny there.
No.7178
>>7177Can't remember. Maybe January.
But yeah… it's fucking over.
No.7179
>>7177Sony sued them for that as well and made both companies lose a ton of money for like a year and a half.
It was hilarious, you missed out.
Bethesda and Activision are completely fucked under Kikerosoft.
No.7187
>>7178>>7179Finally some justice in the industry. How long until all the greediest scum in merge into a final ball of hate? When can we expect Electronic MicroSony Arts?
No.7189
>>7173>>7176As much as I wish Xbox would hurry the fuck up and release a good game, this article is Snoy garbage. Still raking over Mattrick stuff as if that's relevant and topped off with actual lies:
>A year after the debacle with Lionhead, hotly-anticipated exclusive Scalebound was cancelled in similar circumstances. A third-person action RPG, which Bayonetta developer Platinum's all about - only one that was for some reason lumbered with a requirement for online co-op - the team again struggled with unfamiliar multiplayer elements. As director Hideki Kamiya put it, the studio "lacked the necessary know-how to build a game based on online features," which ultimately contributed to its cancellation - again, the same year as its scheduled launch.Completely ignores that Platinum funneled Scalebound funds for other projects which is why it actually got cancelled.
>mismanages it in search of impossible scale, and cuts it loose - be that the 20-year experts of Fable, or the battle-scarred makers of Dishonored>Arkane Austin wanted to go back to its immersive sim roots, perhaps with a new Dishonored. Xbox closed these studios, apparently, for having the audacity to try to make video games.Arkane Austin never made Dishonored and it definitely didn't have the ability to make Dishonored 4 since it was a husk of a studio with 90% of staff from Prey already gone.
All the gravedancing over Xbox just seems stupid when their big slate for 2024 isn't even out yet. And those aren't even mega-blockbuster releases, what happens when a new Doom or Fallout or Starcraft or Elder Scrolls comes out? What are they going to do then, just ignore it? Why isn't Diablo 4 even mentioned in this article when the games industry heaped praise on it at launch?
No.7211
>>7187Botty Kotick got kicked out, Pete Hines got kicked out and Microsoft is layong off tons of people.
It's already happening anon, this shit was always unsustainable, it was always going to break, people were just waiting for when.
>>7189Absolutely, Eurogamer sucks major Soyny cock.
No.7213
>>7189>what happens when a new Doom or Fallout or Starcraft or Elder Scrolls comes out?Doesn't really matter because Microsoft will mismanage it to the ground and release absolute trash.
No.7214
>>7211>UnsustainableBlizz/Activision had 3 monumental IPs, and they only ever came out with a sequel for SC and Diablo that were so extremely shit that people were actually baffled as to how they could have been so poorly done. They never made WoW 2, instead opting to milk the subscriber base with ever worsening quality expansions. They converted all the IPs to microtransactions and mobile games. They didn't even bother attempting to sustain. It was a cashcow drainshow from the point of acquisition.
No.7215
>>7214Activision management has always been terrible as well.
Tony Hawk Pro Skater and Guitar Hero could still exist today and do fucktons of money if not for them fucking it up every step of the way.
No.7217
>>7215>>7214This actually brings me to a theory that games actually can't be good or they will ruin people's lives. If you think of the culture of players of WoW in the early days, the number of insane stories that became popular to re-tell over the years, the game was simply too good. Tony Hawk games were extremely good for skateboarding games. Point is, a lot of people probably hurt themselves getting into skateboarding with 0 athleticism because they were inspired by the game.
They could have milked Pro Skater and Guitar Hero, but they didn't. Part of me thinks killing these franchises was a good thing for humanity overall.
No.7221
>>7214they had the option to make Warcraft 4 and never did either, they just made outsourced a remake of warcraft 3 instead
Hearthstone is their most profitable game, but it's over 10 years old and nearing end-of-life
>>7217world of warcraft was insanely addictive because of the way it was designed, there's a constant treadmill of unlocking new areas, equipment, and abilities. it also forced you to interact cooperatively (and often competitively) with other players (as opposed to something like runescape, when is really mostly just a solo experience that happens to have other people present)
I can't even tell whether WoW is good or not; there's a lot of interesting things about it but there's a fundamentally shitty component to it.
t. never played on official servers but played on a few unofficial ones
No.7225
>>7221Vanilla WoW (pre-meta) was probably the best gaming experience that ever happened. I know that sounds fucking gay, but it never existed before or since. Being in a guild was like being in a gaming clan that played multiple games, except all those multiple games existed in WoW. It was entirely community driven. Guilds made their own websites and hosted their own voice servers.
The first two expansions carried on with this to varying extents, but reduced the emphasis on guilds by dropping raid limits from 40 to 25. It chipped away at the community a lot. Many guilds died. Guilds pretty much died in totality when they added dungeon finder and guild skills.
The other problem with the first two expansions was that the format did not suit the story world's multitude of options. There were an incredible number of stories that could have been told, and they opted to move everybody to an entirely new planet which made them abandon the entire previous game. They did it again with a new continent that made Outland pointless to go to. They should have expanded both to Outland which picks up where Warcraft 2 left off, and they should have expanded the game on Azeroth to expand on the things WoW was building. When they finally did expand Azeroth, it was in Cataclysm which was after Activision's purchase, and it was an excuse to streamline the old world map into the modern daily grind system that became more and more optimized with each subsequent expansion.
Every expansion took an extremely bizarre and convenient direction for a self-contained campaign aimed at paralyzing the player in daily tasks to micro-manage subscriber rates between large content patches.
Cataclysm should have been named WoW 2 because they completely changed the world map and leveling system. They're two completely different games from then on, just built on the same engine.
No.7226
>>7225>I know that sounds fucking gayYou're right, you shit-eating faggot.
No.7227
>>7226In my defense, it was 50 years ago.
No.7228
>>7189>Completely ignores that Platinum funneled Scalebound funds for other projects which is why it actually got cancelled.Oh yeah I forgot Microsoft foolishly paid for work to be eventually released as a Switch exclusive in Bayonetta 3 that came out 5 years after the cancellation:
>This connection with Scalebound seems to run a lot deeper than many fans realize, with much of the game's staff and ideas seemingly making it into Platinum's latest character action game. In many ways, it seems like Scalebound's cancellation might have influenced much of what fans will see in Bayonetta 3.https://gamerant.com/bayonetta-3-scalebound-gameplay-ideas-reused/So you have a prominent Jap developer hired to make an action-JRPG exclusive for an awful console that has 150k owners in Japan. And while in development multiplayer coop gets added to the list of requirements. Everyone knows it was going to sell poorly and be a stain on their reputation if released so of course they focused efforts on more important titles that are likely to sell. What did they have to lose?
No.7229
>>7226Name a better player experience in a game besides Star Wars Galaxies.
No.7231
>>7228>that has 150k owners in JapanWait no it's 114k owners. While the timed ps4 exclusive game they funneled Microsoft money into had 8 million in sales. Blame Platinum for making a smart move all you want but it's Microsoft that's fucking up constantly.
No.7235
>>7217>WoW was goodStopped reading
No.7238
>>7237Good, Microsoft entered the market with the only objective of pushing subscription systems and paid additional content.
I can't wait until the Xbox division folds.
No.7241
>>7236UT was a clan game, not THE clan game. Clans usually played ~3 games at least.
No.7242
>>7241>What is mods?Every MMOfag needs to rope, you didn't like WoW because it was a good game, you liked WoW because it was a social experience and majority of people were still enthusiasts and not just normalfags galore and autistic savants.
Rollercoaster MMOs were never good, there's nothing immersive, fun or engaging about pressing a button to do active skills, waiting for cooldowns and doing the same shit content everyone does.
No.7243
>>7242>Another /trannypol/ memeYou are born to seethe.
No.7245
>>7242>>7244I don't think you're grasping the point. He was talking about vanilla wow.
>Vanilla WoW (pre-meta) was probably the best gaming experience that ever happened. I know that sounds fucking gay, but it never existed before or since.Literally in the first sentence.
But I'm glad you're passionate.
No.7246
>>7245So am I
>you liked WoW because it was a social experience and majority of people were still enthusiasts and not just normalfags galore and autistic savants.I was referring to vanilla at launch.
No.7247
>>7246Ok and what are you implying here
>>7244You're so annoying.
No.7262
>>7242>there's nothing immersive, fun or engaging about pressing a button to do active skillsin WOTLK it actually was pretty fun to play classes like discipline priest and demon warlock, I'd actually say most classes are varied enough to be fun
>the same shit content everyone doesone of WoW's strengths from the beginning was that there is usually 2-5 options per level bracket when it comes to zones to level in
No.7263
Wow sucked you literally just click squares
No.7280
YouTube embed. Click thumbnail to play.
Microsoft fanboys are now in panic mode
No.7281
>>7269>the sound of soy.webmAt this point blizzard babies get what they deserve.
No.7288
>>7287>ViacomIt hasn't been Viacom for years. It's Paramount.
No.7538
>>7536Nothing of value was lost. Call of Duty is gay now, you can't even trash talk on chat.
No.7545
>>7288Same liberal goyslop programming, too bad TimeWarner are the ones to fall first.