Rumored "mass layoffs" at Blizzard never happened
by Fox Van Allen 
Nov 8th 2011 at 4:00PM
There's only one problem with the information said investigation dredged up: It's not true. There are no massive layoffs at Blizzard. So says Blizzard itself, via Community Manager Bashiok:
mass layoffs at blizz
Hey guys, out of respect for their privacy, we don't discuss individual employees, but the speculation circulating about 'massive layoffs at Blizzard' is just a rumor.
Fellow Community Manager Zarhym confirmed the lack of layoffs on his own personal Twitter account, saying that there's "tons of speculation based on false evidence." He went on to explain that the vast majority of people rumored to have been laid off showed up to work today.
So rest assured: The sky is not falling. Blizzard employees still have their jobs. Project Titan has not been cancelled. Ghostcrawler is still in the building. And despite what you may have heard from Mr. Feeney's grocer, Cory and Topanga are not adopting a 14-year-old Chinese boy.
Brace yourselves for what could be some of most exciting updates to the game recently with patch 4.3. Review the official patch notes, and then dig into what's ahead: new item storage options, cross-realm raiding, cosmetic armor skinning and your chance to battle the mighty Deathwing -- from astride his back!
Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Rumors
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
omedon666 Nov 8th 2011 4:02PM
"This is where Cat failed exceptionally. It was never fun. Running heroics was like queuing up to get kicked in the nuts. It was more often than not a miserable experience and still is for the most part. And yes, we know all you elite bad asses can run them blindfolded but that was never the point. The point is this - it ain't fun. Being able to do something and wanting to do something are two different things. "
Loved this comment, from that thread. Nailed it, for my two cents.
Lucidique Nov 8th 2011 4:25PM
My thoughts in writing. Those are the exact reasons I quit the game back in May.
TonyKP Nov 8th 2011 4:37PM
That comment does indeed put it well... ;-)
The Dewd Nov 8th 2011 4:38PM
The only problem with that is - do we know when he switched from WoW to Titan? Was he responsible for the failures of Cata's design? Or did he work on Wrath? Did he throw up on Metzen at the Hollywood Bowl? Or maybe he threatened to break an NDA and talk to someone about what Titan actually is so they canned him. Maybe they caught him interviewing with Trion? Or maybe they found Cutaia's home phone number on his speed dial as #1.
Speculation is running rampant. We'll probably never know the full story so assuming he's the guy who created Something-you-didn't-like-in-WoW, of course, makes it the truth.
omedon666 Nov 8th 2011 4:39PM
Lucidique: I unsubbed shortly after that, when my patience for "the second tier of gear access" didn't "fix" heroics for my laid back, "WOTLK 5-mans were perfect for our give-a-damn level, and that's fine with us" guild. I subbed for a month to gather visual gear for my characters when I heard about transmog *in case* MoP (or perhaps even 4.3) went back to an "enjoyment over integrity" model, and it looks like they are, so I'm looking forward to perhaps actually enjoying WoW again.
Pyromelter Nov 8th 2011 4:41PM
I think blizzard's main failing was listening to people who complained about how ezmode WOTLK dungeons were. The overwhelming majority of people I played with, who probably never even opened up the blizzard website let alone the forums, generally enjoyed how Wrath dungeons were a relaxing romp through some cool looking places.'
In short, they got it right with Wrath. They would have done well to follow that model, let's hope that's how it goes in MoP.
Schadenfreude Nov 8th 2011 5:07PM
Yeah, this was my experience as well. Trying to run randoms, especially at the beginning of Cata, was no fun. (Still not as bad as trying to run dungeons in a pug in, say, BC, of course.) A sizable percentage of our guild quit because they weren't having fun, while they'd happily run their dailies all through WotLK.
Were the WotLK dungeons (especially the 200 level, by the time we reached the final patch) /too/ easy? Well, maybe-- but hopefully we can come to a balance between faceroll and UNREMITTING BLOWS TO THE GROIN AREA in MoP.
omedon666 Nov 8th 2011 5:10PM
From WoWinsider twitter, covering the conference call in progress:
"Morhaime: Lessons were learned from Cataclysm content. Level-up content was great but endgame was too hard. That'll be fixed."
Waco Nov 16th 2011 4:42PM
"This is where Cat failed exceptionally. It was never fun. Running heroics was like queuing up to get kicked in the nuts. It was more often than not a miserable experience and still is for the most part. And yes, we know all you elite bad asses can run them blindfolded but that was never the point. The point is this - it ain't fun. Being able to do something and wanting to do something are two different things. "
Welcome to the Facebook generation. Entitlement issues everywhere.
Heroics were never, NEVER, hard, and I'm not this fabled "elite bad-ass", either.
People ignored the fact that they needed, NEEDED, better gear, and cheated the gearcheck system with honor gear or borrowed, unequipped items to get into Heroic queues, and blamed the game when they were unable to complete it. Might as well have equipped ICC gear and tried to run through.
Heroics were for people who had ran Normal dungeons several times, gotten all or most of the gear they could get from that, and were therefore familiar with the mechanics and the encounters, and had gear appropriate to the required level. You could also have gotten good gear from high-end quests and crafting, to pad out the missing spots you might not have had good gear.
Normals also helped you to learn what your class was capable of and required to do at the top levels of PvE play. If you did not know how to play your class, you had no place in Heroics, plain and simple; no, Normals were not perfect for teaching you, (teaching players how to play their class is a major point of grief I have with Blizzard), but they were quite useful. Besides that, there are twelve million other people you could have asked for help, as well as a world wide web of helpful pages. Expecting to be able to perform at a high-level with inadequate knowledge of how to play is just silly.
With adequate equipment and ability, and knowledge of the basic encounters, Heroics were not this impossible beast comparable to pre-patch C'thun; yes, if you were doing randoms, you'd likely have to deal with folks who didn't follow this path, and thus likely wiped plenty, at which point I would recommend finding friends or a guild on your server, someone(s) reliable.
Basically, you wouldn't start a game of Mass Effect and, halfway through the game, try to beat the final boss. No, WoW is not quite so linear, but progression is. 3 does not come before 1, F does not come before D.
I will admit, some Heroics had mis-tuned mechanics, and Blizz could have done a better job preparing people so used to Wrath's five-ten minute EZmode dungeons, but the problems were (are) greatly exaggerated. A lot of this could have been fixed by communicating these ideas to the players.
Eldoron Nov 8th 2011 7:10PM
Those who whined about the difficulty of heroic dungeons... really?
rayden54 Nov 8th 2011 9:11PM
Whoever said that nailed it.
Not only were Heroics a horrible exercise in futility, PuGs simply died. There's nothing more discouraging than spending hours grinding gear, and then not having anything to do with it.
Snuzzle Nov 9th 2011 8:20AM
I fully agree with Waco. On my druid, my main, I went hrough the old routine of farming normals and crafting stuff, getting rep rewards, before I finally set foot into heroic dungeons with an ilvl of 335ish. And they really weren't that hard. I couldn't faceroll them with my eyes shut like Wrath, I needed to use CC and pull carefully and if we got two groups we were probably dead. I don't see why that's such a bad thing, but I guess the majority of the playerbase disagrees with me.
The problem was people got used to heroics being something you just stepped into when you hit cap, and got a rude awakening that you couldn't do that in Cata. You needed to do the normals first, get some rep gear first, you couldn't pad up with PVP stuff and step in at 330 and coast. You could do them at that ilvl but it would be hard, heroics were meat to be hard. That's why they're heroic, not normal.
But I guess only heroic raids can be hard anymore. They said that in MOP they're getting rid of max level normals and you'll just step right into heroics but I know that's not true. They got rid of heroics. They're all max level normals. They're just called something else to make people feel better.
shadcroly Nov 8th 2011 4:05PM
Because if it's on the Internet, it MUST be true!
Task Nov 8th 2011 4:05PM
I find this funny because why would you quit Blizzard..? And this is disappointing because who started this rumour is just an idiot.
The end.
Imnick Nov 8th 2011 4:47PM
Being laid off is usually non-consensual
Kunikenwad! Nov 8th 2011 4:05PM
Daeity strikes again (well, the blog at least. Not the guy. Different guy runs the blog now.)
twbrienn Nov 8th 2011 4:06PM
Ah. I had such a crush on Topanga. Ok enough about mystery layoffs. Where's the WoW Insider Show. We need our fix of Matt-Mat the ogre/kraken-related material.
Austin Nov 8th 2011 4:09PM
Maybe it's just a new "No Blizz work info on Facebook" policy? Calm down, people.
Pyromelter Nov 8th 2011 4:13PM
Something I've learned about companies and news. If there is an item of news out there, whether it's rumor or not, if the rumor is completely false, then the company will put out a statement with complete, 100%, total, utter denial. Something like this:
"While we do not discuss internal projects, we can assure everyone that the project is moving forward, and recent rumors to the contrary are completely, absolutely, totally 100% false."
When there is a rumor that has some truth in it, the company turns more vague:
"The vast majority named in that article are at work today." - what does that say? It says they haven't been laid off YET. There is also no denial that of layoffs either.
Blizzard has pulled this type of thing before, with Starcraft: Ghost. They never unequivocally denied the project was getting messed up until it was canceled. While yes, we always have to take "internet rumors" with a grain of salt, a reaction like this actually feeds more fuel to the fire than not, in my opinion.
Zaet Nov 8th 2011 4:17PM
U read to much between the lines.
Relax