Blizzard Woes, Baldur's Gate Goes (Live) | Top 5 Articles This Week - October 5th - 9th | MMORPG.com

System · October 2020

Blizzard Woes, Baldur's Gate Goes (Live) | Top 5 Articles This Week - October 5th - 9th | MMORPG.com

Got a hot 5 to catch up on this week's news? For our Top 5 Articles this week we've seen some fantastic releases, a studio closure, and the largest battle to hit the MMO stage, in the history of gaming.

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Hopestealer · October 2020

Blizzard woes? Not sure that closing their office in France can be called a woe.
Multi billion dollar companies go through all sorts of expansions/ consolidations throughout their lifetime. I was hoping for some news when i read that headline but instead got a link to an article that doesn't validate this part of your headline /sigh

maskedweasel · October 2020

Hopestealer said:

Blizzard woes? Not sure that closing their office in France can be called a woe.
Multi billion dollar companies go through all sorts of expansions/ consolidations throughout their lifetime. I was hoping for some news when i read that headline but instead got a link to an article that doesn't validate this part of your headline /sigh

Totally, cause last time I checked closing offices was always a good sign for a company.

Hopestealer · October 2020

maskedweasel said:

Hopestealer said:

Blizzard woes? Not sure that closing their office in France can be called a woe.

Multi billion dollar companies go through all sorts of expansions/ consolidations throughout their lifetime. I was hoping for some news when i read that headline but instead got a link to an article that doesn't validate this part of your headline /sigh

Totally, cause last time I checked closing offices was always a good sign for a company.

Sure, if that office represents any number of issues that works against the well being of the company it is a good thing. An example of this could be corporate bloat. Something very common in large corporations (especially global ones).

Divion · October 2020

maskedweasel said:

Hopestealer said:

Blizzard woes? Not sure that closing their office in France can be called a woe.

Multi billion dollar companies go through all sorts of expansions/ consolidations throughout their lifetime. I was hoping for some news when i read that headline but instead got a link to an article that doesn't validate this part of your headline /sigh

Totally, cause last time I checked closing offices was always a good sign for a company.

I work as a system engineer for a fortune 500, divestures, and physical business office closures can be a sign of growth or a move to consolidate assets for a new direction, etc.

The closure of an offices means nothing. Atlassian and MicroSoft both just let their entire work force stay on a perma work from home status; I've been to MicroSoft's HQ Campus in Renton, WA - It's massive, and i expect some of the buildings to be close/leased out as an extension of this new policy. The closure of a business office also encourages a return of overhead for something that may not be worth it. I didn't read the article, but unless the closure also indicates they sunset all their operations there, then it means little.

maskedweasel · October 2020

Divion said:

maskedweasel said:

Hopestealer said:

Blizzard woes? Not sure that closing their office in France can be called a woe.

Multi billion dollar companies go through all sorts of expansions/ consolidations throughout their lifetime. I was hoping for some news when i read that headline but instead got a link to an article that doesn't validate this part of your headline /sigh

Totally, cause last time I checked closing offices was always a good sign for a company.

I work as a system engineer for a fortune 500, divestures, and physical business office closures can be a sign of growth or a move to consolidate assets for a new direction, etc.

The closure of an offices means nothing. Atlassian and MicroSoft both just let their entire work force stay on a perma work from home status; I've been to MicroSoft's HQ Campus in Renton, WA - It's massive, and i expect some of the buildings to be close/leased out as an extension of this new policy. The closure of a business office also encourages a return of overhead for something that may not be worth it. I didn't read the article, but unless the closure also indicates they sunset all their operations there, then it means little.

I would recommend reading about the closure. Initially they planned to move the employees to a london office instead, which won't happen now, at all , and roughly 400 people are losing jobs, if not more. This office already went through restructuring, which lost nearly 150 jobs earlier this year.

While it may not have been as integral as other offices, (though for all we know it's possible it was) it doesn't sound like this closure was simply a return to profits. It sounds like Blizzards ongoing restructuring that started way back in 2019 has gone from cutting fat, to more of a necessity as the pandemic has taken hold of a lot of companies.

Sovrath · October 2020

maskedweasel said:

Hopestealer said:

Blizzard woes? Not sure that closing their office in France can be called a woe.
Multi billion dollar companies go through all sorts of expansions/ consolidations throughout their lifetime. I was hoping for some news when i read that headline but instead got a link to an article that doesn't validate this part of your headline /sigh

Totally, cause last time I checked closing offices was always a good sign for a company.

I think you are looking at it too black and white.

Companies close offices that don't make sense to their bottom line. My company, as I just learned, will be closing an office next year. we just had a fantastic quarter (despite the pandemic) but they are no longer interested in keeping that office open as they want to expand elsewhere.

Now, this sucks for those people and I think it's a sucky thing to do but it's not all about "company doing badly so we close office."

It can be "company is fine but this office isn't bringing in money and we'd rather use that money elsewhere."

maskedweasel · October 2020

Sovrath said:

maskedweasel said:

Hopestealer said:

Blizzard woes? Not sure that closing their office in France can be called a woe.
Multi billion dollar companies go through all sorts of expansions/ consolidations throughout their lifetime. I was hoping for some news when i read that headline but instead got a link to an article that doesn't validate this part of your headline /sigh

Totally, cause last time I checked closing offices was always a good sign for a company.

I think you are looking at it too black and white.

Companies close offices that don't make sense to their bottom line. My company, as I just learned, will be closing an office next year. we just had a fantastic quarter (despite the pandemic) but they are no longer interested in keeping that office open as they want to expand elsewhere.

Now, this sucks for those people and I think it's a sucky thing to do but it's not all about "company doing badly so we close office."

It can be "company is fine but this office isn't bringing in money and we'd rather use that money elsewhere."

Everyone can say what's happening anecdotally, I'm just pointing out that, based on the article of the closure, it doesn't sound like they're moving people and keeping operations alive, it sounds like they planned to, and now they decided not to.

Maybe it was done to keep higher returns in profits, but restructuring was done from 2019 up until the beginning of the year, this doesn't sound like a larger part of restructuring, it sounds like it was done out of necessity.

Divion · October 2020

maskedweasel said:

Divion said:

maskedweasel said:

Hopestealer said:

Blizzard woes? Not sure that closing their office in France can be called a woe.

Multi billion dollar companies go through all sorts of expansions/ consolidations throughout their lifetime. I was hoping for some news when i read that headline but instead got a link to an article that doesn't validate this part of your headline /sigh

Totally, cause last time I checked closing offices was always a good sign for a company.

I work as a system engineer for a fortune 500, divestures, and physical business office closures can be a sign of growth or a move to consolidate assets for a new direction, etc.

The closure of an offices means nothing. Atlassian and MicroSoft both just let their entire work force stay on a perma work from home status; I've been to MicroSoft's HQ Campus in Renton, WA - It's massive, and i expect some of the buildings to be close/leased out as an extension of this new policy. The closure of a business office also encourages a return of overhead for something that may not be worth it. I didn't read the article, but unless the closure also indicates they sunset all their operations there, then it means little.

I would recommend reading about the closure. Initially they planned to move the employees to a london office instead, which won't happen now, at all , and roughly 400 people are losing jobs, if not more. This office already went through restructuring, which lost nearly 150 jobs earlier this year.

While it may not have been as integral as other offices, (though for all we know it's possible it was) it doesn't sound like this closure was simply a return to profits. It sounds like Blizzards ongoing restructuring that started way back in 2019 has gone from cutting fat, to more of a necessity as the pandemic has taken hold of a lot of companies.

Suppose that comes down to what that office was scheduled to produce. Blizzard has a ton of engineer positions open in CA for on-going, and un-named projects. If those positions are for work programs, projects, and products that this office was slated for, then it's not really a loss again, the dynamics are far more complex than what we the public we be made aware of. Honestly, even the internal staff don't know. Only the business relevant leadership in their company really knows what happened, the rest is speculation, and as an advent investor, speculation can spur divesture, which can result in money loss, but that also depends on how it spun, they could spin it quiet well on their next earning report to invigorate share holders.

Regardless looking at the last 12-24 months, Blizzards "Woes" were measurably more "woeful" compared to this, so this is a bit of a dud when reconciled against their past woes.

maskedweasel · October 2020

Divion said:

maskedweasel said:

Divion said:

maskedweasel said:

Hopestealer said:

Blizzard woes? Not sure that closing their office in France can be called a woe.

Multi billion dollar companies go through all sorts of expansions/ consolidations throughout their lifetime. I was hoping for some news when i read that headline but instead got a link to an article that doesn't validate this part of your headline /sigh

Totally, cause last time I checked closing offices was always a good sign for a company.

I work as a system engineer for a fortune 500, divestures, and physical business office closures can be a sign of growth or a move to consolidate assets for a new direction, etc.

The closure of an offices means nothing. Atlassian and MicroSoft both just let their entire work force stay on a perma work from home status; I've been to MicroSoft's HQ Campus in Renton, WA - It's massive, and i expect some of the buildings to be close/leased out as an extension of this new policy. The closure of a business office also encourages a return of overhead for something that may not be worth it. I didn't read the article, but unless the closure also indicates they sunset all their operations there, then it means little.

I would recommend reading about the closure. Initially they planned to move the employees to a london office instead, which won't happen now, at all , and roughly 400 people are losing jobs, if not more. This office already went through restructuring, which lost nearly 150 jobs earlier this year.

While it may not have been as integral as other offices, (though for all we know it's possible it was) it doesn't sound like this closure was simply a return to profits. It sounds like Blizzards ongoing restructuring that started way back in 2019 has gone from cutting fat, to more of a necessity as the pandemic has taken hold of a lot of companies.

Suppose that comes down to what that office was scheduled to produce. Blizzard has a ton of engineer positions open in CA for on-going, and un-named projects. If those positions are for work programs, projects, and products that this office was slated for, then it's not really a loss again, the dynamics are far more complex than what we the public we be made aware of. Honestly, even the internal staff don't know. Only the business relevant leadership in their company really knows what happened, the rest is speculation, and as an advent investor, speculation can spur divesture, which can result in money loss, but that also depends on how it spun, they could spin it quiet well on their next earning report to invigorate share holders.

Regardless looking at the last 12-24 months, Blizzards "Woes" were measurably more "woeful" compared to this, so this is a bit of a dud when reconciled against their past woes.

I don't think it's any more or less woeful than anything else. It's just one more drop in the bucket.

Relampago · October 2020

I think BG 3 is incredible I am one very happy camper.

xpsync · October 2020

Relampago said:

I think BG 3 is incredible I am one very happy camper.

Last night around midnight my son messaged me on discord , "i just got bg3" haha so much for waiting.

I just picked up DOS2 and can not stop playing, i'm in Reaper's Coast atm, the game is incredible.

boris20 · October 2020

Divion said:

maskedweasel said:

Hopestealer said:

Blizzard woes? Not sure that closing their office in France can be called a woe.

Multi billion dollar companies go through all sorts of expansions/ consolidations throughout their lifetime. I was hoping for some news when i read that headline but instead got a link to an article that doesn't validate this part of your headline /sigh

Totally, cause last time I checked closing offices was always a good sign for a company.

I work as a system engineer for a fortune 500, divestures, and physical business office closures can be a sign of growth or a move to consolidate assets for a new direction, etc.

The closure of an offices means nothing. Atlassian and MicroSoft both just let their entire work force stay on a perma work from home status; I've been to MicroSoft's HQ Campus in Renton, WA - It's massive, and i expect some of the buildings to be close/leased out as an extension of this new policy. The closure of a business office also encourages a return of overhead for something that may not be worth it. I didn't read the article, but unless the closure also indicates they sunset all their operations there, then it means little.

I think you need to re read what Microsoft is doing with the work from home plan. Its not full time work from home as you imply. A lot of employees still have to report to the office or work place, and many still have a cap on only under 50% of work time spent from home. There are exclusions which if you request and its signed off by your supervisor you can work from home 100%, and it was also stated to only be through Jan 2021, then it would be re evaluated.

Sovrath · October 2020

maskedweasel said:

Sovrath said:

maskedweasel said:

Hopestealer said:

Blizzard woes? Not sure that closing their office in France can be called a woe.
Multi billion dollar companies go through all sorts of expansions/ consolidations throughout their lifetime. I was hoping for some news when i read that headline but instead got a link to an article that doesn't validate this part of your headline /sigh

Totally, cause last time I checked closing offices was always a good sign for a company.

I think you are looking at it too black and white.

Companies close offices that don't make sense to their bottom line. My company, as I just learned, will be closing an office next year. we just had a fantastic quarter (despite the pandemic) but they are no longer interested in keeping that office open as they want to expand elsewhere.

Now, this sucks for those people and I think it's a sucky thing to do but it's not all about "company doing badly so we close office."

It can be "company is fine but this office isn't bringing in money and we'd rather use that money elsewhere."

Everyone can say what's happening anecdotally, I'm just pointing out that, based on the article of the closure, it doesn't sound like they're moving people and keeping operations alive, it sounds like they planned to, and now they decided not to.

Maybe it was done to keep higher returns in profits, but restructuring was done from 2019 up until the beginning of the year, this doesn't sound like a larger part of restructuring, it sounds like it was done out of necessity.

I'm not saying it's not out of necessity. However, you said that restructuring was started a year ago? In my post, I said that we are closing an office next year. We are cash-rich, we had a great quarter but "next year" we are closing an office.

For all we know, Blizzard was going to move people then realized they really didn't need them, wanted to put their money elsewhere, and made the call.

Again, it's crappy, but businesses do what they need to in order to stay viable and deliver profitable quarters.

Again, Blizzard "could" be on the edge of collapse (I doubt it) but I don't think we can make an accurate assessment just because they are closing an office and not relocating people.

Alverant · October 2020

maskedweasel said:

Totally, cause last time I checked closing offices was always a good sign for a company.

We shouldn't care about a company. We should care about the people who just lost their jobs.

Heretique · October 2020

Alverant said:

maskedweasel said:

Totally, cause last time I checked closing offices was always a good sign for a company.

We shouldn't care about a company. We should care about the people who just lost their jobs.

Even though I appreciate your empathy, this sort of thing happens all the time and won't ever really change. Like the major loss for a ton of people after the Cabela's buy-out.

Scot · October 2020

So going into early access is now "goes live"? FFS, BG3 has not launched.

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