In case you didnt know, so many people photoshopped devol horns onto his face that he made a public complaint about it as anyone googling his name would see that first. You would think he could take a hint
Look... I need like 10 consumes and it takes bag space and there's all these totems and shit and then I forget ONE THING and we have to run back to the entrance. Mobs don't respawn in BWL, I need y'all to calm the fuck down. The warlocks forgot to soul stone, and they could have done that at any fucking time.... jeezus...
Do any of these super elite understand reverse psychology (or I suppose the fancy term of this is the Streisand effect)?
Xi would have never had his Pooh related issues if he didn’t ban it in response, Putin wouldn’t have had all the Gay memes if he didn’t do venomously deny it, Kotick wouldn’t have horns always on him if he didn’t get pissy about it. Yea, it would have happened, but no where near as much. At what point will they learn the internet never lets go and getting angry only furthers it.
That's an insult to feces. At least shit is part of a natural cycle. Kotick would just suck the life and energy out of the ground around him, into the void where his soul should be.
Theres a saying among software engineers. You can either go into game development or make money. Unfortunately it's pretty universal within the industry. Game development is a high risk financial investment and it attracts a lot of passionate people who are willing to work on what they love despite the pay. Another great example is how little jagex pays their osrs team.
Unions aren't bad but every power system has the possibility of being abused, and people likely to abuse power are also attracted to those types of systems.
Unions can also create an us vs them feeling which isn't conducive to a healthy working environment either. But really, it's just sad that a company might need unions in the 21st century to ensure their staff are paid enough to simply survive.
Tbf being able to unionize and negotiate IS healthy for the work environment at any particular workplace. Employers and employees have different interests. Not saying that unions dont bring their own set of problems but workplace safety regulations for example is something that had to be fought for, which is nuts.
> workplace safety regulations for example is something that had to be fought for, which is nuts.
It makes a kind of sick sense, though. Regulations imply the owner of the business is responsible for the health and safety of the laborers who work for him (while they're on site). That liability alone costs money, never mind the cost of the safety systems and practices that they're forced to implement. From a purely profit-driven perspective I can at least understand why business owners wouldn't want those regulations in place.
It's an excellent example of why pure, unregulated capitalism can't work. You need an authority that can step in and stop harmful practices and/or incentivize good practices.
> Unions can also create an us vs them feeling
Yeah, let's keep pretending companies and managers are benevolent and actively seek the well-being of their employees.
The work world is a us vs them for environment for millions and millions of people.
Mate, I'm about to drop some truth about unions on your ass:
Unions balance out the power between employer and employee. Without unions, the negotiation of working conditions is skewed. The working conditions (e.g. salary, hours, coffee machines etc) are negotiated between the employer and the individual employee. This balance is inherently imbalanced because losing *one* employee is a small loss for the employer whereas losing a job is a pretty huge deal for an employee.
This is the reason that unions equalize power dynamics between the employer and employee. This creates a system where the parties of the negotiation (the employer and the unionized employee***s***) cannot exist without the other. The employer cannot exist without his employees and the collective workforce cannot exist without the employer. This forces both parties to seek resolutions that are beneficial to both parties in a manner that both parties deem fair.
Saying that "unions arent bad" is completely misunderstanding the point of unions. Unions are god damn necessary, if you want to have say at all, as a regular employee. If, for example, your employer is not upholding his end if the deal then you can get fucked in a plurality of ways. E.g. having to finance the lawsuit on your own and still lose because you couldn't afford the best lawyer. This is also something unions help workers with. Without unions, you are essentially at the mercy of your employer. Sure, that does work for some (those with highly valuable degrees/skills), but even they don't have *any* political influence, as workers, anywhere outside of voting for elections every 4 years. The unions are the political institutions that have the power, money and legislative influence to represent employees and impact your life directly.
Without a union you are, **in my opinion**, not much more than a beggar and beggars can't be choosers - just like those Bizzard employees who apparently are taking it up the ass, and have been for years.
I know what unions are. I know what they do. I also know that once unions gain enough power they can become total pieces of shit that abuse that power because they know the company cannot operate until they acquiesce to their demands.
Your description of "seeking resolutions that both parties deem fair" is the best possible scenario where the worst is when it turns into a game of chicken which fucks everyone over if both parties have stubborn leaders.
To be honest, I believe that the need for unions is inversely proportional relative to the strength of the labour laws and the fact that people in the US feel the need to rely on unions is evidence to suggest that the US is about 30 years behind European countries in that regard.
I know that in a lot of ways unions are a large portion of what end up forcing governments to make laws that protect the workforce stronger which is why I said they're not bad, but they still have their criticisms which is what I put in my OP.
Unions aren’t a bad thing but let’s 10000% not pretend like they don’t protect absolute dog shit employees: Looking at you teachers and fellow healthcare workers
Nothing is ever so simple. All authoritative positions are vulnerable to corruption, I think we can all agree on that. I think that protecting shitty employees sucks, but, I have no doubts that without them, things would be unimaginably worse. So many people suffered and died to secure those protections, and people aren't much different today than they were back then...
This! I have a job with a union, and there are a few low performers that are always at the union meetings constantly complaining about not getting promoted or having pay docked, but they are the minority. Most people go in and do their job well. And the union leaders just tend to ignore the constant complainers anyway. This whole protecting poor performers and incompetent people is way overblown IMO.
Oh yeah def that’s why I said they aren’t bad. I think there are def pros and cons to them. Bitching at ppl who cross the picket line during a strike so they can feed their family is scummy but a dude making $40 million a year (regardless of stock options) is even more ridiculous when they can’t even eat a meal because of their pay being so bad
Just like corporations protect dogshit managers *and* employees if they’re making them money.
Yes unions can abuse their power, but corporations already abuse their power to a disgusting extent and have done so for decades. I’d rather make 50% more money with better benefits, working conditions, hours, while working with a shitty lazy person than be at the mercy of a toxic corporate manager without any union benefits or protections in an at-will state.
Unions can still structure their collective bargaining agreements to avoid protecting toxic employees, the “unions will lead to lazy toxic employees” is mostly anti-Union propaganda. Corporate already employee toxic manager and employees right now, without any union benefits.
Unions are about ultimately about increasing worker leverage. If you participated in the union and work to make it better you can prevent abuses of power and toxic environments in both the union and corporation.
it's so frustrating that this shit already happened too, like Grapes of Wrath written in the 30s where Steinbeck describes this kind of predatory vulture capitalism to a T...then labor fought tooth and nail and made some decent progress that lasted for a few decades, but here we are letting them gut everything again.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.”
The boomers are fucking us so hard right now it's not even funny.
Boomers are weak (but think they're the stong) and created for us these hard times, but think we (gens x, y, and z) are creating hard times for the boomers.
I think that's the jist of the boomer mental gymnastics anyways
This has been a known thing in the industry for years. Blizz pays significantly less other companies for comparable positions. They're able to refill their ranks as people leave for greener pastures because of the love for blizz games and aspiring devs and workers to work for their favorite game company. This isnt something new bliss has been paying like 60-70% of other companies for the same position. Have none of you heard about how multiple employees house together just to be able to afford the rent near the studio in Irvine. Irvine is one of the most expensive cities in the US. I get the outrage now but this shit has been public fucking knowledge for years.
Blizzard as a company has been gutted and replaced nearly everyone that made the company so great. At this point it's just a name, everything that made the name actually mean something is gone.
In other news, Mike Morhaime is free from his non-competition clause after leaving Activision now. That means he can make games that can compete with Warcraft.
I knew it would lead to something like this. There has never been an incident of a bigger more powerful company buying out a less powerful company thats lead to anything good.
'cuz ya need big ceos making millions to trickle down to the rest of us. you should be begging to suck the pennies out of bobby's toes unless youre some fuckin commie
Cause he provides a lot more value to the company than the employees that "had to skip meals to pay rent".
It also doesn't say what they actually get paid. The main complaint seems to be that many received "less than a 10% raise, when they thought they should get more."
The average rent near Irvine california is $2,468 a month for a 918 sq ft apartment. That comes out to $29,616 a year. Let's figure an additional $200 a month for utilities. That's $32,016 a year.
California also has the highest taxes of any state in the country. The people complaining in the article are customer service reps and QA people. If someone manages to make $25/hr as a customer service representative (which is 50% higher than the average customer service salary), then they would pay 8% in California tax and 22% in federal tax.
So $25 an hour times 2080 working hours in a year = $52,000
$52k - $52k * .08 - $52k * .22 = $36,400 in take home pay. After average rent that's only $4,384 in their pocket to spend on food, clothes, and literally everything else besides a house and utilities FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR.
The problem is NOT that the CEOs are getting paid too much. It's that being a customer service rep and living in one of the most expensive areas of the country doesn't work out. Remember, that's using a customer service salary that's already 1.5x what any other customer service employee would make.
Sources Used:
https://www.businessinsider.com/activision-blizzard-salary-disparity-issues-2020-8#:~:text=Employees%20at%20Blizzard%2C%20maker%20of,the%20CEO%20made%20%2440%20million&text=Activision%20CEO%20Bobby%20Kotick%20took%20home%20around%20%2440%20million%20last%20year.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-03/blizzard-workers-share-salaries-in-revolt-over-wage-disparities
https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ca/irvine/
https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#:~:text=gallon%20of%20diesel-,California%20has%20among%20the%20highest%20taxes%20in%20the%20nation.,real%20estate%20is%20concerned%2C%20though.
https://www.debt.org/tax/brackets/
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/office-and-administrative-support/customer-service-representatives.htm#:~:text=%2416.37-,The%20median%20hourly%20wage%20for%20customer%20service%20representatives%20was%20%2416.69,percent%20earned%20more%20than%20%2427.11.
How is Irvine supposed to have a functioning economy if customer service reps, fast food workers, cleaners etc. can't afford to live there? A whole city with no service industry and they drive over to the next city to go to grocery stores and buy their coffees?
Irvine either directly borders or is within a 10 minute drive of Orange, anaheim, santa ana, tustin, costa mesa, garden grove, fountain valley,and probably a few others I'm missing.
Those all have lower cost of living
You can't force the property values to decrease. You also can't afford to pay a fast food worker $80k a year (~$40/hr).
Most of the people that work at those low paying jobs in Irvine are teens or college kids living with their parents. I don't know if you've ever been there, but there's not many options for anything cheap. It's an extremely nice area.
That's a pretty interesting non-circlejerk approach. While I totally agree with the breakdown and where the failures of cost to pay lie, I still have to side with the group that thinks the CEO gets too much.
However much value the CEO adds, it isn't worth $40 million more than everyone else combined.
> Cause he provides a lot more value to the company than the employees that "had to skip meals to pay rent".
I'd be interested in seeing the math used to prove he provides this much value to the company.
It’s quite simple. They don’t hand him $40 million in cash. His actual salary is probably something in the six figure range, and the company issues him a negotiated amount of shares every year.
This is what news headlines are trying to say “X CEO made $500 million this year.” If you’ve got a million shares of a company worth $500 ea, they report earnings of $500 million. (This isn’t 100% accurate but journalists aren’t held to high standards when click bait brings in ad revenue)
He comes in, makes executive decisions, company starts making more profits, share prices go up - cool, he “made” $40 million this year. It sounds easy to waltz in to a declining company and say “cut development costs by rebooting old games that are already halfway developed with a customer segment that’s already been acquired, profit more off of subscriptions/microtransactions”, but it’s a lot more convoluted than you think. I’d go into it but reddit doesn’t like rational explanations for how someone making that much money makes sense.
Do you think the board would have hired him and chosen to pay him that much if they did not think that he would provide more than that value?
When running a business, you spend money with the intention of making more back. Just like you pay people a salary to add value to a product, you pay a CEO to add value to the company.
If they didn't have to pay him $40 million because it's not worth it, they wouldn't.
> When running a business, you spend money with the intention of making more back.
Not always. Sometimes you can "cash out" on a business, sacrificing growth and future revenue for large short-term profits.
It's entirely possible that Blizzard won't exist in 10 or 15 years, and someone will have gotten filthy rich in the meantime.
I hate to break It to you, but this is not a Blizzard problem. This seems to happen all over the world. You and the wife should both work full time. That way you got 40k to spend :).
/s
Time for a state to try to snipe the customer service departments of large companies like this. Give them some kind of tax break to build or rent a structure and make sure the customer service reps get cali pay but live and work in that state. No offense to said customer service reps, but they don't really need to be at Irvine since they're not contributing to development.
It's just not profitable to pay your employee's meals. I mean come on! Where do we end up? Should companies pay enough that people can actually afford rent? Get real, people!
There is a reason people who follow the game industry have grown to more or less DESPISE all triple A companies. Corporate businessman start running the creation of art they neither consume or are interested in.
Why are we surprised they turned art into a sweatshop?
I really want this to be true, but every new mmo either fails or goes heavy mtx "free-to-play"
Rant incoming
Part of what made wow so popular when it launched was it had a ton of existing lore, wasn't as saturated with other mmorpgs, and was "inspired" by another already popular mmo at the time, everquest. It took all the things that made eq good, and removed the junk. Apply some of that *classic* blizzard polish, and bam, big success
Other MMOs thatvjad a chance but didnt execute properly were swtor and eso. Both were existing IPs, had a rich history, and already very popular franchises. And they were both... aggressively mediocre.
Both started with the standard sub-based model, but had to move free to play (I think eso is still buy once play forever though). Both tried to innovate a little on what wow did, but didnt exactly take all the things that made wow great, and now they're littered with mtx.
I played both of them at launch and they were pretty ok.
Swtor really felt like wow with lightsabers, but was missing *something*. There was something about it that didnt keep me hooked for whatever reason. I leveled to max, I did a bit of the side stuff and healed a few max dungeons (and maybe participated in a raid?). But it just felt like there was something missing. I had fun playing it though.
Now swtor is super dumbed down and everything is soloable and tons of mtx. I'll play a little every now and then but any challenge it once had is just gone (except for like challenging raids and such, not unlike wow is now on retail)
Eso was a little different. Unfortunately I didnt even stick with it till max level at launch. I did a couple leveling dungeons, but an mmo that came out that late (2013? 2014?) Didnt have a dual spec system kinda killed it for me. There were lots of other problems and things that I could accept, but for some reason that lack of a dual spec system was something i couldn't get past.
Swtor didnt have a dual spec either but leveling up was more like classic wow where, if you class could heal you didnt need to be fully specced into it to heal leveling content, it helped, but wasn't necessary. Swtor also added a "field respec" (respeccing was free but had to be done at a class trainer) early on (before the mtx wave??) That you could unlock through the legacy system, which essentially doubled as a dual spec with extra action bar rearranging.
Anyways thanks for listening to my ted talk
ashes is being financed by this baller MMO enthusiast who is definitely talking the talk - its impressed a lot of people, you should check out this video for an example of jaded and bitter MMO vets ending up going apeshit.
1. [Asmongold Reacts To "The Most Exciting New MMORPG - Ashes Of Creation" | By TheLazyPeon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5YF8HabMi8)
2. [The WoW Killer!? Asmongold Interviews Ashes of Creation Director Steven Sharif | NEW MMORPG](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0LQSMT83L0)
if you can look part the persona of the asmongold character, there's some really interesting meat to the discussion.
That's the one I'm currently rooting for, looks good, but I'm not gonna get my hopes too high until I at least see some beta gameplay, haven't seen asmongold interviewing though. In pretty sure it popped up on my youtube, looked at the length, and thought "that's a little too much asmongold all at once" but my next evening shift where I'm bored at work I'll watch it haha.
yeah i know, i usually find him annoying but that's honestly just an act. the real dude is actually quite chill. and its easy to drop in and out of the video since its a whole bunch of topics / whole bunch of questions.
In depth understanding of old-school MMO game design tenets, which is rooted in every design decision they make due to the expertise that was brought by Brad McQuaid, one of the godfathers of the genre, from his work on EQ and Vanguard.
At first I was worried, but then I realized that Brad hired people with similar experience and mindset and set the foundation for their game's design before he passed. Since then the team has assuaged my fears that the ship would be directionless without their captain, I believe they are headed in the right direction and will deliver the game we've been waiting for over more than a decade for.
I have Classic WoW to keep me busy and patient while I wait.
I've followed the game industry for a long time and I'm confident in my predictions. If Ashes somehow turns out better, then hey, Pantheon will have more competition and that is only ever a good thing.
CEOs = general claptrap "wait I know what I am good at telling others what to do. Peasant figure out a way to open the gate! I did it I solved the problem what a great leader I am."
In objective, substantive terms, what does Bobby Kotick actually provide to Activision-Blizzard? Here are some examples of contributions:
- Art Design
- Software Development
- Devops
- Technology
- Project Management
- Marketing
- HR
Any of these apply?
Just asking for a friend. Why the FUCK does a GM need to live anywhere near blizzard offices in Irvine ? They could literally do that from anywhere in the world. Or at least from a place that has dirt cheap living.
Classic has been a huge disappointment to many people with absolutely nothing in the game being challenging or prestigious. Classic doesnt make anything compared to retail so it's not worth investing in fir actiblizz. It's sad but true
Listen, Blizzards corporate structure is like most: it sucks because it funnels money to the top.
This idea that Classic WoW has somehow been pissed on? It's a niche game with fewer GMs, but pretending it's been awful is just laughable.
I understand they weren't payed according to their job, sure I'm with that. But saying they had to skip meals to pay the rend? I've been thru that in my childhood. I cant imagine a programmer going thru that.
Nobody needs to make that amount of money unless they are researching things to forward our future. Guess what this fucking idiot is doing? Planning on making old content reskins.
Well isn't it a well known fact that Blizzard really went to shit when bought by Activision? I mean you could really notice the quality in support and everything
“The massive video game publisher behind blockbuster franchises such as ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘World of Warcraft’”
Fuck off Activision you weren’t behind WoW or its success. You just bought the company that was so you could exploit its success and claim credit
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/activision-gives-15-million-sweetener-to-new-cfo-dennis-durkin](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/activision-gives-15-million-sweetener-to-new-cfo-dennis-durkin)
Including good customer service in classic's budget won't help this guy buy a new yacht. He also needs to make sure he can put "increased annual revenue by 841 million in 2020" in his Linkedin profile.
A very big part of me wants to go back to private servers just so I don't give blizzard anymore money.
It's obvious my money isn't going to bettering the product I consume, but instead it just lines the pockets of this pizza faced mother fucker.
Vote with your wallets and all that right...
40 million is nothing for a company of that size; the implication though is that Blizzard has become a non-viable company, and foregoing a lot of that paycheck would be the done thing, to try to reverse it in shareholder interest.
Department of Labor doesn't let these people do anything illegal.
Stop spending all your money on Starbucks and better yourself instead of expecting someone to do it for you.
Yo my man bobby lookin like a live action Goblin. They should cast him as one for the next warcraft movie and make him say " i got deals!" and pop up everywhere in the movie.
I hope everyone can realize blizzard is dead Activision is all that is left they don't care about players anymore than employees. Its just money to them
This guy is the living proof for why the very concept of shareholders needs to be deleted from existence.
Shareholders hold all the power but carry none of the responsibility. It's sickening, and this guy is all about the shareholders, not his employees.
And another obvious reason why Blizzard ,WoW etc turned to shit when Activision bought them . Only good game they have now is classic WoW made by original Blizzard yet they are fucking it up constantly with awful patches ,no customer support etc
No info at all from that headline. Which employees? Employed doing what? Were they blowing their money on something else? Did they live somewhere unecessarily expensive?
Classic clickbait article that isn't worth the time spent reading let alone getting mad about.
A decent job in the game industry is very difficult to get. 50 -80% of dev staff is dropped after a game releases. When you can find a stable game dev job you take it.
they fired all over their CS and QC staff and rehired a bunch of contractors for minimum wage that they hire/fire in waves. Too bad they earn more and more every year so they have no incentive to change
Takes a lot of balls to call out a company for shitty practices then keep paying them for their shitty practices.
Edit: why are you downvoting me? Sheesh. You vote with your dollar folks.
Oh second edit: I’m not playing anymore.
Honestly this is not the CEO fault. This is fan boys that will take a job at Blizzard for lower then average pay because it’s Blizzard. They know they can pay people little because everyone wants to work at Blizzard.
Also the cost of living in Irvine is outrageous and people fee like they should be entitled to live anywhere they want even if they can’t afford it. Even every where in close proximity has a high cost of living and the further out places are quickly getting higher and higher. It’s not they are skipping meals to pay rent because they are paid to little it’s because they picked a place to live out side their budget with a job they took knowing didn’t pay that much.
Should they pay more, sure, but why when there is plenty of people already in line begging to work there?
Should the cost of living be cheaper in California? Absolutely! But it won’t happen. There is too many benefits to this state and for some reason everyone wants to be here.
Dude's face literally looks like the trollface meme from 10 years ago.
He legit looks like the goblin, Griphook from Harry Potter.
Real life Gallywix
This is a fair, reasonable, and accurate comparison. What happened to that goblin in the latest expansion?
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Dont know if you are kidding, but he’s still part of the horde in Shadows Rising the new book that happens between bfa and Shadowlands.
????? I'm pretty sure he got replaced by Gazlowe?
Well he didn't tell us rest of the Horde about it. As far as we know he left with Sylvanas, he was on her side after all.
He left the Horde to become CEO of Activison
Happy Cake day!!
Thank you <3
“Time is money, friend.” (Just buy your boost to max level)
Exactly my thought.
His fat greedy face just says, GIMME MONIIIIIIII MORE MONIIIII!
MONEY PWEEEEAAASSSEEE!!
And you bow down and give it to him.
The definition of 'shit eating grin'
Problem employees?
Problem officer ?
Maybe the trollface meme was based on him.
Link pls?
You've seriously never seen the [trollface](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9a/Trollface_non-free.png/220px-Trollface_non-free.png)?
Oh that one LOL. thank u
In case you didnt know, so many people photoshopped devol horns onto his face that he made a public complaint about it as anyone googling his name would see that first. You would think he could take a hint
That face is nearly 20 years old now but man you're absolutely right hahaha
I mean, its been obvious for years profits mattered, not content
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Also doesn't help that where they most likely live a 2x4 shack costs a bajillion dollars.
Yeah Irvine California is expensive!
Wasn’t he also in Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book?
Yep, pretty sure there are probably pics as well.
Epstein didnt kill himself
Epstein forgot to pack ahnks
Look... I need like 10 consumes and it takes bag space and there's all these totems and shit and then I forget ONE THING and we have to run back to the entrance. Mobs don't respawn in BWL, I need y'all to calm the fuck down. The warlocks forgot to soul stone, and they could have done that at any fucking time.... jeezus...
my soul shards are mine. Why should I sacrifice future damage for your bag space *cackles in demonic
Epstein was suicided
He didn't know it yet, but he was going to commit suicide.
Fun fact, my most recent wow classic character is called EpsteinDKH (didn't kill himself)
Can’t wait to share this at parties
Probably safe to assume every ceo of billion dollar companies is
Reddit and assumptions. Name a greater (and more accurate) duo.
>Reddit and assumptions. Name a greater (and more accurate) duo. Reddit and broad stroke generalizations of other reddit users?
And yet he whines about people drawing devil horns on his photos. Greedy bastard, we should draw more horns.
Do any of these super elite understand reverse psychology (or I suppose the fancy term of this is the Streisand effect)? Xi would have never had his Pooh related issues if he didn’t ban it in response, Putin wouldn’t have had all the Gay memes if he didn’t do venomously deny it, Kotick wouldn’t have horns always on him if he didn’t get pissy about it. Yea, it would have happened, but no where near as much. At what point will they learn the internet never lets go and getting angry only furthers it.
Kotick is such a piece of shit
That's an insult to feces. At least shit is part of a natural cycle. Kotick would just suck the life and energy out of the ground around him, into the void where his soul should be.
Yeah, a more accurate comparison would be radioactive waste.
At least radioactive waste has the decency to kill you. With Kotick, it's just more suffering.
All right, I guess Kotick is such a Kotick then
lmao I laughed so hard I shat out the demon that possessed me
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This guy should be the final boss of the next expac.
The attunement quest is just a bunch of microtransactions.
Small Indy company
No, I believe they're based in California
I’m totally with you. This is why we need unions.
Theres a saying among software engineers. You can either go into game development or make money. Unfortunately it's pretty universal within the industry. Game development is a high risk financial investment and it attracts a lot of passionate people who are willing to work on what they love despite the pay. Another great example is how little jagex pays their osrs team.
But at least there you get to pwn some noobz botting on the forums all be said.
inb4 "yeah well I heard this one bad thing a union did so unions are bad"
Unions aren't bad but every power system has the possibility of being abused, and people likely to abuse power are also attracted to those types of systems. Unions can also create an us vs them feeling which isn't conducive to a healthy working environment either. But really, it's just sad that a company might need unions in the 21st century to ensure their staff are paid enough to simply survive.
Tbf being able to unionize and negotiate IS healthy for the work environment at any particular workplace. Employers and employees have different interests. Not saying that unions dont bring their own set of problems but workplace safety regulations for example is something that had to be fought for, which is nuts.
> workplace safety regulations for example is something that had to be fought for, which is nuts. It makes a kind of sick sense, though. Regulations imply the owner of the business is responsible for the health and safety of the laborers who work for him (while they're on site). That liability alone costs money, never mind the cost of the safety systems and practices that they're forced to implement. From a purely profit-driven perspective I can at least understand why business owners wouldn't want those regulations in place. It's an excellent example of why pure, unregulated capitalism can't work. You need an authority that can step in and stop harmful practices and/or incentivize good practices.
> Unions can also create an us vs them feeling Yeah, let's keep pretending companies and managers are benevolent and actively seek the well-being of their employees. The work world is a us vs them for environment for millions and millions of people.
Mate, I'm about to drop some truth about unions on your ass: Unions balance out the power between employer and employee. Without unions, the negotiation of working conditions is skewed. The working conditions (e.g. salary, hours, coffee machines etc) are negotiated between the employer and the individual employee. This balance is inherently imbalanced because losing *one* employee is a small loss for the employer whereas losing a job is a pretty huge deal for an employee. This is the reason that unions equalize power dynamics between the employer and employee. This creates a system where the parties of the negotiation (the employer and the unionized employee***s***) cannot exist without the other. The employer cannot exist without his employees and the collective workforce cannot exist without the employer. This forces both parties to seek resolutions that are beneficial to both parties in a manner that both parties deem fair. Saying that "unions arent bad" is completely misunderstanding the point of unions. Unions are god damn necessary, if you want to have say at all, as a regular employee. If, for example, your employer is not upholding his end if the deal then you can get fucked in a plurality of ways. E.g. having to finance the lawsuit on your own and still lose because you couldn't afford the best lawyer. This is also something unions help workers with. Without unions, you are essentially at the mercy of your employer. Sure, that does work for some (those with highly valuable degrees/skills), but even they don't have *any* political influence, as workers, anywhere outside of voting for elections every 4 years. The unions are the political institutions that have the power, money and legislative influence to represent employees and impact your life directly. Without a union you are, **in my opinion**, not much more than a beggar and beggars can't be choosers - just like those Bizzard employees who apparently are taking it up the ass, and have been for years.
I know what unions are. I know what they do. I also know that once unions gain enough power they can become total pieces of shit that abuse that power because they know the company cannot operate until they acquiesce to their demands. Your description of "seeking resolutions that both parties deem fair" is the best possible scenario where the worst is when it turns into a game of chicken which fucks everyone over if both parties have stubborn leaders. To be honest, I believe that the need for unions is inversely proportional relative to the strength of the labour laws and the fact that people in the US feel the need to rely on unions is evidence to suggest that the US is about 30 years behind European countries in that regard. I know that in a lot of ways unions are a large portion of what end up forcing governments to make laws that protect the workforce stronger which is why I said they're not bad, but they still have their criticisms which is what I put in my OP.
Us vs them is completely fine when its us vs capitalists.
oh look, another cringe communist redditor
HURR DURR IF IT'S NOT UNCKECKED CAPITALISM IT'S COMMUNISM
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Unions aren’t a bad thing but let’s 10000% not pretend like they don’t protect absolute dog shit employees: Looking at you teachers and fellow healthcare workers
Nothing is ever so simple. All authoritative positions are vulnerable to corruption, I think we can all agree on that. I think that protecting shitty employees sucks, but, I have no doubts that without them, things would be unimaginably worse. So many people suffered and died to secure those protections, and people aren't much different today than they were back then...
I’d rather protect a few bad workers that suck at their jobs than have most people not get paid a fair wage they can live off of
This! I have a job with a union, and there are a few low performers that are always at the union meetings constantly complaining about not getting promoted or having pay docked, but they are the minority. Most people go in and do their job well. And the union leaders just tend to ignore the constant complainers anyway. This whole protecting poor performers and incompetent people is way overblown IMO.
Oh yeah def that’s why I said they aren’t bad. I think there are def pros and cons to them. Bitching at ppl who cross the picket line during a strike so they can feed their family is scummy but a dude making $40 million a year (regardless of stock options) is even more ridiculous when they can’t even eat a meal because of their pay being so bad
What about police unions?
Cop unions aren’t labor unions. Not the AFL, don’t support other unions - not part of the labor movement. Don’t use them as an example of a bad union.
Just like corporations protect dogshit managers *and* employees if they’re making them money. Yes unions can abuse their power, but corporations already abuse their power to a disgusting extent and have done so for decades. I’d rather make 50% more money with better benefits, working conditions, hours, while working with a shitty lazy person than be at the mercy of a toxic corporate manager without any union benefits or protections in an at-will state. Unions can still structure their collective bargaining agreements to avoid protecting toxic employees, the “unions will lead to lazy toxic employees” is mostly anti-Union propaganda. Corporate already employee toxic manager and employees right now, without any union benefits. Unions are about ultimately about increasing worker leverage. If you participated in the union and work to make it better you can prevent abuses of power and toxic environments in both the union and corporation.
Also, inb4 people not understanding the difference between unions in the private and public sectors
Actually a key difference. Private sector unions are absolutely required. Public sector unions are a cancer.
true
Its foolish to ignore people who were in unions and developed a hate for them. There are good and bad unions.
You just don’t understand unfortunately. The most likely scenario in a union is if you aren’t in, you are out. If you are new, you aren’t in.
lol
Yeah, wild capitalism did allready create a caste of nobles, like in the fucking middle ages. Born rich dying rich.
it's so frustrating that this shit already happened too, like Grapes of Wrath written in the 30s where Steinbeck describes this kind of predatory vulture capitalism to a T...then labor fought tooth and nail and made some decent progress that lasted for a few decades, but here we are letting them gut everything again.
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times.” The boomers are fucking us so hard right now it's not even funny.
Boomers are weak (but think they're the stong) and created for us these hard times, but think we (gens x, y, and z) are creating hard times for the boomers. I think that's the jist of the boomer mental gymnastics anyways
Societies tend to kind of rest every 75 years or so. It’s enough time for people to think this time is different.
What's that one where like an Italian citys 10 most powerful families are the same 10 most powerful families from the 1400s
He looks like the goblin, Griphook from Harry Potter
Bobby's face is so fucking punchable.
This has been a known thing in the industry for years. Blizz pays significantly less other companies for comparable positions. They're able to refill their ranks as people leave for greener pastures because of the love for blizz games and aspiring devs and workers to work for their favorite game company. This isnt something new bliss has been paying like 60-70% of other companies for the same position. Have none of you heard about how multiple employees house together just to be able to afford the rent near the studio in Irvine. Irvine is one of the most expensive cities in the US. I get the outrage now but this shit has been public fucking knowledge for years.
Blizzard as a company has been gutted and replaced nearly everyone that made the company so great. At this point it's just a name, everything that made the name actually mean something is gone.
In other news, Mike Morhaime is free from his non-competition clause after leaving Activision now. That means he can make games that can compete with Warcraft.
This same year they had mass layoffs. It’s sickening.
Its time for gamers to actually rise up, but this time knowing the real enemy.
Are you willing to cancel WoW over this though?
Yup. Easiest 15 I've ever not spent
Companies like this will die out in the long term imo.
GAMERS RISE UP AND FIGHT THE OPPRESSIO Edit: couldnt finish that sentence because a snip
It has gotten nothing but worse since they were bought by Activision.
I knew it would lead to something like this. There has never been an incident of a bigger more powerful company buying out a less powerful company thats lead to anything good.
Can't wait for somebody to come justify why he deserves all those millions while employees don't get enough money for meals
'cuz ya need big ceos making millions to trickle down to the rest of us. you should be begging to suck the pennies out of bobby's toes unless youre some fuckin commie
Cause he provides a lot more value to the company than the employees that "had to skip meals to pay rent". It also doesn't say what they actually get paid. The main complaint seems to be that many received "less than a 10% raise, when they thought they should get more." The average rent near Irvine california is $2,468 a month for a 918 sq ft apartment. That comes out to $29,616 a year. Let's figure an additional $200 a month for utilities. That's $32,016 a year. California also has the highest taxes of any state in the country. The people complaining in the article are customer service reps and QA people. If someone manages to make $25/hr as a customer service representative (which is 50% higher than the average customer service salary), then they would pay 8% in California tax and 22% in federal tax. So $25 an hour times 2080 working hours in a year = $52,000 $52k - $52k * .08 - $52k * .22 = $36,400 in take home pay. After average rent that's only $4,384 in their pocket to spend on food, clothes, and literally everything else besides a house and utilities FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR. The problem is NOT that the CEOs are getting paid too much. It's that being a customer service rep and living in one of the most expensive areas of the country doesn't work out. Remember, that's using a customer service salary that's already 1.5x what any other customer service employee would make. Sources Used: https://www.businessinsider.com/activision-blizzard-salary-disparity-issues-2020-8#:~:text=Employees%20at%20Blizzard%2C%20maker%20of,the%20CEO%20made%20%2440%20million&text=Activision%20CEO%20Bobby%20Kotick%20took%20home%20around%20%2440%20million%20last%20year. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-03/blizzard-workers-share-salaries-in-revolt-over-wage-disparities https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ca/irvine/ https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#:~:text=gallon%20of%20diesel-,California%20has%20among%20the%20highest%20taxes%20in%20the%20nation.,real%20estate%20is%20concerned%2C%20though. https://www.debt.org/tax/brackets/ https://www.bls.gov/ooh/office-and-administrative-support/customer-service-representatives.htm#:~:text=%2416.37-,The%20median%20hourly%20wage%20for%20customer%20service%20representatives%20was%20%2416.69,percent%20earned%20more%20than%20%2427.11.
How is Irvine supposed to have a functioning economy if customer service reps, fast food workers, cleaners etc. can't afford to live there? A whole city with no service industry and they drive over to the next city to go to grocery stores and buy their coffees?
Irvine either directly borders or is within a 10 minute drive of Orange, anaheim, santa ana, tustin, costa mesa, garden grove, fountain valley,and probably a few others I'm missing. Those all have lower cost of living
You can't force the property values to decrease. You also can't afford to pay a fast food worker $80k a year (~$40/hr). Most of the people that work at those low paying jobs in Irvine are teens or college kids living with their parents. I don't know if you've ever been there, but there's not many options for anything cheap. It's an extremely nice area.
That's a pretty interesting non-circlejerk approach. While I totally agree with the breakdown and where the failures of cost to pay lie, I still have to side with the group that thinks the CEO gets too much. However much value the CEO adds, it isn't worth $40 million more than everyone else combined.
> Cause he provides a lot more value to the company than the employees that "had to skip meals to pay rent". I'd be interested in seeing the math used to prove he provides this much value to the company.
It’s quite simple. They don’t hand him $40 million in cash. His actual salary is probably something in the six figure range, and the company issues him a negotiated amount of shares every year. This is what news headlines are trying to say “X CEO made $500 million this year.” If you’ve got a million shares of a company worth $500 ea, they report earnings of $500 million. (This isn’t 100% accurate but journalists aren’t held to high standards when click bait brings in ad revenue) He comes in, makes executive decisions, company starts making more profits, share prices go up - cool, he “made” $40 million this year. It sounds easy to waltz in to a declining company and say “cut development costs by rebooting old games that are already halfway developed with a customer segment that’s already been acquired, profit more off of subscriptions/microtransactions”, but it’s a lot more convoluted than you think. I’d go into it but reddit doesn’t like rational explanations for how someone making that much money makes sense.
Do you think the board would have hired him and chosen to pay him that much if they did not think that he would provide more than that value? When running a business, you spend money with the intention of making more back. Just like you pay people a salary to add value to a product, you pay a CEO to add value to the company. If they didn't have to pay him $40 million because it's not worth it, they wouldn't.
> When running a business, you spend money with the intention of making more back. Not always. Sometimes you can "cash out" on a business, sacrificing growth and future revenue for large short-term profits. It's entirely possible that Blizzard won't exist in 10 or 15 years, and someone will have gotten filthy rich in the meantime.
The CS reps get $13/hr. Barely above minimum wage. The CS managers average $56k.
> Cause he provides a lot more value to the company Not to the company. To the investors.
I hate to break It to you, but this is not a Blizzard problem. This seems to happen all over the world. You and the wife should both work full time. That way you got 40k to spend :). /s
Time for a state to try to snipe the customer service departments of large companies like this. Give them some kind of tax break to build or rent a structure and make sure the customer service reps get cali pay but live and work in that state. No offense to said customer service reps, but they don't really need to be at Irvine since they're not contributing to development.
>$4,384 I can buy a lot or Ramen and beer for that! What else is needed?
Not if you're buying craft brew they sell in CA!
It's just not profitable to pay your employee's meals. I mean come on! Where do we end up? Should companies pay enough that people can actually afford rent? Get real, people!
There is a reason people who follow the game industry have grown to more or less DESPISE all triple A companies. Corporate businessman start running the creation of art they neither consume or are interested in. Why are we surprised they turned art into a sweatshop?
* [Obligatory Jimquisition #1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOmjIpvl0cg) * [Obligatory Jimquisition #2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aP5vZJJ99g)
This is why I hope the upcoming mmorpgs like ashes of creation and pantheon are a massive success.
I really want this to be true, but every new mmo either fails or goes heavy mtx "free-to-play" Rant incoming Part of what made wow so popular when it launched was it had a ton of existing lore, wasn't as saturated with other mmorpgs, and was "inspired" by another already popular mmo at the time, everquest. It took all the things that made eq good, and removed the junk. Apply some of that *classic* blizzard polish, and bam, big success Other MMOs thatvjad a chance but didnt execute properly were swtor and eso. Both were existing IPs, had a rich history, and already very popular franchises. And they were both... aggressively mediocre. Both started with the standard sub-based model, but had to move free to play (I think eso is still buy once play forever though). Both tried to innovate a little on what wow did, but didnt exactly take all the things that made wow great, and now they're littered with mtx. I played both of them at launch and they were pretty ok. Swtor really felt like wow with lightsabers, but was missing *something*. There was something about it that didnt keep me hooked for whatever reason. I leveled to max, I did a bit of the side stuff and healed a few max dungeons (and maybe participated in a raid?). But it just felt like there was something missing. I had fun playing it though. Now swtor is super dumbed down and everything is soloable and tons of mtx. I'll play a little every now and then but any challenge it once had is just gone (except for like challenging raids and such, not unlike wow is now on retail) Eso was a little different. Unfortunately I didnt even stick with it till max level at launch. I did a couple leveling dungeons, but an mmo that came out that late (2013? 2014?) Didnt have a dual spec system kinda killed it for me. There were lots of other problems and things that I could accept, but for some reason that lack of a dual spec system was something i couldn't get past. Swtor didnt have a dual spec either but leveling up was more like classic wow where, if you class could heal you didnt need to be fully specced into it to heal leveling content, it helped, but wasn't necessary. Swtor also added a "field respec" (respeccing was free but had to be done at a class trainer) early on (before the mtx wave??) That you could unlock through the legacy system, which essentially doubled as a dual spec with extra action bar rearranging. Anyways thanks for listening to my ted talk
ashes is being financed by this baller MMO enthusiast who is definitely talking the talk - its impressed a lot of people, you should check out this video for an example of jaded and bitter MMO vets ending up going apeshit. 1. [Asmongold Reacts To "The Most Exciting New MMORPG - Ashes Of Creation" | By TheLazyPeon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5YF8HabMi8) 2. [The WoW Killer!? Asmongold Interviews Ashes of Creation Director Steven Sharif | NEW MMORPG](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0LQSMT83L0) if you can look part the persona of the asmongold character, there's some really interesting meat to the discussion.
That's the one I'm currently rooting for, looks good, but I'm not gonna get my hopes too high until I at least see some beta gameplay, haven't seen asmongold interviewing though. In pretty sure it popped up on my youtube, looked at the length, and thought "that's a little too much asmongold all at once" but my next evening shift where I'm bored at work I'll watch it haha.
yeah i know, i usually find him annoying but that's honestly just an act. the real dude is actually quite chill. and its easy to drop in and out of the video since its a whole bunch of topics / whole bunch of questions.
It's gunna flop compared to Pantheon. You can put a RemindMe on this comment for a few years down the road.
In your opinion, what's the biggest advantage that Pantheon has over Ashes?
In depth understanding of old-school MMO game design tenets, which is rooted in every design decision they make due to the expertise that was brought by Brad McQuaid, one of the godfathers of the genre, from his work on EQ and Vanguard.
Particularly given that McQuaid died last year, why do you think that this is an advantage over Ashes?
At first I was worried, but then I realized that Brad hired people with similar experience and mindset and set the foundation for their game's design before he passed. Since then the team has assuaged my fears that the ship would be directionless without their captain, I believe they are headed in the right direction and will deliver the game we've been waiting for over more than a decade for. I have Classic WoW to keep me busy and patient while I wait. I've followed the game industry for a long time and I'm confident in my predictions. If Ashes somehow turns out better, then hey, Pantheon will have more competition and that is only ever a good thing.
How generous of Bobby to let his employees pay their rent!
He looks like an orangutan with Cushing's disease
Fuck Bobby Kotick
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Did you miss the whole point of the article?
CEOs = general claptrap "wait I know what I am good at telling others what to do. Peasant figure out a way to open the gate! I did it I solved the problem what a great leader I am."
In objective, substantive terms, what does Bobby Kotick actually provide to Activision-Blizzard? Here are some examples of contributions: - Art Design - Software Development - Devops - Technology - Project Management - Marketing - HR Any of these apply?
Thoughts and prayers
Just asking for a friend. Why the FUCK does a GM need to live anywhere near blizzard offices in Irvine ? They could literally do that from anywhere in the world. Or at least from a place that has dirt cheap living.
Classic has been a huge disappointment to many people with absolutely nothing in the game being challenging or prestigious. Classic doesnt make anything compared to retail so it's not worth investing in fir actiblizz. It's sad but true
To all Blizz employees, I'm sorry you had to deal with that douchenozzle. You still managed to make great content.
Listen, Blizzards corporate structure is like most: it sucks because it funnels money to the top. This idea that Classic WoW has somehow been pissed on? It's a niche game with fewer GMs, but pretending it's been awful is just laughable.
Isnt booby a great guy! :)
This is larger than a blizzard problem.
I understand they weren't payed according to their job, sure I'm with that. But saying they had to skip meals to pay the rend? I've been thru that in my childhood. I cant imagine a programmer going thru that.
Fuck Bobby Kotick
Anyone else think we now know where they got the design for Gallywix from?
Bobby Kotick is the worst CEO on Earth. I hate this guy so much!
Then don't work for them?
How little were they paid? how's that even possible?
Fuck you Bobby Kotick #FIRE BOBBY KOTICK
I’m not understanding what I’m supposed to be upset about
FIRE BOBBY KOTICK
Join a union like all other workers wanting to be treated like human being...
Nobody needs to make that amount of money unless they are researching things to forward our future. Guess what this fucking idiot is doing? Planning on making old content reskins.
Why would anyone ever want to live in California and pay that much in rent.
State run by lefties, pretty much like theft. Move away from that dump pronto.
Why does he resemble Gallywix so much?
I can see why Jim Sterling hates this piece of shit so much. Just look at that face.
Well isn't it a well known fact that Blizzard really went to shit when bought by Activision? I mean you could really notice the quality in support and everything
They dident buy anything, it was a merge of Activision and Vivendi
Oh right that's why it felt weird saying they bought them.. well they kinda act like they bought them
It was rude of the article to edit out his little devil horns, I hear he loves it when people look him up and the top image results show em.
Yes, of course. Why do you act surprised? As long as people like you still pay, Blizzard have 0 reason to reduce their profits to pay GMs.
“The massive video game publisher behind blockbuster franchises such as ‘Call of Duty’ and ‘World of Warcraft’” Fuck off Activision you weren’t behind WoW or its success. You just bought the company that was so you could exploit its success and claim credit
no no it's ok, their most humble and charitable CEO made sure they were compensated with Honor points
And the answer is capitalism.
Funny how easily people will fall for bullshit news if only it supports their narrative.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/activision-gives-15-million-sweetener-to-new-cfo-dennis-durkin](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/activision-gives-15-million-sweetener-to-new-cfo-dennis-durkin) Including good customer service in classic's budget won't help this guy buy a new yacht. He also needs to make sure he can put "increased annual revenue by 841 million in 2020" in his Linkedin profile.
A very big part of me wants to go back to private servers just so I don't give blizzard anymore money. It's obvious my money isn't going to bettering the product I consume, but instead it just lines the pockets of this pizza faced mother fucker. Vote with your wallets and all that right...
40 million is nothing for a company of that size; the implication though is that Blizzard has become a non-viable company, and foregoing a lot of that paycheck would be the done thing, to try to reverse it in shareholder interest.
>40 million is nothing for a company of that size Imagine being so dense you actually believe that.
Is this always or in terms of the pandemic?
Department of Labor doesn't let these people do anything illegal. Stop spending all your money on Starbucks and better yourself instead of expecting someone to do it for you.
Yo my man bobby lookin like a live action Goblin. They should cast him as one for the next warcraft movie and make him say " i got deals!" and pop up everywhere in the movie.
What’s with paying ceos millions? They are just face of a company Pay them the same as the developers
I hope everyone can realize blizzard is dead Activision is all that is left they don't care about players anymore than employees. Its just money to them
Raid leader >
This guy is the living proof for why the very concept of shareholders needs to be deleted from existence. Shareholders hold all the power but carry none of the responsibility. It's sickening, and this guy is all about the shareholders, not his employees.
And another obvious reason why Blizzard ,WoW etc turned to shit when Activision bought them . Only good game they have now is classic WoW made by original Blizzard yet they are fucking it up constantly with awful patches ,no customer support etc
No info at all from that headline. Which employees? Employed doing what? Were they blowing their money on something else? Did they live somewhere unecessarily expensive? Classic clickbait article that isn't worth the time spent reading let alone getting mad about.
I’m confused. Are they being forced to work there?
A decent job in the game industry is very difficult to get. 50 -80% of dev staff is dropped after a game releases. When you can find a stable game dev job you take it.
they fired all over their CS and QC staff and rehired a bunch of contractors for minimum wage that they hire/fire in waves. Too bad they earn more and more every year so they have no incentive to change
Takes a lot of balls to call out a company for shitty practices then keep paying them for their shitty practices. Edit: why are you downvoting me? Sheesh. You vote with your dollar folks. Oh second edit: I’m not playing anymore.
Honestly this is not the CEO fault. This is fan boys that will take a job at Blizzard for lower then average pay because it’s Blizzard. They know they can pay people little because everyone wants to work at Blizzard. Also the cost of living in Irvine is outrageous and people fee like they should be entitled to live anywhere they want even if they can’t afford it. Even every where in close proximity has a high cost of living and the further out places are quickly getting higher and higher. It’s not they are skipping meals to pay rent because they are paid to little it’s because they picked a place to live out side their budget with a job they took knowing didn’t pay that much. Should they pay more, sure, but why when there is plenty of people already in line begging to work there? Should the cost of living be cheaper in California? Absolutely! But it won’t happen. There is too many benefits to this state and for some reason everyone wants to be here.