How the hell can Blizzard, with 10,000,000 people paying $15.00 monthly fees, $box sales, $expansion sales, and RMT sales, get to the point where they need to cut workers?
Idiots.
This is probably the worst part.
They most likely dont actually "need" to lay off those people. (Like, "if we dont cut those jobs asap, we go bankrupt tomorrow!")
But thats business...and this is not surprising at all. WoW is declining slowly, but until is will be in serious trouble, which wont be until several more years have passed, Titan will be ready.
But its kind of silly anyway, imagine "oh noes, WoW only got 2 million subs left!" Heck, name 5 western MMOs which have that many subs, lol...
Why pay one person to push button A and pay another person to push button B.............when you can pay one person to push BOTH!!
Its does not mean the company is all doom and gloom. They are just going to maximize their resources and have people multitask.
How many time have you seen 5 guys standing around on the road and only ONE is filling in the pothole??!!
If the job still gets done with 600 less people then it saves them a TON of money on salaries, benefits, payroll tax and the list goes on and on.
Relax it call business.
There is nothing for me to relax about as I dont play or buy Blizz games/prodcuts. But, I think you need to listen:
Blizz cuts 600 employees. Subs in WoW are down. Blizzcon cancelled. Diablo III delayed still. A dev for Diablo III leaves at the end of the development cycle. Blizz takes forever to release new games/expansions/products. Backlash over a Panda Bear expansion for WoW. All this and its Business As Usual in your eyes.
you for real ?
Would you pay 10 people to do a job that 7 people could do?
D3 is all but done. SC2 is all but done.............. so trim the fat. you dont need 60 extra devs to maintain them. As for the other 540 people..........do they really need an assistant to the assistant of the art director?? NO.
So they cancelled Blizzcon big deal...the hype for the year is already out there for D3 and SC2 why spend the extra cash on a convention. Mark my words the convention will be back next year when they have to hype something else.
"Would you pay 10 people to do a job that 7 people could do?"
NO. BUT thats beacuse they are losing customers/revenue, so they now have 10 people doing a job that 7 can do -- BECAUSE THEY LOST CUSTOMERS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
hello, whats wrong with some of you kiddies ? not too deep on the common sense ?????
wow firing 600 people? like seriously talk about fooking greed no way in the world that they are hurting for cash, countrys hurting and they are firing people. How much you want to bet those customer support ppl get replaced by indians ? Like someone else said i bet the sales from that new mount would have paid for those people salary and it was not hard for them to make the mount.
Stay classy blizzard stay classy i think corp greed at blizzard is starting to get too bad maybe i should cancel my sub
Corporations are not charities nor should they be.
Nor should they be all about greed.
Greed pays the salaries, overhead, health benefits, conventions, development and anything else to run the company. They own you nothing but a good product. What they do with the proceeds it their business.
then please explain to me (someone who owns/buys stock) how a company like Amazon will slash prices, offer free shipping and provide great customer service and actually sell items like the Kindle at below cost...all the while remaining a strong, viable player in retail AND remain profitable AND have a stock price of almost $180 -- explain to me how this company who doesnt nickle and dime its customers in a greedy manner is so wonderfully successful ?
thanks.
Quite easily. Amazon doesn't make any of the products it sells outside of the Kindle, and production costs for the Kindle are a hell of a lot lower than the MSRP, so cutting the price doesn't affect them at all.
LOL !!! too funny. AMAZON loses money on each kindle sold. They are a public company so you can google this fact on your own. As to the rest of your comical answer, the fact Amazon does or does not make the products it sells has no bearing WHATSOEVER on the fact they are not greedily nickel and diming their customers in any way and with any chance they get -- this is why, much to the dismay of some of their investors, they LOSE revenue on shipping. Again, google anything I just told you.
No, what's funny is you having a stock portfolio when you don't know how business works. Amazon can handle losses on the Kindle hardware because the BOOKS ( as well was advertising space on the cheaper version ) for the Kindle offset the difference. The same way Sony could absorb the losses on PS3 hardware as game revenue is where the money is really at. Plus they have literally hundreds of THOUSANDS of products that they make pure profit from with NO production costs at all and minimal overhead as most all those products are either stored by the sellers or stored collectively in a big warehouse.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I wonder if Morhaime's $16.5M compensation package will be reduced as well? Or does he and other uppity-mucks just want to keep preserve their bonuses at the expense of 600 other people? ...
Reduced? Heck no! It'll probably be increased because he 'saved' the company money.
IMO Customer Service and Dev are two places they can't afford to cut back on. For that matter, should CS be increased? To answer that I have a question, how long do you have to wait for a GM when you have an issue? Is it less than an hour, or more than 3 days?
We announced today that we’re in the process of cutting a number of active positions, mostly non-development, throughout the company. I'm sure this announcement has sparked some questions from all of you, so I want take this opportunity to address those as best I can. Over the past several years, the company has grown rapidly and evolved to better serve you and the rest of our global community. Thanks to all of your support, we continue to serve by far the biggest subscription-based MMO community, as well as the most passionate eSports and online gaming communities, in the world.
In order to keep making epic game content while serving players effectively, we have to be smart about how we manage our resources. This means we sometimes have to make difficult decisions about how to best maintain the health of the company. We’re in the process of making some of those hard decisions now.
After evaluating our current organizational needs, we determined that while some areas of our business had been operating at the right levels and could benefit from further growth, other areas had become overstaffed. As a result, we need to scale down some of our departments and part with some of our colleagues and friends here at Blizzard. I know that you all understand how difficult this type of situation can be for anyone who might be affected, so I want to assure you that we'll be offering each impacted employee a severance package and other benefits.
I also want to emphasize that we remain committed to shipping multiple games this year, and that our development teams in particular remain largely unaffected by today's announcement. We're continuing to develop, iterate, and polish Blizzard DOTA, Diablo III, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, as well as other, unannounced projects. We'll have exciting news to share in the coming weeks regarding Diablo III's release date, and will soon be holding a private media event to showcase the latest work on Mists of Pandaria. It goes without saying that we're working hard to get all of these games in your hands as soon as possible.
You've all come to expect Blizzard to live up to our mission statement with every game, and deliver the most epic entertainment experiences ever. You can continue to expect that and nothing less from us as we move forward.
There was a press release this morning, before the above forum post displayed on Blizzard's forum. The press release made sure everyone was aware that 90% of the employees being laid off aren't related to game development and that the World of Warcraft team isn't going to be impacted.
Where there's a game, there's a player, I'm that player.
I could really care less whether or not this has squat to do with WOW. What i am happy about is that one of the coveted "can do no wrong" developers is finally getting their financial shit handed to them for foisting crap out on the public, which unfortunately the fanbois lap up like its the nectar of the gods, but the rest of us saw/see it for what it is.
I dont want blizzard to go out of business i just want this to be the thing that reminds them that they should get back to making games and not revenue generators.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
I could really care less whether or not this has squat to do with WOW. What i am happy about is that one of the coveted "can do no wrong" developers is finally getting their financial shit handed to them for foisting crap out on the public, which unfortunately the fanbois lap up like its the nectar of the gods, but the rest of us saw/see it for what it is.
I dont want blizzard to go out of business i just want this to be the thing that reminds them that they should get back to making games and not revenue generators.
I doubt any of this has anything to do with revenue from WOW. Its probably more so with the poor diablo 3 preorder numbers and budget tightning while developing 2-3 other games.
wow firing 600 people? like seriously talk about fooking greed no way in the world that they are hurting for cash, countrys hurting and they are firing people. How much you want to bet those customer support ppl get replaced by indians ? Like someone else said i bet the sales from that new mount would have paid for those people salary and it was not hard for them to make the mount.
Stay classy blizzard stay classy i think corp greed at blizzard is starting to get too bad maybe i should cancel my sub
Corporations are not charities nor should they be.
Nor should they be all about greed.
Greed pays the salaries, overhead, health benefits, conventions, development and anything else to run the company. They own you nothing but a good product. What they do with the proceeds it their business.
then please explain to me (someone who owns/buys stock) how a company like Amazon will slash prices, offer free shipping and provide great customer service and actually sell items like the Kindle at below cost...all the while remaining a strong, viable player in retail AND remain profitable AND have a stock price of almost $180 -- explain to me how this company who doesnt nickle and dime its customers in a greedy manner is so wonderfully successful ?
thanks.
Quite easily. Amazon doesn't make any of the products it sells outside of the Kindle, and production costs for the Kindle are a hell of a lot lower than the MSRP, so cutting the price doesn't affect them at all.
LOL !!! too funny. AMAZON loses money on each kindle sold. They are a public company so you can google this fact on your own. As to the rest of your comical answer, the fact Amazon does or does not make the products it sells has no bearing WHATSOEVER on the fact they are not greedily nickel and diming their customers in any way and with any chance they get -- this is why, much to the dismay of some of their investors, they LOSE revenue on shipping. Again, google anything I just told you.
No, what's funny is you having a stock portfolio when you don't know how business works. Amazon can handle losses on the Kindle hardware because the BOOKS ( as well was advertising space on the cheaper version ) for the Kindle offset the difference. The same way Sony could absorb the losses on PS3 hardware as game revenue is where the money is really at. Plus they have literally hundreds of THOUSANDS of products that they make pure profit from with NO production costs at all and minimal overhead as most all those products are either stored by the sellers or stored collectively in a big warehouse.
I really think you need to take a deep breath, read this, let it sink in, read it again and understand MY POINT. It is simply this, Amazon has proven you can be successful and not come across as overly greedy. Read, then re-read and read again the chain of posts, and you will understand that nowhere, no how and in no way was I attempting to explore or understand the HOW Amazon does it, merely that they CAN do it, and still be successful and not come across as greedy. Do you think you get it now ? But thanks for explaining the "how" it all works when that wasn't the issue.
Again my point in referencing Amzons successful and less greedy business model is that I was attempting to prove you can be SUCCESSFUL and not nickel and dime your cleint base. Amzon can charge for shipping and Amazon can charge for at least cost the Kindle, but they choose not to, thereby coming across as less greedy. can you understand this rather simplistic point ?
Originally posted by eyeswideopenNo, what's funny is you having a stock portfolio when you don't know how business works. Amazon can handle losses on the Kindle hardware because the BOOKS ( as well was advertising space on the cheaper version ) for the Kindle offset the difference. The same way Sony could absorb the losses on PS3 hardware as game revenue is where the money is really at. Plus they have literally hundreds of THOUSANDS of products that they make pure profit from with NO production costs at all and minimal overhead as most all those products are either stored by the sellers or stored collectively in a big warehouse.
I really think you need to take a deep breath, read this, let it sink in, read it again and understand MY POINT. It is simply this, Amazon has proven you can be successful and not come across as overly greedy. Read, then re-read and read again the chain of posts, and you will understand that nowhere, no how and in no way was I attempting to explore or understand the HOW Amazon does it, merely that they CAN do it, and still be successful and not come across as greedy. Do you think you get it now ? But thanks for explaining the "how" it all works when that wasn't the issue.
Again my point in referencing Amzons successful and less greedy business model is that I was attempting to prove you can be SUCCESSFUL and not nickel and dime your cleint base. Amzon can charge for shipping and Amazon can charge for at least cost the Kindle, but they choose not to, thereby coming across as less greedy. can you understand this rather simplistic point ?
thanks.
And I think YOU should read your own posts.
Originally posted by TyvolusNext
then please explain to me (someone who owns/buys stock) how a company like Amazon will slash prices, offer free shipping and provide great customer service and actually sell items like the Kindle at below cost...all the while remaining a strong, viable player in retail AND remain profitable AND have a stock price of almost $180 -- explain to me how this company who doesnt nickle and dime its customers in a greedy manner is so wonderfully successful ?
thanks.
You asked, I answered. Not my problem if you can't handle an answer to YOUR OWN QUESTION so you try to act like you never asked it in the first place.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
This was to be expected. WOW has given everything it could give and now is time for new players (GW2, TSW, Archage....). But there is no worry for Blizzard, they have more than enough ammo in there arsenal to survive and stay on top or near top.
lets just say they have 10mil subs. at 15$ a pop per month thats a 150mil made per month. and they need to lay off 600 employees. theres more going on here than what people are thinking at that kinda cost no co. on earth needs to layoff anyone.
lets just say they have 10mil subs. at 15$ a pop per month thats a 150mil made per month. and they need to lay off 600 employees. theres more going on here than what people are thinking at that kinda cost no co. on earth needs to layoff anyone.
Maybe the fact that they don't have 10 million people paying $15 a month?
lets just say they have 10mil subs. at 15$ a pop per month thats a 150mil made per month. and they need to lay off 600 employees. theres more going on here than what people are thinking at that kinda cost no co. on earth needs to layoff anyone.
The biggest chunk of WoW players are in China, and they pay no sub fees. They mostly play at internet cafes and pay pennies per hour. They also receive expansions for free.
If Blizz is lucky, there are around 2-3 million subs in NA/EU.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
lets just say they have 10mil subs. at 15$ a pop per month thats a 150mil made per month. and they need to lay off 600 employees. theres more going on here than what people are thinking at that kinda cost no co. on earth needs to layoff anyone.
Maybe the fact that they don't have 10 million people paying $15 a month?
It always comes back to how many actually pay a sub in NA and EU doesnt it? Ok lets do that then. Even if its 3 million Blizz is not going broke anytime soon. And thats still over 2 million players more than any other P2P MMO that I know of.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
Sad to say, but isn't World OF Warcraft like the only MMORPG run and created by an actual United States company O.o?
Blizzard really messed up World OF Warcraft it could have been a great game in fact the original developers of WOW were great, but since they developed Burning Crusade all they have done is made the game go down hill, add more content to grind and when a game company does this to the point where the game can no longer be enjoyed then there is serious issues.
I would like to see World OF Warcraft be a great game again but I am afraid they are going to have to come up with a system like Runes OF Magic to keep up such as customization, and wardrobe, and make these features 100% Free in the game no in game charge for use of barber shop or anything either.
Stop OVER NERFING MAGES, and the things they have done over these years without any real reason to do such.
I can seriously see the ArtWork and developers of things like Burning Crusade & Lich King, and I like it, but I feel that the actual people in control fo thisg ame who deal with the scripting and damage on classes need to get their act together and leave it set one way the nerf on my mage was just too much restricting Pom/Arcane Power was too much the exact reason I quit wow, and drop all 5 of my accounts.
Diablo 3 I just bet it wont do that great either, as for StarCraft Blizzard, I never purchsed it because of the way the game company released it.
lets just say they have 10mil subs. at 15$ a pop per month thats a 150mil made per month. and they need to lay off 600 employees. theres more going on here than what people are thinking at that kinda cost no co. on earth needs to layoff anyone.
Maybe the fact that they don't have 10 million people paying $15 a month?
It always comes back to how many actually pay a sub in NA and EU doesnt it? Ok lets do that then. Even if its 3 million Blizz is not going broke anytime soon. And thats still over 2 million players more than any other P2P MMO that I know of.
Where do you think much of the money to develop Diablo 3 is coming from?
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I love the people in here who remind me of the Occupy crowd picketing the wrong locations.
Businesses routinely cut fat and reduce overhead. Comcast has been laying off people for a long while, not because of the economy (well some, sure) but because those jobs are reduntant due to computerizing and automating alot of the remedial tasks.
When last a checked, customer service wasn't "redudant," it was just automated, meaning that Blizzard doesn't care if players actually have their support issues resolved, they just want to be able to say they've gone through the motions. Prepare to never get anything but a generic message for a support issue from now on.
How the hell can Blizzard, with 10,000,000 people paying $15.00 monthly fees, $box sales, $expansion sales, and RMT sales, get to the point where they need to cut workers?
Idiots.
Well.. most likely there aren't 10 million people paying $15/mo. Who knows how many of that 10 million are part of a monthly free trial churn.... aren't the Asian subscribers on different types of plans, as well?
Regardless... just because you CAN pay people - doesn't mean you do. If there isn't work for them to do - or the work isn't worth the amount you're paying.... you make cuts. They are running a business, not a charity.
Comments
This is probably the worst part.
They most likely dont actually "need" to lay off those people. (Like, "if we dont cut those jobs asap, we go bankrupt tomorrow!")
But thats business...and this is not surprising at all. WoW is declining slowly, but until is will be in serious trouble, which wont be until several more years have passed, Titan will be ready.
But its kind of silly anyway, imagine "oh noes, WoW only got 2 million subs left!" Heck, name 5 western MMOs which have that many subs, lol...
Revengues :
2009 : ~5 billion
2010 : ~3.8 billion
2011 : 3.2 billion
No, what's funny is you having a stock portfolio when you don't know how business works. Amazon can handle losses on the Kindle hardware because the BOOKS ( as well was advertising space on the cheaper version ) for the Kindle offset the difference. The same way Sony could absorb the losses on PS3 hardware as game revenue is where the money is really at. Plus they have literally hundreds of THOUSANDS of products that they make pure profit from with NO production costs at all and minimal overhead as most all those products are either stored by the sellers or stored collectively in a big warehouse.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Reduced? Heck no! It'll probably be increased because he 'saved' the company money.
IMO Customer Service and Dev are two places they can't afford to cut back on. For that matter, should CS be increased? To answer that I have a question, how long do you have to wait for a GM when you have an issue? Is it less than an hour, or more than 3 days?
Lost my mind, now trying to lose yours...
Offcial quote from Blizzard;
Everyone,
We announced today that we’re in the process of cutting a number of active positions, mostly non-development, throughout the company. I'm sure this announcement has sparked some questions from all of you, so I want take this opportunity to address those as best I can. Over the past several years, the company has grown rapidly and evolved to better serve you and the rest of our global community. Thanks to all of your support, we continue to serve by far the biggest subscription-based MMO community, as well as the most passionate eSports and online gaming communities, in the world.
In order to keep making epic game content while serving players effectively, we have to be smart about how we manage our resources. This means we sometimes have to make difficult decisions about how to best maintain the health of the company. We’re in the process of making some of those hard decisions now.
After evaluating our current organizational needs, we determined that while some areas of our business had been operating at the right levels and could benefit from further growth, other areas had become overstaffed. As a result, we need to scale down some of our departments and part with some of our colleagues and friends here at Blizzard. I know that you all understand how difficult this type of situation can be for anyone who might be affected, so I want to assure you that we'll be offering each impacted employee a severance package and other benefits.
I also want to emphasize that we remain committed to shipping multiple games this year, and that our development teams in particular remain largely unaffected by today's announcement. We're continuing to develop, iterate, and polish Blizzard DOTA, Diablo III, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, as well as other, unannounced projects. We'll have exciting news to share in the coming weeks regarding Diablo III's release date, and will soon be holding a private media event to showcase the latest work on Mists of Pandaria. It goes without saying that we're working hard to get all of these games in your hands as soon as possible.
You've all come to expect Blizzard to live up to our mission statement with every game, and deliver the most epic entertainment experiences ever. You can continue to expect that and nothing less from us as we move forward.
-Mike Morhaime
There was a press release this morning, before the above forum post displayed on Blizzard's forum. The press release made sure everyone was aware that 90% of the employees being laid off aren't related to game development and that the World of Warcraft team isn't going to be impacted.
Where there's a game, there's a player, I'm that player.
I could really care less whether or not this has squat to do with WOW. What i am happy about is that one of the coveted "can do no wrong" developers is finally getting their financial shit handed to them for foisting crap out on the public, which unfortunately the fanbois lap up like its the nectar of the gods, but the rest of us saw/see it for what it is.
I dont want blizzard to go out of business i just want this to be the thing that reminds them that they should get back to making games and not revenue generators.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
If other companies are to judge, then I foresee a lot of complaints to Blizzard about their CS.
I doubt any of this has anything to do with revenue from WOW. Its probably more so with the poor diablo 3 preorder numbers and budget tightning while developing 2-3 other games.
I really think you need to take a deep breath, read this, let it sink in, read it again and understand MY POINT. It is simply this, Amazon has proven you can be successful and not come across as overly greedy. Read, then re-read and read again the chain of posts, and you will understand that nowhere, no how and in no way was I attempting to explore or understand the HOW Amazon does it, merely that they CAN do it, and still be successful and not come across as greedy. Do you think you get it now ? But thanks for explaining the "how" it all works when that wasn't the issue.
Again my point in referencing Amzons successful and less greedy business model is that I was attempting to prove you can be SUCCESSFUL and not nickel and dime your cleint base. Amzon can charge for shipping and Amazon can charge for at least cost the Kindle, but they choose not to, thereby coming across as less greedy. can you understand this rather simplistic point ?
thanks.
I guess they didn't sell enough of those $25. winged mounts this time around....
And....
Guild Wars 2.
That is all.
If corporatioms practiced gooe business, no one would need to be cut.
Some rough calculations on the Blizzard cash cow.
With 12 million subs @ $15 a month for one year. 2,160,000,000. 2.16 Billion
With 10 million subs @ same rate. 1,800,000,000 1.8 Billion
360 Million dollar loss in one year.
I'd start to take a second look if my company suddenly lost 360 million dollars.
Play for fun. Play to win. Play for perfection. Play with friends. Play in another world. Why do you play?
I have an idea. WoW should finally give in and accept the fact that they have ERPers and add pose balls to the game just like Second Life.
I think that would solve their subscription problems. *smiles*
And I think YOU should read your own posts.
You asked, I answered. Not my problem if you can't handle an answer to YOUR OWN QUESTION so you try to act like you never asked it in the first place.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
This was to be expected. WOW has given everything it could give and now is time for new players (GW2, TSW, Archage....). But there is no worry for Blizzard, they have more than enough ammo in there arsenal to survive and stay on top or near top.
lets just say they have 10mil subs. at 15$ a pop per month thats a 150mil made per month. and they need to lay off 600 employees. theres more going on here than what people are thinking at that kinda cost no co. on earth needs to layoff anyone.
Maybe the fact that they don't have 10 million people paying $15 a month?
The biggest chunk of WoW players are in China, and they pay no sub fees. They mostly play at internet cafes and pay pennies per hour. They also receive expansions for free.
If Blizz is lucky, there are around 2-3 million subs in NA/EU.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
It always comes back to how many actually pay a sub in NA and EU doesnt it? Ok lets do that then. Even if its 3 million Blizz is not going broke anytime soon. And thats still over 2 million players more than any other P2P MMO that I know of.
Really? This game sucks and Im not having fun? Im going to unsub right now. Thanks for the tip.
Sad to say, but isn't World OF Warcraft like the only MMORPG run and created by an actual United States company O.o?
Blizzard really messed up World OF Warcraft it could have been a great game in fact the original developers of WOW were great, but since they developed Burning Crusade all they have done is made the game go down hill, add more content to grind and when a game company does this to the point where the game can no longer be enjoyed then there is serious issues.
I would like to see World OF Warcraft be a great game again but I am afraid they are going to have to come up with a system like Runes OF Magic to keep up such as customization, and wardrobe, and make these features 100% Free in the game no in game charge for use of barber shop or anything either.
Stop OVER NERFING MAGES, and the things they have done over these years without any real reason to do such.
I can seriously see the ArtWork and developers of things like Burning Crusade & Lich King, and I like it, but I feel that the actual people in control fo thisg ame who deal with the scripting and damage on classes need to get their act together and leave it set one way the nerf on my mage was just too much restricting Pom/Arcane Power was too much the exact reason I quit wow, and drop all 5 of my accounts.
Diablo 3 I just bet it wont do that great either, as for StarCraft Blizzard, I never purchsed it because of the way the game company released it.
Where do you think much of the money to develop Diablo 3 is coming from?
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I love the people in here who remind me of the Occupy crowd picketing the wrong locations.
Businesses routinely cut fat and reduce overhead. Comcast has been laying off people for a long while, not because of the economy (well some, sure) but because those jobs are reduntant due to computerizing and automating alot of the remedial tasks.
When last a checked, customer service wasn't "redudant," it was just automated, meaning that Blizzard doesn't care if players actually have their support issues resolved, they just want to be able to say they've gone through the motions. Prepare to never get anything but a generic message for a support issue from now on.
Well.. most likely there aren't 10 million people paying $15/mo. Who knows how many of that 10 million are part of a monthly free trial churn.... aren't the Asian subscribers on different types of plans, as well?
Regardless... just because you CAN pay people - doesn't mean you do. If there isn't work for them to do - or the work isn't worth the amount you're paying.... you make cuts. They are running a business, not a charity.