The company also canceled its Heroes of the Storm esports effort and has moved a number of developers away from the free-to-play MOBA and onto other projects. Activision Blizzard, one of America’s biggest gaming companies, just bowed to Chinese censorship in a disturbing way: suspending a professional …

In fact, it “achieved record results in 2018,” Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said during an investor call.

I didn’t pay for a non-upgrade.

The team is reportedly considering firing him in order to placate Chinese authorities and protect NBA investments there. But in the eyes of management, the success wasn’t enough to keep the entire company employed. The best workers in the industry can hope for is that Kotick, Durkin, Brack, and the rest of Activision Blizzard’s executives internalize how the these layoffs are playing out in the public square. Upon the release of Reforged, players on Blizzard forums noticed that WC3 had vanished from their computers. Vicarious Visions, one of two studios on Skylanders, has been working on Destiny 2, also. When Bungie and Activision divorced, employees that had been working in public relations, communications, customer care, and other support services for Destiny 2 suddenly lacked a game to support.

But even if that were the case — not to sound like an angry Redditor — but this is definitely a consumer rights concern that shouldn’t be ignored. Okay! 800 employees out of work.

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Okay. That’s a thin blanket against the cold reality that executive pay is broken and now hundreds of people are out of work. So I went on the Blizzard website, found the downloads page, and picked up the download client.

And obviously, WC3’s likely been torrented millions of times, but a situation like this also brings up questions of the importance of archiving games as they become more and more ephemeral. Dennis Durkin, who recently returned to the CFO role and was also put in charge of “emerging business” (figuring out where the company will make its money in the coming years), was given a $3.75 million cash bonus and another $11.3 million in as yet unearned, performance-based equity. While we’re likely to see Warcraft 3: Reforged (a remake) and World of Warcraft Classic (a revival of the game’s “vanilla” state), the studio has no new major releases on the way in 2019. It’s making more. Record results. And for a bit, it seemed to work! If a union is going to assist in situations like this, it would need protect as many roles and the people in them as possible.

The non-Chinese Hearthstone player base is furious with Blizzard; the game’s subreddit is full of longtime players vowing to quit the game in protest. Did America’s top spy release Russian disinformation to help Trump? As CEO, Kotick’s job is to deliver ever-increasing value to shareholders. Blizzard’s fans in those countries have a lot of leverage over the company. There is a place for humanity in business, especially when livelihoods are affected, and it starts with making smarter bets on product and people. Censoring a professional player for expressing support for the democracy movement in Hong Kong — and seizing his money — is way over the line.

Even on an earnings call focused on the business, long-term financial health, and shareholder investments, there is room for compassion.

The disparity between bottom line executive compensation and what the 800 people laid off were making is staggering.

As the call went on, it seemed that executives were largely remorseless, with the exception of Blizzard president J. Allen Brack, who expressed regret at the layoffs. The message seems clear. Reforged carries a whole mess of controversies, like I mentioned before, that might already demotivate people from touching Reforged — even for free. The Blizzard side of the business is looking similarly stark this year. For the record, part of the appeal of WC3 classic (at least for me) was the relatively small file size. One of Activision Blizzard’s problems is that the company is terrible at handling rebuilding years without firing people. Well, I got frustrated, but I’m sure that as a paying customer, I would be allowed some leeway to download the original. Those facts are more than just a recipe for cognitive dissonance, they create cerebral friction that could spark a forest fire.

This should be unacceptable. An organized boycott targeting Blizzard is also a relatively rare opportunity for ordinary citizens around the world to help out the Hong Kong protestors working to protect their democratic system.

Blizzard is throwing its lot in with an authoritarian state, acting as an international agent of its repressive apparatus in opposition to fundamental human rights. If you own the original Warcraft 3… Well, you don’t anymore. This begins to raise question of who a potential game developer union would include and protect. (And it may have done just that, as the layoffs have fueled the conversation around game unionization and executive pay.).

I had never played much back then, but it wasn’t hard to notice that I could no longer actually download the client. Blizzard has changed the art in World of Warcraft to comply with Chinese cultural norms and strictures, notably cutting out some goriness and skeletons. She's also four red pandas stacked in a hoodie. “Blizzard’s strategy of taking the China route for regaining the lost strength is currently followed by many American tech companies.”. The league is facing a bipartisan political backlash as a result; Sen. Netflix’s American Murder is mesmerizing even if you’re already familiar with the Watts murders. If You Hate Warcraft 3: Reforged So Much, Why Not Just Get a Refund? Not enough work for too many people.

It wouldn’t have saved jobs. The rule prohibits “engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image.”. And all it really does is lock classic owners out of the Reforged graphics and… questionable upgrades. So while Blizzard may have a lot of ground to gain in the Chinese market, a significant hit to its revenue in the United States and other liberal democracies would be a massive threat. Democratic Party leaders are “banging their head against the wall” after private meetings with Facebook on election misinformation. To say Warcraft 3: Reforged is “a bit of a disappointment” would be a massive understatement. There are consumer concerns like mine, for one. For the record, I did end up installing Reforged to see what they meant. The idea here seems to be that supporting pro-democracy protestors in Hong Kong has brought Chung into “public disrepute” in mainland China, justifying his suspension.

Poor planning, a failure to adapt to current market conditions and consumer desires, and too much investment in trends (like toys to life games) has left Activision Blizzard in a place where it needs to make drastic cuts. Halo 3 fans spent 13 years trying to break into a skybox, Star Wars: Squadrons review: a triumph of focused design and succinct storytelling, Motive delivers a satisfying single-player campaign combined with a rich multiplayer mode, The fallout of Spider-Man’s recasting on PS5 has been swift and ugly, No Man’s Sky rare dino goes extinct on capital planet, World of Warcraft’s next expansion, Shadowlands, is delayed, There is no new release date for the expansion, former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata taking a pay cut, reportedly not receiving any kind of payout, Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit looks like a magical mixed-reality trick, Nexus Mods bans political content in the lead-up to the November election, Deerling and Shiny Vulpix join Pokémon Go for fall, Hyper Scape starts season 2, while developers vow to ‘take action’, Fall Guys season 2 will have nicknames, flags, and more crowns, Star Wars: Squadrons keybindings, explained, Star Wars Squadrons guide – Mission 1: Form the Vanguard tips and walkthrough, Star Wars Squadrons guide – Mission 2: The Skies of Yavin tips and walkthrough, Star Wars Squadrons guide – Mission 3: Through Enemy Lines tips and walkthrough, Star Wars Squadrons guide – Mission 4: Secrets and Spies tips and walkthrough, Star Wars Squadrons guide – Mission 5: The Trail from Desevro tips and walkthrough. The gripping new documentary is a harrowing portrait of a family prior to its own annihilation.