according to Google Cork is the second largest city it’s not like they live in a hole in the ground - besides this is old stuff, people move all the time for a job without having their lives destroyed when the company falls apart 
Royal Air Force… ![:face_with_raised_eyebrow:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/face_with_raised_eyebrow.png?v=6" ":face_with_raised_eyebrow:")
You have no idea what you are talking about. I had a quest bugged that I required to complete a Loremaster achievement, without help I wouldn’t have been able to complete it.
So yeah. You’re smart.
Fair enough, not a time wasting ticket but not urgent.
Why are people making a big deal over this? ‘International Company uses ethical means to cut staffing’ wasn’t a catchy enough headline?
Its called a ‘Golden Handshake’ in the UK, in fact it isn’t even a ‘Golden Handshake’ as they aren’t being fired or even made redundant. Blizz needed to restructure, and so they put a financial offer that was voluntary on the table for people to take if they wanted to.
‘Quitting’ sounds like they are leaving in protest, which is not the case if you actually read the article. No one is being fired, sacked, made redundant or whatever, this is instead a -very- generous package being put forwards to offer voluntary resignation with support to those who choose to take it up. To be honest if that is how Blizzard handles restructuring then they are a far better company to work for than most, but then the Republic of Ireland does have very good laws when it comes to how businesses handle their employees, I was in a similar situation in the UK, I worked for an Internet bank that was a subsidiary of a parent company that was bought out by a fairly well known Spanish bank. The Spanish bank wanted to give absolutely feck all bar your months wages, however UK Law protected the staff, meaning they had to make a more generous offer. My situation personally was somewhat unique, as sadly my father had passed away the very day before the announcement was made, and my manager just went “Don’t even work your notice, you’ll get paid until we close the doors here, and then get your severance pay, just go home and be with your family, you’ll still get paid in full”, However those staff who -did- work were given similar deals “X months Salary” “Twice X Months Salary” “A Years Salary”. It is basically about protecting the employees, and not leaving them high and dry when a company needs to make cuts, or chooses to.
It is actually very ethical and good business practice, especially when the situation is voluntary, and vastly preferable to what many companies in the same situation would have done. Fair play to Blizzard, that’s doing it -right-.
So think about what has actually happened, not the sensationalist ‘clickbait’. A Big Company has just used a humane, sensitive and voluntary method to make cuts, rather than just making people redundant. I wish more companies were like Blizzard in that regard, to be honest, that’s a really good example of decent management.
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It’s a big deal because it is one more case of Blizzard cutting costs and cutting costs in the context of everything else that we had happen this year (see interviews) means less games and lower quality games, and in this particular case, lower quality of in-game services for us. Blizzard support got pretty terrible in the last few years and now it is going to get even worse. And, by the way, nobody is going to reduce subs even though a good portion of them are supposedly to cover for that great level of support worthy of AAA games that’s going to reduce noticeably. Nah, they’ll continue taking the same amount of money from us and they’ll just spend less of it on services that they provide us.
Snort.
Sorry but thats ridiculous. What you just said is about on par with trusting an psychic octopus to predict the world cup results.
Golden handshake is welcoming them to the company.
It’s called voluntary redundancy. Compulsory redundancies usually follow if not enough people take the offer.
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That’s just a Blizzard Europe office. Blizzard doesn’t do anything interesting or highly valuable in Europe; they only have some offices in Europe for stuff like customer support. They’re not going to spend a lot of money on a fancy office for the people who answer your in-game tickets.
Yes but the clause when it actually becomes applicable, is when the employee -leaves- the company, or is made redundant.
We don’t know that. We can’t possibly know that yet. It depends on what staff are being offered this and which are taking it. The third biggest employer in the world, after the Chinese Army and the Indian railway network is the NHS, it is absolutely bloated with people who are not actually involved in the actual healthcare industry, and could quite capably still provide the same service with a good few thousand jobs going. 100 staff leaving is a tiny amount, especially when it is voluntary, and I doubt will have an appreciable effect on the service we, as customers, receive. We don’t know what those staff do, or what impact they have on our experience as customers. People are trumpeting this as some sort of sign of doom, whereas it could just mean there are two people cleaning the bathrooms at Blizzard in Cork, instead of four. Everyone wants to be the prophet of doom, and YouTube and streaming gives them a way to do that, and somehow we pay it more credence than if it were an angry person on the street shouting about it. -If- we see a depreciation in service, then -that- is the time to get annoyed about it, not to see this as some omen that prophesises doom. This is a complete non-story, and one that happens across the globe day in, day out, people just love to complain.
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I wasn’t talking about the people who were in a situation where they could take the good deal. When you’re older, for instance, the chance to find a new job is much much lower, and therefore you’ll be likely to stay till the end. Those are the people that are afraid now, not the ones that already left.
I’m sorry I felt some empathy for the people that are really nervous right now. (edit: as stated in the article)
Golden parachute.
In practice, and as a quick google search will show, the two terms are pretty synonymous.
Whoa whoa whoa!
By what standard?!
If there’s one area where Blizzard continues to set a high industry standard, then it is their customer support.
Name any other gaming company that is better. Go on.
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It’s customer service office. No devs are leaving. The OP was about the possibility of getting the forums merged if the intention is to move all customer support in USA
I have to agree with this. This is still the fastest turnaround on support tickets in any game I play. I also didn’t mind the change that you get a written response to most tickets. Most things (I’ve filed tickets) about can be solved without the GM having to chat to me. It must save time and presumably has allowed them to cut back on staff. It’s an extra interaction they didn’t need.
There will always be some issues where a discussion is needed and I hope those still happen. Not had anything like that for years.
I’m sorry I replied to what you wrote!
But still, even if they are older, they have better options then if they were in a rural area.
I can’t see them ever doing that, merging the forums. I mean it would make sense, don’t get me wrong, but they’ve been separated so long, that it would be like setting two angry dogs at each other in a pit. They should have either went with that option from day one, or should just keep them apart and paid attention to both whereas by heeding the US forums, and ignoring the EU forums (In their own words ‘Not a useful source of feedback’) then they have created a "Them and Us’ mentality, where there really didn’t need to be one. That’s the frustrating thing. They could have just had -forums- without a need to divide them, why they didn’t is anyone’s guess.
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We do know that. It’s not rocket science, you are just closing your eyes and start inventing reasons why this might theoretically not matter. This is irrational behavior and if I were you I’d pause and ask myself why exactly am I doing it.
100 people is a lot of service. Many (most?) of these people were on WoW, see posts on forums with the details of what happened. The deal was also a little pressing, as in, the “voluntary” bit is a bit overplayed - you were hard pressed to take it or else - again, see posts on forums. You cannot cut 100 people from service and not have the quality of that service reduce at least in the short term. And what’s the long term? You think Blizzard will hire 200 people for these positions now and pay them more? If you really think this - and all your “we don’t know” amounts to in the end is pointing to an absurd hypothetical like this and say that hey, this is “possible” - that’s laughable. This won’t happen. What will happen is quite likely that they will not open any new support centers, and further, that they will cut a bit more. Again, see posts, interviews and whatnot.
CDPR. GGG. Etc.
Unimpressed by your “whoa whoa whoa”.
Blizzard’s customer support these days amounts to footballing your post back to you several times hoping you go away and if you don’t go away then when someone actually bothers to read and understand what the issue is, you get “sorry, we cannot help you with this” and “you can report this as a bug”. That’s not support. That’s a glorified auto-responder.
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