I read on twitter that the Hague is being closed as well but not seen that in any official capacity yet.
ah ok, but is it a single data center for EU or are more being maintained?
There are 2 afaik and one of them is somewhere in France.
I donāt know how current this info is
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Sad news. .
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According to Janek there are only 3 datacenters (at least for EN realms), two in France and one in the Netherlands.
most, if not a MAJOR part of it, of WOW income is from in-game shop and tokens.
the in-game shop mmorpg model is proven to be extremely profitable. (long before blizzard dived into it)
i dont know about that, they were always under the umbrellas of Vivendi and Activision. even before they were known as Activison-blizzard.
they were most likely funded by their parent companies.
Most definitely. And that doesnāt present a bright outlook for the future. I mean, if Blizzard canāt replicate the succes theyāve had with WoW, they will inevitably have to restructure their company around a new reality. The giant Blizzard behemoth weāve been used to is the result of WoW. Itās WoW thatās grown the company from hundreds of employees to thousands. But WoW canāt hold the hand under the company forever. Blizzard has to prove that they can reproduce success on a major scale. And for 16 years we havenāt really seen insurmountable evidence of that. Hopefully the best is yet to come.
No Blizzard have always been both their own developer and publisher. If you find any game box of yours you should notice that itās Blizzardās logo everywhere, not Vivendi or Activision.
Theyāve always more or less handled everything themselves. Part of their autonomous structure. Weāll see to what degree they will retain that going forward.
When is the last day for the mods?
Interesting.
This makes me regret I pre-ordered Shaowlands.
The last lay off was disgusting enough and now they are going to fire even more employees? Keep Versailles open!
This greed has to stop.
It seems like the top is playing a game to see how far they can take it until people leave.
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They care only their bonuses nothing else
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Not sure why you quotes me, I get you, I AM one of those people who lost my livelihood. Like I said, the optimist in me wants to believeā¦
I agree 100% that before big CEOs get their bonuses the lower level staff should be paid more and definitely not laid off in favor of said bonus or excessive salary.
All that stuff can be done at Blizz HQ. I never understood why they had European operations.
What form mods, unless you count the auto-ban.
Iāll depend on how good their translators are in USA. Hopefully good.
Retailers.
Their South Korean Headquarters and their early presence in Asia is, by their own admission, what helped give them an easier path into the Chinese market, because they had made that first step into Asia many years earlier with StarCraft.
I think it was the same with the European Headquarters, and the rest they have elsewhere in the world. That āThink Globallyā value they have. And business-wise I think it translates to having a physical presence in the markets where your games are sold.
And especially in the early 2000ās when games were still something that came in a box that you bought in a store, this probably paid off really well for Blizzard. Being able to easily supply retailers with whatever and have a really strong business relationship with everything from major retailers to small and local stores, thatās probably what secured Blizzardās gamesā prominent and highlighted spots on the shelves, and what made their launch events extra special.
Not sure the name of the guy, but he was the esports casters for the games.
He did it for like 4 years and last year he just didnāt get invitation, Blizzard didnāt tell him aything and he found out heās fired from the facebook post that shows the casters for wow esports and he wasnt there
Retailers are mostly important for physical goods. With SL almost everything is digital except the merchandise. There was a EU store several years ago, is it still open?
Yeah thereās still an EU store, but they donāt handle it themselves anymore. I think itās some dutch company that manages it for them now.
And yes, retailers matter in regards to physical goods, and the games industry has definitely shifted heavily toward digitalization over the recent years. But in the early 2000ās Blizzard had a very strong retail presence, undoubtly to the credit of their local headquarters and the people who worked there. And to be fair, they still have a fantastic retail presence, itās just not such a big deal anymore.
I see, so they outsourced it. I clearly see a trend, where Blizzard are getting back to just developing the games, and everything else is handled by Activision and 3rd parties.
Despite working all through Covid as my wife and I are considered key workers, weāve both been told our office is being moved across the country in feb and we will no longer have a job. its happening everywhere unfortunately
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