Danuser explains why he left Blizzard

People are waking up to working from home being more valuable than in the past. I think we’ll see more people moving company if they decide to demand a return to the office.

I won’t share comment on people’s opinions on what he did for the game as for better or worse, as it’s clear that game marched on under his tenure and people kept playing it.

The other fact in his post seems to be that he was tired of working for 8 years on the same product, which also makes sense. WoW (and the MMO genre in general) is old news now, however much we try and pretend it isn’t.

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Ask 100 people that question, and ypu will get 100 different answers. His work in Legion was great, SL not so much. Im one of those who enjoyed BFA, although othets didn’t.
I feel he felt pushed out with the return of Metzen, which would lend some weight to the rumours of 'creative differences ’ although only Blizzard themselves know tne full story

I’ll translate

“Working remotely was a factor”.
Yea, like 1% teehee

“I was fortunate enough to be able to relax and recharge…”
Nobody wants me and my phone calls go unanswered

Then he speaks about one of the best lines in DF being one before you even get to the island itself. You peaked too early good sir! (It was the delivery, not the line btw).

Fitting that he went with a whimper and not a bang, much like his storylines.

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Weird when I try to open the link it redirects me to the forum.

Who the hell uses Facebook LoL.

Whatever, if that is the Real reason (which I suspect) thanks to work from home policy for getting rid of this useless guy.

Byeeee

I think WFH is a lot more of an impact than people give credit for, WFH transformed my work life balance and I’d never WFO again.

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I do. Thankfully the company I work for still has partial home office, I couldn’t live without it anymore. Going to the office twice a week is more than enough (of course it doesn’t work for any job, but for mine it does).

Location demands make it impossible for me to spend any time at the office, (I wanted the job as it was right for me, but their nearest office was almost 4 hours away by car, and 6 hours by train) so I was thrilled WFH was an option.

Companies need to consider how much they are limiting their talent pool options by not considering remote work. Unless the job has a physical on site component, there’s no need to require WFO

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It’s a link to facebook linking the article, so here is the article skipping the facebook bit:-

more and more lately I’ve felt the itch to stretch my creativity in new directions.

Ah, a shame you felt the need to do this in World of Warcraft before departuring.

If I had to describe Steve Danuser’s work, it’s how he had no respect whatsoever for the foundation of Warcraft, tried to install his own thing while dismissing as much as possible from the setting.

Sylvanas waving Arthas goodbye as he fades into the void was the ultimate topping on the cake of his work.

Dude wasn’t in it for Warcraft, but trying to create something in it for himself.

Completely ruined any interest I had in Retail’s story telling.

He had no idea what he was doing. Draka ended up as a commander for Maldraxxus, because in the afterlife, your soul gets fused together from all the alternate realities, and to his explanation on why Draka was suddenly such a good warrior. Her soul is fused together, and it was just our universe where she didn’t pick up a blade.

But then Garrosh, who was only terribly evil in our universe, while he was a great hero and champion in other universes, where he even united Azeroth, is sent to Revendreth to pay for his sins?

I hope I will never see his face, again. Dude conflicted with his own lore so much, and decided he could retcon as he pleased.

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i still work from home.

and life is SOO much better this way, work life balance is amazing
I’m also in turn more trust worthy at work and more productive

in the office we have to deal with office politics and chit chat. at home i am left alone to do my job.

luckily my work place is a permanent WFH now for me, since covid.

That’s his right. I like working from an office - WFH is lonely and sad if I do it for long periods. It’s convenient sometimes though. I would say if your colleagues generally annoy you enough that you don’t want to be in the same room, it’s time to find a new job anyway.

To each his own. I’ll find a a company with an office, he can find a company that’s all WFH. Coolio.

Companies need to realise no one wants to work for them when employees need to pay 80-90% of their salary in rent, taxes and bills. You are effectively paying someone else, so they can receive a pittance and the inconvenience of commuting, which companies would never dream of reimbursing unless it were an executive.

No matter how well a job pays, it doesn’t matter if you have less disposable income at the end of the day and Blizzard pays poorly for their area. I don’t blame him for moving to a more affordable region, which probably offers him better prospects and mental health.

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Well we can certainly agree that California appears to have gone completely off the rails socially and economically, and that Blizzard doesn’t pay enough.

I wouldn’t want to live there.

It’s not just California but any major city and town about an hour from their vicinity since it will be a commuter belt. It used to be just capitals or cities of “culture”, etc., which were ridiculous in rent prices, but now it’s almost entirely unaffordable in any city. Yet, companies refuse to base themselves in more affordable areas because they like to network with other firms. This isn’t even due to inflation, but competition for any home is so high that they can jack up the market rate of apartments.

I’m from Scotland, a relatively poor country, and we earn less than our English counterparts for the same work due to living costs, but our living costs have effectively normalised over the last twenty years, and we still don’t get pay increases to match. Rent used to be about 5-800 pounds, but now it’s around 8-1300 pounds for studio apartments. A lot of my family, who is poorer, have been pushed out of cities they have lived in for over 300 years and into the smaller western mining towns, which don’t have the proper infrastructure to support a massive influx of people. Unless people own homes there, they get pushed out of their community, and they likely have nowhere to go because people who live there are below the poverty line. They are missing teeth and can’t speak English correctly, and once you are in these towns, it’s impossible to leave unless you are fortunate. The people don’t respect these towns, so they get even more rundown. Then you’re stuck in a situation where the people hate the place they live. It’s high crime, low education success rates, abundant drug abuse, and everyone wealthier lets them rot because the opportunity cost to help them is too high, and frankly, they don’t care.

Working from home has been great because it’s allowed so many to go live in areas which are far more affordable and provide better outcomes for their children and families without the stress of the colleagues you probably hate or the expensive fuel costs and food in cities. Now companies say we are going hybrid, which was initially two days in the office, three at home, which has turned into 3 to 4 days in the office, which will eventually return to being “normal”. I have seen many highly skilled people say that their priority is their family, not their job and quit or move country. No one will force their family through hell because Oracle likes to be located next to Salesforce on a stupid campus somewhere.

The worst part is all these companies will be advocating for ESG and saying we promote an industry-leading work-life balance, but the truth is a bartender in a town has more work-life balance than employees at these firms. People rarely finish at five their contracted time because if they don’t get their work done they will just be terminated or redundant and the company won’t offer overtime but say you should have worked harder during the day when the employee has to skip their lunch breaks to keep up. They also say they are an equal opportunity employer but they don’t want to deal with the challenges that brings.

I wouldn’t be surprised if unions got a lot more popular.

I still am saddned by this, used to be my dream job, now all I hear are how used the workers are, mostly underpaid, overworked and terrible working conditions

It’s one of the reason I despise WoW’s monetisation tactics. If it was because of the subscription not covering Blizzard’s costs and it meaning better pay for their employees, I’d be a great deal more supportive. But from what I’ve seen, it simply means big bonuses for some, and a ‘Sucks to be you’ for the rest.

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Yeah I try not to think about it, often leads to being sad so no bueno

I like living in a small remote village away from the noise, pollution and lack of space city life brings, working from home has made this realistic for me since I can get a job I want regardless of where I live.

Companies being required to consider commute time as working hours would help the WFO situation after all you can hardly say your journey to work is for pleasure. But I fear this would make companies narrow their scope to candidates within say 10 minutes of the office.