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Microsoft is laying off 1900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees (8% cut from the Gaming Division)

Baki

Member
DEI practices are trash in any sector, spare me the optics. You're telling me that out of the most competent people available to be hired, 90% of them were non-white in a field that is majority white? Oh please...

I don't know where you're getting your stat but it's clear that you've made up your mind already. According to you, white people are better at engineering. Which means I cannot expect any good faith conversation with you, as you've already subscribed to a racial hierarchy of competence.


This debate is old, and I am surprised that people still don't get it. It is not because DEI practices are stupid that there is not good reasons to consider some parts of the population discrimined against. There is no lack of people that can do a job with good training. In theory you can mix DEI with good workforce. Why and how it may seems to lead to fucks ups should be beyong this thread, but Baki argument that more data is needed is true. Not the same country, but South Africa as the same problem, just with another minority. I am curious of your opinion on that.

The problem is that to get the credentials you have to work harder and have some barriers that make it hard all the way from being born to your death. Not the same case at all, but a decade ago a huge scandal happened in Japan. Because some people had a problem with women becoming doctors, they lowered their results in university test to make more men pass than women. How can the law fight against that? Sadly with DEI practices. As I entered the discussion and did not read all posts from the participants, please tell me if I am misunderstood you.


Unfortunately a lot of people are radicalized online through toxic talking point that makes them buy into what is frankly racist and discriminatory rhetoric. I think these people might be better served with someone in the real world, sitting them down, and over a period of time, helping them move away from these toxic views.
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
The gold is in the pivot…



This is insane man. Why does he keep doing this to himself?

Obviously a diversity hire. MS have gone all in on pronouns and diversity. What a sham either way and she walked away with who knows how much more money. Meanwhile 1900 workers got the short end of the stick. Fuck MS.

What would you have called her if she was a white man?
 

BlueLyria

Member
Musk showed what needs to be done, but very few companies have the “balls” to actually go through with it, so they do the bare minimum.



Twitter has always had issues and is functioning more less in line with where it was pre-Musk. People were saying that it would be a complete collapse, but of course that was never going to happen.
Were you a twitter user before Musk's buyout?
Twitter is a marginally worse platform now than what it was before.
 

twilo99

Member
Were you a twitter user before Musk's buyout?
Twitter is a marginally worse platform now than what it was before.

yeah I've been using it for a long time! I actually liked Jack Dorsey lol

It pretty much feels the same to me.. I think the community notes moderation idea is actually quite good, which is the biggest change from my perspective
 

Kenpachii

Member
In mine opinion they can get 90% of the staff in any gaming studio. Those 1000+ developers and 100+ million budgets are beyond ridiculous. It should have never gotten towards that point with those studio's.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
In mine opinion they can get 90% of the staff in any gaming studio. Those 1000+ developers and 100+ million budgets are beyond ridiculous. It should have never gotten towards that point with those studio's.
Same seems to go for all those superhero TV shows and movies. Budgets and bloat through the stratosphere. It's like some industries, there's so much money flowing anything goes. No budget is too costly..... until it finally hits a brick wall of reality.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
obviously not a diversity hire.

exactly GIF
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
~80000 total



I dont know if SAP is included or how it would be spliced but they announced just recently 8000 people would be restructured around firings and job transitions to other roles.

Never the less, doom and gloom layoff articles people post are normalizing the absurd hiring all the big tech companies did the past 5+ years. And that even includes any hiring sprees small tech companies did that wouldnt show up on any charts.

I remember those bar charts. Since around like 2016-18, they all amped up hiring +30% workers or whatever. All these cuts lately of 2000 or 3000 here or there are nothing when some of these big companies hired 20000 or 30000.

But when companies hire like crazy they do it smooth and random (could be 1000 one week, 300 another week, maybe none one week etc.... ). No company structures hiring office workers as "We're hiring 10,000 desk jobs on February 1st". When they layoff, it's a big structured process because no company involved in big layoffs are going to mess with people's heads or risk people being pissed if they fire 200 people every week for 10 weeks. The company wants as little headache as possible, so it'll be 2000 in one swoop, they arent allowed back in the building and hand back your laptop and cellphone that morning.
 
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IAmRei

Member
Usually, first act of the company is cutting loose people who has low quality performance indicator. Maybe this is one of it. I recall my old company also did the same when they are bought by bigger company. Almost 200 from 1500 people there. Cutting loose people who are not bringing company any value more. Usually tied to somebody inside and their working performance is relatively low.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Usually, first act of the company is cutting loose people who has low quality performance indicator. Maybe this is one of it. I recall my old company also did the same when they are bought by bigger company. Almost 200 from 1500 people there. Cutting loose people who are not bringing company any value more. Usually tied to somebody inside and their working performance is relatively low.
Usually thats true for the most part. From my experience, bad performers, redundancies and support roles are first to. While it seems a company with good demand will keep as many production workers as possible because they are needed to make and ship it. And if they are unionized it makes it even harder to fire them if even management wanted to. Sales people are often kept because any company hurting for revenue needs them as they are revenue generators. Maybe they gas the bad ones but will rehire better ones.

But roles where it is doable for people to put on two hats and do double duty.... finance number crunchers, HR, marketing manager takes on more brands etc... are easiest to gas first. As long as they can effectively cover fired people, the company just streamlined their company, lowered costs, and retained committed workers who are willing to do more.
 
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twilo99

Member
I dont know if SAP is included or how it would be spliced but they announced just recently 8000 people would be restructured around firings and job transitions to other roles.

Never the less, doom and gloom layoff articles people post are normalizing the absurd hiring all the big tech companies did the past 5+ years. And that even includes any hiring sprees small tech companies did that wouldnt show up on any charts.

I remember those bar charts. Since around like 2016-18, they all amped up hiring +30% workers or whatever. All these cuts lately of 2000 or 3000 here or there are nothing when some of these big companies hired 20000 or 30000.

But when companies hire like crazy they do it smooth and random (could be 1000 one week, 300 another week, maybe none one week etc.... ). No company structures hiring office workers as "We're hiring 10,000 desk jobs on February 1st". When they layoff, it's a big structured process because no company involved in big layoffs are going to mess with people's heads or risk people being pissed if they fire 200 people every week for 10 weeks. The company wants as little headache as possible, so it'll be 2000 in one swoop, they arent allowed back in the building and hand back your laptop and cellphone that morning.

What goes up…
 

Stooky

Member
Usually, first act of the company is cutting loose people who has low quality performance indicator. Maybe this is one of it. I recall my old company also did the same when they are bought by bigger company. Almost 200 from 1500 people there. Cutting loose people who are not bringing company any value more. Usually tied to somebody inside and their working performance is relatively low.
maybe for you but this is not the case in this situation. And really Alot layoffs have nothing to do with performance. People have gotten laid off because they to make much money, their project is cancelled, company over all is down sizing etc you fire people for under performance.
 
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Kenpachii

Member
well lets step back into 2005 ps3 360 era of gaming if a 100+ mill budget if scares you.

Tons of indie games that make it big with a super small team. U don't need big teams to make fun games something those devs don't seem to get.

Wow vanilla made by 40 people was 1000% more fun then dragonflight made by 1000 devs and even today that still holds up.

They are billions / valheim / palworld all tiny staffs.

Those 100's of millions of budgets and 1000+ working are ridiculous.
 

Stooky

Member
Tons of indie games that make it big with a super small team. U don't need big teams to make fun games something those devs don't seem to get.

Wow vanilla made by 40 people was 1000% more fun then dragonflight made by 1000 devs and even today that still holds up.

They are billions / valheim / palworld all tiny staffs.

Those 100's of millions of budgets and 1000+ working are ridiculous.
Indies games vs 1st party. dragonflight!?! every game has its place but c'mon bro. A 40 person team is super small thats early Ps1/PS2 days. Nope that aint it.
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
I dont know if SAP is included or how it would be spliced but they announced just recently 8000 people would be restructured around firings and job transitions to other roles.

Never the less, doom and gloom layoff articles people post are normalizing the absurd hiring all the big tech companies did the past 5+ years. And that even includes any hiring sprees small tech companies did that wouldnt show up on any charts.

I remember those bar charts. Since around like 2016-18, they all amped up hiring +30% workers or whatever. All these cuts lately of 2000 or 3000 here or there are nothing when some of these big companies hired 20000 or 30000.

But when companies hire like crazy they do it smooth and random (could be 1000 one week, 300 another week, maybe none one week etc.... ). No company structures hiring office workers as "We're hiring 10,000 desk jobs on February 1st". When they layoff, it's a big structured process because no company involved in big layoffs are going to mess with people's heads or risk people being pissed if they fire 200 people every week for 10 weeks. The company wants as little headache as possible, so it'll be 2000 in one swoop, they arent allowed back in the building and hand back your laptop and cellphone that morning.
Hiring is staggered because there typically aren't large pools of several thousand unemployed professional workers sitting around waiting to start at a large company on February 1st. People start as they are recruited, interviewed, pass background checks, and are onboarded. Large numbers of layoffs happen all at once at a company because those professionals are actually sitting in a pool of workers that makes it easier to fire them all at once. It's cheaper to do it all at once because of economy of scale. Most companies aren't worried about employees being pissed about layoffs because they're pissed anyway and unless they give you a retention package to convince you to stay after layoffs they don't care if you're pissed about it. It would be cheaper and easier for them if you're pissed enough to quit, which a lot of people do at the start of layoff cycles so they can get first pick of available jobs.

The layoffs in large tech aren't necessarily as devastating as the media portrays them. The covid-era over-hiring by "dream job" large tech companies actually created a huge shortage of labor in the market and a boatload of positions have gone unfilled for months at a time. A lot of remote tech workers will go back to jobs in their local areas, they'll just do it without higher than average west coast salaries and they'll be in an office.

I imagine that layoffs at video game companies are a bit tougher because there aren't as many of those companies out there for people to flow to after layoffs. A lot of those people will end up in jobs outside of gaming. But they'll find jobs.
 
In my country in order to fire someone you have to

1 come up with a plausible economic reason
2 help that person finding a new job
3 hand over 6 months of severance pay

Needless to say companies are very careful to hire new staff. Treating workers as disposable tools to hire and fire at whim must do wonders for morale.
 
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