Bobby Kotick CEO of Activision once said that “We’ve heard that 60 per cent of [Microsoft’s] subscribers are principally on Live because of Call Of Duty, we don’t really participate financially in that income stream." but to the recent XBL $10 price hike that was announced in August and implemented on November 1st, Kotick has totally changed mood now he is saying "Activision does enjoy a very modest amount of the subscription fees".
After laying off almost 2,000 people, Xbox finds itself in a position at odds with the community-first image it has cultivated for itself.
lol I’m not a big MS gamer but Sony and a number of others have laid off ton of people as well. Where are the ridiculous articles about them not being your friend? Gaming news is such a joke and these sites wonder why they have to beg for money/patreons or flood with 5x more ads.
ok here is a reality check. Tech companies have been firing thousands of employees the last couple of years.
I find it odd that the percentage of employees sacked from MS
QUOTE
"Microsoft announced approximately 1,900 job cuts across its gaming division, including Activision Blizzard, ZeniMax, and Xbox. 8.6% of its colossal 22,000-strong global workforce. "
is worth writing an article condemning the company, when Sony Interactive fired 8% of its workforce (900 people approximately).
https://news.crunchbase.com...
Is the writer concerned about the percentage of the workforce fired or the number of employees?
Lets not forget that Unity laid off 25 percent of its workforce (1800 people) and Discord laid off 17 percent of its employees.
You also have to take into account the AI issue reported in the article. MS is heavily invested in A.I. They have invested in Open A.I (chatgpt 4+Dalle 3), in Abu Dhabi’s G42 and in French AI company Mistral.
These LLMs have already replaced thousands of jobs as A.I usage becomes more common
https://www.cbsnews.com/new...
https://www.theverge.com/20...
https://tech.co/news/compan...
This is the new reality. Even nvidia CEO said that games will fully A.I generated.
https://www.pcgamer.com/sof...
Nevertheless, no company should be ever viewed as "your friend". MS had numerous anti consumer practices in place and the same is true for Sony (not only in video game space) and Nintendo (60$ dollar games without permanent discounts, remasters of 10 year old game with full price, no console price cuts, expensive joy cons which are prone to drift, to name but a few).
As part of its plans to cut 1,900 jobs, Microsoft has reportedly shut down operations at Bethesda France, letting go roughly 15 people
Bethesda France was made up of roughly 15 people... they couldn't of being doing much
Bethesda France mainly did publishing and marketing within the region
Bethesda France focused on publishing and marketing in the region. And 15 people lost their jobs as part of the closure.
I wonder if this is part of Microsoft's strategy to abandoned physical media or possibly gamepass advertising makes their roles redundant you don't need to market a game as hard when the majority of players get the game as part of a sub which already promoted upcoming games
Tbh Microsoft I think Bethesda being 3rd party same with Activision would probably more competitive than thus scenario imo
The recently purchased Activision French offices might take over all the licensing and marketing for Microsoft in France from now on.
Do you remember what gaming was like before Fortnite entered the gaming space? One of the biggest arguments was about loot boxes. Now we have conversations about crossovers, battle passes, and community outreach.
Idk. Loot boxes did disappear and battle passes and in game purchases are all cosmetic. We get free weapons and maps post launch, any gameplay affecting content. I could care less about all the cosmetics.
I absolutely hated the days where weapons were locked behind a less than 1% chance lootbox pull where it'd take 5+ hours to have enough tokens to do a single pull and lazy remastered/remake maps cost you $15 each wave or $50 for the season pass that you didn't know what you'd get and these maps were only available to those that bought it so you get a smaller pool of players match with.
Call of duty can simply not copy the bad aspects of Fortnite? Or is that too out of this world? Like COD, a realistic shooter-just HAD to have Nicki Minaj running around? Or super heroes?
I prefer the battle passes with free maps than the $50 season pass that divided the community. I definitely feel that Fortnite had some influence on CoD having loot boxes with Blackout being introduced in 2018 with Black Ops 4.
Actually Fortnite bullshit ruined Unreal Tournament. Epic are sellouts and I will never have that shitty store on my PC, fuck them and that shit bag Tim Sweeney. At least the community keeps the games alive, I still play UT2004.
wouldnt doubt it.
This man is an utter prick
Wow dat sux big time for you 360 players.
I think his momma deserves this.
That's why he doesn't care about PS3
Ouch...