Blizzard and earthquake? After being acquired, a large-scale 'Guangjin' plan was launched, and a large number of core projects were axed!

As the saying goes, "layoffs" are spreading!

While we were celebrating the Spring Festival, Blizzard also launched a large-scale "Guangjin" plan after the acquisition under the instruction of the new investor's father. So, how many core projects of Blizzard have been cut? Today, let’s take a look.

##1. "Codename: Odyssey"

I originally thought that the existence of "Codename: Odyssey" was a very important factor in Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Unexpectedly, people didn't take a fancy to this multiplayer survival game developed by Blizzard at all, so they covered the coffin tightly.

The cancellation of this game project was mainly due to Blizzard’s internal chaotic research and development process. The project originally planned to be launched on the mobile game side has turned into a large-scale game that cannot be carried by non-client games. , so that the R&D team had to forcibly change the game engine and almost all the underlying code when more than half of the work was done, and the project was ruined.

Of course, according to former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra, this game has extremely huge potential and is worth investing a lot of energy in rewriting the underlying code.

It’s a pity that Microsoft didn’t pay attention to Blizzard’s wink and directly cut off the development team of “Codename: Odyssey”.

In addition, according to internal intelligence, Microsoft has also cut off 2-3 internal projects that Blizzard has been developing for a long time. Most of the reasons are because they require a lot of effort. and money, and these games are built on Blizzard’s self-developed engine.

In short, it will be difficult for Blizzard to make a new work in the future.

##2. Battle.net client

When Microsoft announced that "Diablo 4" will be logged into XGP on March 28 and will be available for free play When it comes to game listings, Blizzard’s self-developed Battle.net client is in a very awkward position.

After all, a married girl is like thrown water. Your Blizzard has been acquired by Microsoft, so naturally you have to transfer it with your household registration book. Battle.net, which is only available to Activision Blizzard users, will at least be interconnected with the Xbox side. As for whether it is necessary to exist independently in the future, we have to look at Microsoft's eyes.

So, it’s hard to say whether our national server players will use Battle.net to log in to "World of Warcraft" or directly go to XGP to play, because the national server is not allowed to be opened anyway. There is one more resistance.

3. "Overwatch 2" PVE project

Although the PVE content of "Overwatch 2" was canceled as early as May last year, there will be no major version updates of heroes. Group copy. But what really struck a fatal blow and brought it to rest was the iron fist of layoffs from Microsoft - they directly cut off the entire production team responsible for the PVE content development of "Overwatch 2".

What is quite a joke is that the ninth season of "Overwatch 2" still released the PVE content made by these people, and it also won the recognition of some players. , I just don’t know if Microsoft will reconsider drafting a new employment contract in the future.

4. E-sports department

In addition to the bad news, there is also some good news, such as the e-sports events that Blizzard has been unable to handle. You may actually have to authorize a third party to handle it once.

According to current intelligence, Blizzard and Activision have basically laid off 90% of their internal personnel responsible for e-sports operations. Microsoft does not plan to let them independently organize first-party e-sports events. We are considering cooperating with a third-party organization to sell the rights to the event.

To put it bluntly, this thing is the same as when Blizzard gave NetEase the right to host events, allowing a third party to operate based on the actual local conditions. Much better than Blizzard messing around.

Some older players can also look forward to the story of WCG rebuilding its former glory. Now it depends on how Microsoft negotiates with the event organizers.

5. Customer Service Department

The customer service communication and community management departments that Blizzard is proud of have also been affected by the layoffs.

Among them, one of the more outrageous operations was that Blizzard laid off 136 people in its Cork office in Ireland, which was about 70% of the employees in this office. It made the deputy prime minister anxious and said that Blizzard would The decision was not first notified to union managers, so they will fight for the right to work for the laid-off employees.

But even though this layoff was opposed by some local union managers, Microsoft did not stop laying off its customer service department. Instead, it outsourced a large amount of its business After that, I guess players will rarely see a certain Blizzard designer break the news in the player community in the future.

6. QA Testing Department

Before Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard, the QA testing department had already received the notice of resignation in advance.

The core problem is that since the epidemic, the leaders of this department have taken the lead in adopting an online office model. Then, when many internal Blizzard leaders organized a "return to the office" plan, this group of QA testers felt that it didn't matter, and they continued to use the online office mode.

In the end, Blizzard realized something was wrong. If QA testing can be solved through online mode, then why should I bother to train offline employees? In anger, the QA department was laid off and replaced with outsourced personnel for testing.

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