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Is there a VC out there that can just throw a few tens of millions of dollars at these employees and literally just teleport them from Blizzard to NewBlizzard i
by epicureanideal 5y ago
Is there a VC out there that can just throw a few tens of millions of dollars at these employees and literally just teleport them from Blizzard to NewBlizzard in the same roles in a new company with a culture they prefer?
I'm actually surprised this isn't "a thing". If a large percentage of a well known, profitable company doesn't agree with a direction it's taking... why doesn't a VC or private equity just help finance a new company and absorb those people into it? If the people have anything to do with the products they create, they should be able to compete with their former employer as relative equals, and possibly even with an advantage because their former employer has lost a significant amount of staff.
- mandelbrotwurst 5y agoThat VC would need a lot of confidence in the team to be willing to fully fund them with no revenue, clients, or IP.
- epicureanideal 5y agoSure, but to whatever extent the human resources are the engine that drives creation of revenue, clients, and IP, it would seem that taking a large chunk of an existing working machine would have better odds than some other startup, right?
- winphone1974 5y agoThat's the point, they aren't. You need developers to execute but with today's triple A franchise titles and marketing-heavy launches it's not sufficient.
- wonderwonder 5y agoI don't think they are. I think at most companies most people are replaceable. Each company has a few key players that are truly cornerstone employees. Almost everyone else can be swapped out as needed. Not saying losing a key Sr. wont cause a set back but with the right hire (and they are not that scarce) they are back on track in a bit. Most of us think we are super valuable and that a company will suffer when we leave but reality is that it rarely happens; there are of course exceptions. Blizzard already the has the IP, everything else is just cogs.
- CyanBird 5y agoThese people are just inherently creative, just look at hearthstone which was a prototype "quickly made" by Brode and friends while inside Blizz They could easily create large IPs and games if they so desired/needed, after all that's what they were hired to do in the first place
- mandelbrotwurst 5y agoFair enough, I’m coming at this from more of a non-gaming tech / SaaS startup lens. Maybe it would work, I’m not sure!
- user68858788 5y agoSeveral senior employees left the company to form new studios, taking several people with them. Ben Brode and Mike Morheim for example.
- georgeecollins 5y agoFrost Giant.
- elpakal 5y agoWhy would you ever take this VC’s money if this was their thing?
- toast0 5y agoBecause you were tired of the crap at BigCompany and this VC was offering you a way out?
- nemo44x 5y agoWhy would you put up your investors money to take your competitors problem off their hands?
- wonderwonder 5y agoCoinbase agrees with you. Cost them a few bucks to offload anyone that was not truly committed to their cause and only their cause.
- breck 5y agoIf we had Freedom of Ideas, then yes, you could pull this off. But we don't have that. We have copyrights and patents. Those with capital have a lot more freedom with ideas. Those without, don't. If we abolish copyright and patent laws (https://www.reddit.com/r/ifa https://www.reddit.com/r/ifa), then workers will have a lot more power.
- shadowgovt 5y agoVideo games are one part idea and three parts implementation. And the talent at Blizzard has no lack of good ideas.
- noirbot 5y agoThat... seems optimistic about the state of the modern average engineer at Blizzard. Which isn't to say that folks are bad at their jobs, but it's not as if it's a company that's done well-received and breakthrough modern game design in the last 5 years. If anything, the folks who made the company what it was either were the people being protested or left 5-10 years ago, or both.
- zdragnar 5y agoMy first thought was that can't be right, but the only noteworthy thing was overwatch in 2016. I don't have high hopes for Diablo 4, though I'll probably end up buying it anyway...
- MattRix 5y agoThis ignores how Blizzard works. They operate on glacial time scales. They released, Overwatch five years ago, which was fantastic. They haven’t released any new games since then.
- esyir 5y agoThere's been a noted downward trend though. See the sc2 expansions and the remastered games.
- dcow 5y agoI suspect it's also, in stark reality, not that many employees that would actually leave. Many people are willing to signal virtual. How many are actually willing to sacrifice? The article lists 3000 "current and former" employees. Let's assume 1000 are current and 20% are willing to leave. Blizzard losing 200/9500 of their workforce isn't that significant. Even if all 1000 would leave, that still is within bounds of a layoff. DHH's company seems to be doing fine.
- discordance 5y agoThat really depends which 200 left. The right person will take 10 others.
- wonderwonder 5y agoWhat would those employees do there? They cant just start working on New World of Warcraft, its protected by copywrite. Companies get an idea and then scale as the idea is built out. They would need to come up with an idea but they would just hemorrhage money for years while it was built out. Small groups may break off and start working on something but it would be the seed of the idea and they would scale as they needed too.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- runarberg 5y agoNon-compete clauses are very much a thing in our industry I wouldn’t be surprised if Blizzard were to enforce—or at least threaten to enforce—them if a sizable bulk of their workers migrated to a new workplace.
- psyc 5y agoNot in CA.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y agoIn California?
- runarberg 5y agoYou can always threaten to sue, that is often enough of a deterrent.
- nindalf 5y agoThey sort of tried I think, but it wasn’t very successful. They fired a couple of founders from a successful studio that Activision owned - Infinity Ward (known for Call of Duty). Those two went on to create Respawn Entertainment, a studio where many ex-Infinity Ward members joined them. There were many other studios created by ex-ActivisionBlizzard employees but I think this had the most bad blood associated with it.
- 908B64B197 5y agoNot in California. If your jurisdiction has different laws than California for non-compete, that's a red flag.
- runarberg 5y agoI doubt an average tech worker knows the extent of the non-compete clause in their contract. And I doubt anybody except skilled lawyers know whether the non-compete clause will hold if they are moving to a new startup which is registered in Delaware. It is enough for Activision to threaten to sue, and surely that will deter many enough workers from moving together that they wont be able to move as a team.
- Guthur 5y agoWhy? What makes you believe there is any advantage in these particular individuals? Frankly, is it coming to the point where we have to say it's too dangerous for men and women to work together? Dangerous for individuals and companies a like.
- __turbobrew__ 5y agolook up Frost Giant
- xsmasher 5y agoThat's what Uncapped Games, Front Giant, Dreamhaven, Lightforge, Bonfire, etc. are.
- endtime 5y agoAlso, https://seconddinner.com/ https://seconddinner.com/, started by Ben Brode (former Hearthstone director).
- commandlinefan 5y ago> in the same roles in a new company Aren't the protesters pretty much by definition protesting the most productive actual employees though? If whatever the protesters are saying about the ones being protested is even remotely true, then the people being protested must have been incredibly valuable to remain protected under such accusations - and the protesters themselves are the ones who are viewed as effectively expendable.