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[th4tguy]

If laying off employees wasn’t, more often than not, used to quickly grow profit margins to grow stock prices for the current quarter, then there wouldn’t be as much hate. The people making these choices are making decisions for pure short term gains which often impact the company long term.
Why are they doing this?
Because ceos often get a very low salary pay and instead opt for large stock payouts as compensation. This allows them to avoid a lot of taxes.The average ceo also doesn’t hold their position for longer than 4-5 years. They are incentivized to make these bad long term plans/ good short term gains so they can maximize their payout from stocks in the time they are there.
That is why they are criticized. The layoffs they are doing isn’t because the company would be in trouble otherwise. In fact most of the layoffs are coming from companies reporting record breaking profits. These layoffs hurt the company in the long run.

 

[Thaimasker]

But that's not the topic here.

I'm talking specifically about the idea that these companies are greedy & selfish during layoffs but no one calls them altruistic & benevolent during hiring sprees.

Let's see how "benevolent " they will be when AI really takes off.
At the end of the day they are numbers on a spreadsheet. Will hire hundreds of people only to lay them off a couple years later for reasons of greed.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

The layoffs they are doing isn’t because the company would be in trouble otherwise. In fact most of the layoffs are coming from companies reporting record breaking profits. These layoffs hurt the company in the long run.

Thats not true at all. Maybe some companies do bad long term, but not the big ones.

But all the big tech companies from Apple and MS and Google to gaming companies lay off people here and there, but the overall trend they still have is increasing employee count and solid profit.

Just because a company lays off 10,000 people doesn't mean it goes from 10,000 to zero people and the company crumbles. Google has gone from around 100,000 employees 5 years ago to 190,000, and just recently chopped people to get down to 180,000. They are doing great.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

We wouldn't have these kind of layoffs if C-Suite didn't worship at the false altar of perpetual growth and actually acted responsibly in the first place.


Oh and didn't have such nonsensically huge compensation packages to begin with.

But that's the system that has created the most jobs and the best games.

I'm not into the moralizing as much as the structure and its results.

 

[th4tguy]

Most CEO’s aren’t making 100x, you’re talking about a much rarer class of ceo/company. Most are SME’s, where the CEO is the founder, they are passionate about their company and often their staff. What you’re talking about is a company like activision. The CEO was brought in externally, likely by a board vote, quite often the founding CEO would have been voted out of their position to achieve this. They’ll have been brought in due to their expertise in delivering substantial growth, and revenue. They’ll be attracted to the role exclusively by money, so they are offered huge sums to facilitate that, the CEO of activision, for all his many failings was excellent at that, which is what justified his obscene wage. CEO’s like that for companies of that size (thousands) yes will care much less and yes are likely motivated primarily by greed, they will know very few of the employees. Activision for instance had many companies under their wing, the ceo of those smaller companies would know their employees and may well be the founders, they will likely care very much. I expect the recent news about toys for Bob is exactly due to that reason, and is likely the ceo / management using their own money to secure their independence in part to protect their employees.

You can’t paint all CEOs with the same brush that can be used for the much rarer mega corps, most of the world companies are SMEs not mega corps.

I’m pretty sure 90% of the layoffs being discussed aren’t from those founder ceo companies.

 

[thegame983]

Because instead of making slightly, just slightly less money they would rather ruin the lives of their employees and their families.

 

[PropellerEar]

LOL. Maybe, maybe not.

But I got a job and just got the highest bonus ever for 2023, a pay increase, and my annual bonus % got increased too. Do a good job and keep your job.

Random thoughts.

I’m always amazed at how long people are willing to drive around a parking lot looking for a “good” spot when there are plenty of spots open towards the back that they’re too lazy to walk from.

www.neogaf.com

Dead weight middle management don't need skills, just a brown tongue. Use it well, keep your job.

 

[Lupin3]

Why are you always making such shitty threads?

Now you have to praise him when he makes good ones.

 

[BaldingAshCrimson]

So hiring people is their job...

You didn't include the second thing I said (That you also said), which is relevant, "growing studios", and let me add, maintaining them.

but...laying people off is not their job?

No, it's something that gets in the way of their job. It's a choice they can make, that harms the Studios under them.

Your job as a apt Company or CEO, is not to make every decision possible to put more money in your pockets, at the expense of other peoples lives, and the Studios themselves, and their stability.

Doing that, makes you a greedy and sleezy Company or CEO.

Layoffs are not good or productive to Studios. It's not "growing" them (Again, your job). It's actively harming them.

"Layoffs can also harm company morale and innovation, as remaining employees may feel insecure and less motivated."

There is doing your job, and then there's is pulling your dick out and rotating it, and giving everyone dong bruises in the process, because you can.

Hmmmm...interesting.

It's almost like telling a baseball player that getting on base is his job and striking out is not his job.

Not the same, bruddah.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Because instead of making slightly, just slightly less money they would rather ruin the lives of their employees and their families.

But don't they make slightly less money when they hire massive amounts of people?

Why aren't you applying your framework to the other side of the same coin?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

You didn't include the second thing I said (That you also said), which is relevant, "growing studios", and let me add, maintaining them.

No, it's something that gets in the way of their job. It's a choice they can make, that harms the Studios under them.

Your job as a apt Company or CEO, is not to make every decision possible to put more money in your pockets, at the expense of other peoples lives, and the Studios themselves, and their stability.

Doing that, makes you a greedy and sleezy Company or CEO.

Layoffs are not good or productive to Studios. It's not "growing" them (Again, your job). It's actively harming them.

"Layoffs can also harm company morale and innovation, as remaining employees may feel insecure and less motivated."

There is doing your job, and then there's is pulling your dick out and rotating it, and giving everyone dong bruises in the process, because you can.


Not the same, bruddah.

I can't understand your logic when I apply it to any other leadership position in human history.

A mother is supposed to make good choices for her children. Occasionally she makes mistakes.

A coach is supposed to help his team win games. Occasionally they lose.

A general is supposed to win battles. Occasionally he loses.

Acting like it's feasible to only hire and never lay employees off doesn't make any sense.

 

[mdkirby]

I’m pretty sure 90% of the layoffs being discussed aren’t from those founder ceo companies.

Some certainly are, but most of those are directed by someone even higher in the food chain. The downside of selling off your independence to a bigger fish. Independent studios tho have not been immune to these recent waves of layoffs. Even independent studios are usually reliant upon publishers too, who can at any point pull the plug and send companies scrambling to find a new publisher in an environment where they are all cutting, leaving CEOs looking for ways to keep their studios alive. This can obviously have the same effect and lead to job losses. That said, the OP did not specify that they are exclusively referring to the recent industry layoffs, and were presenting a broader sociological question.

 

[NoLootBoxDev]

Let's place a couple of examples:

Rocksteady: As far as I know all unpopular decisions came from WB, which made the game bomb big-time. How many of you can bet that the guys who forced those decisions will face consequences? (It is a matter of time before they start firing people)

Visceral Games: Same as before, and they paid the price, the whole studio is dead. How many of those higher-ups face consequences?

Good management deserves to be recognized, and bad management should be kicked out of any company, but you know that won't happen because developers/people are less important to them:

 

[semiconscious]

People complain about the bad things that happen to em that they don't deserve but they seldom mention the good. About what they done to deserve them things. I don't recall that I ever give the good Lord all that much cause to smile on me. But he did.

- cormac mccarthy (no country for old men)

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Dead weight middle management don't need skills, just a brown tongue. Use it well, keep your job.

The brownest. Been here 10 years. lol

But here's a coaching tip how anyone can help their chances of keeping a job.

1. Do a good job.

2. Interact with people to show everyone you got a face and have some personality.

If any of you want to be a lone wolfer sitting behind a desk (at home or office) and just keep to yourself, guess what? If you want to treat everyone like a faceless number, everyone will treat you the same way back.

So when it comes to cost cutting and it gets to a point the cuts come from people because the company has already done as much cutting in other parts of the business, Personable Pete and Cool Cheryl at the office who everyone knows will have a much higher chance of keeping their job than Faceless Frank or Hermit Harry.

You guys dont have to believe, and personally I dont care. But thats the tip. I got a job with good pay and work at a place that hums along fine, where things improved the past year as everyone is hybrid back at the office and people are happier interacting with coworkers like humans face to face instead on an MS Teams conference call. It helps my chances as everyone knows who I am and I know who everyone else is. it's not about sucking up, it's about being a good coworker who can be trusted to do work and is easy to talk to and will always around instead of being chased at home on MS Teams hoping he's there and answers.

 

[SoloCamo]

The brownest. Been here 10 years. lol

But here's a coaching tip how anyone can help their chances of keeping a job.

1. Do a good job.

2. Interact with people to show everyone you got a face and have some personality.

If any of you want to be a lone wolfer sitting behind a desk (at home or office) and just keep to yourself, guess what? If you want to treat everyone like a faceless number, everyone will treat you the same way back.

So when it comes to cost cutting and it gets to a point the cuts come from people because the company has already done as much cutting in other parts of the business, Personable Pete and Cool Cheryl at the office who everyone knows will have a much higher chance of keeping their job than Faceless Frank or Hermit Harry.

You guys dont have to believe, and personally I dont care. But thats the tip. I got a job with good pay and work at a place that hums along fine, where things improved the past year as everyone is hybrid back at the office and people are happier interacting with coworkers like humans face to face instead on an MS Teams conference call.

Sadly this is very true but it still won't always save you. If you make more than others you are often cut, regardless of your better work. Yea, this is from experience.

 

[JerryinSoCal]

The average CEO in 2022 was making over $15 million while the average worker was making $31 thousand, there is no real justification for that other than greed IMO. That also doesn't take into account other execs who are overpaid but to a lower degree. The sad part is they all get used to a certain lifestyle so they almost all refuse to take pay cuts, if a person making $15 million a year was only making say $3-$5 million that would leave over $10 million to pay their other employees, now depending on the types of jobs being cut that may not cover everyone but that is a hell of a lot of money that could be used to make the company stronger and more resilient when there are times of struggle. Cutting peoples jobs and dumping their work on already overworked employees isn't creative and doesn't take a genius yet these clowns often get bonuses for doing just that.

Now there are going to be times when layoffs can't be avoided, when there is just no real use for the position anymore or the company is in a place where it's never really going to get back to where it was and has to reinvent itself in a way just to stay open, that can happen but if workers made more and had better benefits when they did have jobs and better severance when the layoffs happened especially continued medical benefits (COBRA is way too expensive) that would also help tremendously.

I'm not talking about the hard working small business owners who took all of the risk and work 80 hour weeks to build a company either I'm talking about the people running large companies who make insane amounts of money, no matter what someone does they aren't worth $15 million a year IMO.

As far as them being generous when they create jobs? No they need the people to do the work to make money for the company in the first place so in a way that's self serving as well, nothing is done out of the kindness of their hearts.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Sadly this is very true but it still won't always save you. If you make more than others you are often cut, regardless of your better work. Yea, this is from experience.

I agree, although that cost cutting typically comes down to the 60 year old lifers who are stodgy. Although for those people cut they'll get giant severance and even better a voluntary retirement package where they choose to stay or leave. It gets to a point a 30 year old who is faster and fresher is better at half the salary even if he or she is less experienced. Thats life.

But in the meantime, do a good job, show your face instead of being a home based hermit, be cool with bosses and dont talk back or rag on the company on Twitter and be a chill person with all coworkers who can trust you and enjoy working with you. Do all that and it helps your chances of keeping a job.

It makes zero sense that anyone doing the opposite should have an equal or better chance of keeping a job.

People have this insane views that just because you do a good job and got skills it means you keep a job. Nope. If that was true, there's no point of even interviewing people. Just hire the person with the best education and skills, put him a corner desk and tell him to never speak with anyone. That's not how companies work. Part of a person's overall package is also personality and showing up. The more you show up, the more human you are. The more someone stays home and nobody ever hears from the guy except from his occasional emails, then you'll treated as Faceless Employee # 50275.

You can tell who is and isnt a manager.

Because all big companies do employee calibration meetings of some sort. HR and bosses all talk about their workers and try to decide who did well or not. If some bosses cant put a face to someone, then you're invisible. How are they going to know or remember "Who the hell is John Thomas..... oh ya Ive seen some emails from him I think" and what he did. But someone who shows up, people remember a lot better who you are and what you did because that person did it right in their face.

 

[crazepharmacist]

You guys don’t own any stock? No 401k? No IRA? No pension?

These publicly traded companies are owned by the public. Us.

These companies have a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value.

If they have to layoff employees to keep the company and share price afloat, so be it.

We’re benefiting from it.

just think if you were a small business owner and profits were falling because of macro economic events like high interest rates or something out of your control. You wouldn’t try to cut costs by not giving promotions or cutting some unneeded jobs?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

The average CEO in 2022 was making over $15 million while the average worker was making $31 thousand, there is no real justification for that other than greed IMO.

How do you rationalize this system beating out all the other systems? CEOs didn't always get paid this handsomely. Wouldn't obscene greed be considered a market inefficiency and ultimately lose out to a more "moral" system?

Why are companies paying their CEOs 483x more than the average employee? Wouldn't paying them 2x more instead produce a more competitive, efficient company?

From my understanding, companies don't like spending money poorly.

 

[AmuroChan]

1. Corporations are not altruistic or benevolent entities.
2. Their primary objective is to uphold the fiduciary duties to their stockholders.
3. Employees are simply a cog in the machine to achieve their financial goals. 99.9% of employees are replaceable.
4. The CEO is the face of the company and the executor of the company's vision. If they don't execute, they will get booted by the board of directors.
5. You are worth what someone is willing to pay for your labor. Saying someone isn't worth their salary is meaningless at the end of the day. If any of us was in that situation and being "overpaid", how many people would actually give back part of their salary? I sure as hell won't. If I negotiated my salary with my employer and we both signed our names to the contract, who is anyone to tell me I'm not worth that money?

 

[Rat Rage]

But if that's true, then doesn't that mean CEOs + companies are good, generous, and benevolent when they hire employees and grow studios?

Wait, you mean we should instantly call companies "good" when they hire employees and grow their businesses?
What should we call companies if they do so, but notoriously avoid paying taxes, then? I mean, isn't that the #1 crime a company can commit against a society they are part of? Most huge companies do that.

Big Corporations Paid Shockingly Little In Taxes Last Year - Americans For Tax Fairness

New Data Reveal 5 Huge Firms—GE, GM, Meta, Tesla & T-Mobile—Paid Super Low Rates Or Even Got Refunds Despite Billions in Profits WASHINGTON – Some of America’s marquee corporations with billions in profits each—General Electric, General Motors, Meta (owner of Facebook), Tesla and T-Mobile—paid...

americansfortaxfairness.org

Most companies are greedy as fuck and don't give a shit about their surroundings. They don't give a shit about giving "back". They don't give a shit about their employees. Most CEO's are nothing more than a representation of that mindset. That's what decades long unhinged capitalism will do a market.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

How do you rationalize this system beating out all the other systems? CEOs didn't always get paid this handsomely. Wouldn't obscene greed be considered a market inefficiency and ultimately lose out to a more "moral" system?

Why are companies paying their CEOs 483x more than the average employee? Wouldn't paying them 2x more instead produce a more competitive, efficient company?

From my understanding, companies don't like spending money poorly.

I'd like to see anyone argue what Bobby K is worth and how he is overpaid when most of his comp is tied up in stock. His net worth is hard to estimate because doing a quick google skim some articles say $600M, while some say $7 billion! Who knows. For sake of argument lets just go down the middle and say $4 billion. it's not even like CEOs drive up the stock price. It's people, institutional investors, hedge funds, pension boards etc.... that buy shares driving up the price. If people dont like Activision hitting $100 making Bobby K's stock rich, blame the people buying shares. If Activision was a no name low float stock, maybe the stock is only at $10. But it got bought out for $100 which MS jacked it up $30 alone on the offer. Dont blame Bobby. He' just sat back and watched the stock go up.

Activision was sold for around $70 billion.

Bobby K over 30 years ago put in money with some other investors and bought a money losing company that included the Activision brand and games, he gutted the company and focused on gaming and 30 years later it became a giant company making $8 billion sales/year at $2 billion profit/yr. Bobby K is one of the original founders of the company when taken over in the early 90s.

Activision - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[damidu]

i guess this is the end result of lifelong murricaan brain rot.

 

[PropellerEar]

You guys dont have to believe, and personally I dont care. But thats the tip. I got a job with good pay and work at a place that hums along fine, where things improved the past year as everyone is hybrid back at the office and people are happier interacting with coworkers like humans face to face instead on an MS Teams conference call. It helps my chances as everyone knows who I am and I know who everyone else is. it's not about sucking up, it's about being a good coworker who can be trusted to do work and is easy to talk to and will always around instead of being chased at home on MS Teams hoping he's there and answers.

Who are these "you guys" you talk about?
Sounds like you think you found some golden ticket working from the office and kissing ass.
Nice skill set, that surely entitles you to give some career advice.

 

[TheDreadBaron]

So hiring people is their job but...laying people off is not their job?

Hmmmm...interesting.

It's almost like telling a baseball player that getting on base is his job and striking out is not his job.

That's correct, it is a baseball player's job to hit the ball and get on base. They have failed in their job if they strike out, and if it happens too often they get fired. Isn't it also a goal keeper's job to keep the other team from scoring? The sports metaphors aren't very good because there's always a loser in that type of competition, which is unlike the job of maintaining a company's health.

I can't understand your logic when I apply it to any other leadership position in human history.

A mother is supposed to make good choices for her children. Occasionally she makes mistakes.

A coach is supposed to help his team win games. Occasionally they lose.

A general is supposed to win battles. Occasionally he loses.

Acting like it's feasible to only hire and never lay employees off doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, and when leaders fail they are responsible for that failure, and should be held responsible for the harm that it may cause others. That can include being replaced themselves.

Even when you're trying to stretch these metaphors to fit they don't argue your point very well, so I don't think it's a very strong position.

 

[SoloCamo]

i guess this is the end result of lifelong murricaan brain rot.

Yes, somehow all of this filters down to America's fault. Face it, greed it everywhere, every country, every continent. It's human nature. You and I are not immune from it - we just haven't been in the position to realize it yet.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Who are these "you guys" you talk about?
Sounds like you think you found some golden ticket working from the office and kissing ass.
Nice skill set, that surely entitles you to give some career advice.

You didnt get the sarcasm. Not surprised. I said that to piss you off and it did. I knew you wouldnt understand.

But end of the day, do a good job, show up and interact with people instead of being a faceless drone at home and it'll work wonders. Talking to people face to face isnt sucking up. It's being a human being.

You'll understand one day.

 

[damidu]

Yes, somehow all of this filters down to America's fault. Face it, greed it everywhere, every country, every continent. It's human nature. You and I are not immune from it - we just haven't been in the position to realize it yet.

nah im pretty immune to corpo-boot licking. thanks.

 

[SoloCamo]

nah im pretty immune to corpo-boot licking. thanks.

My bad, I didn't realize America hosts the only corporations in the world.... We actually agree if you'd stop the targeted country hate.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Yes, somehow all of this filters down to America's fault. Face it, greed it everywhere, every country, every continent. It's human nature. You and I are not immune from it - we just haven't been in the position to realize it yet.

Fair. If I was king I'd make people Impoverished just for shits and giggles

 

[PropellerEar]

You didnt get the sarcasm. Not surprised. I said that to piss you off and it did. I knew you wouldnt understand.

But end of the day, do a good job, show up and interact with people instead of being a faceless drone at home and it'll work wonders. Talking to people face to face isnt sucking up. It's being a human being.

You'll understand one day.

I will continue working from home, I'm doing better than ever career wise.

Don't try to give advice when you have no skillset or credentials to do so.

The most skilled people at the workplaces actually know eachother, they also know who are the mouth breathers.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

That's correct, it is a baseball player's job to hit the ball and get on base. They have failed in their job if they strike out, and if it happens too often they get fired. Isn't it also a goal keeper's job to keep the other team from scoring? The sports metaphors aren't very good because there's always a loser in that type of competition, which is unlike the job of maintaining a company's health.


Yeah, and when leaders fail they are responsible for that failure, and should be held responsible for the harm that it may cause others. That can include being replaced themselves.

Even when you're trying to stretch these metaphors to fit they don't argue your point very well, so I don't think it's a very strong position.

I think the analogies highlight a great point.

No one expects leaders to succeed on 100% of their decisions. Failure is built into the position. The question becomes what rate of failure is acceptable.

A large number of historically successful companies seem to be making the same decisions right now, without CEOs losing their jobs.

That suggests to me that the current rate of failure is acceptable to shareholders. IE, it's Barry Bonds striking out a couple of times.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I will continue working from home, I'm doing better than ever career wise.

Don't try to give advice when you have no skillset or credentials to do so.

The most skilled people at the workplaces actually know eachother, they also know who are the mouth breathers.

Thats fine. If youre happy working from home go ahead. If you treat a job as being a job and you want to be anti-social never meeting coworkers thats your choice. You must be fun to chat with at Christmas parties.

You might not like mouth breathers, but there's good chance they will keep a job better than you.

What will probably also piss you off is I've been at my company so long, VPs ask me all the time who I think is good or bad, including given them confidential peer evaluations on persons x, y, z. Hey, just like on GAF or when I crunch numbers at work I give my honest opinion. Bob is pretty good. He knows his business, tracks things well and is easy to work with. Sally on the other hand has issues understanding the business and I cant get hold of her half the time. Oh well, if the boss interprets my comment on Sally's delayed at home responses as a red flag. Oh well. Show up and I wont write that.

 

[Bonfires Down]

Completely pointless to try to apply morality to corporations one way or the other. If we want things to change then it should be done through legislation.

 

[PropellerEar]

Thats fine. If youre happy working from home go ahead. If you treat a job as being a job and you want to be anti-social never meeting coworkers thats your choice. You must be fun to chat with at Christmas parties.

You might not like mouth breathers, but there's good chance they will keep a job better than you.

What will probably also piss you off is I've been at my company so long, VPs ask me all the time who I think is good or bad, including given them confidential peer evaluations on persons x, y, z. Hey, just like on GAF or when I crunch numbers at work I give my honest opinion. Bob is pretty good. He knows his business, tracks things well and is easy to work with. Sally on the other hand has issues understanding the business and I cant get hold of her half the time. Oh well, if the boss interprets my comment on Sally's delayed at home responses as a red flag. Oh well. Show up and I wont write that.

Knew it, useless middle management with no real skills.
No wonder you're so scared for your job.

 

[JerryinSoCal]

How do you rationalize this system beating out all the other systems? CEOs didn't always get paid this handsomely. Wouldn't obscene greed be considered a market inefficiency and ultimately lose out to a more "moral" system?

Why are companies paying their CEOs 483x more than the average employee? Wouldn't paying them 2x more instead produce a more competitive, efficient company?

From my understanding, companies don't like spending money poorly.

How would a moral system win out when the rich run everything in the first place? CEO's should make more than the regular employees just not to the degree they do now. Too much wealth concentrated into a small percentage of people means less people have disposable income, that means the masses have less money to spend.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

How would a moral system win out when the rich run everything in the first place? CEO's should make more than the regular employees just not to the degree they do now. Too much wealth concentrated into a small percentage of people means less people have disposable income, that means the masses have less money to spend.

Because it's not a binary system. There's not a cabal of 5 super powerful, evil CEOs who are oppressing the rest of the industry like a saturday morning cartoon.

There are a plethora of companies employing a myriad of strategies in a massive, dense market. The small companies who employ "moral" equal pay practices, generally (not always) lose out to the small companies who pay people differently based on worth. Small companies then become mid sized companies competing against eachother to become large companies.

One system leads to growth. The other system leads to failure...generally.

Again, shareholders do not want to pay CEOs 430x more than base level salaries. They're doing so because it allows them to be more competitive in the market.

If CEOs are making too much money, the market will correct itself because the market doesn't reward inefficiency.

 

[Meicyn]

But shouldn't we all be looking at this through a strategic lense rather than a moral lense?

You can do a bit of column A and a bit of column B, IMO. A happy workforce is a more productive workforce. I’m not talking blowing sunshine up people’s asses here, just that your workers shouldn’t feel like their job can go at any moment with no warning. Firing bad workers is a natural part of business, but mass layoffs is reflective of poor planning. Take Jim Ryan visiting the London studio, posing for pictures and acting like everything is hunky-dory, then shutting it down mere days later. That’s a bitch move, and reflects his cowardice. If you can’t look your people in the eyes and be upfront with them, you are a toolbag. Imagine how folks across Sony feel right now, not truly knowing why those 900 folks were laid off. Were they all bad workers? Doubt it.

When you create a culture of purely transactional interactions, you will get the bare minimum asked. This is why development studios with hundreds, if not thousands of people, sometimes output less than a significantly smaller studio. When individuals are trusted to make key decisions, they have a direct stake in what’s happening and most will put more into whatever they’re working on.

BTW, I do not subscribe to the “all CEOs are bad” or “capitalism is bad actually” line of thinking that seems to be the rage these days. I do however, strongly believe that under the right leadership, you can achieve synergistic outcomes. Treat your workers as a disposable commodity, and you can expect disposable, uninspired products.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Take Jim Ryan visiting the London studio, posing for pictures and acting like everything is hunky-dory, then shutting it down mere days later. That’s a bitch move, and reflects his cowardice.

Or did he go there to deliver the bad news in person? That would be a Chad move reflecting honor.

Or de we let an untrustworthy media connect the lamest of dots to create a narrative that riles people up to generate clicks?

 

[AmuroChan]

Or did he go there to deliver the bad news in person? That would be a Chad move reflecting honor.

Or de we let an untrustworthy media connect the lamest of dots to create a narrative that riles people up to generate clicks?

Take Jim Ryan visiting the London studio, posing for pictures and acting like everything is hunky-dory, then shutting it down mere days later. That’s a bitch move, and reflects his cowardice.

To be fair, we don't know the full context on that story. He could've been there to talk to the studio head to deliver the bad news in person. People asking him for pictures was just unfortunate timing. What was he supposed to do, say no and just walk out of the studio? That would've made things worse optically.

 

[{insert code here}]

This thread has inspired me to start a company, be the CEO, pay myself as much money as I can, then use every loophole known to mankind to not pay taxes on any of it.

Thanks fam

 

[Meicyn]

Or did he go there to deliver the bad news in person? That would be a Chad move reflecting honor.

Or de we let an untrustworthy media connect the lamest of dots to create a narrative that riles people up to generate clicks?

To be fair, we don't know the full context on that story. He could've been there to talk to the studio head to deliver the bad news in person. People asking him for pictures was just unfortunate timing. What was he supposed to do, say no and just walk out of the studio? That would've made things worse optically.

That’s fair. If he did tell the studio leadership directly, then that’s appropriate.

 

[StueyDuck]

Obviously we're hearing a lot of people call companies and CEOs evil, greedy, and selfish for laying employees off right now.

I don't even want to challenge that concept. I'll accept that idea for the sake of the discussion.

But if that's true, then doesn't that mean CEOs + companies are good, generous, and benevolent when they hire employees and grow studios?

Why does it feel like people never bring up the other side of the coin when these people create jobs? Why is it acceptable to moralize others when things go bad, but not when things go good?

I feel like CEOs aren't really understood among the general populous and especially gaming and gamers.

Like they see Bobby kotick and they think that Is all CEOs. But most of the time it's just greenies, or money jealousy. You hear some makes millions and most of us don't so therefore we must be mad.

But they make cuts and fire people and shift the company and so on an so forth because the books need to show hand over fist more profits then it did the year before. The share holders and stock exchange and the market is never blamed when really it should be, I mean just look at how these traded companies can lose billions in a day just because they slightly over projected for the year...

The reason CEOs get paid so much is because some dude looks at his investments and goes: oh look Activision made me millions more money, sweet, well we like that CEO he makes us more money so let's Pay him lots to keep him with us and not making our competition more money.

I can't imagine anyone who complains about CEOs if they were put in the same position wouldn't be doing the same thing . Would you not do what ever drastic thing possible to cut costs and ensure those profits are up so that you can keep your job .

However when it comes to like the Bobby koticks who are genuinely bad people, abusive and mean-spirited and cutthroat then yeah I understand the hatred there. But thats not because he's a CEO, it's because he's just a shit person.

I dunno, a weird diatribe I know but I always see people be like "grrr you meany CEO" and it always just rings like money jealous. And I get it, I fucking wish I made that sorta money. But it's just silly to view a human as inherently evil because of a job position and doing what any other person in that position would do

 

[AmuroChan]

This thread has inspired me to start a company, be the CEO, pay myself as much money as I can, then use every loophole known to mankind to not pay taxes on any of it.

Thanks fam

You should take advantage of the tax code as much as possible regardless. You don't need to own company to do that. Even if you're just a regular 9-5 W-2 employee, there are various tax loopholes (all legal btw) that you should be applying on your tax returns.

 

[Sorcerer]

CEO's hire people to make money for themselves/their corporations.
CEO's fire people to save money for themselves/their corporations.

I don't think you can necessarily add act of humanity in between the lines.

 

[mystech]

Layoffs happen in any market and every industry. I think the much bigger issue is when these companies lay off a bunch of people while at the same time:

1. Showing huge profit gains over the previous year.

2. Giving their CEOs big ass bonuses and raises.

3. Continuing to pull astronomical development budgets for games that didn’t need to cost anywhere near as much to develop and hardly ever deliver the level of quality and innovation that one would expect for a game that cost THAT much to make.

4. Shelling out billions to buy out independent studios and then laying off the workers when the deal is done.

5. Investing in GAAS titles, HD remasters and other throw away projects that no one is asking for.

There’s a serious mismanagement of time, money and resources and when it all blows up in their face, it’s the guys at the bottom that get the boot. That’s the real issue here, not necessarily the layoffs but everything that led up to the layoffs that could have been avoided…

Edit: And when it comes to the growth aspect, yes these companies are creating jobs… but are those jobs actually needed? Lately we’ve been seeing a lot of new jobs just for the sake of making games more “woke” friendly. Does a company really need a big ass department just to handle their social media?

 

[DaGwaphics]

I think most average people feel like the top level executives are overpaid, what does one do to really earn that kind of money. But, then maybe their job is facilitating all that revenue coming in to begin with and they want a cut of that.

That point asside. I think we are just seeing the game companies realizing that they aren't going to be able to scale up sales enough to cover an extra year or two of development without cutting back a bit. But, than the reduced staff might cause it to take even longer to complete things, it's a complex thing for them to work out. Hopefully, we continue getting great entertainment from the industry at a prices that the majority can afford.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

5. Investing in GAAS titles

 

[ProtoByte]

These layoffs indicate a failure of his vision which means he should be laid off with them. He is the most expensive employee.

EA probably still employs more people than they did pre-COVID. I don't personally like Andrew Wilson, but to say that his vision has failed is asinine.

When you're dealing with huge multi-billion dollar corporations in a high-risk and luxury medium like videogames, it's stupid to say that it's entirely the CEOs fault when things go wrong. Microsoft proper fired more than 20 thousand people last year. I doubt anyone would suggest Satya Nadella isn't doing his job properly.

You just don't understand the big picture if you believe the scope of the CEOs responsibilities resembles that of the average employee. You'll notice that the entire global economy is going through the shitter right now, and exogenous factors like that also affect corporations. No matter how good the CEO is, they cannot control everything.

Yes- I hate how overcompensated these CEOs are. No one is worth that much money.

Spoken like a true proletariat-LARPer.
The people who fund the company - shareholders - do not have to do so. They think that any given CEO is worth their money, otherwise they wouldn't get paid as much, or would be out. Most of said pay not being cash, btw.