(弱弱的编译 建议看原文 少数部份为了阅读通畅加入了点内容)
With Activision's Influence Growing, Blizzard Is Cutting Costs
作者: Jason Schreier
原文: https://bit.ly/2rS7ysQ
Blizzard has spent the year taking big measures to cut costs as it prepares
for a lean 2019. Those measures, as conveyed by people who work or have
worked for the iconic studio, include employee buyouts in which workers are
offered money to leave, a broadening of the finance department, and the
limitation of budgets for any team at the company that isn't directly making
video games.
暴雪正准备透过资遣员工、扩大财务部、限缩非开发部门的预算来实现樽节计画.
Much of Blizzard's cost-cutting has gone unreported until recently, but it's
been a consistent theme throughout 2018 at the Irvine, California-based
studio behind mega-hits like Overwatch and World of Warcraft. One Blizzard
program, for example, is called Career Crossroads. It offers healthy
severance packages to people who voluntarily take buyouts and choose to leave
the company. At first, Career Crossroads was designed for veteran customer
service representatives who had been at Blizzard for more than five years,
but this year, it opened up to QA and IT, according to one person familiar
with the program. Blizzard has also lowered the number of years required to
take a buyout, opening up Career Crossroads to even more employees, likely in
hopes of increasing those numbers.
其中一个计画(Career Crossroads),提供优渥的条件让五年以上工作经验的资深客服
自愿离职,但今年开放QA及IT部门申请,且下修年资以适用更多员工.
"Over the course of the last year, Blizzard has been trying very
actively to find creative ways to cut costs that won’t draw negative
press attention," said a former employee.
一个前员工说:过去一年,暴雪的创意都用在想办法如何costdown又不被骂了
When asked for comment, Blizzard declined to address other items in this
report but did send over a statement about Career Crossroads:
" We have had a completely voluntary and long-standing program in various
locations around the world that gives eligible staff the option to make
the most of incentives while proactively pursuing other career
opportunities. No one is required or encouraged to participate in the
program, but for those who do, we work hard to make it generous. We’ve
been offering it for many years—initially to some of our customer service
teams, and we expanded it for a short period of time to a few other
departments recently, given that it has proven to be a good way to help
people who have been thinking about a career change or going back to school
to get a head start on that path if that's what they want to do. While fewer
than 10 people in the departments we recently expanded the program to have
taken advantage of it, the general idea is that in addition to providing
them with that opportunity, it also helps us give more advancement
opportunities to other employees on the team when possible. "
被问到这项计画的时候,暴雪提出了解释:
这项计画已经持续多年,那些想离开的老员工可以透过这项计画,领取优渥的报酬以
以答谢他们多年的努力,然后寻找人生的新方向.而这项计画广受好评,所以我们扩大了
适用范围.
At the same time, Blizzard is actively hiring for its game development teams,
as it continues to work on new games in franchises like Diablo and Overwatch.
There’s no way to know what the results of this cost-cutting might look like
in the coming years, but it’s clear that the direction from the top is to
release more games, which could ultimately benefit fans of Blizzard. The big
question, as expressed by those who work and have worked at the company, is
what kind of impact these cultural shifts will have on one of the most
legendary studios in gaming, one that is regularly ranked among the best
video game companies to work. And what kind of impact will it have on
Blizzard's games?
在此同时,暴雪也在为了像是Diablo/OW那样的新游戏拓展开发团队.
虽说无法预期这些樽节措施未来会造就怎样的结果,但很显然暴雪正在发展更多的游戏,
最终总是玩家受益.
但对于暴雪员工或关注其文化的玩家来说,不免担心这些措施会对暴雪文化产生如何的
影响? 甚至,对游戏本身会不会带来冲击?
Last month, a Kotaku investigation revealed that Blizzard's staff have been
told to reduce expenses while at the same time produce more games. There are
likely several reasons for this shift in priorities, including a lack of
consistent output, a weak year for Activision-Blizzard overall, and
Activision's increasing influence on Blizzard, which has traditionally
been an autonomous company but has been overseen by Activision's CEO,
Bobby Kotick, since the two companies merged in 2008. That influence has
grown this year in many ways both blatant and subtle.
就在上个月,暴雪员工被告知要减少开支,并且要提高产能.这可能是因为动视暴雪表现
太过疲软的原因.在以前暴雪可维持独立运作,但随着动视CEO的监督之下,动视对暴雪的
影响越来越大.尤以今年为甚.
For November's report, we talked to 11 current and former Blizzard
employees. Since then, we've heard from even more current and former
Blizzard staff about the company’s cost-cutting measures and how they've
materialized. The Career Crossroads program is one example. Another,
according to three Blizzard staff who all left recently, is a power shift
that has seen the finance department cultivate influence that it had never
had in the past.
在11月的调查中我们访问了11个现任及前任的暴雪员工,从那时就听到许多樽节措施.
包括上面说的Career Crossroads自愿离职计画.而根据最近离开的三位前员工说,财务
部门获得前所未有的影响力.
“Finance in general in Blizzard has been one of these invisible functions
that's there, but doesn't have a say,” said one veteran employee who left
recently and asked not to be named because they were not authorized to talk
to press. "Now they're suddenly in meetings."
一个未授权的前员工说:以往财务部门没有话语权,直至今日.
Said a second, who also asked not to be named: “A lot of decisions now are
being driven by business folks, marketing and finance folks. There’s a real
struggle now between developers and the business people… Strategic decisions
are being driven by the finance group.”
These decisions could range from major (Which technology should we use for
this new incubation project?) to minor (How much do we spend on BlizzCon
goodie boxes this year?). It’s a major cultural shift, one driven by top
executives at the company including Armin Zerza, who was chief financial
officer (CFO) at the studio before he became chief operating officer (COO) in
late 2017. Under Zerza, Blizzard has brought in a number of business-minded
employees both from Activision and the consulting company McKinsey, many of
whom might have different priorities than longtime Blizzard staff or those
with development backgrounds.
另一个不具名的人士指出:现在许多决策都是由商务/行销/财务部门来决定的,开发部门
无权置喙,这导致开发部门与上述的业务部门产生了冲突.
而这些影响的决策之广,上至"决定使用何种开发技术",下至"BlizzCon礼包的成本多少",
无一不包.之所以会产生这些冲突,主要是高层引入了以财务导向的员工.这些人与传统暴
雪员工只专注游戏的目标不同,而是以营利为导向.
Earlier this year, new Blizzard CFO Amrita Ahuja, who also came over from
Activision, told employees during an all-hands meeting that it was time to
start reining in their spending. That was a common theme at many of Blizzard’
s departments this year, according to those who were there. “That speech
from Amrita about cutting costs, that wasn’t a one time thing,” said one
person who worked on a non-development team. “We were told to cut costs on a
monthly basis.”
就在今年稍早时,新任暴雪CFO在一次大型员工会议中告诉大家:看好暴雪的荷包.而且这不
是他第一次这么说.于是这成了暴雪各部门的主要课题.
一个非开发部门的员工说:我们被要求逐月减少支出.
So far, the cost-cutting has mostly taken place in non-gaming departments,
with one big exception. Last week, Blizzard announced plans to reduce the
staff of Heroes of the Storm and eliminate its esports program. It was a
surprising move to those who made their careers off Heroes, but among
Blizzard games, this was the weakest link—Heroes of the Storm had always
struggled to find as much financial success as Blizzard's other big hits.
到目前为止,只有非游戏部门才实施樽节计画,只有一个例外.
上周暴雪宣布减少暴雪英霸的人力支出,并取消电竞计画.这震惊了那些以此游戏为生
的人们.在暴雪游戏中,暴雪英霸虽然一直是小众游戏,但也在努力寻找成功的契机.
There have been other big moves as well. Today, the British website Eurogamer
reported that over 100 people have accepted buyouts at Blizzard's customer
service office in Cork, Ireland.
And among Blizzard staff and close observers, rumors have circulated about
potential layoffs in the new year. The game development teams are seen as safe
—the mandate is to make more games, after all—but those at other
departments are worried about what might be coming when 2019 arrives.
最新的樽节措施是:位于爱尔兰的欧洲分部,有超过100名的客服人员接受了自愿离职计画.
另有传言指出2019年会有裁员计画,可能只有开发部门不受影响,毕竟这会影响到新游戏的
进度.至于其他部门就没这么好运了,大家都担心会发生不好的事.
To look at Activision and Blizzard is to see two companies that, for over a
decade, have followed connected but very different models. Under Bobby
Kotick, Activision has found success through annual releases of games like
Call of Duty and, until recently, Skylanders. Meanwhile, under co-founder and
longtime CEO Mike Morhaime, Blizzard has marched at its own pace, sticking
with old games for the long haul and releasing new ones whenever the company
felt like they were ready. Blizzard has gone years without releasing a brand
new game, while Activision hasn't let a fall go by without a new Call of
Duty since 2004.
回顾动视及暴雪这两家公司的文化截然不同,动视不断推出新的Call of Duty系列游戏,
但暴雪以自己的步调,专注在旧有的游戏上,迟迟未发表新的游戏.至于新作何时推出呢?
暴雪的回答是:"准备好了才会发表".
这在动视是不可能发生的:动视自2014以来,每年都会发表一款Call of Duty系列作.
Now, Morhaime is gone, and Activision appears to have more influence on
Blizzard than it ever has. Will Blizzard’s games-as-a-service,
release-it-when-it's-ready approach to development survive these new
changes? It might take years before we know the answers, but some Blizzard
employees—and many fans—are concerned about what they might be. The
influences of a major corporation can be subtle and sometimes impossible to
discern.
“Blizzard is a special place,” said one former employee.
“A lot of people are worried about the future of Blizzard—if the Activision
method seeps in more, what that’s going to become.”
在Mike Morhaime离开以后,动视对暴雪的影响更甚以往.暴雪的游戏现在多以线上服务
的方式存在,所以"准备好了才会发表"这种开发模式,是否会因为动视的态度而产生了
变化?这可能要经过许多年的观察才能得知.
但对暴雪员工和粉丝来说却非常担心动视主导暴雪的一切,毕竟你无法预测动视的下一步.
"暴雪对大家来说代表许多意义,所以许多人都担心它的未来,尤其是被动视掐住的暴雪"
一个前员工这么说.
(完)
延伸阅读:超过100位暴雪员工接受自愿买断离职，官方称既有服务不受影响
https://bit.ly/2rSTLSZ