Very Interesting - Some Zenimax Business News

Arsenic_Touch

ShedsHisTail wrote: »

It's not impossible.
Just didn't see you there. Very strange when folks single out other folks.

I was basically the q&a guy, albeit unofficially, for defiance during the first year, people recognize my name sometimes. I was a thorn on trion's side.

ShedsHisTail

Arsenic_Touch wrote: »

ShedsHisTail wrote: »

It's not impossible.
Just didn't see you there. Very strange when folks single out other folks.

I was basically the q&a guy, albeit unofficially, for defiance during the first year, people recognize my name sometimes. I was a thorn on trion's side.

I see.
Well then, good to meet you.

JosephChip

This gotta be a joke thread.
I don't think more than half the people posting here understand what that article says and means. And they sure do not understand how this business works nor have any idea on the actual situation of the game or the company. This thread is just a facepalm compilation.

Dusty5

Well I for one am not surprised. What does is the fact this thread is still up.

nerevarine1138

wrlifeboil wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Mortosk wrote: »

c0rp wrote: »

Are people in this thread just ignoring the fact that TEMPORARYS were let go. When ZoS starts laying off SALARIED employess you can start doomsaying.

Seriously? Doesn't concern you in the slightest that people that were expected to be on a 6-month contract were let go after 3-months?

Tells me they expected a lot more interest in the game, and it didn't pan out that way. So, they are cutting the biggest expense which is payroll. You don't go through all the trouble of recruiting, training, and hiring people for a 6 month assignment only to let them go in a few weeks unless something is drastically wrong.

Also tells me why tickets go unanswered for over a week.

No. Temporary factory workers being laid off early after the company announced a major delay on product does not concern me. That strikes me as almost absurdly normal.

At least factory workers have unions unless they live in some third world hellhole.

In this thread, I haven't detected much compassion for those laid off workers. It's like they were some npcs in the game and not real people. Hopefully it is a gamer thing and not society as a whole.

These were workers on a temporary contract.

Does it suck that their work ended early? Yes. Does that mean that I should be morally outraged at ZO for not wasting money on positions they no longer need filled? No.

Ifthir_ESO

gougefub17_ESO wrote: »

EDIT: This may have just been temps to handle the rollout.

Yes, probably temporary customer support. Huge non-news.

Kingslayer

Galway is their CS reps for europe not the datacenter or anything that being said it still doesn't look good for them to the rest of us paying customers. Especially in Europe. i've lost track now how many patch notes i've read which supposedly improve latency problems yet they still exist somewhat for a lot of us. The game looks to be heading down the toilet and Fat matt firor should be taken off this project with his over inflated promises which have failed to deliver, doesn't make for good business and Zenimax media who own them will not be liking the publicity it is drawing and the boys over at bethesda even though they don't have any authority with Zos they still won't like whats been done to their love child.

Blackwidow

I love the blind supporters of ZOS. Bless their little hearts.

"The ship is on fire and it is sinking? How is that bad news?

When the ship sinks, the fire will be put out, so the ship should be okay!"

nerevarine1138

Blackwidow wrote: »

I love the blind supporters of ZOS. Bless their little hearts.

The ship is on fire and it is sinking?

Well when the ship sinks, the fire will be put out, so ship should be okay!

I love the blind detractors of ZO, who look for the death of the game in every possible news article. Next up: it's all Obama's fault.

They hired people for the pending console release. They delayed the console launch. Those temporary workers were laid off early due to the delay. It's a completely normal occurrence.

Kingslayer

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Blackwidow wrote: »

I love the blind supporters of ZOS. Bless their little hearts.

The ship is on fire and it is sinking?

Well when the ship sinks, the fire will be put out, so ship should be okay!

I love the blind detractors of ZO, who look for the death of the game in every possible news article. Next up: it's all Obama's fault.

They hired people for the pending console release. They delayed the console launch. Those temporary workers were laid off early due to the delay. It's a completely normal occurrence.

Obama? Or Osama?

Junkogen

Why does it necessarily have to go from $15 monthly to free-to-play? If the $15 isn't working out, they could try other payment models. Eve has something that might work where you can use in-game gold to buy subscription time. That provides both an incentive and reward for playing. Or they could just reduce the price to $5 or something like that. I don't understand why people jump to free-to-play automatically. Is there some kind of reasoning behind it?

I hope it doesn't go F2P, because that will mean it's completely dead with no new content (or it means pay-to-win....). I really want these guys to be successful. I love me some Elder Scrolls.

Junkogen

hk11 wrote: »

I think they will be golden if they can get the console version out. Console folks are going to eat this up. It's not the best MMO, but its gotta be better than spiderman or whatever you get on consoles.

I originally got interested in the game because it was going to be available on PS4. I was a little bummed that it got delayed, but decided to buy it for PC after they offered that special deal. After playing it on PC, I get it. It still needs polishing and I think it's harder to fix things on console.

If they need to do a "realm reborn" so be it. I just hope they stick with it. I've heard the complaints that people didn't really want an Elder Scrolls MMO, but I did. I think it's a great idea if it's done right. They just need to add in the stuff that made the name famous like a justice system, thievery, and killing NPCs. I get that some NPCs have to be "unkillable," but that's how it was in Skyrim, too. Especially with this phasing thing, I think it's totally doable. That's kind of a cool thought actually. It's like a multiverse of different realities all coexisting at the same time on one megaserver....

*Mind blown*

Haxer

Junkogen wrote: »

Why does it necessarily have to go from $15 monthly to free-to-play? If the $15 isn't working out, they could try other payment models. Eve has something that might work where you can use in-game gold to buy subscription time. That provides both an incentive and reward for playing. Or they could just reduce the price to $5 or something like that. I don't understand why people jump to free-to-play automatically. Is there some kind of reasoning behind it?

I hope it doesn't go F2P, because that will mean it's completely dead with no new content (or it means pay-to-win....). I really want these guys to be successful. I love me some Elder Scrolls.

You are correct, it could be any number of outcomes. That said, history would tell us that f2p is the final destination of failed MMO's. It's terrible for the players, as you go from $15 for all content, to 10% for free and upwards of hundreds (or thousands) of dollars for the same content.

Take LoL, a F2P game (though not an MMORPG), regardless of what you think of the game, the business model is that you can play for free, but to get all the content in the game would cost you over $3,000. Certainly more expensive (and generally worse for the player) than spending $60 once and just getting the whole game.

The only people who actually benefit from F2P model is the company, who get's to charge 1000x more for the same amount of content, and the portion of the community (usually young kids) who could not afford the game otherwise, but can now play that 10% of the content for free.

edu.journeymanub17_ESO

Ragekniv wrote: »

It would not surprise me in the least to see Zenimax unceremoniously dumping employee base to maximize return on remaining player base subscription revenue.

Zenimax has pocketed the initial game units revenue and three months subscription revenue. They've likely satisfied their investor return and are now simply milking the proverbial teat.

This isn't new in MMOs, it's been the bane of player base satisfaction and game platform stagnation for longer than ESO was envisioned.

Game stability, class balance and progressive end game design are months away if not longer.

Unfortunately, hopeful players are caught in the static loop of reactionary driven patches versus pro-active workable solutions by Zenimax.

This!

I will only add the fact of ESO coming in console will get the game going for a bit more than expected by the doom crowd. There are plenty to be milked there and they don't have that much options, you know.

To resume, for console, I think it will work with some few adjustments. Although I have 2 consoles at my home I don't play them, only my daughters, but they don't like ES games.

xanikk999

Fuzzylumpkins wrote: »

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

Saerydoth wrote: »

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

Wifeaggro13 wrote: »

Swtor did the same thing . Ironicaly in ireland as well. Belfast i believe. Roghly 6weeks post launch. Not a good sign.if we see them retract promised content it will be a sure sign s F2p hybrid model in the cash shop is coming and the milk factory has begun just like the hutt expan being taken away from subs and offered as dlc

Same with TSW, customer service were first canned.

As a counter-example though, Blizzard let a TON of customer service people go a few years ago, and WOW didn't go F2P.

Always good to compare to WoW.....

WoW will always be the fall back for posters that don't have anything intelligent or relevant to ass to a discussion. Even the ignorant need a scapegoat when they run low on hot air.

Same with any video game discussion board. They all have their fan boys and trolls. Don't kid yourself and think this board is any different.

ipkonfigcub18_ESO

Well, I'm glad I did what I did with my account then. If this is actually true, I have no interest in giving money to a company like this. I'd rather give $15 a month to someone laid off from ZoS.

I think it's safe to say this is the reason this game is dying off fast.

stungateb14_ESO

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

ShedsHisTail wrote: »

Gisgo wrote: »

gougefub17_ESO wrote: »

It's just the local paper website in the town in Ireland. Maybe just hyping a story.

Or maybe a real journalist for once, who knows...

I have already decided if i dont see an EU server when im back from holidays in September im gonna find a new game, and this is the first and last time i say it.

I doubt that this is anything more than tangentially related to EU servers.
If anything, these were a bunch of CS phone reps they hired to handle the population boom at launch, but when the EU servers weren't ready to go Zeni went:

"Why are we paying all these temps to provide CS for a server that we don't have yet?" Let's let them go, and re-hire when the server is ready for play."

You dont think they werent there to handle EU accounts? These people spoke french and german with english, something 99% of americans not from mexico cant do.

Obviously you've never been to Louisiana, Vermont, Northern New Hampshire, Northern Minnesota, Wisconsin.

Jariath

Within months of release, any software company lets hundreds of people go. Support staff and software people are not needed in nearly as large of numbers after a game has been out for a couple of month. Blizzard has done this with every expansion release, it was also done with ToR.

drogon1

michaelpatrickjonesnub18_ESO wrote: »

It's a garbage game. What did you expect...

Need more firings. But higher up.

Disagree. I think it's a very good game with sound mechanics marred by absolutely bonehead decisions and mistakes. With some simple tweaks this game can become quite good: buffing stam builds, providing dungeon xp or repeatable dungeon quests, buffing pvp xp, enabling people to group for the main story quests, and fixing the most game breaking bugs and class abilities that don't work. This is feasible and not too hard to do with a modest expenditure of resources.

Mortosk

Kingslayer wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Blackwidow wrote: »

I love the blind supporters of ZOS. Bless their little hearts.

The ship is on fire and it is sinking?

Well when the ship sinks, the fire will be put out, so ship should be okay!

I love the blind detractors of ZO, who look for the death of the game in every possible news article. Next up: it's all Obama's fault.

They hired people for the pending console release. They delayed the console launch. Those temporary workers were laid off early due to the delay. It's a completely normal occurrence.

Obama? Or Osama?

It was clearly George Bush's fault.

Kingslayer

Mortosk wrote: »

Kingslayer wrote: »

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

Blackwidow wrote: »

I love the blind supporters of ZOS. Bless their little hearts.

The ship is on fire and it is sinking?

Well when the ship sinks, the fire will be put out, so ship should be okay!

I love the blind detractors of ZO, who look for the death of the game in every possible news article. Next up: it's all Obama's fault.

They hired people for the pending console release. They delayed the console launch. Those temporary workers were laid off early due to the delay. It's a completely normal occurrence.

Obama? Or Osama?

It was clearly George Bush's fault.

Leave the cowboy out of this lol

Mablung

ipkonfigcub18_ESO wrote: »

Well, I'm glad I did what I did with my account then. If this is actually true, I have no interest in giving money to a company like this. I'd rather give $15 a month to someone laid off from ZoS.

I think it's safe to say this is the reason this game is dying off fast.

I just went back to SWtoR. Dropped a dime there too. Wow. F2P in that game works quite well.

Reykice

“It’s a disgrace how workers were treated. If they showed up at 10.30pm for the night shift, they were being told to go home at 11pm, that their jobs were gone,” he said.


Wow...

Blackwidow

nerevarine1138 wrote: »

I love the blind detractors of ZO, who look for the death of the game in every possible news article.

We are not blind. We just took our rose colored glasses off.

They hired people for the pending console release. They delayed the console launch. Those temporary workers were laid off early due to the delay. It's a completely normal occurrence.

I agree that the first part is very innocent.

It's the next part the is bad.

“Four weeks ago, another 50 were let go, and over the last few days, another 20 or 30.

“It’s a disgrace how workers were treated. If they showed up at 10.30pm for the night shift, they were being told to go home at 11pm, that their jobs were gone,” he said.

If you don't see this as a bad sign, I don't know what to tell you.

Reykice

c0rp wrote: »

michaelpatrickjonesnub18_ESO wrote: »

It's a garbage game. What did you expect...

Need more firings. But higher up.

Garbage enough you are still here 2+ months after launch eh?

Sadly a lot of us either used GTC`s or payed for more than 3 months... and they don`t give refunds trust me i tried.

Sandmanninja

I contracted for 10 years. Some contracts were for 2 weeks. Some were for 6 months. Some were on-going (kept you as long as they needed you). Some short contracts were extended. Some long-term contracts were cut short.

ALL have TRAINING of some sort. It's factored in.

It's a great way for the company to save money (they're contractors - no benefits) and the contractors usually get a "Contractor Loading" factored into their wages (usually 25% above the going rate).

That's the Corporate world, peeps.

I've rolled my eyes so many times when I see someone say "F2P! Lolz!" at any news.
"Server maintenance? F2P! Lolz!"
"Bugs! F2P! Lolz!"
"Bots! F2P! Lolz!"

ffs grow up and get a clue.

bugulu

Blackwidow wrote: »

“Four weeks ago, another 50 were let go, and over the last few days, another 20 or 30.

“It’s a disgrace how workers were treated. If they showed up at 10.30pm for the night shift, they were being told to go home at 11pm, that their jobs were gone,” he said.

If you don't see this as a bad sign, I don't know what to tell you.

Sorry, that's pretty much how all companies work.
That is not uncommon in big organisations where people who were supposed to work at a specific time got told to go home without pay.

We have no idea why those people got layed off. Could it be that EU migration will never come? Console launch got delayed? Hiring more people than necessary for the job?

All just speculations, swallowing it as the truth though and claiming that ESO will go to F2P (not necessary you but some posters in the forums) is not the smartest thing to do.

Blackwidow

Sandmanninja wrote: »

I've rolled my eyes so many times when I see someone say "F2P! Lolz!" at any news.
"Server maintenance? F2P! Lolz!"
"Bugs! F2P! Lolz!"
"Bots! F2P! Lolz!"

ffs grow up and get a clue.

The only way it is going F2P is all the players going away.

ffs grow up and get a clue.

You must be a poet.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

Mablung wrote: »

ipkonfigcub18_ESO wrote: »

Well, I'm glad I did what I did with my account then. If this is actually true, I have no interest in giving money to a company like this. I'd rather give $15 a month to someone laid off from ZoS.

I think it's safe to say this is the reason this game is dying off fast.

I just went back to SWtoR. Dropped a dime there too. Wow. F2P in that game works quite well.

I went back there earlier this year .. stayed for a couple of weeks then remembered why I stopped playing it before .. it still has no end-game for non-PVPers.

Sad.

fromtesonlineb16_ESO

gougefub17_ESO wrote: »

No EU Server??.

Since ZOS don't plan on putting the EU mega-server in Galway your speculation is pointless.