I originally wasn't going to buy the Season One tome, but I think I might as well at this point. I'm still going to play this game, as usual.

CAB_Life wrote: »

I mean the people who knee-jerked and cancelled their subs really aren’t helping. I think NOT overreacting atm until we know the scope of the damage (random deleted BlueSky tweets don’t count) and the lay of new roadmap is a healthy mindset to have.

People who value their $ make decisions based on what is best for them.

If M$ going to short sheet us this way for financial reasons, I'm going to protect my own financial security as well, thank you very much.

I’m curious, this is not my wheelhouse, but given the statements made about ESO being around another decade or more, and the parallel heavy push on monetizing in game items through the crown store or tomes, would it be insane to think there’s a legal issue they’d face if they “pull the plug”?

Personally, I'm in the condition of not being able to do much. The sub on my main account is annual and renewed last week, so cancelling or renewing wouldn't happen for another year. The sub on my alt account is quarterly and also renewed a couple of weeks ago. I'll probably renew it since I'm not hearing anything other than doom-and-gloom speculation from the community (and a few sensible folks saying "wait and see"), but the people who know what's going on are still scrambling to figure out what the path forward is going to look like.

The servers aren't shutting down, so there's no reason that I can see to not continue to play as usual and wait for the people who know what's going on to get a chance to tell me what's going on. Quakecon is still on, AFAIK, and there will probably be a crown sale at that time. Depending on which houses, music boxes, or what have you are being dangled in front of me at the time, I'll probably buy crowns because the servers aren't shutting down and there's no reason not to. Because my sub just renewed, I've got Premium Points to cover the new Tome, but I'm leaning toward spending the $15 for my alt account to get the Premium Tome.

In short, until someone with a lot more knowledge than the doom-and-gloomers gives me a reason to change my mind, "Keep Calm and Play ESO" seems the prudent course as far as I'm concerned.

Here are some ways we can help the current situation:

1) Support the Game Worker Hardship Fund, organized the United Videogame Workers. There will be a charity game bundle that people can buy that will be released later this month with proceeds going to the fund.

2) Upvote this feedback post on the Microsoft site, that was created as a part of an industry-wide mobilization effort. When this post hits 25k upvotes, it will land on Asha Sharma's (XBOX CEO) desk. You can share it with others for a wider reach.

3) Be patient with ZOS; it looks like some teams have lost a lot of the people working in them, so it's easy to imagine the stress the remaining devs are going through right now. As a community, being patient in the following months, being helpful with providing feedback, participating in the test server are some of the things we can go to help ZOS with the game right now.

Many people here don't understand how it all works in such companies.
I'll tell you as someone who has gone through several stages of mass layoffs in one large IT company.
First, there are layoffs, then at the end of the next quarter, figures are received that show that profits have increased, because the lack of personnel has not yet had time to affect the quality of products, but money has already been saved on insurance, salaries, etc.
The company's execs are drooling with joy, every link in the human centipede of middle managers is happy about the achievement, shareholders are delighted. What's next? That's right. The layoffs have shown their effectiveness, at the end of the next quarter they make another wave.
No one looks at how and why the numbers have changed, no one analyzes the long-term effect and quality of the product, no one even thinks for a split second about the fate of the laid-off people. They are just numbers in spreadsheets.

So yeah, let's run and spend the last of our money, pour it into the gaping, predatory mouth of Macroslop.
Show them that their strategy actually works and brings great results and that they did everything right.
Because the only thing they will see in early October is "layoff -> more money"

As someone that has watched many MMOs die, choosing not to support the game is understandable. You're unsure of the future and in many ways feel slighted. However, choose to do so because you feel it's best for your own financial future. ESO is not WoW with 10s of millions of players. If ESO had amazing returns, Microsoft wouldnt be cutting the team in half. It's a safe assumption that MS's future plans and ESO's roi didn't align.

Nevertheless, you taking this personally and opting to pull support out of protest isn't going to make Microsoft feel bad or feel like they made a mistake. Cutting a team in half is like giving the remaining people a second chance and if things get worse that won't equate to a better outcome. That's the cold hard reality. Again, I'm not saying to keep throwing money at ESO but dont choose not to out of some misguided sense of justice. It's a horrible situation all around. Hopefully those impacted can find new/better opportunities and hopefully ESO isn't another MMO that's months away from the graveyard.

I get not wanting to support Microsoft but if we all stop supporting ESO all Microsoft will see is 'looks like ESO profits are dropping, time to make some more cuts'. By continuing (or increasing) my support of ESO I'm not going 'yeah Microsoft!', I'm supporting the people who work hard on making and maintaining this amazing game, I'm sending the message that this is worth giving resources to. By boycotting the big bad business in charge of the piece of media you love, all you essentially do is make sure the people that work on it will be negatively impacted, the big company will weather the storm in other ways. It's not like I'm donating money to a Microsoft gofundme, I'm putting my money directly into the piece that I want to show my love for.

SneaK wrote: »

I’m curious, this is not my wheelhouse, but given the statements made about ESO being around another decade or more, and the parallel heavy push on monetizing in game items through the crown store or tomes, would it be insane to think there’s a legal issue they’d face if they “pull the plug”?

They're unlikely to face any legal issues on this unless they really egregiously mishandle the shutdown (which hopefully is many years in the future yet).

None of ZOS's statements expressing a desire to be around another decade amount to any kind of guarantee that they would be around that long. As for monetization -- other monetized games have shut down before, it's not a new situation. (Generally, if a game is going to be shut down, the company will shut down the store almost as soon as the announcement is made, and long before the actual last day.)

With that said ... anyone can sue anyone for anything, I guess. But I doubt Microsoft's legal department suffered greatly in the recent cuts.

DoofusMax wrote: »

Mattymoo92 wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

- play the game
- support the game
- be supportive about the game
- be supportive about the past and present zos staff

So teach Microsoft that they can get rid of 50% of the staff and you are willing to support it. Are you a shareholder?

Actually, no. The continued support is mostly a message that the bean-counters were wrong. Pretty much like how yesterday's news was mostly a statement that Matt Booty and Phil Spencer were wrong. Be anti-corpo and spin it however you'd like, but bean-counters are bottom-line kinda folks and that's the only message they see and understand.

Accountants, what you are calling bean-counters, only report on the finances. They do not make decisions or predictions.
Please notice that calling an Accountant a "Bean-counter" is derogatory

Mattymoo92 wrote: »

Lagzee wrote: »

CAB_Life wrote: »

I mean the people who knee-jerked and cancelled their subs really aren’t helping. I think NOT overreacting atm until we know the scope of the damage (random deleted BlueSky tweets don’t count) and the lay of new roadmap is a healthy mindset to have.

This ^ more than anything.

Me and my group are staying cancelled and we won’t buy the tome tomorrow either, either way they WILL lose subscribers and players because of this )) not trying to gloat but 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ id rather spend money on companies that are more reliable — I hope the people currently working on the game remember how Microsoft treated their friends and find another job

We do not know how Microsoft treated 'their friends.' Sometimes lay-offs come with a locked out; however, I believe this one was more like a severance package for the vested and kind words and a company thank you for those that were not. Being laid-off is not a personal attack; it is a business strategy for companies that are losing money.

Ardriel wrote: »

Buy Microsoft stock. Lots of it.

Hahahahaha, that's great!

just when the game was turning a real corner doing lots of updates new stuff etc

Ilsabet wrote: »

Darkstorne wrote: »

I hope the higher-ups start to recognize that talent sooner rather than later, even if that means investing in whatever Rich is spearheading next (presumably ESO2 is the only project that would get a greenlight?) rather than investing in ESO.

Rich is out too. He's on the list being compiled here. In the stream chat (linked in that post) where he revealed his termination, he said "they don't need a studio game director anymore." So read into that what you will.

They don't need a position that was only created last year ... shocking.

SaintJohnHM wrote: »

Is there something we can do to help

We shouldn't do anything. The gaming industry made their bed, now they have to lie in it.