One of Joystiq's Blizzard tipsters (Steve) has informed them that John Staats has been let go. He was a Senior Level Designer (Level 2) on Titan. You'll find this news on plenty other sites, so I won't go into it too much. (Unless I dig up some other information that they haven't already announced.)

Other prior Titan troubles are detailed here.

* Update (11/07/11):

This "tip" could have been something as simple as his Facebook status update. He changed his status to no longer working at Blizzard, but he was still working there Oct. 25th at least (based on his comments).

If this was the reason, there may have been some more terminations as well. One of John Staat's Facebook friends, Trent Kaniuga has also changed his FB status to "Worked at Blizzard" as opposed to everyone elses "Works at Blizzard". He was a Sr. Concept Artist for Diablo 3 and was present at Blizzcon 2011.

(I don't use Facebook, so I'm not too familiar with FB sleuthing.. maybe you guys can investigate and confirm if this is correct or not?)

* Update (11/07/11):

Facebook status updates are also showing "Worked at Blizzard" (past tense) now on Dana Marie Bishop (Curatorial Assistant, was at this past Blizzcon and uploaded a bunch of personal pictures 3 days ago), Gino Whitehall (Concept Artist), Matt Milizia (Senior Environment Artist), and Paul Richards (Concept Artist) on the Titan team.

There are a dozen more, at least, recent Blizzard employees now showing "Worked at" as past tense.

(On a side note, I have actually followed Gino Whitehall's artwork in the past.. for a while I had thought that he was part of the Titan team or at least worked in the same circles.)

Was there a major overhaul a day or two before the Investors Call tomorrow? Maybe an announcement of restructuring within the organization? A loss in subscribers would explain Customer Support lay offs, for example.

If you guys are "FB gurus", let me know if this information is correct or if I made a mistake. I don't think it's a mistake though, as it looks pretty legit. It would make sense too, for a mass layoff shortly before an investor call (ie, rather than announcing it during the call and then laying off everyone at the end of the week. It's better to surprise employees for security reasons, as cruel as that sounds.)

Confirmed: When you are set as employed in FB, it will say "Works At". When you change your status (quick uncheck) to remove employment, it says "Worked At.." instead. They don't have new employers to revert to and they were most recently employed by Blizzard (e.g. many employees who were at Blizzcon are now showing "unemployed" statuses.) This all could be a mistake on their part, but they're all avid users of Facebook and changing their Employment status like this would be highly unusual. This appears to be a mass (multiple not "massive") layoff.

On a related note,

I was preparing a post for November 8th (in addition to the Quarterly Results Call), to basically show what to expect from Blizzard in 2012. But, if these layoffs are confirmed tomorrow, I'll have some more to write about. What's most interesting, though, is that they won't need any of these employees for Diablo 3 "crunch time" meaning that the game is much farther along than most people suspect. The only thing holding them back now are probably still those technical challenges and the RMAH integration.

* Update (11/08/11):

Looks like I can add a couple more names to the list, if the Joystiq rumor is true and FB is the source of their "tip". Joshua Horst (Producer) and Andrea Toyias (Casting and Voice-Over Director). Andrea was actually one of the Q&A Panelists for Diablo 3 at Blizzcon. I could have sworn that Peet Cooper (Sr. Environment Artists for Diablo 3) had Blizzard listed on his FB account yesterday, but now it's gone. (This doesn't necessarily mean he was laid off, but maybe he knew about the FB sleuthing and decided to hide his employment listing.)

There are at least 20 other people I see that are "no longer working" at Blizzard, but I can't find any other evidence of their last working day - so they're all unconfirmed for the moment.

(And yes, for those who were going to ask, I'm getting a LOT of hits from Blizzard offices on this situation.)

* Update (11/08/11):

Some outside forum posters are taking this news as bad or taking their reasoning for these layoffs too far (e.g. "lost subs", "bad blizzcon", "pandas"). Just to clarify, if this rumor ends up being true, this is just a perfectly normal process and a "seasonal" activity that's based on development timelines. This happens all the time, you just don't know about it since official announcements are never made. Titan is not cancelled, there just appears to be some reorganization to keep their vision and performance on track. Besides, "Titan" is just a name.. it can be applied to any number of different MMOs they are testing internally. This is very good news for Diablo 3, however, since typically there are layoffs following development completion. And as always, make sure you read comments too.. they further expand on a lot of these blog posts. :)

* Update (11/08/11):

Blizzard Community Manager Zarhym (Jonathan Brown) has claimed that it is all false evidence, that the status changes were just accidents, and it's all just basically rumor mill while there have been no terminations at all.

"Tons of speculation based on false evidence. Score one for Internet rumor mill? RT @blakex Yeah, just read that article..."

Bashiok (Micah Whipple) is also confirming the same, that no one has been laid off. Apparently, it's all just accidental.

So there you have it. The Blizzard response is basically "Nothing to see here, move along."

Does their official stance on speculation still apply if official statements are made by Blizzard employees using official Blizzard game names and on platforms used for dispensing company news releases?

"Blizzard Entertainment does not comment on rumors or speculation."

Of course, both LinkedIn and Twitter are public sources as well and anything you see written on there is also false evidence and speculation (Zarhym Logic™). No one in their right mind would ever publish accurate employment information on their Facebook profiles for heaven's sake. That's just crazy tin foil hattery. So, I wouldn't believe any information you read about on Twitter either.. it's highly inaccurate and should not be depended on.

* Update (11/08/11):

Zarhym (Source):

I'm not in PR and won't officially comment here on rumors or speculation. You control the quality of your reporting. @titan_mmo

But.. but.. you already did comment on rumor and speculation! :)

Mike Sacco (Source):

@talkingcongas I seriously hate that Daeity person

Hahahaha.. say, wasn't Sacco that guy who said Blizzard has never had any security breaches or leaks?

Official statement released on public forums:

Hey guys, out of respect for their privacy, we don’t discuss individual employees, but the speculation circulating about ‘massive layoffs at Blizzard’ is just a rumor.

Thread locked.

Now.. is that a "rumor rumor" or a "Tom Chilton rumor"? :)

Note: He's referring to a "massive" layoff rumor on the forum. On this blog, I'm just speculating on "mass" layoffs. I know it's not "massive".. maybe a dozen or more. Strange that he worded it that way though. Also, I thought that Blizzard Entertainment did not comment on rumor and speculation? Interesting..

* Update (11/08/11):

Joystiq.com has confirmed that there have been no layoffs.. including the one they originally reported themselves..

They wrote:

Yesterday, a handful of gaming news sites reported that a senior designer working on the new Titan MMO had gotten laid off by Blizzard Entertainment.

And then they linked back to themselves as the source of these rumors. Okay.

Anyways.. "layoffs never happened" and "Blizzard employees still have their jobs."

As per Joystiq, John Staats, Trent Kaniuga, Paul Richards, etc are all still employed with Blizzard. No one has been laid off recently.

(* March 2012 Update: All 3 of those employees were indeed laid off around the same time.)

Funny comments on their post though. Apparently, I was the one who started the rumor that John Staats was laid off. Joystiq is also claiming that the FB investigation revealed HUNDREDS of Blizzard employees laid off. Funny.. I thought I speculated on 8 names and assumed a dozen or so IF the rumor (started by Joystiq mind you) was proven true.

* Update (11/08/11):

Joystiq.com has two conflicting blog posts now. In one corner, we have Blizzard and Joystiq claiming that there have been no layoffs. Everything is just rumor, hence untrue. In the other corner, they're confirming that John Staats was indeed terminated.

So, this brings us all back to the original speculation. We may learn more in the coming weeks or months.

* Update (11/14/11):

Another FB profile confirmed. Paul Richards was indeed let go as speculated. I think we'll see a lot more layoffs over the next coming months too, and I'll continue to monitor.

(Continuation here. 12 employees were later confirmed, not including the several dozens of Technical Support and CSR positions. Under the WARN Act, a "mass layoff" can consist of 2 or more individuals too. So whether you use the legal definition of "mass layoff" or a mass of layoffs, they both apply.)

So, I was reading an interesting post on DiabloFans about difficulty levels. Basically, the "tl;dr" version is that based on various interviews, Beta gameplay, and Blizzard quotes about the four D3 difficulty levels, it seems that the game will be very easy to play and that players won't hit the expected level of difficulty until sometime in Hell mode (e.g. Hell is the new Normal.)

I thought it was a delightful and thought provoking article. He had citations and sources, it was speculation of course since the game's not out yet, but it does rather raise some interesting theories, thoughts and concerns.

Normally, I just skip everything on Diablofans because it's the exact same article posted on every other gaming forum, blog, and fan site. They only post official announcements, official videos, changes to FAQs, official posts about class changes, website changes, Blue posts, etc.

However, this one stood out because he took pieces from many different interviews, and put them together into one cohesive idea. The author, Magistrate, provided reasons, proof, and sources for his concerns.

But unfortunately something happened:

I apologize for any undue amount of negativity that this post conveys. I highly value your feedback and will do my best to improve my approach to writing content that you read in the future. No, no one asked me to say this. I say this because I care about the community that's been gathering here since 2006. When you're not happy, I'm not happy.

-Magistrate :)

Geeez.. what did those MONSTERS do to him?

He was voted down to hell, the readers got really angry, he received hate mail and threats, and he needed to issue a public apology to the community.

I didn't see any negativity at all in his post. But apparently when you question decisions or talk about concerns on upcoming class changes, you're a hateful, raging, conspiracy nut who despises Blizzard and all of their games.

Does any of that sound right to you? He strayed into forbidden territory ("Dude.. you should have just copied-and-pasted the latest blue post about icon colors being changed.") so they ripped him apart. I hate these toxic environments.

But, you know.. there was something about the website that I found very strange that could explain the "Don't Think, Don't Question" attitude. I was getting quite a headache looking at the website, so I put on some "special 1980's style sunglasses" that I had found back in an old abandoned church next to a shantytown in LA. Suddenly, it all made sense.

Here's what the webpage looked like before the sunglasses:

And, here's what it looked like after the sunglasses:


So yeah, it makes a lot of sense now. Now, I always thought that the difficulty levels were going to be pretty easy too. Except until you hit maybe the middle of Hell and then the Inferno difficulty. The reason for having such a harsh difficulty wall in place is because it forces players to upgrade their equipment.. and that equipment can only be found on the Real Money Auction House. Blizzard pushes players to a certain point where they hit a wall, and in order to get past the wall, Blizzard pushes them into the RMAH where only the best gear can be found. That's what I would do if I was a standard marketing and financial staff member. :)

It's probably going to be a quiet week here, at least until November 8th (when there will be a lot of big news items.) So, I'll be getting all of the smaller posts out of the way today:

• Unfortunately, both the Activision Blizzard and Take Two financial calls will be taking place on the same day at the same time. For the upcoming Activision Blizzard call, you can expect the same "Better than expected Third Quarter 2011 Financial Results" announcement. Even if there were poor results, they'll always be "better than expected". Mike Morhaime will talk about how successful Blizzcon was and he'll summarize all of the prior announcements (e.g. D3 CE, WOW Annual Pass, and the new expansion pack. Basically anything that makes the investors money.) I'm also eagerly anticipating the D3 Release Date (although, SC2 was announced just 3 days before the investor call in 2010). If there is no release date announced by next week, that probably means more technical difficulties and longer delays. He will probably also release the number of attendees during Blizzcon, which should be higher than what was announced on the first day.


• During the investor call, make note of Mike Morhaime's special wording of Virtual Ticket Live Stream viewer counts. :) He'll talk about the DIRECTV customers, but conveniently leave out live stream viewers paid directly to Blizzard. The DIRECTV viewer counts will probably be a little bit higher too than what he first announced during Blizzcon 2011. Masking direct live stream customers is a great way to show improved revenue actually. If I was an investor and there was an extra $20 million in monthly revenue, for example, I would have had no idea where it actually came from and I would assume that it was from subscriptions. This brings up an interesting theory; during 2011 when there were no new game releases, they couldn't hide lost revenue due to declining subscribers (so the information was casually mentioned during the call, but never officially announced.) However, during periods of major revenue spikes (e.g. new games sales or Blizzcon), their revenue figures can be massaged and subscriber numbers don't need to be brought up. So, will Mike Morhaime discuss subscriber decline or will it be left out next week? :)


• Assuming everything stays on course with the D3 release schedule, you should also expect a PayPal/Battle.net integration website and instructions in the coming months. It will probably be announced atleast a month before the release date, and will allow players to setup their "Cashing Out" account, integrate with B.Net, learn about how to use it, and start depositing money into their B.Net credit account in advance of the D3 release. You might see some signs of this if the webpage is taken down for maintenance in December, for example.


• The DC Universe Online website was down all day yesterday, pissing off a lot of players who wanted to try out the new F2P change. I guess they ran into some major problems.. I was hoping to get an account going myself, but learned too late that they provided a link on their Facebook site due to their technical difficulties. I'm in no real rush though.


• The new GTA V trailer had some nice visuals. With all of the enhancements made to GTA IV PC, though, it looks kind of bland. :) I'm hoping that buildings will be more explorable in GTA V.. in all of the others, you could only enter certain structures.


• NBC's Grimm finally aired. It turned out to be exactly as I had pictured in my mind. The original preview had already given away the entire story. The pilot episode was very bad, I hope it fails. And there were so many inconsistencies, like a small 2 block park that suddenly turned into a huge forest. Or the impossible TARDIS-like mobile home owned by the aunt; it's 4 times as big on the inside than it is on the outside, it has a steel floor but super creaky wooden boards when he walked across them, women won't weigh anything inside the mobile home (his girlfriend walked right in without making a sound on the impossibly creaky boards), and there's no vibration or shaking inside the mobile home when it moves (candle sticks, books, ornaments, etc all standing up straight.) I hope they have a new sound guy for the next episodes too.. it was terrible, and even the screams were the same clips used in a thousand other shows/films from 20 years ago.


• I'm hoping to make up a video about Grimm actually.. just need to find the time to learn the software.


• I also regularly watch Boardwalk Empire. Not on the top of my list, but it's something to kill the time. I totally didn't expect that knocked up mistress being discovered by Agent Nelson's wife. The guy was such a psychopath, I was half expecting him to wait until the child was born, kill the girl, and then surprise the wife with an "adopted" child that was in fact his own. She was so desperate to have her own child after all.


• Do you guys have any "interesting blog" suggestions? I'm having a hard time finding some really good blogs to read. Everything out there is the same old stuff, and it's awful boring. Where are all of the good blogs or sites? I pretty much only check up on Tobolds and Wolfshead occasionally (and Titanfocus now, of course). Tobolds feels like it's rushed though.. like he needs to make at least one post a day, so the quality suffers. Wolfshead I like, but he only makes an update once a month, and this last one was a 3 month hiatus. If I only made posts here once a month, there would be some amazingly huge articles. :) Is there a secret forum somewhere where people discuss really interesting non mainstream topics? Maybe someone should create one, with an elite invite list for people from differing fields of expertise or industry connections.


• And finally, some Titan related "blasphemy". This might be a good topic to expand on later, but here are some of my initial thoughts. Everyone is highly anticipating Titan, and Blizzard has talked about how great the game is to play. They always describe it as raising the bar and "next gen", implying that the game will be better than WOW. We all believe it, and I'm guilty of the same. But what no one is talking about is "what if Titan fails?" In all of the hype, I just forgot that WOW might just be Blizzard's most successful game ever and Titan will never reach the same heights. The one thing that Blizzard is really good at is making sure they release only great games.. it's a lesson they learned probably around 2000 and when Diablo 2 came out. If they had the same game design philosophy that they do now, they probably would have never started work on WC Adventures or allowed the Hellfire expansion pack. Starcraft Ghost would probably have still started development and cancelled though when they realized that it didn't meet Blizzard's quality. The same might happen with Titan. It's still in very early development, and if it doesn't meet Blizzard's level of quality standards, it could be scrapped, substantially delayed, or the game completely redesigned from scratch but still using the same game code ("Titan") so as not to scare their investors. Hell, for all we know, there could be 3 different Titan games currently being worked on. :) If it does get delayed, cancelled, or does not perform as well as WOW, the "TITANic: Too Big To Fail?" memes will be endless. What if it ends up being a kids game, or targets stay-at-home moms like Zynga, thereby alienating the bulk of Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft players? Maybe Titan was a bad choice in a code word for the game. Perhaps there's a curse? :)