Activision-Blizzard to Close its Office in France

[AleksandarK]

Activision-Blizzard is one of the largest companies involved in the making of video games and they are accountable for many popular game franchises known to every gamer. Today, according to a report from Bloomberg, we have found out that Activision-Blizzard holding company will close the doors of its office located in Versailles, France. This move puts an end to company operations in that country. The company has informed its employees on Tuesday regarding the office closure, and thus has laid-off about 400 people the office accounted for. Generally speaking, there were no developer roles involved here.

The France office specialized in marketing, localization, and customer support, so no game developers were fired. At the beginning of this year, 1/4 of all France office employees were laid-off already and got their severance packages, while the rest of the employees affected by this move are expecting relocation somewhere else in Europe. A company spokesman corresponding with Bloomberg has said that "Over the past year we have been exploring how we might best integrate our capabilities across the business, enabling us to better leverage talent, expertise and scale as we adapt to the needs of a fast-paced, highly-competitive, digitally focused industry". This is quite a vague answer the spokesman gave; however, it is the only information we have.



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[Arcdar]

This is/was an Office purely run by Blizzard for Marketing, Social-Engagement and Support issues for their different games.

So in the end it's most likely a pure move from Activition Closing one of Blizzards Locations leveraging the real-estate they have there (liquifying assets) as well as reducing workforce
to increase shareholder-dividents at the end of the year….

Congrats, even more support outsorced to India/wherever it is the cheapest, no matter how much issues this creates for the customers. Removing localisaasation Teams out of the actual
Location you want to work it out for is just …. braindead. But hey, cost factors are the most important part and the most important People who will see stuff will anyway see it for/in the
US market where everything "is fine"..... *sigh*


Sorry for all People affected by it. It's a dumb move in my opinion and the Paris Office always did a great Job.

 

[Vayra86]

Dead weight prestige office.

Besides, you've all got phones now, so why should we still care, Blizzard?

 

[ZeppMan217]

Congrats, even more support outsorced to India/wherever it is the cheapest, no matter how much issues this creates for the customers. Removing localisaasation Teams out of the actual
Location you want to work it out for is just …. braindead.

Aren't these performed by dedicated localization studios that cover EGFIS? I'd imagine that a studio as big as ActiLizzard has their own crew somewhere in Europe and don't need a specific location to do their job.

 

[Julhes]

Activision-Blizzard took advantage of the tax exemptions and now it's going.

 

[Arcdar]

Aren't these performed by dedicated localization studios that cover EGFIS? I'd imagine that a studio as big as ActiLizzard has their own crew somewhere in Europe and don't need a specific location to do their job.

Actually, they do have specific Teams for certain regions, but the Overall Organisation and Management as well as the main localisation effort for Europe (France, Germany, Spain and Italy) was done Right there in Paris. At least it was last time I visited there .

They also had the "final line of customer support" for Europe there. Meaning, everything which couldn't be handeled by india or needed dedicated Input (in the same timezone) was handeled there.

Finally if you wanted to Partner with Blizzard for Events, needed a contact regarding using their games in an Event or talk About Sponsorship as well as the Overall European Marketing and Engagement-Team (for instance for the "small" games Event in Cologne) was done there in Paris.

Most of it will work similarly with whoever takes over the Job (most likely @ Blizzard HQ? ) but still Change the way of Engagement/Marketing/Customer-Support we were used to from Blizzard. So in General, just another Thing which will Change to the negative side since Activition bought Blizzard.

 

[Vayra86]

Actually, they do have specific Teams for certain regions, but the Overall Organisation and Management as well as the main localisation effort for Europe (France, Germany, Spain and Italy) was done Right there in Paris. At least it was last time I visited there .

They also had the "final line of customer support" for Europe there. Meaning, everything which couldn't be handeled by india or needed dedicated Input (in the same timezone) was handeled there.

Finally if you wanted to Partner with Blizzard for Events, needed a contact regarding using their games in an Event or talk About Sponsorship as well as the Overall European Marketing and Engagement-Team (for instance for the "small" games Event in Cologne) was done there in Paris.

Most of it will work similarly with whoever takes over the Job (most likely @ Blizzard HQ? ) but still Change the way of Engagement/Marketing/Customer-Support we were used to from Blizzard. So in General, just another Thing which will Change to the negative side since Activition bought Blizzard.

I think its more like 'Since Activision met NetEase and visited China'.

Asian Esports and the huge market has gone to their heads. They're diversifying at a direct cost to their old fanbase. Because hey, screw people, more money. They've been wanting to dive head first into microtransactions for years now, they saw Riot (LoL), they saw Dota that moved out to Valve... and their own spinoffs never really made waves. Overwatch... for all the good it has, isn't a real skin factory like say Fortnite has become.

They want their piece of the pie and they know they can't sell that on the regular platforms. They know they need to go deep into the cesspit of MTX-driven mobile games, and they've done it. We're just old, whiny and expensive idiots to them now.

Said before... their last saving grace is Diablo. If they don't completely screw that up like they raped number 3 (its still a mess, yes, repetitive crap beyond the first playthrough of campaign, and no, expansion didn't save it, it just gave you a new campaign)... they might just claw back out of this pit.

 

[Turmania]

I wish Blizzard was never sold to them.

 

[Tomorrow]

I guess Bobby needs another pay raise: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Kotick#Compensation

 

[Chrispy_]

Ugh, Activision.

They're not quite as bad as EA but man they sure do try to be. I guess they don't give a damn about the Blizzard employees they've just fired.

 

[Gungar]

Dead weight prestige office.

Besides, you've all got phones now, so why should we still care, Blizzard?

Haha touché!