Blizzard has finally announced their mass layoff plans for 2012. It was done through both an official News Release and as a message on the Battle.net forums.

According to their release, Blizzard's savings from the layoffs were identified in their Feb 9, 2012 (Q4 2011) financial outlook, but the exact details of the workforce reduction were not considered material or important for the shareholders call. :)

Blizzard did not identify when the business review was conducted, only that it would benefit their 2012 financials and that they are currently involved in the global reduction of their workforce which will eventually result in a total of approximately 600 employees being laid off.

90% of the 600 are those in support function, finance, maintenance, recruiting, training, and other non-development related positions. The other 10% are gaming development related and we already know the names of some of those employees.

If you weren't already aware, I do still continuously update older posts and I was monitoring those Mass Layoff "rumors" up until late January.

Many of the employees from my original suspicion list were eventually confirmed and in the end, there were probably about 40-50 layoffs in late 2011 to early 2012. Most of them were Customer Support staff from both in and outside of their call centers.

I guess we finally have an answer as to why Blizzard was so ambiguous, but not exactly denying, those mass lay off rumors a few months ago.

Zarhym: The vast majority named in that article are at work today. FB profiles can't be used to confirm anything, especially a mass trend!

Bashiok: 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.

Layoffs of this magnitude have happened with Activision Blizzard many times in the past, and they typically happen around January/February (announced before the shareholders call.)

So, it shouldn't be much of a shock if you see this happen again next February (probably a smaller size though, and more on the Activision side.) The staff they're cutting are just redundant positions (mostly customer support), so these changes won't effect the development times of their games and it just means more savings for the company and happier investors.

A couple weeks ago, users were celebrating an awesome win for getting Blizzard to finally implement public chat in the game. (Though many believe Bashiok's claim that it was just a mistake.) Whatever the case may be, it's considered a win.

"Blizzard listened to us! We get public chat! Now I can trade items with other players and I don't have to worry about using the RMAH!"

Is this really the case though? What if it's just simple Public Chat, but not intended for Trade Chat? What if trading between players will actually be discouraged or difficult?

If I were Blizzard and I wanted to encourage as much use of the RMAH as possible, I would restrict loot linking, eliminate ways to communicate effectively for trade-specific purposes, or make trading as challenging as possible (for example, poor trading security.) Using a "Trade Chat" system outside of the game (ie, in the lobby room), without the ability to link items, is a great way to do it. Or, one could also make it so that players can't create public games with customized titles (like how trading could be done in D2).

You only need one of these options. If you have secure trading methods, then eliminate trade related communication methods. If you have proper Trade Chat, make secure trading more difficult. You don't need to do all of them otherwise their intentions become too elaborate or obvious. When players question why, Blizzard can confidently tell them that they DO have methods in place to allow trading.

The average player will always travel the soft path. If there are two services available, but one has accessibility or functional issues, they'll go with the easier one. If character-to-character trading is available (and secure), but public chat is limited so that it doesn't support loot linking or gear sharing, it's not a very good service. If public chat has loot linking, but item trading is insecure, it's not a very good service. In both cases it's "bad service" planned in advanced to encourage customers to use a better service.

So, which is the better service.. player-to-player trading or the Auction House?

We really don't know anything about the future Trade Chat features, though. It could go either way. Bashiok had promised details in the near future, so it remains to be seen what Blizzard has in mind. If the chat or trading features are still limited by retail, then we have our answer. If not, then Blizzard will act accordingly to their customer's needs.

Nothing is set in stone at this point. In it's current disappointing state, it requires more forum outrage and complaining, and hopefully Blizzard will eventually implement chat the way players want. If they, however, are looking for every little way to squeeze as much use out of the RMAH as possible, then don't expect loot linking or any other kind of trading mechanisms (like customized public games) in the initial retail version. Besides, if Blizzard won't implement these changes, someone else will always find a way, like that alternative "trade chat" website.

Just as an added note, too, Bashiok happened to make a comment about the Chat system recently as well. Basically, it's not to expect any changes before release. So, this is something I might re-examine 6 months after release (as well how or if players can even engage in some form of public trading without an external website service). But atleast you can understand some of the motivations behind keeping the chat system the way it is. And judging by the SC2 Chat System, I'm not really expecting Blizzard to make any significant changes.

I hope that D3XCHANGE.COM webpage was still being worked on though. :)

* UPDATE (03/01/2012):

Just an interesting note. Recent data mining of Diablo 3 revealed that Blizzard did, in fact, create a UI within D3 for users who wanted to create a custom named public game. So this feature was once in the game, but has been removed. Guess we'll see if Blizzard puts it back in for retail.

New Zenimax Trademark registration.. surprised no one has written about it yet (was filed Feb 17th.)

It's called "DAWNGUARD", and it appears to be Skyrim DLC, or less likely an expansion pack. Either way, it's a "downloadable game" and it doesn't sound like it's from the Fallout universe.

"So, if (or should I say when) runes as an item are removed, expect a very wide variety of +skill item modifiers."

Just an interesting note about this subject. This was not announced in the recent Jay Wilson Rune Changes post, and most players are not even aware of it yet.

However, recent data mining of Patch 13 has revealed that +skills are indeed a new Affix for items.

Ancient Spear Increased by 3-5 (Barbarian only)
Bash Increased by 4-5% (Barbarian only)
Seven-Sided Strike Increased by 3-5 (Monk only)
Sweeping Wind Increased by 4-5% (Monk only)

These are not "skill points" in the classical sense, like in Diablo 2.. but rather smaller (and stacking) modifiers to increase the skill's effect, whatever it might be. For example, increasing damage, duration of the skill, number of targets, total number of projectiles, length or range of the skill, healing effects, etc. So, the number will either be a percentage (damage) or a number (time).

It's sort of their way to still have "itemized runes" that can be sold in the Real Money Auction House. Now, these are just items that come with a mandatory Affix, but consider ultra rare drops (like one-use-only item enchants or unrevealed gems, that can also be sold on the RMAH) that can apply +skill effects to any weapon or armor of your choice.

Even though the Mystic has been removed from the game, expect it to make a re-appearance later in the future. For example, they have enough professions for the retail, so they're cutting out content now to save it up for the next expansion pack rather than dreaming up a new profession. (Blizzard has done this before.) And, with the Mystic might also come low end +skill enchants for any item of your choosing, rather than "Diablo Vanilla" only having the fixed +skills on gear.

For any new Affix they create, it will further increase the vast pool of total items, and therefore increase the total number of successful RMAH sales. Creating more items (even though they're really just the same) will be one of Blizzard's priorities given the new direction of the RMAH. It won't be just limited to weapons or gear; consider aesthetics for yourself or only for your followers, cool glowing or color-changing dyes, companions/pets, many new recipes, and even new gems. If the RMAH is great success, expect new items to start coming through patch updates (even in minor ones) or maybe even a rush of some things I just mentioned that they were saving up for D3 X1.

(Note: None of this has been officially announced yet, and many users on the Battle.net forums don't believe that this is going to happen.)