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Comment by epicureanideal | Hacker News Reader

Is there a VC out there that can just throw a few tens of millions of dollars at these employees and literally just teleport them from Blizzard to NewBlizzard in the same roles in a new company with a culture they prefer?

I'm actually surprised this isn't "a thing". If a large percentage of a well known, profitable company doesn't agree with a direction it's taking... why doesn't a VC or private equity just help finance a new company and absorb those people into it? If the people have anything to do with the products they create, they should be able to compete with their former employer as relative equals, and possibly even with an advantage because their former employer has lost a significant amount of staff.

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If we had Freedom of Ideas, then yes, you could pull this off.

But we don't have that. We have copyrights and patents. Those with capital have a lot more freedom with ideas. Those without, don't.

If we abolish copyright and patent laws (https://www.reddit.com/r/ifa), then workers will have a lot more power.

Video games are one part idea and three parts implementation.

And the talent at Blizzard has no lack of good ideas.

More like one part idea and 9,999 parts implementation.

Nearly all raw ideas are unworkable. It takes considerable engineering to turn it into a workable idea, before implementing it.

For example, the idea of running current through a wire to heat it up till it glows, and voila! You've invented the electric light!

No, you haven't. You'll need to determine:

1. wire size

2. wire composition

3. how much voltage to apply

4. how much current

5. how to keep the wire from melting and burning up

6. how to supply voltage and current

7. how to keep the filament for setting nearby things afire

8. what kind of fixture to put the wire in

9. how to manufacture it for a reasonable cost

10. how to manufacture it in quantity

and probably a number of other things, too.

That... seems optimistic about the state of the modern average engineer at Blizzard. Which isn't to say that folks are bad at their jobs, but it's not as if it's a company that's done well-received and breakthrough modern game design in the last 5 years.

If anything, the folks who made the company what it was either were the people being protested or left 5-10 years ago, or both.

This ignores how Blizzard works. They operate on glacial time scales. They released, Overwatch five years ago, which was fantastic. They haven’t released any new games since then.

There's been a noted downward trend though. See the sc2 expansions and the remastered games.

My first thought was that can't be right, but the only noteworthy thing was overwatch in 2016.

I don't have high hopes for Diablo 4, though I'll probably end up buying it anyway...

One part idea? I've been told that "ideas are essentially worthless" for the 20 years I've been developing software. What changed?

I’d say in most cases they are useless by themselves. An old idea implemented in a superior way (or, as EA knows well, with slightly shinier graphics) can still be a huge success.

An amazing idea but with no or a bad implementation is worthless to you.

they have trade marks like skeleton king, even other big companies like valve bow down to blizzard

Yep, so I wouldn't suggest a potential competitor try to make a game about skeleton kings.

... Minecraft, on the other hand, was an adequate idea (and not even original to Notch) doggedly implemented over years of iteration.

Several senior employees left the company to form new studios, taking several people with them. Ben Brode and Mike Morheim for example.

Frost Giant.

That VC would need a lot of confidence in the team to be willing to fully fund them with no revenue, clients, or IP.

Sure, but to whatever extent the human resources are the engine that drives creation of revenue, clients, and IP, it would seem that taking a large chunk of an existing working machine would have better odds than some other startup, right?

That's the point, they aren't. You need developers to execute but with today's triple A franchise titles and marketing-heavy launches it's not sufficient.

I don't think they are. I think at most companies most people are replaceable. Each company has a few key players that are truly cornerstone employees. Almost everyone else can be swapped out as needed. Not saying losing a key Sr. wont cause a set back but with the right hire (and they are not that scarce) they are back on track in a bit. Most of us think we are super valuable and that a company will suffer when we leave but reality is that it rarely happens; there are of course exceptions. Blizzard already the has the IP, everything else is just cogs.

These people are just inherently creative, just look at hearthstone which was a prototype "quickly made" by Brode and friends while inside Blizz

They could easily create large IPs and games if they so desired/needed, after all that's what they were hired to do in the first place

Fair enough, I’m coming at this from more of a non-gaming tech / SaaS startup lens. Maybe it would work, I’m not sure!

What would those employees do there? They cant just start working on New World of Warcraft, its protected by copywrite. Companies get an idea and then scale as the idea is built out. They would need to come up with an idea but they would just hemorrhage money for years while it was built out. Small groups may break off and start working on something but it would be the seed of the idea and they would scale as they needed too.

That's what Uncapped Games, Front Giant, Dreamhaven, Lightforge, Bonfire, etc. are.

Also, https://seconddinner.com/, started by Ben Brode (former Hearthstone director).

Why would you put up your investors money to take your competitors problem off their hands?

Coinbase agrees with you. Cost them a few bucks to offload anyone that was not truly committed to their cause and only their cause.

> in the same roles in a new company

Aren't the protesters pretty much by definition protesting the most productive actual employees though? If whatever the protesters are saying about the ones being protested is even remotely true, then the people being protested must have been incredibly valuable to remain protected under such accusations - and the protesters themselves are the ones who are viewed as effectively expendable.

Why would you ever take this VC’s money if this was their thing?

Because you were tired of the crap at BigCompany and this VC was offering you a way out?

look up Frost Giant

I suspect it's also, in stark reality, not that many employees that would actually leave. Many people are willing to signal virtual. How many are actually willing to sacrifice? The article lists 3000 "current and former" employees. Let's assume 1000 are current and 20% are willing to leave. Blizzard losing 200/9500 of their workforce isn't that significant. Even if all 1000 would leave, that still is within bounds of a layoff. DHH's company seems to be doing fine.

That really depends which 200 left.

The right person will take 10 others.

Why? What makes you believe there is any advantage in these particular individuals?

Frankly, is it coming to the point where we have to say it's too dangerous for men and women to work together? Dangerous for individuals and companies a like.

Non-compete clauses are very much a thing in our industry I wouldn’t be surprised if Blizzard were to enforce—or at least threaten to enforce—them if a sizable bulk of their workers migrated to a new workplace.

They sort of tried I think, but it wasn’t very successful. They fired a couple of founders from a successful studio that Activision owned - Infinity Ward (known for Call of Duty). Those two went on to create Respawn Entertainment, a studio where many ex-Infinity Ward members joined them.

There were many other studios created by ex-ActivisionBlizzard employees but I think this had the most bad blood associated with it.

Not in California.

If your jurisdiction has different laws than California for non-compete, that's a red flag.

I doubt an average tech worker knows the extent of the non-compete clause in their contract. And I doubt anybody except skilled lawyers know whether the non-compete clause will hold if they are moving to a new startup which is registered in Delaware. It is enough for Activision to threaten to sue, and surely that will deter many enough workers from moving together that they wont be able to move as a team.

> And I doubt anybody except skilled lawyers know whether the non-compete clause will hold if they are moving to a new startup which is registered in Delaware

Doesn't matter if the work is performed in California.

The average worker—including my self—doesn’t know that and can therefor be intimidated by a potential law suit.

I wish engineering programs added a law crash course: types of partnerships, how equity comp works and basic employment laws.

At good schools you can generally enroll in one as an elective.

In California?

You can always threaten to sue, that is often enough of a deterrent.

Not in CA.

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