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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2015 20:35:51 GMT -5
I'm going off on a tangent here, but a part of me wishes Hasbro had bought Neo instead. Hasbro's got a pretty good relationship with fans. I'm a Transformers fan, and Hasbro (and to a lesser extent, FunPub, the group that runs the official Transformers fan club) listens to the fans and do all sorts of crazy stuff to make us happy. And even though I'm not a brony, they have a FANTASTIC relationship with Hasbro, moreso than even TF fans; I'm envious of them  G.I. Joe fans... Well, Hasbro isn't BAD to them, but they still don't get much other than convention exclusives, mainly 'cos Joe is kinda, yannow, not terribly relevant the way TF and MLP are these days. I doubt it'd happen, but Hasbro is one of those few IP companies that actually LISTENS to the fandom, and I love them for it. Sure, I may not think all of their decisions are great, but they tend to be better to the fans than most companies. Even the executives of the company are a relatively decent lot. Why does this make me want to rage more? Like seriously, I read this and I become all but furious. I don't even know this man and I already hate him. :K It's typical CEO-speak. They want to look like they're being nice, but they're still lying through their teeth :/ |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2015 21:40:43 GMT -5
Yannow, I was seriously in shock when I saw the news yesterday on JN. Now I'm just angry.
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Post by Dan on Mar 9, 2015 22:09:25 GMT -5
Where is this "30 minutes before end of the day" come in? I haven't seen that referenced anywhere except some posts here.
I know it's hard, but it's important not to draw conclusions or make big leaps based on misinformation or our own ideas of what happened. That's where rumors get out of control. As far as I know, we haven't seen anything on just how they handled things, so let's not make assumptions.
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Post by Shinko on Mar 9, 2015 22:23:38 GMT -5
Where is this "30 minutes before end of the day" come in? I haven't seen that referenced anywhere except some posts here. I know it's hard, but it's important not to draw conclusions or make big leaps based on misinformation or our own ideas of what happened. That's where rumors get out of control. As far as I know, we haven't seen anything on just how they handled things, so let's not make assumptions. I have been wondering that too, but I wasn't sure if I should say anything. |
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Post by Patjade on Mar 9, 2015 22:35:11 GMT -5
Let's not get into too many wild fantasies yet. One can hope that the pe4ople at JS know what they are doing. I read the FB post and have my own ideas on what is going on, but idle speculation at this point isn't going to yield much.
Let's give it some time to see what happens.
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Post by Breakingchains on Mar 9, 2015 22:59:27 GMT -5
I will third Dan's question. I agree Lord's comments sound like CEO-speak, which is exactly... how I would expect a CEO to speak. There is a certain amount of eyerolling cheesiness one is expected to tack on to public announcements. Nobody really knows what is actually going on at JS, or the circumstances led to the layoff decision, or how pressing they were, or what exactly went down. I'm not trying to be all "Well I for one welcome our new overlords!" But that's just it--I'm specifically trying not to judge any of these people one way or another. For all I know the guy is a cackling caricature who did this for teh evuls while smoking a comically-huge cigar and stroking a persian cat seen slightly at an angle from behind his giant office chair. For all we know it might have actually been necessary. Actually, off the top of my head I don't even know whether there were other layoffs within Jumpstart, not just at neo. =/ I am just watching and waiting and crossing my fingers. |
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Post by thedoggirl on Mar 9, 2015 23:15:57 GMT -5
I will third Dan's question. I agree Lord's comments sound like CEO-speak, which is exactly... how I would expect a CEO to speak. There is a certain amount of eyerolling cheesiness one is expected to tack on to public announcements. Nobody really knows what is actually going on at JS, or the circumstances led to the layoff decision, or how pressing they were, or what exactly went down. I'm not trying to be all "Well I for one welcome our new overlords!" But that's just it--I'm specifically trying not to judge any of these people one way or another. For all I know the guy is a cackling caricature who did this for teh evuls while smoking a comically-huge cigar and stroking a persian cat seen slightly at an angle from behind his giant office chair. For all we know it might have actually been necessary. Actually, off the top of my head I don't even know whether there were other layoffs within Jumpstart, not just at neo. =/ I am just watching and waiting and crossing my fingers. I do get what you all are saying. I don't want to say the new TNT will be awful and automatically assume they will "ruin" everything. That's not fair. At the same time I am worried. Change can be very good and yet... It has it's painful stages. I'll do my best not to sound whiny and always negative. I'm sorry if it has seriously annoyed people. :c |
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Post by Carolyn on Mar 9, 2015 23:35:49 GMT -5
Okay, my bad. ^^; I was really, ah, quite angry before. I dunno. Maybe I've been around cynical people too much in real life. Methinks it's starting to make me cynical too. But anyway, I'm still not happy about the lay offs regardless of the situation. Even if it was "for the best," the wording in his note kind of put me off a bit.
I know a lot of people who are job searching (some for well over a year with no luck) right now, so maybe that's part of it. :/
Er... sorry about the emotional post before.
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Post by Breakingchains on Mar 9, 2015 23:41:26 GMT -5
No, I get what you guys're saying too. It's the end of an era and we're all upset and apprehensive. Even if we somehow knew for a fact going in that JS!Neo was going to be amazing it still sucks to lose our TNT, especially so suddenly.  |
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Post by Komori on Mar 9, 2015 23:49:28 GMT -5
Well, that's kind of the part that bothers me. Snarkie posted her "anyone need any designers for hire?" tweet on Friday, meaning they just found out they got laid off on Friday. The CEO posts his "we wish them all the best" on Monday, meaning they aren't coming into work. That is SERIOUSLY crappy to not give someone, especially a whole ton of someones, a two-week notice. I know it's not the first time it's happened in the games industry (seriously, so many Kotaku articles about similar nightmare scenarios), but it's still super terrible. I guess I can only hope they got some sort of severance, but I wouldn't be surprised if not.
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Mar 9, 2015 23:54:56 GMT -5
Why does this make me want to rage more? Like seriously, I read this and I become all but furious. I don't even know this man and I already hate him. :K Yeah... It may be just me projecting my feelings, but it doesn't feel sincere. :/ I get wanting to have more of JS people in the staff and TNT was never perfect, but this seems like a bad move. (But I don't know much about running a business.) Not to mention it feels like they posted this only because people were spamming JumpStart's Facebook with angry comments and questions. If people haven't done that I doubt they would have said anything. Dan: The "30 minute notice" was mentioned by JN Staff who talked with a now former TNT member. After getting done with work for the day, before 30 minutes of leaving many member of TNT were told that Neopets was being downsized and they were being laid off. It's sadly a common practice, my mom got laid off in a similar way. The firm she worked at gut acquired by another company who decided to downsize them and she was one of the people who got laid off. She was guided out of the building and a few days later we got a package of her stuff that was at her desk (that's another thing, the TNT members who were laid off probably weren't allowed to go back to their desks to collect their things. Though being TNT were close with another the ones who are left have probably helped packed their things to mail to them). Komori: Since they were laid off this isn't going to show up as a black mark on their record like being fired. If you were fired its because you did something wrong, but if you were laid off that's because the company had no more use for you, two very different things. You still lose your job, but for the person who lost their job its a major difference as those laid off can easily claim unemployment and theoretically find another job in the same field. Those fired have to convince it wasn't their fault to get unemployment and would be harder to convince employers in the same business to hire them. Stephanie (swordlilly): That was a beautiful poem.  Is Neopets still Neopets indeed... maybe we should all start calling this New Neopets instead. |
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Post by Patjade on Mar 9, 2015 23:55:10 GMT -5
Its not the first time Neopets changed. The Neopets of the early 200's doesn't look anything like the Neopets of last year. between switching to Flash primarily, and the Shockwave games, and NC stuff. There is very little in common. Viacom changed Neopets a lot. We will have to see what JS will do.
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Post by Carolyn on Mar 9, 2015 23:56:21 GMT -5
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure the JS team is full of some highly qualified, highly creative people. It's just... maybe it's silly to think this way, but TNT grew up with the site. They know the lore better than people who may not have been around to experience it (both as a player and, for some, behind the scenes). Part of me hopes that the site's fantastic world is not forgotten... and replaced. (Now I know how my brother feels in terms of the Forgotten Realms lore from Dungeons and Dragons (he's our gaming buff) but I digress). This Neopian world hosts an amazing diversity of characters and worlds and... those stories need some attention once more. They deserve that much. I know we're in for some changes, and that's fair enough, but maybe I'd be having an easier time accepting them if more of the original content people had been allowed to stay. It makes me worry that they'll have little say in what happens from here on out. Komori- Yeah... Snarkie's tweet is what first had me a bit uneasy. All of this seems to have happened very quickly indeed. Like, even their FB posts were business as usual last week, same with the new features. Its not the first time Neopets changed. The Neopets of the early 200's doesn't look anything like the Neopets of last year. between switching to Flash primarily, and the Shockwave games, and NC stuff. There is very little in common. Viacom changed Neopets a lot. We will have to see what JS will do. Fair point. Some change is to be expected, but didn't the previous changes have more advanced warning or notice than what has happened this past weekend? Perhaps not the customization shift as much, but... am I'm honestly curious now. |
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Post by Duke Pikachu on Mar 10, 2015 0:19:57 GMT -5
Its not the first time Neopets changed. The Neopets of the early 200's doesn't look anything like the Neopets of last year. between switching to Flash primarily, and the Shockwave games, and NC stuff. There is very little in common. Viacom changed Neopets a lot. We will have to see what JS will do. True, but then again Viacom sort of expanded Neopets capabilities (while probably also demanding they become more money making focused) They didn't lay off anyone as far as I know, if anything they added staff when their employees moved in, and gave Neopets money to do things they've always wanted to do like Customization. JumpStart however, well, we can't really say now. It's been a year since the purchase and in that time Neopets had to move their servers which caused a load of problems (but that's more Viacom's fault for forcing TNT out of their offices) and just now a whole batch of well TNT have been laid off. It sounds like JumpStart is more limiting Neopets capabilities, probably brought on by factors we don't know. As I said money troubles is in there somewhere, but where it is and if this helps solve it I don't know. We expected change, but in a way guided by the people who knew Neopets best. |
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Post by Stephanie (swordlilly) on Mar 10, 2015 0:31:08 GMT -5
I remember the layout change. Before, there was the yellow sidebar and the yellow scroll-banner for shops: I think the change happened with very little warning. People had been working on userlookups to go with the old code and then suddenly the sidebar was gone. I still kind of miss that yellow scroll-banner. But oh well, I've come to accept that change is part of life. Man, I just realized. 2007 (when the layout changed) is almost eight years ago now. o___o Also, I remember when my first pet, Yinna802, looked like this:  That was in my noob-days when I was in primary school, though. I didn't have access to the Neoboards or any of the social stuff until I rediscovered the site in my teens. I got my first Neopian Times article published when I was in high school. |
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Why does this make me want to rage more? Like seriously, I read this and I become all but furious. I don't even know this man and I already hate him. :KIt's typical CEO-speak. They want to look like they're being nice, but they're still lying through their teeth :/
G.I. Joe fans... Well, Hasbro isn't BAD to them, but they still don't get much other than convention exclusives, mainly 'cos Joe is kinda, yannow, not terribly relevant the way TF and MLP are these days. I doubt it'd happen, but Hasbro is one of those few IP companies that actually LISTENS to the fandom, and I love them for it. Sure, I may not think all of their decisions are great, but they tend to be better to the fans than most companies. Even the executives of the company are a relatively decent lot.
neo username - dan4884 
