Has Blizzard Entertainment become too big for its own good?

[Durandro]

I don't think they're too big for their own good, and I don't think Bioware have a reputation for quality games, certainly not at the level Blizzard was at.

Got to agree with this. Bioware were known for making excellent stories in their games, with decent gameplay. That reputation has been tanished for the last two years - Dragon Age 2 (railroaded story, annoying characters, horrendous level design), Mass Effect 3 (it was clearly rushed and it suffers greatly for it) and SWTOR (has an identity crisis - is it a single player game or an MMO - and many issues post launch that smacked of inexperience on the dev's part). And let's not mention their horrific excuse for PR the last year...

Blizzard's failings are either subject to opinion (i.e. WoW) or poor management choice (Diablo 3, Jay Wilson). Starcraft 2 is continuing to be of excellent quality, their new Hearthstone game seems to be well received, and millions still play WoW and Diablo (though more would be playing the latter if the AH wasn't practically manditory...).

Anyway, personal opinion. But Blizzard is still top dog overall in my books. Only reason CDProjektRed isn't top dog is their lack of games (only two currently?) and some unsettling comments they've made concerning PC gaming recently. Time will tell.

[Drihan]

Blizzard had nothing to do with SWTOR, Dragon Age, or Mass Effect, Blizzard's parent company, Activision, was the distributor, but they had no direct involvement in the game's development.

To the point: Yes, Blizzard has gotten too big for it's own good, not necessarily in terms of manpower, but in arrogance. Since their powerhouse game, WoW, has been keeping such a long-time success, and the company's massive increase in popularity since the game's launch, Blizzard's arrogance has gone through the roof. They think because they are so famous that people will buy their games without a second thought, but to be fair, it's their hype and name that sells, not their skills. I got to give it to them though, they have been launching quite stable and decent games/expansion packs as of late, but as soon as people realize that Blizzard's hype didn't get close to live up to the released product, sales drop and subscriptions/active players drop immensely. Blizzard has gotten to the point where their integrity as a company making games rich in story, immersive gameplay, and long-term fascinating universe has long since passed. When WoW was young, it was a piece of art, now it's just stale and dead.

[Wildmoon]

The real reason they haven't been releasing many games is not because of how big they are but it's purely because of WoW....

[Zogarth]

Did they really sell that many consol version? Sounds weird.

---------- Post added 2013-05-31 at 12:37 PM ----------



Currently it has been but then again they haven't released that many games and I'm sure some people really liked SC and D3.

---------- Post added 2013-05-31 at 12:39 PM ----------



Exactly! Man I hope Titan dominates the world. I hope it revolutionizes the gaming world. Inb4 my high expectations leading to nothing but disappointment, but I have to believe in something.

Well there was sold 80 mil copies of X-box 360, and around the same with the PS3 so would not surprise me that they could sell that many. Also, i stopped believing in Blizz for good with D3. They have abandoned the "We will release it when it is ready" policy, and... that freaking RMAH. WoW had already started to die for me back then, but D3 just broke all my faith in Blizzard. Only good game they currently have is in my opinion SC2, and that is only the multiplayer.

[Wildmoon]

Blizzard had nothing to do with SWTOR, Dragon Age, or Mass Effect, Blizzard's parent company, Activision, was the distributor, but they had no direct involvement in the game's development.

To the point: Yes, Blizzard has gotten too big for it's own good, not necessarily in terms of manpower, but in arrogance. Since their powerhouse game, WoW, has been keeping such a long-time success, and the company's massive increase in popularity since the game's launch, Blizzard's arrogance has gone through the roof. They think because they are so famous that people will buy their games without a second thought, but to be fair, it's their hype and name that sells, not their skills. I got to give it to them though, they have been launching quite stable and decent games/expansion packs as of late, but as soon as people realize that Blizzard's hype didn't get close to live up to the released product, sales drop and subscriptions/active players drop immensely. Blizzard has gotten to the point where their integrity as a company making games rich in story, immersive gameplay, and long-term fascinating universe has long since passed. When WoW was young, it was a piece of art, now it's just stale and dead.

You can't keep people playing by pure hype and name. You have many example of this such SWTOR with massive hype and name. It actually was a miracle WoW could keep this much playerbase this long. The game is so old that no matter how good xpac is it won't bring the game to its peak ever again.

[huth]

The recent shift with the Project Titan is just the latest indication that something is severely wrong with the way Blizzard works.

No, it's not. They've just plain canned games before, despite them being well into development.

[Noctifer616]

My point is that Blizzard is the most inefficient developer currently on the market and was only allowed to become that way thanks to the overwhelming financial success of WoW.

I am sorry, what? You do know that what is not happening to Titan with the reset happened to the original Starcraft? Warcraft 3 was also delayed by a ton (was 2 years later than it was firstly expected I think). Warcraft Adventures was never released.

This is nothing new, Blizzard was always taking their time and resetting projects for the sake of improving them. And even before WoW Blizzard had a ton of cash on their hands, it's just that now with WoW they have no idea how to spend it.

[Senathor]

No, it's not. They've just plain canned games before, despite them being well into development.

Yeah and quite honestly I think it's good that they're taking a few more years to perfect the game. At least now they show that they are enthusiastic about the game to a certain extend.

---------- Post added 2013-05-31 at 01:21 PM ----------

Blizz as most other developers have become too focused on money, gone are the days of developers making games they would like to play themselves, now it's just make a game for the masses to make a quick buck.

Yeah unfortunately it seems that none of their developers are actively playing WoW and the game suffers greatly from it.

---------- Post added 2013-05-31 at 01:28 PM ----------

You can't keep people playing by pure hype and name. You have many example of this such SWTOR with massive hype and name. It actually was a miracle WoW could keep this much playerbase this long. The game is so old that no matter how good xpac is it won't bring the game to its peak ever again.

Well due to the fact that subscribers have been going down for about 2 years now you're most likely right. But they could make way better expansions if they so desired. I mean it took them half a year to fix all the 200-350k+ crits in PvP and PvP is still a massive mess. This might always be the case but I have never experienced a worse season than season 12. I didn't pay attention to PvP balance during WotLK but I'm quite sure season 12 could be a strong competitor versus season 5 in the league of worst seasons... They have no idea what's going on inside the actual game. They could just search for one un-biased R1 Gladiator, hire him and see the game improve beyond GC's and even Holinkas capabilities. It's a great game but god damn it, it could be so much better.

And sure I know most of you PvE but there might be a reason for that. In addition to that leveling is super boring as you never actually do something hard to gain exp. I dunno, maybe I'm getting teird of the game, maybe the game is overall very old, but that's no excuse for them slacking like they do.

[LTCrystallite]

I am sorry, what? You do know that what is not happening to Titan with the reset happened to the original Starcraft? Warcraft 3 was also delayed by a ton (was 2 years later than it was firstly expected I think). Warcraft Adventures was never released.

This is nothing new, Blizzard was always taking their time and resetting projects for the sake of improving them. And even before WoW Blizzard had a ton of cash on their hands, it's just that now with WoW they have no idea how to spend it.

But the sad part is their team is much larger now than when Warcraft 3 was delayed. On top of that Diablo 3 was delayed for a while too, and everyone knows how that turned out. It wasn't ready.

[Vankrys]

But they could make way better expansions if they so desired.

can they? i mean, really can they. If so, then why wouldn't they?
unless MoP is their actual best.

[Senathor]

can they? i mean, really can they. If so, then why wouldn't they?
unless MoP is their actual best.

Becuase they don't care as long as they get money? Warriors critted 300k the first patch, then next they're among the worst classes in the game becuase other classes deal stupid amounts of damage. Even a monkey can balance PvP better than them sometimes.

[Noctifer616]

But the sad part is their team is much larger now than when Warcraft 3 was delayed. On top of that Diablo 3 was delayed for a while too, and everyone knows how that turned out. It wasn't ready.

Neither was Starcraft. They needed Brood War to get it where it was. Diablo 2 also improved a lot with an expansion, same with WC3 mutiplayer. That's what Blizzard does, release a game and then improve upon it.

[Kelimbror]

Most of the 'information' about Blizzard or other companies used to support the theory they are too big for their own good are fallacies. Development needs are different for different reasons. To think that putting out new console games is even close to on the level for how the most successful MMO in the world operates is idiocy.

Additionally, a lot of their employees do things not even remotely related to producing a game. They have much larger infrastructure positions like HR, Marketing, R&D, etc that are the backbone of how the company operates. They require multinational support both for physical and logistical reasons (servers and support in other countries).

All of this points to their company being big because it is successful and not that it's too big' for its own good'. That's like saying McDonalds is too big for its own good because they have stores in every country in the world and millions of employees and sell lots of stuff.
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To the other things raised...I was ready to think they had sold out with D3 as well. I don't understand why people are freaking out over Titan being scrapped as it actually has restored faith in the company for me that they are willing to admit they are not heading the right direction and take the time to right their course.

This is what they used to do: take their sweet time, get in the middle and start over, and tell everyone it will be ready when it's ready. We may wait longer than ever for their stuff (other than wow which will fill the void at lightning speed now) but it's going to be back to near perfection.

I'm calling it now.

[Darsithis]

Why do they have to constantly put out new (but possibly subpar) games? So what if Bioware is putting out new games all the time? That doesn't mean they're all amazing. I wouldn't even bother comparing Old Republic to WoW in terms of staying power. Nevermind that most of the games on Bioware's list that you put up are sequels (ME 2, ME 3, DA Awakening and DA 2) which isn't far off from expansion packs as it is.

[Pull My Finger]

I don't know where you are pulling this from. None of us really has an understanding of the scope of operations of such a company, let alone how they work and what needs to be done. I also don't see how anyone can argue that the company might be "too big for its own good" while they're being constantly confronted with unknowledgeable and baseless critique based around them being "lazy", delivering "half-assed" work, not offering enough of this and that, having bad customer service and all that nonsense. I think this is another one of those examples where players speculate and shop talk about things from an outside view they don't have a grasp of and shouldn't care about anyway.

[Trogie]

To say that Blizzard has put out bad games recently is ridiculous at best. D3 wasn't the game that changed the world forever like idiots preached it to be but anyone who wasn't blinded by their own fantasies of the game knew what they were getting.

I also find it funny how most of D3 hate comes from people who couldn't log on in the first few hours of the launch and from some others that literally said they played the game for 200+ hours got bored and wanted a refund, which is ridiculous.

Obviously that's not to say D3 doesn't have its problems, but it's no where near as bad as people make it out to be.

As for them being too big? Probably not. You have to remember they don't just release a game then move on, they constantly work on those games long after they are released. That's what gives Blizzard a good reputation. D2 was pretty crappy when it first released, it wasn't until the expansion that it really got good. The same can almost be said with SC and Brood War. So they are Currently working on WoW, Diablo, SC, Titan, Hearthstone. That's 5 games with constant development and 3 with customer service and constant QA teams working on them. Where most companies split their QA teams off once the project is finished, Blizzard doesn't really "finish" their games.

[Deleted]

For a little perspective:

World of Warcraft was created by a team of 30-70 employees in a roughly 4-5 year time span.

This is what I'd consider a standard productivity of a AAA studio.

Bear in mind, WoW is an MMO and vastly more complex than most single-player games. It was also Blizzard's first foray into this genre.


Diablo III on the other hand started development in 2001, had numerous people working on it throughout the years, was halted, iterated and halted again...only to be released 11 years later with extremely good sales numbers, but mixed critical reception. The team size must have ranged from 10 to 100 people at any given time.

More development time don't mean better products. Diablo III proved this, Duke Nukem Forever proved this and countless other real-life projects proved this as well.

Long development cycles are more a sign of poor management than they are a sign of high quality standards.


Titan is an example of a project that has been running for so long that the original concept no longer seems feasible to the developers any longer. That's the problem with long development cycles. By the time you've got your project out of the gates, people have moved on to new trends.

[DeadmanWalking]

I think these topics are getting more and more pathetic. God forbid if a corporation should be successful and bring in lots of profit because thats inherantly evil unless of course its me who becomes successful and profitable and then thats different. If you don't like blizzard then quit playing blizzard games and while you are at it stop moaning at those of us who do enjoy blizzard games like some angry ghost that got slighted in their former life and are incapable of moving on to happier places.

---------- Post added 2013-05-31 at 03:27 PM ----------

This entire thread is based on the ignorance of not knowing what kind of resources are required to produce quality games, its just based on numbers that someone assumes are way too much when they have no clue what all it involves.

Smart people don't go wagging their tongues about things they have no clue about.

[dukem]

bioware is currently in the process of going down the drain.
soon they will be renamed to (example) EA RPG Division and seize to exist like all the others (who's owners also became vice ceo's at first).
I was a huge fan of bioware but the EA-ness is shining through even more with every release.

I also do not think that a smaller size Blizzard might have prevented Diablo3 from sucking.

(voted undecided)

[Flaks]

Yes, their success has made it so that they'd rather look at the bottomline than anything else.

There's no reason that expansions can't last longer but actually include everything they should in them (see: Spider Kingdom/Troll raid for WotLK, Neptulon for Cataclysm etc.). The only reason they're released every 2 years or less is because players are retarded enough to think that Blizzard is FORCED to stop making content for an expansion when they're working on releasing another and because it makes them tons of more money.