Rob Pardo leaves Blizzard

[YouAreAllWrong]

I think this is a good think for Pardo. He is a great game designer, I would like to see him making fresher games, not being stuck in Blizzard and WoW forever.
It would be awesome if Jeff Kaplan leaves too and join Pardo into new adventures.

[BenBos]

A lot of the nonsense about Kotick and Activision ignores the idea entirely that Blizzard would have never really gotten into the accessibility and monetization game on their own. That's nonsense pure and simple. With or without Activision it was going to happen. It's what for-profit companies do: extend their markets and use their opportunities to grow their business and profits. Pardo himself didn't do anything that wasn't approved by Morhaime. I'm not into big conspiracy theories about Activision and Blizzard because I have never believed that it would have made any difference either way. Top management at Blizzard is business-savvy enough to figure this stuff out without someone else leading them down the primrose path. It's just business. And video games are a very big business.

Spot on and I hope it is being read by those posters who blame a Holding and Game Companies for making money... As such ANY game maker is seeking to make a successful product to conquer "the world".

Pardo leaving can only have 2 reasons: a personal one or an internal Blizzard conflict.

What did strike me personally though (and that's purely subjective) is the burn out feeling I got from several panels at the latest BlizzCon. Chris Metzen looked and spoke as if he could use several months of vacation. GC clearly stood pathetic (explained a few weeks later) and the only ones REALLY excited were the HS and HOTS guys.

I posted about that back then and I think it is a question of burn out indeed. Oddly enough Pardo did not seem to suffer from this overall noticable "fatigue" in his interviews. But a very small remark hinted at some friction within: he alluded to the fact that HS was the first Blizzard product that was actually launched in the same year as it was announced ...

Perhaps they are all a bit tired.

[Osmeric]

Bleh, I don't think Cataclysm was as much serious misreading of customers, more like mixed smash of bad design choices all around that backfired when none of them could be implemented properly in the end because of running out of time.

I've sometimes wondered if Cataclysm was Kotick giving the "HARDCORE RAH!" faction inside Blizzard enough rope to hang themselves. If he wanted to get more control over the design decisions there, the best way to do that would be to discredit those who stood in his way. (BTW, in no way am I suggesting this would be "evil" behavior.)

[Deleted]

I've sometimes wondered if Cataclysm was Kotick

Kotick is the chief executive. All he does is say "moar moneyz" and then others actually do the thinking on how to do that.

[Pann]

I've sometimes wondered if Cataclysm was Kotick giving the "HARDCORE RAH!" faction inside Blizzard enough rope to hang themselves. If he wanted to get more control over the design decisions there, the best way to do that would be to discredit those who stood in his way. (BTW, in no way am I suggesting this would be "evil" behavior.)

It does not make sense from a business point of view to damage your incredibly lucrative product in an effort to prove a point. I have a feeling that Activsion's handling of Blizzard has been very hands off so far.

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Kotick is the chief executive. All he does is say "moar moneyz" and then others actually do the thinking on how to do that.

You do not get into a position like Kotick's or achieve his level of success by doing that.

[Pann]

indeed, activision/kotick were in fact exactly what vivendi was looking for to increase the value of their video game portfolio. Blizzard wasn't a voting party in this.

In the end the actual serious suggestions on what transpired as a result of the merger (yours mine others) are all probably containing some elements close to truth, in varying percentages...my starting point is I see wow 2.4.3 (which did have 'accessibility; changes but 150 badges for top 2.4 items was a totally different level of commitment and time/effort vs. what wotlk introduced), and add bobby kotick as ultimate company officer reporting to board, and i get 3.0.2.

it has, at least, been a somewhat entertaining 'what if' game for some number of years.

My feeling is that at the time of merger, whilst they would have had no say in whether it went ahead or not, Blizzard were in position of power where if they felt something was bad for their business that would be the end of it and considering Kotick's admission that they ran the Guitar Hero series into the ground I think Activsion would have been wary of doing the same to WOW. Thus I think Blizzard were behind or at the very least willing partners in increasing the amount of value added services.

The actual merger took place a few months after the release of 2.4 so it would appear that this was a direction that Blizzard were already moving in. Also despite it becoming much easier to acquire high level gear it still required running heroic dungeons which for many remained just as inaccessible as ever. Whilst Wrath was a massive step down in difficulty overall there were still many challenging parts to heroics, Loken in the Halls of Lightning, Xevozz in the Violet Hold, Anub'arak for example the trash in CoS, The Oculus and the Old Kingdom were no push overs to an inexperienced group with low level gear. But as I said before I think that bringing heroics to masses was a natural progression in the game's development.

[Deficineiron]

A lot of the nonsense about Kotick and Activision ignores the idea entirely that Blizzard would have never really gotten into the accessibility and monetization game on their own. That's nonsense pure and simple. With or without Activision it was going to happen. It's what for-profit companies do: extend their markets and use their opportunities to grow their business and profits. Pardo himself didn't do anything that wasn't approved by Morhaime. I'm not into big conspiracy theories about Activision and Blizzard because I have never believed that it would have made any difference either way. Top management at Blizzard is business-savvy enough to figure this stuff out without someone else leading them down the primrose path. It's just business. And video games are a very big business.

I think it is nonsense to imply that merger/no-merger the march towards accessibility and monetization of the game would have been nearly identical. Essentially, it implies the senior management team blizzard was placed under had zero input or direction. I don't know a single publicly traded company in the world where new a newly acquired division isn't going to feel the mark of its new masters. I know that a lot of folks on this forum feel blizzard to be an example.

i am not sure you appreciate how different it is to be a small part of a massive conglomerate mostly not even understanding what you do (vivendi was not a specialist in game development), versus becoming nearly half the revenue and profit of a much smaller publicly traded combined company that ONLY makes video games.

[Hightotemz]

My feeling is that at the time of merger, whilst they would have had no say in whether it went ahead or not, Blizzard were in position of power where if they felt something was bad for their business that would be the end of it and considering Kotick's admission that they ran the Guitar Hero series into the ground I think Activsion would have been wary of doing the same to WOW. Thus I think Blizzard were behind or at the very least willing partners in increasing the amount of value added services.

The actual merger took place a few months after the release of 2.4 so it would appear that this was a direction that Blizzard were already moving in. Also despite it becoming much easier to acquire high level gear it still required running heroic dungeons which for many remained just as inaccessible as ever. Whilst Wrath was a massive step down in difficulty overall there were still many challenging parts to heroics, Loken in the Halls of Lightning, Xevozz in the Violet Hold, Anub'arak for example the trash in CoS, The Oculus and the Old Kingdom were no push overs to an inexperienced group with low level gear. But as I said before I think that bringing heroics to masses was a natural progression in the game's development.

I actually felt a sense of accomplishment when I completed Burning crusade heroics.

[Deficineiron]

My feeling is that at the time of merger, whilst they would have had no say in whether it went ahead or not, Blizzard were in position of power where if they felt something was bad for their business that would be the end of it and considering Kotick's admission that they ran the Guitar Hero series into the ground I think Activsion would have been wary of doing the same to WOW. Thus I think Blizzard were behind or at the very least willing partners in increasing the amount of value added services.

The actual merger took place a few months after the release of 2.4 so it would appear that this was a direction that Blizzard were already moving in. Also despite it becoming much easier to acquire high level gear it still required running heroic dungeons which for many remained just as inaccessible as ever. Whilst Wrath was a massive step down in difficulty overall there were still many challenging parts to heroics, Loken in the Halls of Lightning, Xevozz in the Violet Hold, Anub'arak for example the trash in CoS, The Oculus and the Old Kingdom were no push overs to an inexperienced group with low level gear. But as I said before I think that bringing heroics to masses was a natural progression in the game's development.

I think blizzard was in a much, much greater position of 'power' than they are now, to be sure. This isn't the same as them not having to work with and for the ATVI management team.

Heroics in wrath were a joke from the start. A few hard bosses that actually required you to know how they worked is a rather severe departure from bc. Nearly everything in wrath was being aoe-cleared and most bosses you could just dps/heal through whatever gimmick they brought to table. Unlike the tbc heroes on this forum, I actually said this in a thread in 3.0.8 and can link it.

[Osmeric]

It does not make sense from a business point of view to damage your incredibly lucrative product in an effort to prove a point. I have a feeling that Activsion's handling of Blizzard has been very hands off so far.

But you see, if this hypothetical scenario is at all close to reality, then Kotick would have thought that he was helping, not damaging, the product. He would have viewed the hardcore-oriented faction inside Blizzard as designing the game for themselves, not to maximize the value to the corporation. Maneuvering to discredit that faction in the eyes of the board would have enabled him to steer Blizzard in a more profitable direction, as he saw it. And discrediting that faction in the eyes of other Blizzard employees would have enabled him to press more without risking a mass revolt.

Activision's handling of Blizzard has been hands off because of how the deal with Vivendi was structured. Kotick could not do various things to Blizzard (like, change compensation, fire people, or redlight/greenlight games) without written approval of the board. This is written into ATVI's corporate bylaws. Now, of course, Vivendi's control of the board is over, and Kotick probably has much more control.

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My feeling is that at the time of merger, whilst they would have had no say in whether it went ahead or not, Blizzard were in position of power where if they felt something was bad for their business that would be the end of it and considering Kotick's admission that they ran the Guitar Hero series into the ground I think Activsion would have been wary of doing the same to WOW.

Blizzard's position of power, in my view, was that if they were mistreated then the big brains behind WoW would bail out. Creative talent has to be coddled to some extent. It would have been in Kotick's interest to break down the solidarity of the team, so they wouldn't quit en masse if pressed.

[Deficineiron]

But you see, if this hypothetical scenario is at all close to reality, then Kotick would have thought that he was helping, not damaging, the product. He would have viewed the hardcore-oriented faction inside Blizzard as designing the game for themselves, not to maximize the value to the corporation. Maneuvering to discredit that faction in the eyes of the board would have enabled him to steer Blizzard in a more profitable direction, as he saw it. And discrediting that faction in the eyes of other Blizzard employees would have enabled him to press more without risking a mass revolt.

Activision's handling of Blizzard has been hands off because of how the deal with Vivendi was structured. Kotick could not do various things to Blizzard (like, change compensation, fire people, or redlight/greenlight games) without written approval of the board. This is written into ATVI's corporate bylaws. Now, of course, Vivendi's control of the board is over, and Kotick probably has much more control.

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Blizzard's position of power, in my view, was that if they were mistreated then the big brains behind WoW would bail out. Creative talent has to be coddled to some extent. It would have been in Kotick's interest to break down the solidarity of the team, so they wouldn't quit en masse if pressed.

worth noting that, on the first part, Kotick would have had every reason, from his point of view, to believe he was improving the value and return on wow. It is what he does. He was very vocal about it around the time of wotlk release in interviews (acessibility/broadening market beyond traditional gamers, speaking about an atvi title, not wow)

Other comments in interviews about wow with him imply pretty directly (I think he basically said so, hadn't even heard of wow etc.) he didn't understand how mmo's 'worked' in terms of getting and hooking/keeping a core playerbase that treated them like second lives, often working weeks or months to overcome, progressively, very long-term goals. What I took from that interview was that he didn't 'get' mmo gamers and how their motivations/investment in the game is a bit different than the major titles he had at activision at the time. It wouldn't surprise me at all for his reaction to 2.3/2.4x wow to be to look at completion metrics, difficulty hurdles, and ask 'why on earth don't they accessibilizie this thing and broaden the market?'

[Osmeric]

It wouldn't surprise me at all for his reaction to 2.3/2.4x wow to be to look at completion metrics, difficulty hurdles, and ask 'why on earth don't they accessibilizie this thing and broaden the market?'

The most important metric would have been the churn rate. We can't really say if he was right or not without knowing that. If the game was churning through casuals at a high rate, it was on an unsustainable path anyway, and would have begun to decline when the supply of fresh sheep was exhausted.

[Deficineiron]

The most important metric would have been the churn rate. We can't really say if he was right or not without knowing that. If the game was churning through casuals at a high rate, it was on an unsustainable path anyway, and would have begun to decline when the supply of fresh sheep was exhausted.

Yeah, churn as well as the individual components of it and some details on them would really put a lot of things in perspective.

[quras]

The most important metric would have been the churn rate. We can't really say if he was right or not without knowing that. If the game was churning through casuals at a high rate, it was on an unsustainable path anyway, and would have begun to decline when the supply of fresh sheep was exhausted.

Do you not think we have reached that point already?

I know I do.

It was mentioned a good while back that blizzard took in more subs than it lost and the game moved on like that through WoTLK it seems or near it's end. For whatever reason, more people came and stayed to play wow than left. We reached 12+ million subs with that consistent influx being greater than the gamers leaving.

However, for the past 2 expansions we have been slowing losing subs and not gaining enough new ones to replace them.

As of now, we are somewhere between 4.5 and 5.5 million lost subs that have not been replaced and not taking into account the current sub loss due to there just not being ay new live content for nearly a year. I think we have reached that "churn" point where wow is not longer gaining enough subs to compensate for the ones leaving.

The reason why I'm sure are numerous and varied.

[Deficineiron]

Do you not think we have reached that point already?

I know I do.

It was mentioned a good while back that blizzard took in more subs than it lost and the game moved on like that through WoTLK it seems or near it's end. For whatever reason, more people came and stayed to play wow than left. We reached 12+ million subs with that consistent influx being greater than the gamers leaving.

However, for the past 2 expansions we have been slowing losing subs and not gaining enough new ones to replace them.

As of now, we are somewhere between 4.5 and 5.5 million lost subs that have not been replaced and not taking into account the current sub loss due to there just not being ay new live content for nearly a year. I think we have reached that "churn" point where wow is not longer gaining enough subs to compensate for the ones leaving.

The reason why I'm sure are numerous and varied.

he is referring to stuff starting about 6 years ago, not really in the present time-frame.

[Osmeric]

Do you not think we have reached that point already?

Yes, I think it's quite possible we have, and that this, not casualization, is what has caused WoW to have peaked.

It may be that market exhaustion occurring concurrently with Wrath confounded the devs into thinking that making Wrath easier is what stopped growth, leading to Cataclysm's poorly received attempt to move back to a more hardcore endgame.

All of this remains speculation until some insiders tell us what really happened. So, getting back on subject: I am hoping Pardo (or GC, or others, for that matter) lets slip some hints about all this.

[Deficineiron]

Yes, I think it's quite possible we have, and that this, not casualization, is what has caused WoW to have peaked.

It may be that market exhaustion occurring concurrently with Wrath confounded the devs into thinking that making Wrath easier is what stopped growth, leading to Cataclysm's poorly received attempt to move back to a more hardcore endgame.

All of this remains speculation until some insiders tell us what really happened. So, getting back on subject: I am hoping Pardo (or GC, or others, for that matter) lets slip some hints about all this.

At this point, I would bet a majority, possibly large majority, of new wow license sales (e.g. battlechest or all-in-one specials) are bots and/or goldsellers. Who (aside from people who were too young) has still not tried wow, of the population likely to ever try it in na/eu?

They need to get wow in on that monster beverage cod promo

[Mormolyce]

I have warcraft 2 dreams still. They are much better than Madden dreams (nightmares) but not as good as legacy of kain: soul reaver dreams.

Soul Reaver was no Blood Omen IMO

It was pretty good but... it's a pity they never truly finished it.

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The base idea itself could've worked. Reworked world? Cool! Too bad lot of the zones were half-assed after running out of time. More challenging small-scale end game content? Cool! Too bad they removed about every other piece of end game content except heroic->raid from equation, leaving people fiddle thumbs if they didn't/couldn't raid with no alternatives to heroic dungeons at all (very much ruining the gearing curve). More involved storylines? Well Cataclysm quest writing took a deep notch down in quality but the quest design itself wasn't that bad. Just the linearity of it all killed it. Like the hell, locking out of entire zone if you didn't do one quest in straight line they were?

Not that many zones were half-assed, Arathi Highlands maybe.

Cataclysm contained the best quest zones in the game. The revamped zones are top notch for the most part. The endgame zones were pretty solid as well. In fact I remember bowling down leper gnomes in Uldum and thinking to myself "this is my favourite quest zone of all time". Not kidding.

Also, serious nostalgia goggles re: linearity of quests. WoW was always linear, in the old days quests just didn't link or flow at all, and there were huge gaps in zones with no quests (eg, all of Azshara). This criticism is ass-backwards. They actually made questing WORK and people complained about it. Vanilla questing was horrendous. And since when has there been anything between heroic and raid? Until MoP...

I've sometimes wondered if Cataclysm was Kotick giving the "HARDCORE RAH!" faction inside Blizzard enough rope to hang themselves. If he wanted to get more control over the design decisions there, the best way to do that would be to discredit those who stood in his way. (BTW, in no way am I suggesting this would be "evil" behavior.)

You guys and your conspiracy theories.

It's like you don't remember how all through late Wrath these forums were wall to wall bitching about how easy Heroics were. Then they go and make them difficult again and what happens? Exact same amount of bitching, only now about how they're too hard.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnpleasableFanbase

[Osmeric]

You guys and your conspiracy theories.

One person with possibly machiavellian motivations doesn't constitute a conspiracy.

[Deficineiron]

You guys and your conspiracy theories.

It's like you don't remember how all through late Wrath these forums were wall to wall bitching about how easy Heroics were. Then they go and make them difficult again and what happens? Exact same amount of bitching, only now about how they're too hard.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...easableFanbase

That's right Osmeric. Everyone knows that in the real world corporate politics is never dirty or manipulative, (and Machiavelli is just some artist in italy).

too funny, I had already written machiavelli before you had posted