Did Activision ruin Blizzard?

[D3athsting]

Best games in terms of gameplay are often made by small/medium indie companies where passion for doing quality is greater than passion for money

[Tharkkun]

Rob Pardo Games Developer Conference February 2008:


Reference:
http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/20/g...pproach-to-mm/

Jeff Caplan August 2008:
In fact, Blizzard sees an upside to being hitched to the Activision star.
(Jeff Caplan): "They have a lot of expertise in the console area, where we're very-headed in addition to PC and online,".
"Activision's point of view is, there's a lot of trust in Blizzard and what we do. Activision's just trying to figure out how we work and try to learn from us."

But Activision's an ambitious company.
CEO Bobby Kotick has talked in the past about monetizing massively multiplayer environments, competing with iTunes, even evolving pricing models for consoles.
Q: Does Activision have the power to change the way Blizzard monetizes WoW, if it wants to?
A:"Theoretically they could, if they wanted to," Kaplan said.
Blizzard has always staunchly bucked the trend in online games that seems to be considering microtransactions, ad-supported freebies, and other alternate revenue streams as opposed to the subscription model, which many people theorize is going the way of the dinosaur.
Blizzard has always said it favors balanced gameplay as opposed to alternate biz models, and according to Kaplan, this is still the case.

But don't worry guyz, we only want to get their console expertise.

Bobby Kotick:





Noooo... Activision had no influence on Blizzard, no sir, that's some conspiracy theory stuff right there. /s

Bobby - take fun out of creating games - Kotick wasn't happy with a "few million hardcore rabid hobbyist enthusiast World of Warcraft fans".
He had to drive WoW into the ground chasing Candy Crush Saga audience.

8 years ago. Rob Pardo is no longer with Blizzard either.

Rob Pardo was referring to the new trend of pay-to-win which was coming out of newer games. Micro-transactions to this day do not give you an advantage over other players. So Pardo is still correct.

The game time token solved multiple issues.
1. Players could use their in game gold to buy game time.
2. It allowed a secure transaction to buy time. Game card scams were and are still a big thing. Which is why stores don't activate cards until they are purchased.
3. It also allowed you to purchase gold from a secure person, Blizzard. This means that by buying gold illegally Blizzard could was their hands with you. Those gold websites are setup with exploits/keyloggers so they can steal your gold right back.

[Mytheros]

I don't "think" so....and I word it like that because I'm trying to answer leaving my emotion out of it...I personally think 99% of all gossip and opinion these days , especially on topics like entertainment --- video games, music, sports, movies....is fueled by emotion more than fact. Heck often people are so controlled by emotion they SWEAR their opinions are facts....but then other people with cooler heads stand back and research things and find more often than not its just that person's opinion and not fact.

I said all that to say this - I think one of such emotion fueled debate is the one about Activision and Blizzard...so many people swear Activision controls blizzard with an iron fist, heavily influences their game design , etc.... I personally have never found *FACTUAL* evidence from RELIABLE sources to back that up. Every time I've read an article on the topic - its always boiling down to someone's opinion.

At the same time I've read where Blizzard employees have said they retain creative autonomy with all their IPs and that was a key deal that discussed with Activision for them to sign off on the merger. Also to lead off of that statement -- what I think some people don't realize, because of the attitude of how they speak of the Activision Blizzard arrangement -- Blizzard wasn't desperate for Activision....before the Activision deal came to be and thus before Activision had ANY say over Blizzard -- Blizzard was valued in the Billions in their own right. They could have stood on their own. However for the expanded resources, exposure and marketing they felt Activision could offer their brand that is what heavily influenced their decision to join.

Anyway short version -- I tend to believe its false that Activision creatively controls Blizzard because at the end of the day there's no valid facts that back that up being the case yet their has been facts that blizzard staff stated they have creative freedom from Activision....if that's the case...I'll give more credit to the blizzard employees than to emotionally charged rumors and opinion.

[DarkTZeratul]

Also to lead off of that statement -- what I think some people don't realize, because of the attitude of how they speak of the Activision Blizzard arrangement -- Blizzard wasn't desperate for Activision....before the Activision deal came to be and thus before Activision had ANY say over Blizzard -- Blizzard was valued in the Billions in their own right. They could have stood on their own. However for the expanded resources, exposure and marketing they felt Activision could offer their brand that is what heavily influenced their decision to join.

Except Blizzard wasn't standing on their own, and they didn't decide to join Activision. Blizzard was owned by Vivendi, which acquired Activision. They then renamed their Vivendi Games division to Activision-Blizzard and put Bobby Kotick in charge. Blizzard had very little say, if any, in the matter.

Which is not to say that the rest of your post is false; when everyone in a position to know has said that Activision has no influence on Blizzard, and everyone claiming otherwise has failed produce any actual evidence to the contrary, it would seem to suggest that the blame for all of Blizzard's failings lies squarely on the head of Blizzard themselves.

[Deficineiron]

8 years ago. Rob Pardo is no longer with Blizzard either.

Rob Pardo was referring to the new trend of pay-to-win which was coming out of newer games. Micro-transactions to this day do not give you an advantage over other players. So Pardo is still correct.

The game time token solved multiple issues.
1. Players could use their in game gold to buy game time.
2. It allowed a secure transaction to buy time. Game card scams were and are still a big thing. Which is why stores don't activate cards until they are purchased.
3. It also allowed you to purchase gold from a secure person, Blizzard. This means that by buying gold illegally Blizzard could was their hands with you. Those gold websites are setup with exploits/keyloggers so they can steal your gold right back.

This is more or less what I mean in my comment above about the Pardo Rule being so '2008,' if buying instant max level and buying gold aren't an advantage, what is? Does it have to be Martin Fury in the game store to count??

[Deleted]

a simple look at the timeline offers a clear answer: yes, they got ruined. everything they did after the merge had a disgusting taste of corporation in it.

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Micro-transactions to this day do not give you an advantage over other players. So Pardo is still correct.

what?
you can officially buy gold and buy yourself all kinds of stuff with it (gear, mounts, raid entries)
you can also get yourself leveled offically to max level by paying money which lets you skip something other people that don't want to spend money have to do.

it is a form of pay to win.

[Deficineiron]

a simple look at the timeline offers a clear answer: yes, they got ruined. everything they did after the merge had a disgusting taste of corporation in it.

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what?
you can officially buy gold and buy yourself all kinds of stuff with it (gear, mounts, raid entries)
you can also get yourself leveled offically to max level by paying money which lets you skip something other people that don't want to spend money have to do.

it is a form of pay to win.

I respectfully suggest that you need to get with the times.

pay to win is buying an advantage. It is a given that blizzard does not do pay to win. therefore instant max level and buying gold are not advantages.

I think your problem is you are looking at what is being sold and trying to determine if it gives an advantage. A common error among the public would be to see 'instant max level ton, sixty bucks' and think saving all that time would be an advantage. Let me show you how to avoid this common error.

First, look at who is selling the advantage. If you were to use a 3rd party service to level your character, or buy 3rd party gold, that would be buying a clear advantage, not only is it p2w, but it is bannable.

Now when you buy in the store, it is blizzard, and blizzard does not do p2w. Therefore, no advantage.

Another logic leap you can use is to define p2w as anything giving an advantage that cannot otherwise be obtained in-game. This one is good too because you could buy a full set of mythic gear + mythic kill achievement in the store and it wouldn't be p2w, because it is available in game anyway. Some posters don't seem quite ready to accept this but I think with time we can get there. 5 years ago talking instant max level toons for sale would get you banned on this forum and roundly ridiculed as a private-funserver hijinx guy.

i hope I have accurately summarized current Forum Thinking on how to define these services as not pay2win.

[Deleted]

I respectfully suggest that you need to get with the times.

pay to win is buying an advantage. It is a given that blizzard does not do pay to win. therefore instant max level and buying gold are not advantages.

of course they are advantages. time is limited and you save time with these which is an advantage. that you even debate this is embarrassing.

[Deficineiron]

of course they are advantages. time is limited and you save time with these which is an advantage. that you even debate this is embarrassing.

Did you actually read my ENTIRE post? You might have come away with a different conclusion. Also try post 310.

[Klingers]

Blizzard is now a company that develops games that take Blizzard-time to produce and end up being Activision-quality.

[Deleted]

And again, correlation != causation. You might as well say the sky being blue is the reason. After all, the sky was blue at the time.

Also, "going to shit" is subjective. That's your opinion, not mine.

Isnt the entire question on this thread an opinion?

The question is: "Did Activision ruin Blizzard?"

And this thread is proof that for alot of people Activision is clearly to blame for the demise of Wow. The takeover in 2008 happens to coincide with the turning point of the game... its just a coincidence to you, but not for me im afraid.

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Aside from character boost the "rewards" are purely cosmetic. Token isn't even free gold since it's taking another players gold that wants to buy one and you earning the profit. Do people still believe the token just generates gold out of thin air?

Methinks u dont understand what a "reward" is.

Mounts and pets are rewards, so Medieval Man is correct to say that rewards are available in the cashshop. Why do u think u farm all those old content bosses every week? ... for the mount REWARD ofc!

[Mendzia]

Ruined Blizzard? No.
Ruined WoW? Definitely yes.

[Eon Drache]

Whoever says no,go fuck yourself.You got solid proof with all the shitty ingame mounts for cash etc right after fucktivision got in.
Then the fucking hellhole broke loose,it started to be casual piece of shit CoD style.Releasing bugged unfinished games activision style,yet again no sayers-go to hell.

A lot of raids in TBC/Vanilla were actually released bugged. Some of them were actually released with NO Possible way to beat them. Bugs took MONTHS to fix rather than a hotfix over night. C'thun? Mu'ru? Both pretty famous. OH! How about that bug with ZG? Pass that debuff and kill the whole server? How about the original reckoning? Paladins soloing and 1 shotting world bosses? I mean come on.

Also, how much was scraped from vanilla? I bet you can name all the scrapped content from WoD but did you know Demon Hunters are 12 years delayed and scrapped? Outlands was scrapped from Vanilla. Death Knights were scrapped from vanilla. And a lot more.

Also, every game releases with bugs. Take Pokemon for example. The famous mew Glitch. The difference between now and then is we find bugs MUCH faster now. It took almost 6 years for someone to figure out the mew glitch in the original pokemon games. It took people months to find bugs back in vanilla wow. There aren't more bugs. We are just better at finding them and reporting them.

[Deleted]

In an attempt to gain console expertise, maybe Activision made suggestions on how they could improve WoW all they would need is a sheep dev to talk about it at the discussion table, things you wouldn't notice like we decided 'as a team' to "bring out LFR so that we can continue creating raids" or "bring the player and not the class"

I seriously hope they do leave it alone, because all call of duty sucks IMO they have no clue about how this MMO can be improved.

[Osmeric]

Why do they give credit to each company for their each own product?
Why don't you say that Bubble Witch and WoW has a lot in common?

Those are just parts of a single corporation. They are boxes on an org chart, kept apart for reasons of organization and for brand definition, not because they have some sort of legal independence.

[Deficineiron]

Those are just parts of a single corporation. They are boxes on an org chart, kept apart for reasons of organization and for brand definition, not because they have some sort of legal independence.

The US auto manufacturer General Motors is actually a good analogy for this - Oldsmobile, Buick, Chevrolet, cadillac. IIRC some may have been independent companies a long, long time ago as well?

[Osmeric]

The US auto manufacturer General Motors is actually a good analogy for this - Oldsmobile, Buick, Chevrolet, cadillac. IIRC some may have been independent companies a long, long time ago as well?

Indeed, it is a good analogy. Buick, Cadillac and Olds were separate companies bought by GM. Chevrolet is more interesting: it reverse-merged with GM in 1918.

No one thinks of these divisions as separate from GM now.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I think they took a lot of passion for games and reallocated it into passion for profits. Make no mistake before Activision they still wanted profits but the games beyond a purely technical standard mattered more. Also make no mistake that they still care about making good games after a Activision. But a lot of the metrics lean towards less development, more recycling of asserts, and more ways to make a cheap buck through things like micro transactions, box sells, and price hikes. But I think a lot of the changes also stim from a generational change that happened. A lot of the original founders and creators have moved way up or left. So of course people will view things they didn't dedicate a lot of their life to creating as merely a profit vechical instead of a living piece of art.

Just be thanful Activision didn't gut Blizzard as badly as say EA did Bioware. So as far as evil overlord companies go it could be worse. Much much worse.

[Deleted]

I respectfully suggest that you need to get with the times.

pay to win is buying an advantage. It is a given that blizzard does not do pay to win. therefore instant max level and buying gold are not advantages.

I think ur misunderstanding the overall issue here...

Nobody is talking about the 'pay to win' issue, theyre talking about the cash-shop issue. Theyre two totally different issues.

The Blizzard dev quotes from above are saying how there will never go for a cash-shop. Blizzard devs all held the belief that cash-shops are bad and that they wanted everything in the game to be available in the game, not exclusively on a cash-shop. And theyve clearly gone back on their word regarding this.

We shouldnt discuss the 'pay to win' issue because Blizzard didnt mention that.

[Deficineiron]

I think ur misunderstanding the overall issue here...

Nobody is talking about the 'pay to win' issue, theyre talking about the cash-shop issue. Theyre two totally different issues.

The Blizzard dev quotes from above are saying how there will never go for a cash-shop. Blizzard devs all held the belief that cash-shops are bad and that they wanted everything in the game to be available in the game, not exclusively on a cash-shop. And theyve clearly gone back on their word regarding this.

We shouldnt discuss the 'pay to win' issue because Blizzard didnt mention that.

well can\t you buy pay to win in the cashshop? isn't that where the advantages are purchased from blizzard?

but right, the Pardo Rule (as I call it) was very clearly spoken. I think it is a safe bet he felt buying instant-max level toons and tokens would be included in that definition. At the same time Kotick was talking about potential for microtransactions in wow after the merger closed. Guess who won?