Theory behind Blizzards recent actions. . .

[lordlight]

Many people have noted that in the last year or so Blizzard has been acting kinda strange. CM's have became more uptight with information, dev's seem to be slacking, and something just feels off. Well her is my theory:

Blizzard pays millions of dollars for bandwidth, servers, the upkeep and maintenance, and this is just for WoW. Now Blizzard has another very large MMO coming out in the future, Thor. I'm thinking they are trying to slowly drive WoW into the ground in order to free up servers for Thor and Diablo 3. This way blizzard has more games out for people to pay for without having to pay more for servers. Given that with the new games you would have to pay for the game + monthly fee then it would be a net profit then just your normal wow fee.


Or maybe my tinfoil hat is too tight.

---------- Post added 2011-02-10 at 07:32 AM ----------

Also this would explain why this recent patch went over so badly. The A team went on to D3 and Thor, while the interns / new people were stuck with wow to practice on before their new MMO's came out.

[calendor]

Lol. The more servers they have the more players and the more profit. They make a huge profit and no respecting shareholder would let them run the company cash cow into the ground. Wow is no loss leader its their flagship product especially profit wise.

[Knarg]

Yeah, nothing solidifies customer loyalty like deliberately sabotaging your own properties. I think you're right about the tinfoil hat.

I will agree there's a good chance Blizz's best and brightest migrated over to the new property. It's fresh and exciting and that's just natural for creative minds. But I doubt Blizzard deliberately left the scrubs to muck up their current extremely popular MMO on the potential future prospects of the next one.

[Shawne]

doesnt make sense as they make more money than the server & maintenance costs and they will when they set up new servers for D3 and PT as well

[Joker12489]

hmmm correct me if im wrong but isn't their new mmo code named TITAN and not THOR? anyhow i REALLY doubt that's the reason. I just think Blizzard is failing because well they are not listening to us and they just have $ signs on their eyeballs when in reality they are going to lose those $ very soon and say "oh sh*t we fu*ked up! quick let's HOTFIX it! " When by then it will be far to late.

[Herecius]

Whoa there, slow down. Think about that for a moment. If your only competition is yourself, aka D3 and the new secret MMO (which won't be out for years, both D3 OR the new MMO), then there's no reason to chase customers away. This definitely falls under tinfoil hat land.

[HolgerDK]

Or maybe my tinfoil hat is too tight.

This is the correct sentence in your post.

[underdogba]

Blizzard pays millions of dollars for bandwidth, servers, the upkeep and maintenance, and this is just for WoW. Now Blizzard has another very large MMO coming out in the future, Thor. I'm thinking they are trying to slowly drive WoW into the ground in order to free up servers for Thor and Diablo 3. This way blizzard has more games out for people to pay for without having to pay more for servers. Given that with the new games you would have to pay for the game + monthly fee then it would be a net profit then just your normal wow fee.

Spreading higher fixed cost across less units is never profitable. This theory is not even remotely close to being logical.

[lordlight]

But Activision / Blizzard just posted a loss this quarter, so it doesn't seem like this cash cow can keep putting out like it use to.

"Video-game publisher Activision Blizzard (ATVI) narrowed its fourth-quarter loss 19% from a year earlier."

So with the launch of Cata and everything else they lost money over all.

Source: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/co...loss/19837592/

---------- Post added 2011-02-10 at 07:44 AM ----------

Spreading higher fixed cost across less units is never profitable. This theory is not even remotely close to being logical.

No they would keep the same number of servers. The wow servers that see a large loss of players they just merge and then use the now unused server for their new games.

[GrieverXIII]

They make millions every month, from WoW subs alone, you think they would want to ''kill it'' themselves? lol.

[crayven]

Many people have noted that in the last year or so Blizzard has been acting kinda strange. CM's have became more uptight with information, dev's seem to be slacking, and something just feels off. Well her is my theory:

Blizzard pays millions of dollars for bandwidth, servers, the upkeep and maintenance, and this is just for WoW. Now Blizzard has another very large MMO coming out in the future, Thor. I'm thinking they are trying to slowly drive WoW into the ground in order to free up servers for Thor and Diablo 3. This way blizzard has more games out for people to pay for without having to pay more for servers. Given that with the new games you would have to pay for the game + monthly fee then it would be a net profit then just your normal wow fee.


Or maybe my tinfoil hat is too tight.

---------- Post added 2011-02-10 at 07:32 AM ----------

Also this would explain why this recent patch went over so badly. The A team went on to D3 and Thor, while the interns / new people were stuck with wow to practice on before their new MMO's came out.

Or maybe your tinfoil hat is really tight.

[HolgerDK]

But Activision / Blizzard just posted a loss this quarter, so it doesn't seem like this cash cow can keep putting out like it use to.

"Video-game publisher Activision Blizzard (ATVI) narrowed its fourth-quarter loss 19% from a year earlier."

So with the launch of Cata and everything else they lost money over all.

Source: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/co...loss/19837592/

---------- Post added 2011-02-10 at 07:44 AM ----------



No they would keep the same number of servers. The wow servers that see a large loss of players they just merge and then use the now unused server for their new games.

Its "Activision Blizzard", not "Activision / Blizzard" and - Activision Blizzard =/= Blizzard.

[Mexa]

I havent noticed any change at all and i think the patch is just fine.

[Eisenhorne]

Its "Activision Blizzard", not "Activision / Blizzard" and - Activision Blizzard =/= Blizzard.

Also

Activision expects full-year earnings for 2011 to amount to 56 cents a share on $3.95 billion in revenue -- well below analysts' estimates of 83 cents a share and $4.69 billion, according to a Thomson Reuters poll -- because of a lack of any new releases for its Blizzard Entertainment division.

This reads like this:

"Activision is not selling games, Blizzard games are supporting the company"

[Kittahsmash]

[QUOTE=lordlight;10400491]But Activision / Blizzard just posted a loss this quarter, so it doesn't seem like this cash cow can keep putting out like it use to.

"Video-game publisher Activision Blizzard (ATVI) narrowed its fourth-quarter loss 19% from a year earlier."

So with the launch of Cata and everything else they lost money over all.

Source: http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/co...loss/19837592/

Remember that the "Activision Blizzard" entity is ALL of Blizzard AND Activision. So between COD, Guitar Hero (which they're cancelling due to it not selling enough units.. I wonder if that might be why there are losses!) and WoW stuff, they have a loss of 19%..

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/09/ac...l-sales-up-20/
For the entire year, they're up ~200 million, and the 4th quarter would have been worse if not for Cata and CoD doing so well.

The standout news is that $1.5 billion of annual revenue came from digital sales, which the company says are up 20 percent over 2009 -- and up 40 percent in Q4 alone. According to the report, digital-based revenue was "driven by increased sales of Activision Publishing's Call of Duty map packs and value-added services for Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft," which CEO Bobby Kotick attributed in part to "significantly enhanced user activity and engagement for our expanding online communities."

TLDR: Take your tinfoil hat off.

[Simca]

Its "Activision Blizzard", not "Activision / Blizzard" and - Activision Blizzard =/= Blizzard.

Activision is losing the money right now. They just announced no more production of the Guitar Hero series.

Anyway, there's really no proof of any of this, so I'm going to lock this thread.

Locked.