Is this where all our subscription money goes?

[Heladys]

He lost all credit with me when he said leveling and questing were fun in Vanilla.

levelling and questing WERE fun in vanilla. The first time.

[MoanaLisa]

I could repeat the same old argument about where your money goes and how it effects you but it wouldn't make a difference. When people are set in stone they are set in stone covered in concrete.

Does anyone seriously believe that their subscription money directly goes purely back into World of Warcraft? Because if anyone does, you need to wake up. It doesn't and never has.

[drake741]

Feel free to quit and not contribute to the outrageous misappropriation of funds by a corporate entity! Your subscription is you voting to keep them in business and perpetuate his salary being justified.

Do the noble thing and quit.

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Does anyone seriously believe that their subscription money directly goes purely back into World of Warcraft? Because if anyone does, you need to wake up. It doesn't and never has.

Saying it doesn't go toward WoW is more ridiculous than saying it does.

[HeedmySpeed]

They're redirecting profits to the CEO because he knows the game is on the decline and wants to take advantage of it.

Is it a dick move? Yes.

From a business stand point? Maybe? If the purpose to to maximize shareholder returns then I don't see how increasing someone's salary (who's been making bad decisions) is helpful to that goal.

"It's not personal... it's just business."
*continues to shake hands with the devil

[Shampro]

Those acticles, are always so hilarious. The people who ''say'' or ''apperantly'' quit, are the ones that jump over to them the quickest. Well, I guess this can be aplied to anything company/game wise that is huge or has been huge for years.

[SamR]

The Motley Fool is the Bleacher Report of financial sites. They post random troll articles written by glorified forum warriors all the time. You're better off just buying an index fund rather than listening to any of their financial advice.

[Sierra85]

a percentage would go into server maintenance, a percentage would go into more wow development, another percentage would go into new IP developments R&D etc. and a good majority of it would go to the shareholders. $_$

it's a business, they are in it to make money. It's not art.

[Deleted]

This is a carefully built up massive whine post. He disguises it with shallow datas and subjective opinions.

[Belloc]

You can justify any sum of money with that kind of arguing.

Fortunately, no amount of justification is required. It's none of our business how much a company decides to pay their CEO.

[Deathgoose]

The Blizz CEO could use all of the subscription money to craft himself a solid gold dildo to shove in his ass every day so that he never has to stoop to putting something used up his pooper, and it really wouldn't make a difference. How the content is made and/or how much that content costs Blizz to make is irrelevent. The only thing that matters is this simple question:

Is the content enjoyable?

If it is, you continue to subscribe and play. If it isn't, you discontinue the subscription and stop.

[Morbownz]

He lost all credit with me when he said leveling and questing were fun in Vanilla.

If you are implying that questing and levelling is more fun now than it was at any point in the game then I disagree... ask yourself, what is that you enjoy about questing? if the answer is speed and efficiency and getting to the next level cap then I think changing the word fun to convenient would make more sense. I would then agree with you on your point... questing is much more convenient now than its ever been.

[yjmark]

If you are implying that questing and levelling is more fun now than it was at any point in the game then I disagree... ask yourself, what is that you enjoy about questing? if the answer is speed and efficiency and getting to the next level cap then I think changing the word fun to convenient would make more sense. I would then agree with you on your point... questing is much more convenient now than its ever been.

I enjoy questing now because (to me) it is significantly more fun than back in vanilla. The stories are more cohesive, more immersive, and more interesting. The only thing I really liked about vanilla questing (other than a few great questlines) was that it was new.

[Mad_Murdock]

Does anyone seriously believe that their subscription money directly goes purely back into World of Warcraft? Because if anyone does, you need to wake up. It doesn't and never has.

Every dollar I spend at McDonald's goes to feeding the hungry in Africa. It's why I eat there 5-6 times a day!

[OzoAndIndi]

Hun.. Lemmie tell somethin' you... I worked at JC Penney for 5 1/2 years, then lost my job during the reign of this Ron Johnson idiot who was finally fired after more than a year of tearing that business a new one. And even he took home a big salary all while destroying the place and cutting jobs of others. So lemmie just say, even if growth is unimpressive by someone's standards it's still at least growth... only people free to cry about it are those who might have lost jobs if any jobs were lost because of it.

[Deleted]

I think the higher up you move in the Blizzard company hierarchy the worse the performance gets.

- World and Quest design: Superb! All the small art designers and quest writers have put so much work into this game and made Pandaria look awesome and and feel wonderful.
- Balance/End game: Mediocre. The early progression paths are forced upon players and are repetitive (daily quests, lfr). the late end game, which is certainly the most fun, is available to only a small part of the player population. Balance - especially due to heirlooms - in 1-89 is out of whack to such a degree that it's not fun any more (I mean it even was way better in vanilla and BC).
- Direction/Leadership: Bad. Who needs content patches, content patches and more content patches, when most people struggle with accessibility to the fun parts of the content and are stuck in the mindless progression. People with alts or the ones who don't want to put 14 hours a week into a daily/lfr grind can't even raid normal modes.

Similar arguments can be made for Diablo III...

[Orange Joe]

Since the article is little more than a troll for page views it will likely be very successful. That was the point after all.

As for the rest of it, games change and it would be easy enough to write post-mortems about World of Warcraft 9 years later if had not changed much since vanilla. The article is wrong-headed, misinformed and largely suspect with regard to motives.

Game design studio bashing at its best/worst depending on whether or not you agree with it. Really, despite its location at Motley Fool, I've seen better informed and more thoughtful posts on the forums here.

Yeah that stood out when I read this.

Rewarding a CEO for a mediocre jobWorld of Warcraft probably had a longer reign as the world's most popular video game than any game ever has. But patching in constant fixes to a game that wasn't broken ruined Activision Blizzard's cash cow.
And what does the company do to reward the CEO for overseeing this recent period of unimpressive growth? Increase his pay eight-fold, and make him the fourth highest paid CEO in America! That massive raise cannot possibly be justified by the companies recent performance.

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Saying it doesn't go toward WoW is more ridiculous than saying it does.

Good thing she didn't say that then huh.


What she said was, not all of it goes back into development.

[Kraenen]

what is the correct salary for a ceo of his performance?

well whatever that price may be, it should be dictated by the market like everyone says. Instead the reality is it's dictated by himself and his small group of rich, powerful friends (an aristocracy).

[Saffa]

"Here blizzard take my money and do your own thing gurl"

If you do not like what they do with your money, stop playing. They do not send someone round every month to beat it out of you. You make a free choice to pay so that you can play WoW. Find a company you approve of and play their game

[Holtzmann]

You probably should never try to look at where the money you give Wal*Mart and other big supermarket chains goes to, then...

[Xilurm]

"Here blizzard take my money and do your own thing gurl"

Well I'm sorry but if someone is stupid enough to give a company money when they clearly think that that company doesn't deserve it, then they deserve to lose their money TBH.