Why do the people never blame Mike Morhaime?

[Gimlix]

Isn't he the boss of Blizzard, why does it always come down either to Activision or some lead developer dev, when it comes to hate?
Doesn't Mike Morheime decide what he wants in the games and not?

Or how do i need to see his position?

[Arikara]

Uh, no. Morhaime is not involved in deciding what features go into the game. Thats the job of the lead developers and their teams.

[Lochton]

Isn't he the boss of Blizzard, why does it always come down either to Activision or some lead developer dev, when it comes to hate?
Doesn't Mike Morheime decide what he wants in the games and not?

Or how do i need to see his position?

He's one person of a whole content board of people. You can't technically blame a single person at all.

[Deleted]

Ofc you can technically blame everyone in a company for doing shit.

But imho I think that Morhaime doesn't get too much involved with "game design" as long as Blizzard's Business itself runs. I can imagine that he saw how bad WoD was and gave the development the finger but that's it. He doesn't make the games he just runs a business. Especially he can't really be blamed because the other games are running well. Starcraft II is a top game, Hots is pretty good, Diablo gets fresh ideas every now and then, Hearthstone is a gold mine (even though it sucks) and even WoW generates a +.

Generally speaking I would say the main reasons why Activision (as publisher) is blamed is simply because of the fact that many publishers are shit. Look how Konami fucked up Silent Hills or how EA ruins all studios under them and so on...

The Developers are obviously to blame for every good/bad thing they do. They simply did shit this addon and now have a chance to redeem themselves in Legion, simple as that.

[Serissa]

Isn't he the boss of Blizzard, why does it always come down either to Activision or some lead developer dev, when it comes to hate?
Doesn't Mike Morheime decide what he wants in the games and not?

Or how do i need to see his position?

Google "CEO" then google "lead game developer", there's your answer.

[Pyromelter]

Isn't he the boss of Blizzard, why does it always come down either to Activision or some lead developer dev, when it comes to hate?
Doesn't Mike Morheime decide what he wants in the games and not?

Or how do i need to see his position?

CEO's rarely are involved in the day-to-day groundwork of a company. They are usually the ones at the top allowing everyone to do their jobs more smoothly underneath them. Morhaime's responsibilities are basically to make sure that all the development teams are staffed, he also has input (and likely final say) on what projects go forward (Overwatch), and what get shut down (Titan).

CEO is basically a management position... where you are the top manager. For example, I work in health care, and my department administrator does exactly zero patient care, but she makes it so that my job and the jobs of my coworkers and supervisors are able to function in terms of treating patients.

Budgets, scheduling, employee census, also other random shit like parking spaces, construction, expansion of facilities, upgrading hardware, big budget items... that's the kind of stuff a CEO does. And they do that so the game directors don't have to worry about that stuff, and they simply do their jobs with game design.

Ultimately the overall design of WoW falls currently on Tom Chilton, with a lot of responsibily on Kazzistokas and Asfrabiasi, so in effect the 3 of them are sort of the triumverate that combine for overall design responsibilities for wow. Morhaime does not directly influence their decisions, EXCEPT that Morhaime as CEO can fire any or all of them if he wants. As CEO, your main responsibility is finding the right people to delegate responsibilities to.

You could criticize Morhaime for not firing Kazzistokas, who seemed the most hell-bent on removing flying, but that's a tough thing to go over the head of the person directly responsible you know? Overall Morhaime has done a rather phenomenal job as CEO of blizzard, they have a bunch of lucrative IPs and a rabid fanbase, and while WoW has been sinking for a while, the overall company has been doing great, so it's hard to really criticize him even if one of his teams is majorly fucking up right now.

[Schmilblick]

Why don't you get a life outside of this forum ?
Why don't all the hate threads on Blizzard ?
Why are you still not banned ?
Why are you so dumb ?

[Dnusha]

blame blame blame blame blame blame blamev blame blame blame blame blame v blame blame v blame blame blame
mmo-champion forums in a nutshell

[Deleted]

I like Morhaime tho

[Narveid]

Mike Morhaime? But he is just this little guy going around being all happy about games. Why would you blame him?

[BenBos]

Isn't he the boss of Blizzard, why does it always come down either to Activision or some lead developer dev, when it comes to hate?
Doesn't Mike Morheime decide what he wants in the games and not?

Or how do i need to see his position?

Innovation ends when you are no longer playing your own games.

It is a question only Morhaime can answer. I very much doubt he or (ex) Pardo or Metzen leveled a new character through basic levels in Cataclysm...

.... Or perhaps that's the exact reason why Pardo left in the first place.

Anyhow: WoW is now managed by technocrats: take no risks, do your part of the job, colour between the lines and apply the formulas that worked (or seemed to work).

I even wonder if its present day coordinator still likes to play WoW... if it was not his job ...

[Deleted]

In the eyes of the Western people, he is allowed and even expected to be a business whore.

[Foj]

As far up as the blame for whatever's wrong with WoW goes, is Tom Chilton.

Now, I think Bobby Kotick is actually pretty cool in terms of his combination of (ancient) gamer cred and (current) financial cred, but Chilton is the dude who has the final say these days.

[Arramiss]

I like Morhaime tho

Me too He's very likeable.

OP I don't really blame any of them lol, I just hope they pick up their game a bit next time (and I hope they don't repeat the mistakes they made with flying :/ ).

[Zeras]

Mike Morhaime? But he is just this little guy going around being all happy about games. Why would you blame him?

Hahaha, thank you this made my day. Every Blizzcon video i see him in, he is exactly just that, seemingly just along for the ride, smiling and giving happy face speeches. While the devs get all nerd rage at them.

I think that's why i like em too. lol

[Gimlix]

Me too He's very likeable.

OP I don't really blame any of them lol, I just hope they pick up their game a bit next time (and I hope they don't repeat the mistakes they made with flying :/ ).

It's not like i hate him, i think he is an awesome CEO when i see him in streams, clips.
but Blizzard has sure dissapointed alot of people lately

[Deleted]

Let's blame the CEO of Blizzard that has nothing to do with the development of the game or balancing! OR WAIT a new idea, let's not blame any dev/community workers at Blizzard. NOT ONE AT ALL and just enjoy the game they made for us!

[Arramiss]

Yep in a limited way, but don't forget their other games are going very well (and they have millions of happy players, hearthstone etc).

[thottstation]

Ultimately the overall design of WoW falls currently on Tom Chilton

This is the guy who pushed garrisons, and wanted them to be a core feature of WoW going forward.

[Foj]

This is the guy who pushed garrisons, and wanted them to be a core feature of WoW going forward.

If I had to list the features of WoD that I thought were horrific failures, I wouldn't list garrisons as one of them.

The garrison follower minigame is actually pretty interesting.

But ... the fact that unless you're raiding in WoD, you're not actually playing WoW in WoD, that's a separate, somewhat broader problem. I don't know whether Chilton really bought into "raid or die" or whether garrisons were his version of "well at least give 90% of the players something to do while they're denied access to the rest of the game (or instead of leaving)."