Activision keeps blizzard's name clean.

[jakeic]

It's not that simple. Yes, I find the lootboxes a bit unethical, but they are in no way mandatory to buy nor do they give anything that benefits you in game. And to an an optional way to earn money, that no once is forced to participate in, I can't hate on that.

There are however pay-to-win lootboxes in other games that DOES give you things that make you better in the game, those I condemn!

Loot boxes and micro transactions are highly anti consumer for two primary reasons. First, they are designed to prey upon people. They are tailored specifically to target people who are susceptible to the psychological tricks they employ. If you aren't spending on them it is because you are not being targeted for exploitation. Second, loot boxes and micro transactions are non-value added changes to games. There are no games that are improved by the existence of loot boxes and micro transactions since the "products" they are selling used to just be included as the game but are now being chopped off to be sold as parts, in general their addition to games also serves to ruin in game rewards or disrupt game systems to promote more purchases.

Gaming on the whole has suffered from these practices, they have stifled innovation from gaming companies as they are only interested in developing games that fit the "games as a service" model, even going so far as to kill entire genres.

[Gaidax]

I think that forum shitters that don't really know much turned Activision into some sort of evil step mother for Blizzard's Cinderella.

Reality is Blizzard is Blizzard, they do their missteps and a lot of monetization practices as well as product development areas (such as mobile, omg start the screeching random noob #25210) are of their own making, which is actually fine if they want to stay competitive/relevant - thing that is ultimately in my interest because it means games I like being supported longer and not shutting down.

Blizzard has its own business development staff, saying that somehow evil Activision came in and pushed things onto them is silly.

[Dhrizzle]

I barely call them Blizzard anymore. They're not.

They're Activision-Blizzard. More accurately, they're basically the Activision-Blizzard-King trio.

Activision just never had the PR nightmare that EA had, but they're mostly the same. Their three largest investors are the same.

Blizzard was a money-making company which had a beautiful reputation for quite a while, which only recently started to slowly go down (In-game store for Wow was when things started to go down, culminating into the disaster that this last earning call was).

King is... well, the king of mobile games.

The pattern is obvious. It's not bad per say, but when a company starts to head toward profit exclusively in an aggressive, exponential way, it tend to end up eating itself. A bit like the retro game "Snake".

There's a pretty big difference between Activision and EA. Activision tend to go for much safer games, whatever their studios produce you can be pretty sure it will work okay out of the box.

EA try to mix the creative freedom of a company like Blizzard with the corporate inflexibility of Activision. Their studios can pitch idea that might be experimental or less run-of-the-mill than your typical AAA title but EA will make sure they release it feature complete and on time, which is why so many EA titles come out with underdeveloped/not-fun features and/or riddled with bugs. One of the BioWare founders phrased it best about EA - "they give you just enough rope to hang yourself."

- - - Updated - - -

You do realize they share the same boss/share holders and all right? The company's are one in the same period and its been this way for awhile now.

It's rarely as simple as that, when they were part of Vivendi they had the same boss/shareholders as many companies but I didn't see Blizzard laying water pipes or sending out waste collection trucks.

[Sencha]

Couldn't disagree more. Blizzard has done a lot of things wrong but maybe that's because I'm just no longer a fan of blizzard since diablo3.

[Deficineiron]

It's rarely as simple as that, when they were part of Vivendi they had the same boss/shareholders as many companies but I didn't see Blizzard laying water pipes or sending out waste collection trucks.

none of the (few) insiders with background and position to discuss it have ever discussed how it was being part of vivendi online in a huge diversified conglomerate vs. being a big chunk of a smaller company dedicated to developing/publishing (many of them are likely still under NDA and I assume none of them are in a position where they desire to burn industry bridges completely). My basic theory is vivendi online was in great part 'left alone' by vivendi, until it became clear they had found a golden goose in wow and they started looking at strategic options. they knew they didn't know video games and looked (and found) an option which they hoped? would better monetize the asset than they themselves could.

aside - from vivendi's viewpoint, the entire ATVI deal from start to finish looks terrible. they ended up selling most of it at 13?$/sh 5 years later, and the rest at 25ish

correct me if I am wrong, but essentially they sold vivendi online/blizzard for net 6.5B$ (gross 8.2B) after coughing up 1.7B$ CASH at deal closing in 2008 for additional shares, waiting 5 years to get paid, meaning they probably sold wow for slightly more than its revenue in this time period and maybe double its pro forma profitability over this time period.

finance experts - show me how this was, in retrospect, a good deal. remember the pro forma blizzard finances released at the time of the merger showed the game on a >1B revenue run rate already by mid-2008 iirc.

I edited the above to reflect a 2/1 split in sept 2008. the net effect is to make the additional cash purchase of shares by vivendi only a very small loss vs.

[Re4leader1]

Yea... not at all. Blizzard fan base has always been harsh. But it's just fuck up after fuck up after fuck up after lie after lie after lie after disappointment after disappointment.