Morale at Blizzard low?

[Gadzooks]

Mark Kern isn't a Blizzard employee and hasn't been that for 14 years. Yes, he was team lead in Vanilla, but that's it. There's no way he can "confirm peoples suspicions"

Keep in mind, too, that happy, content employees are really unlikely to reach out to youtubers and people like Kern to complain.

If i've learned anything from years (decades, really) working in the corporate/job world, that everyone's perceptions, assumptions and gripes are very situational. It's not implausible that some of the things being claimed are true - and they're not especially unique, either, in the corporate space - but a low level employee can very easily misunderstand the decisions and actions of superiors, because they're not in the meetings where things are decided, they're not in the conversation loop.

For all we know, the orders to save money could simply be they brought a new CFO in who fainted dead away at seeing the spreadsheets and tons of money being wasted on projects and parts of projects that didn't lead to anything. From an executive office perspective, that's sound business practice, but from a lower level, it's easy to see it as "ATVI took away our money pony, those dicks." That could be another reason Morhaime stepped down, he could have been the one spending money like water, throwing budgets around like candy to make everyone happy, and they were bleeding too much cash.

We don't know. So you always have to read gossip like this with a grain of salt - and keep in mind, who you talk to will show you different perspectives. You see Diablo :Immortal as an insult, but Adham sees it as a huge potential for the company.

The part that's interesting to me is the talk - if true - of Adham's new incubation team, and Stockton and others joining it to make smaller, passion projects, like a Pokeman game. There's been talk for years there's no room for advancement in Blizzard, that people needed to move up and out of the way for the younger people, and honestly? From a corporate perspective, the incubation team is a perfect solution for that. Stockton and Chilton were probably burnt out, this gives them a chance to slow down, do something they think is cool, and new people get to fill in the slots they left behind. (Which means, we could hope Ion joins the incubation team sooner rather than later)(Maybe he can do a wow themed spreadsheet program)(Or a courtroom based RPG, Orcs vs. Lawyers.)

Diablo, if any of the stuff being discussed is true, then it's starting to make more sense. It still sucks, but it's plausible. Josh leaving was a big deal. The franchise is just snakebit, it can't catch a break, and it's disappointing Wyatt is more fired up for a mobile game than a PC one. It's just been mishandled and bungled.

So, if any of this is real, and I'm always going to hold back diving in all the way, then it starts to come into focus. Blizzard grew, really fast, and their internal structures and workflows and such didn't scale the way it should have, and they're trying to address it. The company needs to grow, and that means new products, and since sales to the US/EU are in a slow decline, they went where the sales are. It's not one thing, either, it's dropping sales, their market growing older and younger players not being pulled into 20 year old franchises, their current games are pretty much as big as they're gonna be - they need new IPs, new titles, new genres, and opportunities for their devs, so they don't end up grinding the same game code for 20 years, to smaller and smaller numbers of players.

It's not as bad as the couch fainters on YouTube make it out to be - but it is bad for US/EU players, because you/we won't be getting the games we want, not anytime soon. It's a matter of perspective. I'd bet the vast majority of employees see this all as job security. "Work on a mobile game? It pays the bills! I'm in!" But, if they hadn't screwed up Diablo, if someone else had taken the helm of WoW, if Titan hadn't failed, if they'd had other new games released...maybe none of this would matter. And maybe that's why Morhaime stepped down, because he was asked to, because all of their products are dying on the vine, and he's in charge of all of it.

It's not that your disapointment isn't real, or valid. I share some of it. But what are they supposed to do? You're/I'm not buying their games. Every time a tryhard sneers at a "casual" to "just quit", that's potentially one less player and one less customer for Blizzard, and then you get Diablo: Immortal, because people will buy it. You can look at all this as "OMG GREEDY ACTIVISION", or you can maybe see it as "They have problems, and are trying to fix them, and it's gonna suck while they do it."

I hope they get their shit together, and release games I'd like to buy and play, again. But companies do fail, and for these very reasons. This is why CEOs (sometimes) get big paychecks, this is the shit they deal with, this is the kind of problems they have to solve, not fixing azerite armor. Brack has his work cut out for him, that's for sure. He's gotta make some hard choices, that will impact his employees, and his customers. Less people are buying their games, so they need new customers, but getting them will piss off the current ones, and the ones not buying the games anyway, and the youtube community is feeding off negativity over it all, they're damned if they do, damned if they don't. And on top of that, he has to keep Kotick and the investors happy.

I wouldn't want Brack's job, right now, that's for damned sure.

[Deleted]

it is not low. it is just morally grey bro!

[Clone]

Lolololol keep up the good work my dude, I'm sure that Kotick himself will come someday and /pat you This whole thread is filled with people who can't cope with the fact that Blizzard is sunk to the neck in corporate BS and that it's no longer the same Blizzard of D2/WC3/early WoW. It's fascinating how white knights are quick to praise Blizzard when it does something right, but when it drops the ball, they deflect the blame (real or perceived) onto Activision or even players.

The bolded part is pure fantasy that rivals LotR. Blizzard didn't sink anywhere, they've always been the same. The only difference between you and me is I know Blizzard has always been just another corporation, and you think they were somehow corrupted by Activision.

This whole thread is testament to the phenomenon where people are willing to believe bullshit drivel that has no back up sources, to further their confirmation bias that Blizzard has somehow been corrupted. The rest of us sane folks are telling you Blizzard has always been corporate.

Shit man, even your post calls into question your reading ability. I didn't deflect any blame onto Activision, I was calling out posters who don't understand Blizzard has always be corporate deflecting blame on to Activision.

[Soon-TM]

The bolded part is pure fantasy that rivals LotR. Blizzard didn't sink anywhere, they've always been the same. The only difference between you and me is I know Blizzard has always been just another corporation, and you think they were somehow corrupted by Activision.

This whole thread is testament to the phenomenon where people are willing to believe bullshit drivel that has no back up sources, to further their confirmation bias that Blizzard has somehow been corrupted. The rest of us sane folks are telling you Blizzard has always been corporate.

Shit man, even your post calls into question your reading ability. I didn't deflect any blame onto Activision, I was calling out posters who don't understand Blizzard has always be corporate deflecting blame on to Activision.

Not corrupted. Just corporatized.

[RobertoCarlos]

The bolded part is pure fantasy that rivals LotR. Blizzard didn't sink anywhere, they've always been the same. The only difference between you and me is I know Blizzard has always been just another corporation, and you think they were somehow corrupted by Activision.

This whole thread is testament to the phenomenon where people are willing to believe bullshit drivel that has no back up sources, to further their confirmation bias that Blizzard has somehow been corrupted. The rest of us sane folks are telling you Blizzard has always been corporate.

Shit man, even your post calls into question your reading ability. I didn't deflect any blame onto Activision, I was calling out posters who don't understand Blizzard has always be corporate deflecting blame on to Activision.

People in position of power actually have control on how products turn out believe it not.

Its how you get a difference between a ferrari and any old piece of junk.

If you focus on making quality products like blizzard in the past did because the people at the top were gamers themselves, they made a cult following that turned into a profitable business.

Now people at the top only care about shareholders and earning report calls.

[Kokolums]

If you focus on making quality products like blizzard in the past did because the people at the top were gamers themselves, they made a cult following that turned into a profitable business.

Now people at the top only care about shareholders and earning report calls.

Blizzard still makes quality products. Overwatch is a quality game. Legion was quality. BfA is ok. The problem is they have no value add. You need a difference maker to set yourself apart from competitors in the industry. If you don't have that, then a fortnite comes along and wrecks you. Blizzard had a HUGE value add with battle.net, which was a cutting edge social space for gamers that cross-pollinated all of its games. I don't play Overwatch. I think its a good game, I just don't play it. I don't play SC2. I think its a good game, I just don't play it. BUT, if Blizzard built a modern battle.net social space with WoW, OW, and SC2 all interconnected so that I can swap games in seconds, and rebuilt the social community, I would play all of those titles.

[OmniSkribe]

See that's the problem isn't it.

You're willing to deny the fall of a once great company because you're "loyal". They're a fucking company. They operate to make money off you. You don't owe them anything.

They released a broken, buggy half baked expansion that is an objective failure. 8.1 looks to really actually fix none of those issues.

Then they shit on Diablo fans at Blizzcon too.

Get a grip bro.

My grip is all right don't worry, I have played Legion for 1 week and haven't subscribed to the game since mid-legion. I just sit a way instead of rising torches and pitchforks against people like you do.

You can't "invest much time" into understanding RPG mechanics in Divinity?

Like you can't understand that oil lights on fire and you can electrocute water?

You're everything wrong with the current direction of WoW and its insanely dumbed down class design.

On the other hand... There is no point to continue discussion with you since you act passive-aggressive.

[Kokolums]

Keep in mind, too, that happy, content employees are really unlikely to reach out to youtubers and people like Kern to complain

I grew up in Cleveland Ohio, and followed sports and specifically the Indians in the 1990s when they were going to multiple world series. I would listen to the local radio sports call-in shows while they talked baseball. It was a great education in terms of how forum posters react.

1. Sometimes the Indians would go on a LONG win streak. Like 8, 9, 10, 11 wins in a row. Without fail, whenever the Indians were just rolling everyone, the phone lines were absolutely DEAD. You'd listen to the local sports call-in shows, and not a single fan would call in for 2 hours. The people were happy and content, so they didn't call.

2. If the win the streak was broken with just ONE loss, that's night's call-in show would be a fireworks display. Just ONE loss. If they had won 10 in a row, and then lost just ONE game, it would be wall-to-wall callers complaining about the outfielders, the hitting, the rotation, and entire bullpen, the attitude of the 3rd base coach, and after 2 hours of complaints, the callers would have worked themselves up into a rabid frenzy that by the end of the show they were calling for the manager to be fired and for the owner to sell the team. It was part sad, part absolute comedy, all at the same time.

3. Now, if they went on a losing skid, the fans would be irate. Fire everyone! Trade the players! Sell the team!

4. Once we reached 2002 and the losing was serious and they had a losing record, it was slightly different. Upon realizing the season was slipping away, the phone lines would be super packed with a long waiting line to get on the air. Fans would threaten to cancel their season tickets, burn their jerseys, etc. This would go on for several weeks. And then, the fans would hit their breaking point. They would go from intense fury to acceptance. They would decide it was no longer worth their time and the phone calls would just completely stop. Now, the lines were dead win or lose.

So the pattern of behavior from the fans are silent complacency, to anger, to fury, to mass hyped crazed fury, and then they vanish completely.

Fans of video games on forums tend to do the same thing. I ponder if the fury and outrage over Diablo: Immortal is not pushing the Blizzard fanbase to the breaking point. I'm wondering if that collapse is next, where a large group of them REALLY move on.

[Khandros]

Low morale would make sense since BFA is such a low quality turd and been so since day one.

[swatsonqt]

Wow never had as many content for people without guilds as it does now...
LFR, Warfronts, IEs,WQs, dungeons... What else do you want? Queue able mythic raids?

Collectable things for example. I think in legion the system worked out better because these "dumb tasks" meant progress towards...mounts/transmogs or whatever.

I feel like that's missing right now. You can progress on ilvl but that more or less too complicated if you can't play with friends or a guild or too difficult so the most people will simply not do it.

And after that whats left? All the things you described but it's rng there. The vendor for Warfronts for example is fantastic and i think that will be recieved well by most of the playerbase. These are the things that i want.

[Deleted]

Yes. You think tapping on 5,5 inch screen covering 30% of screen by your fingers can make game experience good? Haha no it cant.

How about extensions for phones that could turn them into something way better? Like ... VRstyle goggles? Or eye-movement tracking as user interface? I haven’t seen that yet but I am eager to. Maybe Asia already has that. All I know is I have seen more people play on phones in China in a day than in EU in months.

Also - AAA game companies can go die in a fire after taking a big dump at their fanbase and then their employees as well. It’s the 1% richest at those companies who make greed based decisions. It’s sad.

[Deleted]

Now people at the top only care about shareholders and earning report calls.

And how do you get the most money as a gaming company? Maybe by making good games that are played by as many players as possible?

That exactly the same with WoW. How can Blizz make as much money with WoW as possible? By making the game as good as possible to get as much active players as possible for a long time. Maybe this version is not your and all the internet brats favorite version, but maybe its the version that most active players prefer.

Maybe you guys should take of a couple layers of tinfoil and let your brains cool off, instead of repeating the same stupid conspiracy theories all day long. At least try to think about it before you repeat something blindly, because its the meme answer.

[Daveon]

Now people at the top only care about shareholders and earning report calls.

Now compared to when? In 2008 when Activision acquired Blizzard, Mike Morhaime was on the earnings report conference calls. It's not like the people at the top just started caring about profits. They always have. That's the job of the people at the top, to show profitability.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah for sure. No real evidence of that happening though. They're not walking out of the office like Google employees. They don't seem to be leaving in droves. Sure people leave companies because they don't like this or that and sometimes they get pissed off because they don't agree with company direction. It happens. All the time. Kern left Blizzard (or was let go) 14 years ago and that doesn't seem to have been on good terms. So I'm sure he knows thing or two about being unhappy. Jeremy has multiple levels of public, ugly drama about his persona and he doesn't seem to be entirely mentally healthy.

Blizzard hasn't been a creative, innovative "indie" shop for a long time. It's a big company. In big companies people come and go for variety of reasons. In big companies someone is always unhappy.

Yep, I think a lot of people in this thread are going to be shocked when they enter the real world and have to work for a big company. Shit happens. You may not like a decision, you get upset. You decide whether you stay or whether you go. If you stay, the company moves on, if you go, the company also moves on...

[Netherius]

I grew up in Cleveland Ohio, and followed sports and specifically the Indians in the 1990s when they were going to multiple world series. I would listen to the local radio sports call-in shows while they talked baseball. It was a great education in terms of how forum posters react.

1. Sometimes the Indians would go on a LONG win streak. Like 8, 9, 10, 11 wins in a row. Without fail, whenever the Indians were just rolling everyone, the phone lines were absolutely DEAD. You'd listen to the local sports call-in shows, and not a single fan would call in for 2 hours. The people were happy and content, so they didn't call.

2. If the win the streak was broken with just ONE loss, that's night's call-in show would be a fireworks display. Just ONE loss. If they had won 10 in a row, and then lost just ONE game, it would be wall-to-wall callers complaining about the outfielders, the hitting, the rotation, and entire bullpen, the attitude of the 3rd base coach, and after 2 hours of complaints, the callers would have worked themselves up into a rabid frenzy that by the end of the show they were calling for the manager to be fired and for the owner to sell the team. It was part sad, part absolute comedy, all at the same time.

3. Now, if they went on a losing skid, the fans would be irate. Fire everyone! Trade the players! Sell the team!

4. Once we reached 2002 and the losing was serious and they had a losing record, it was slightly different. Upon realizing the season was slipping away, the phone lines would be super packed with a long waiting line to get on the air. Fans would threaten to cancel their season tickets, burn their jerseys, etc. This would go on for several weeks. And then, the fans would hit their breaking point. They would go from intense fury to acceptance. They would decide it was no longer worth their time and the phone calls would just completely stop. Now, the lines were dead win or lose.

So the pattern of behavior from the fans are silent complacency, to anger, to fury, to mass hyped crazed fury, and then they vanish completely.

Fans of video games on forums tend to do the same thing. I ponder if the fury and outrage over Diablo: Immortal is not pushing the Blizzard fanbase to the breaking point. I'm wondering if that collapse is next, where a large group of them REALLY move on.

Man you need to lay off the Bruce Drennan! But really I think you nailed what it's like for us to be a Cleveland sports fan.

[Blizzard Moneybot]

I dont support Blizzard with my money anymore so I dont care if it crashes and burns. I'm just sad for the employees that are sinking with the ship.

With the slop they are putting out now, even their new employees aren't the good ones that cared back in the day. A ship full of code.org hires isn't a ship worth sailing anyway.

- - - Updated - - -

Now compared to when? In 2008 when Activision acquired Blizzard, Mike Morhaime was on the earnings report conference calls.

And he also cared about products and the people loyal to the brand. And now he's been forced out. yes, CEOs can care about earnings AND the product reception with customers. The problem is companies in America couldn't give a flying fuck about the reception being poor as more cheap slop is put out so long as the earnings are 'above projections'. These are the idiots who'd turn a Corvette into an anemic hybrid economy car, call the people annoyed by the change racist climate change deniers, and then sit there befuddled by the shit reception it got was terrible and their stock is tanking.
Profitability and customer reception is not a zero sum game.

[Banshee Prince]

It gets worse. More and more people are coming forward describing how they had to live in communes just to maintain a job at Blizzard.

[Soon-TM]

(interesting video)

Be prepared for white knights dismissing the video summarily, just because it's from TheQuartering. A very mature attitude

[Gorsameth]

It gets worse. More and more people are coming forward describing how they had to live in communes just to maintain a job at Blizzard.

Housing is expensive and the more businesses there are in an area to more unaffordable it becomes for those living there.

Welcome to the 21st century. Your a little late.

[sopeonaroap]

Housing is expensive and the more businesses there are in an area to more unaffordable it becomes for those living there.

Welcome to the 21st century. Your a little late.

you're*

so your stance is "it's normal for a college educated adult to have to live with multiple other college educated adults to get by" lol

[Gorsameth]

you're*

so your stance is "it's normal for a college educated adult to have to live with multiple other college educated adults to get by" lol

My stance is that housing everywhere is fucked and that we should unfuck it but don't because the housing market is big and powerful and crashing the prizes enough to actually make it affordable would bankrupt a shit ton of people.

The world is fucked and unfair. Welcome to the post baby-boomer world, be sure to thank your parents.

More pointedly, what does this general Western phenomena have to do with Blizzard? Or are they now the source of all evil in the world?