Kotaku Article re: Activision's Growing Influence over Blizzard

[Acidbaron]

Expect blizzard games to go the way of Call of Duty, as in paying more every year for the same reworked elements. And only taking elements from other games that have not just proven to work but to be popular thus economically successful. So expect to see more AP systems in the future and more of what you have now just with a new skin.

Know that chant about more expansions coming to us during Blizzcon and faster? That's what they meant not more content, just you paying more where as you used to get more per expansion cycle you'll now get less and end up paying more. Or did anyone really believe it would mean more content faster for the same price? Don't be so naive.

WoW has run its course i suppose there are alternatives out there, even before this came out something some anticipated and feared, my personal interest has decreased, it feels like doing a series of chores without any real visible progress and the current AP system makes it even less rewarding. There's no reason to make a difference between blizzard and activision it's all one and the same and has been for a while.

I suggest as most here are probably invested in the game. Buy the expansion in the last half year of its cycle and get to do and experience everything at a discount as it's following the CoD model the price tends to drop significantly when a new one is on the horizon. There's not much reason to play it from day one anymore, the content is gated (nothing new), unless you're in a guild you won't get many interesting team content runs, to maintain a decent raider.io score you need to put in too much effort than its worth.

Honestly for me this is good news if WoW falls off the radar i'll start on my huge back log on steam over 400 games left to try out.

[Deleted]

In what world is severance pay = firing? Do you guys even understand what a severance pay is?

One of the companies i worked for gives almost everyone the chance for a severance pay to go up to one year earlier into retirement. Does that mean they fire everyone close to retirement? NO it does not.

Hmmm the world of my last 20 years corporate experience where severance plans were always the first stage of layoffs? I wonder how it will be this time. Blizz isn’t even close to the FTE size of the companies I worked for so maybe severance plans will be enough there.

[Acidbaron]

When you "fire" your support staff and start overworking your development team to start churning out games at a higher rate per year, you get shitty games with poor foundations in software infrastructure, story and gameplay.

This is a complete reversal of Blizzards development model. "standard corperate cost cutting" of this particular nature has not been part of Blizzards culture.

These are corperate businessmen, not game developers. Rather than development centric, they are reporting that the company is being made Finance-centric, with monthly reminders to everyone about cost cutting, the CFO has brought in his own people to handle things at blizz.

writings on the wall. Blizzard will continue as a brand, everything that made Blizzard "Blizzard" will all be gone.

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Your opinion is wrong and damaging, based on a vapid points and a weak foundation which ignores in Activisions past and current behaviour. Its cast in stone modus operandi

You talk like they're going to show restraint. Activision and its ilk dont know the meaning of the word. It will be EA levels of rushed development periods, story and gameplay will suffer. The creative process will be stifled for inclusion of MTs in every aspect of the game. History has shown this again and again and again. We will get maybe 1 or 2 games with reducing standards the developers burn out and wont be able to put in the same quality again.

So congrats. instead of getting your quality legendary product, you get bland franchise killing filth which makes you miss things "from back in the day". The "fun" to be had will a flash in the pan to reel you in for spending and you'll get bored of it in short order.

I say this because THATS their business model. Once Blizz runs its course as a cash cow and is unable to keep up with ever increasing projected profits for each year, it will be dismantled and its franchises put down, never to be seen again.

Just like the dozens of previous franchises which went through the exact same situation with the exact same circumstances. Do you really expect things to go differently this time?

It's honestly like people forgot how the CoD model works.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

you're literally what's wrong with the games industry.

i'd rather have a masterpiece that takes like five years to make, like an elderscrolls game.

Hang on, hang on.

We talking about the same Elderscrolls here? From Bethesda? The company that releases hilariously broken games and then sometimes fixes them other times just makes fans fix it via 90 mod playthroughs?




Though honestly some smashed together games can be good. And there's games stuck in development hell that end up being terrible despite 7 years to work on them. It's more based on the quality of the developers than it is the time it takes to make the game.

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I love how - just like with Ghostcrawler - you guys bitched and moaned about Morhaime being awful when he was there and are canonizing him now that he's gone.

Scapegoating at its finest. Blame a random public figure, get them fired, realize they weren't the problem, blame Activision, then blame the next public figure.

[The Anax]

Your opinion is wrong and damaging

Only read that far, anything else will be as irrational as that statement.

[Gaidax]

I love how - just like with Ghostcrawler - you guys bitched and moaned about Morhaime being awful when he was there and are canonizing him now that he's gone.

Yeah, the usual. I bet it's also the same people too in quite a few cases.

[Ianus]

"Time is money friend."

They don't need your pennies, they're doing just fine without them. Although I find it hilarious you wasted your time to bitch and moan.

I find it hilarious you wasted your time to be blind Activison-blizzard's fangay bc my opinion now go enjoy koticks wiener

[Nyel]

Warcraft 3 scene is in sort of comeback state. Let's see if it can hold.

Well, true. But WoW isn't Warcraft 3. I hope the best for WoW but there needs to be a major shift in game design to make this successful. And this needs to be precedeed by a major shift in leading (bye Ion).