Are "Triple A" gaming companies liquidating their current audience?

[Sunseeker]

Solution: Go oldschool on their asses. Pen & paper is the future of gaming baby!!!!

[TEHPALLYTANK]

This was inevitable.

What I'd be worried about is kids literally being taught to gamble.

Knowing how to gamble is a pretty useful skill. Becoming addicted to gambling is an entirely different problem. I can understand being worried by the latter, but I think you've got some weird priorities if you're worried by the former.

[Super Kami Dende]

Big map, pvp, kill/loot stuff and build crappy stuff sound like Battle Royal to me with a bit of Ark and the Forrest.

You obviously have zero idea of what game genres actually are.

[smityx]

It's they know where the inevitable future $$$ lies and that is with mobile garbage in asia. There are billions (China and India for starters) that will be coming on line over the next few years and they want to be in that game. Not sitting sidelines pushing out PC stuff for a measley couple dozen million PC master race crowd.

[Seramore]

contrarian

I too like to use words that I have just recently learned

[Thelxi]

It's a sad reality but I think the consumers are largely to blame for this, letting these corporations print money with MTX for so long. On the short term it was no biggie for many, but now the long term effects of these business practices are starting to show and affect even those that could have never imagined it being a problem. A contributing factor is probably that gaming overall is more accessible to young children these days, and they make an easy target for these companies. It all comes down to why make good games when you can make more money with less effort; and if the fruit is practically falling on the ground it's hard to blame the companies behind the games for picking them up.

It's a sad reality because the more aware gamers can complain and predict all they want, but all signs point to researchers and ultimately governments having to step in to regulate gaming, because we just don't know what is good or even healthy for us.

[Miyagie]

You obviously have zero idea of what game genres actually are.

I dont care you could also try to explain to me why candy crush is not like tetris.
All this "Building" and Battle Royal games are just a new Minecraft for 8-14 year olds IMO.

[Pachycrocuta]

I dont care you could also try to explain to me why candy crush is not like tetris.
All this "Building" and Battle Royal games are just a new Minecraft for 8-14 year olds IMO.

Candy Crush is not like Tetris. It is a clone of Bejewelled. As are numerous and countless other mobile games out there. They found it easy to monetize Bejewelled, with the power-ups and shit. Rather difficult to monetize Tetris. Though I am sure some asshole out there will probably find a way.

[Waltar]

Blizzard games are going to shit because because the net income of blizzard has gone down a metric fuckton in the last year, the net income was over a billion dollars in 2011-2012 now its down to under 300 million i'm not sure if actvision has even recouped its initial investment yet they are just trying to suck as much money as possible out blizzards games before they die.

[Edge-]

Blizzard games are going to shit because because the net income of blizzard has gone down a metric fuckton in the last year, the net income was over a billion dollars in 2011-2012 now its down to under 300 million i'm not sure if actvision has even recouped its initial investment yet they are just trying to suck as much money as possible out blizzards games before they die.

Uh...you got any sauce for that claim? Because even with Blizzard having a weaker year than usual I've seen nothing that indicates it's anywhere that low. Hell, 2018 revenue numbers haven't even been bloody announced yet.

https://investor.activision.com/news...2017-financial

That's last years, and not only do they not differentiate between Activision and Blizzard revenue, but their combined revenue was $7B. You have a tall mountain to climb to convince me that Activision and King made up $6.7B in revenue and Blizzard only contributed $300M.

[Oneirophobia]

I am hoping China, with their huge resurgence of nationalism and bashing the west of late, bans western games in the coming years to really dick all these companies.

That's been on my mind for a while now. China doesn't occur to me as a stable investment. Everything hinges on the whims of the new Emperor Xi Jingping.

[stellvia]

I can't get past the first 2 words of this post.
Quick edit: I'm not saying you are incorrect in your usage of a contraction grammatically, it's just.... well look at it.

And then you proceeded to take up an entire screen by quoting the complete post instead of only using the first sentence to validate your comment. Something that is far more egregious of a faux pas.


Getting back onto topic: Nobody is saying companies can't make money, or even good money. The issue is they're making far more money this decade than they ever have before and it still isn't apparently enough. As OP stated, their "new hotness" apparently is hard shifting into SE Asia/mobile and forsaking their core audience. Rather than selling what the customer wants, they're trying to use marketroid speak and buzz words to make the public think this is where consumer sentiment is trending... because it will make them even more money for even less effort.

"The customer is always right" actually means you sell what the public wants or you go under. AAA companies aren't doing that anymore.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I am hoping China, with their huge resurgence of nationalism and bashing the west of late, bans western games in the coming years to really dick all these companies.

I hope we are so lucky.

[Irian]

I do feel like there's a wave going on in the triple A companies right now. It just seems too easy that all these companies are pulling ridiculous bullshit all within such a short timespan of each other.

I think what we're seeing is the marketing industry catching on to the crash of the unsustainable AAA gaming industry, probably incited by the massive backlash to Star Wars Battlefront 2 a while back. People are quickly losing their patience with these big business and these big businesses have probably noticed. It would be easy to mock Blizzard for directing its attention to mobile but from a profit standpoint it completely makes sense, players on console are getting wise and money-grubbing practices are always welcome in these minimal-effort cash grab games that seek to exploit people with gambling addictions.

[MeteorPunch]

As long as their main franchises are making money on PC/console, they will continue to do so. It's more likely that they will "adjust" their staffing needs to make more mobile games as well, using their well-known game series. It's seemed like a big problem, because of Diablo (they should have made a common news announcement for Diablo mobile, not a big-stage reveal), but it's really not.

[Onikaroshi]

Uh...you got any sauce for that claim? Because even with Blizzard having a weaker year than usual I've seen nothing that indicates it's anywhere that low. Hell, 2018 revenue numbers haven't even been bloody announced yet.

https://investor.activision.com/news...2017-financial

That's last years, and not only do they not differentiate between Activision and Blizzard revenue, but their combined revenue was $7B. You have a tall mountain to climb to convince me that Activision and King made up $6.7B in revenue and Blizzard only contributed $300M.

Q1 Operating income: 166m 2017, 122 2018
q2: 225 2017, 133 2018
q3: 168 2017, 189 2018
q4: 160 2017, unk. 2018

so for q1-3 2017 was 559 and 2018 was 444

it's behind, but we don't know what q4 will look like quite yet

(Operating income is an accounting figure that measures the amount of profit realized from a business's operations, after deducting operating expenses such as wages, depreciation and cost of goods sold (COGS).)

And activision is doing worse.

[Super Kami Dende]

I dont care you could also try to explain to me why candy crush is not like tetris.
All this "Building" and Battle Royal games are just a new Minecraft for 8-14 year olds IMO.

I see you are just doubling down on being wrong, so I'll leave that to you.

[Edge-]

Q1 Operating income: 166m 2017, 122 2018
q2: 225 2017, 133 2018
q3: 168 2017, 189 2019
q4: 160 2017, unk. 2019

so for q1-3 2017 was 559 and 2018 was 444

it's behind, but we don't know what q4 will look like quite yet

(Operating income is an accounting figure that measures the amount of profit realized from a business's operations, after deducting operating expenses such as wages, depreciation and cost of goods sold (COGS).)

And activision is doing worse.

Where are you getting these numbers? Where are you finding Blizzard specific revenue numbers that don't include Activision?

[Onikaroshi]

Where are you getting these numbers? Where are you finding Blizzard specific revenue numbers that don't include Activision?

Right from the Activision Blizzard quarterly reports.

[Ophenia]

What, IYO, is p-r-o-f-i-t-a-b-l-e between

A) a game that can cost hundred of millions of dollars, that need to sell 5-6 millions to be remotely profitable (hint : extremely hard in 2018, with 20, 30 such games per year) and that will be decried if it's the same game as the previous year and decried if they change the formula ?
B) Hearthstone style game ?

Hearthstone works based on the foundations laid by Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo and Overwatch IPs. It would never have worked on its own.
And it's the same for incoming Diablo Immortal. It will sell well because it is Diablo. Call it Angels and Demons: Immortal and it will fail miserably as 90% of those mobile games advertised on Facebook claiming to have 40 million players each.

So yeah, maybe World of Warcraft doesn't sell well for example, but if you add all the sales coming from Warcraft (posters, mouse pads, mugs, statues, pops and so on), I'm pretty sure this IP is still one of the most profitable. And guess what? People buying those are mainly the PC fans, Diablo Immortal chinese players will never involve themselves to this point, because mobile gaming is not about the involvement in the lore and so on, it is about "quick game during morning commute".