About Activision Blizzard

[Shaetha]

even with ignoring titan and only looking at released products, did this guy somehow delete diablo 3 launch from his brain? people literally couldn't log in, there was a real money auction house, gear was so rare that i didn't get my first legendary until my 4th play through and it was a wizard orb that had no wizard stats on it. d3 was literally broken, compromised by greed, and horrendously balanced and stayed that way until ros.

i really hate to say it but i think this guy might be a nostalgic fan boy of blizz and refuses to admit fault. any level-headed person would not call original d3 unbuggy and polished.

It's hilarious when people say things like this about Diablo 3. Like it or not, the loot was almost exactly like it was in D2.

[Onikaroshi]

Now D4 is going to triple dip with box price, expansion price, and mtx while their free to play competitor churns out new updates like crazy for free while also having the superior game.

Lol, and PoE will still pull in more money than D4 because people drop more money on MTX in a free game, because they see it as "free"...

Still, I see zero problem with cosmetic MTX in D4 honestly.

[Dhrizzle]

Because Activision forces them to appeal to investors rather than making a good game that makes money.

The A-B buyout from Vivendi to stop them being carved up for parts is what forces them to appeal to investors. Blizzard's biggest pressure comes from them no longer being a tiny component in a huge mega-global conglomerate.

[Gaidax]

The shit are people smoking?

Blizzard fuckups are their own. If you ask me Mike Morehaime should have been tossed couple years earlier, because he did shit job. Blizzard has no new IP and no new games for years, if not WoW cash cow that allows them to release "new game" every 2 years with expansions and Activision backing they'd be in shit by now. Game development studio that releases no new games? What kind of joke is that?

It's like some guy previously said here - people claim this investor pleasing and Activision bullshit? What, you mean when game studio stagnates and does not release new games or new IP it is somehow pleasing investors? What kind of silly goose talk is that?

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I mean seriously, take Starcraft for example... literally dead for years now, such a huge IP and all they do there is release some commander crap once in a year? They could have done so much with it, new trilogy or new spin-off game like some shooter or rpg. What new games Blizzard released last 2 years? Nothing. Just feeding on the corpses with remasters.

What new games Blizzard will release next 2 years? Overwatch 2? Which is basically Overwatch expansion. Thanks god for that at least, because except for that it will be "don't you guys have phones?".

[Naiattavain]

heres the problem, on one hand its the game makers and publishers, and the ON THE OTHER HAND THIS SHIT KEEPS SELLING, LIKE MTX SELLS, SCUMMY TACTICS SELLS, REHASHED SHIT SELLS, mindless sheep keep buying, so no matter how much we scream nothing changes cuz the reality is, FKING SADLY, that people buy regardless

hollywood has tanked to satanism where else do you see Christians spending their money? naturally blizzard.

[Zyky]

I mean, can you blame them? That rehashed game is like the 3rd best selling franchise of all time behind mario and pokemon.

Still has more variety then thinks like FIFA and Madden at least lol.

Not what I was getting at with my comment, I was saying that they don't have the knowledge on how to accommodate the creation of good new games because the "investors" only want what works now with minimal effort.

[Steelangel]

Let just Blizz give to THQ or idk someone else, intelectual properties to making thier games and be done with it.

Diablo 4 most anticipated and what? Microtransactions? No thanks...
Starcraft? Wait this game is still alive? Ah right... It is Korean national sport.
Heroes Of The Storm? No comment.
Overwatch? No comment.
Hearthstone? No comment...
Warcraft? Cataclysm was first sign, that something went wrong. And let's don't forget that recently people started acknowledge that MoP was good, but still complaining about Pandas.

But fear not. Bethseda is as well not in good light since for year. Yay Fallout 76.

So you want to give Blizzard’s IP to THQ because you want tons of shovelware?

[Gaidax]

Not what I was getting at with my comment, I was saying that they don't have the knowledge on how to accommodate the creation of good new games because the "investors" only want what works now with minimal effort.

That's bullshit plain and simple. "Investors" want gaming studios to release games, stagnation is much worse than an odd underwhelming title.

Sitting on your ass and doing nothing except expansions for dwindling playerbase is not a plan "investors" are happy with, no matter how much you want to believe that. It's only by sheer luck Blizzard has WoW, so it sort of has the breathing room there.

Problem is squarely Blizzard, it is Blizzard who are terrified of making bold moves, that's why they ended up in this situation where you will have a good 5 years gap between new games like it looks now. If it would be any other studio under any other publisher, they'd get whole management heads lopped off by now.

[ErrandRunner]

It does seem irrational at times to see people correlate all Blizzard's issues with their merging with Activision. At what point does Blizzard take responsibility and say "it's internal problems at our own company, not some external company to blame." That would be the day...

[MoanaLisa]

Not what I was getting at with my comment, I was saying that they don't have the knowledge on how to accommodate the creation of good new games because the "investors" only want what works now with minimal effort.

Over 80% of ATVI's investors are pension funds and institutional in nature and don't know anything about Blizzard's games. Quit acting as if Blizzard is all of ATVI. The people that run those funds are about 10X more interested in how Candy Crush is doing than anything to do with Blizzard or World of Warcraft. That's even if they know anything whatsoever about video games. ATVI is just a 4-letter code in a bundle of stocks and securities. Even if they were interested they would wonder why Blizzard hasn't released anything in over three years.

[froschhure]

let me help you =)

Let just Blizz give to THQ or idk someone else, intelectual properties to making thier games and be done with it.

Overwatch? Develop a game with free choice, only to force everyone to play 2 tanks 2 dps and 2 healer highering your queue time by 800%.
Hearthstone? Sell wow lore to boomertrash
Warcraft? Cataclysm was first sign, that something went wrong. And let's don't forget that recently people started acknowledge that MoP was good, but still complaining about Pandas. *My Version. Cataclysm was Blizzard and Pandaria was chinese investors taking over.

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TLDR whoever replaced blizzard with lizzard, burn in hell.

[TwoMana]

John Staats in an interview published November 19, 2019 (11 days ago):

https://www.adventuresinpoortaste.co...ture-and-more/

There's a lot I could say about it but fuck it, I've said all of this before more than once. It's pathetic that people are still so moonstruck over what Blizzard used to be that they have to blame things on Kotick and ATVI. They got here entirely on their own. They say they still scrap about half the stuff they start. They haven't published a new game in over three-and-a-half years.

I think Titan broke Blizzard and they have yet to pull their shit together because of it. Because they can't seem to organize themselves to get a new title out on a regular basis they must find ways to monetize their games. They would be doing exactly the same thing if they were self-owned. In fact it's entirely possible that it would be a fuck of a lot worse if they didn't have CoD, Candy Crush and Skylanders merchandise to cover the quarters and years that they can't bring themselves to finish and publish something.

The problem is in Blizzard HQ.

I was also going to say many things, but then you said all of them, so I'll just quote this for the truth.

[insert random number]

It's something that's happened over the entire industry. You get this weird situation where employees are attracted to companies for what they once were and have affinity with the IP, they live and breath this stuff, while at the top you have a number cruncher just looking to maximize profit. Now don't get me wrong there's always this sort of tension within a company but it feels extremely skewed across the industry at the moment.

[TwoMana]

Because Activision forces them to appeal to investors rather than making a good game that makes money.

We've gone through this in so many other threads, I really can't be bothered to ask you to google "Institutional investors" one more time. But I'll just say you're dead wrong about "investor pressure". And I say this as ATVI investor.

[deenman]

You would think if Activision was so good at forcing Blizzard to do their will and had all of this awesome and unstoppable influence they would release a new game more than once every few years.

I would think that.

Since they don't and apparently can't based on the last Blizzcon with yet another year and no new IP I guess there must be another explanation. Yay, a D4 announcement that will likely still be unreleased when we know what the next expansion after Shadowlands will be. Great job.

this is the biggest nail in the anti activision memes coffin honestly,companies like activision or ea when they are in control,you get yearly releases,where are those for blizzard?

[insert random number]

We've gone through this in so many other threads, I really can't be bothered to ask you to google "Institutional investors" one more time. But I'll just say you're dead wrong about "investor pressure". And I say this as ATVI investor.

I have no idea how things are organized between Blizzard and ATVI but in my personal experience a parent company has always had significant influence on it's subsidiaries.

P.s. You did just ask us again by not asking.

[DesoPL]

So you want to give Blizzard’s IP to THQ because you want tons of shovelware?

As i said. THQ or someone else, hell even Ubisoft could do slighty better job.

[Gaidax]

Absolute drivel. Something should be released when it is good and not before.

At some point something should be released period. Blizzard can't just sit there milking cow forever, it's not a plan.

They do need to be more pressured, IMO. World of Warcraft was a product of same pressure, back when they did not have the luxury to leech off some other game they can release expansions for indefinitely.

If they can't "find" themselves for years then it's their problem they need to solve internally.

[SirCowdog]

this is the biggest nail in the anti activision memes coffin honestly,companies like activision or ea when they are in control,you get yearly releases,where are those for blizzard?

Not taking a side in this discussion, but didn't Blizzard try the whole "Yearly release" thing with WoD? Wasn't that their entire plan that backfired? It would explain why they haven't gone back to it, at least for WoW.

[THEORACLE64]

Can there be any doubt left that the Blizzard we knew and loved, the one that once gave us quality games, for gamers by gamers, is well and truly dead? Its very soul consumed by Activision?

Apart from Blizzard can and still do have the same control they’ve had as mentioned above - there’s simply no evidence to suggest otherwise. He’s the more likely reality and it’s that instead of people blaming every shitty thing on Activision, the actual scenario is that Blizzard is just now led by shit decision makers in comparison to whom was in-charge “back then”. Mostly all of the issues Blizzard has had recently comes to do those choices being made internally by Blizzard, rather than Activision having any part in it.