What the hell happened to Blizzard?

[Asrialol]

I don't think the numbers support this statement. Justify, please.

https://investor.activision.com/news...2018-financial

I don't think the yearly report for 2019 comes until 2nd week of February, but I recall that 3rd quarter 2019 was a bit down from 2018.

[Stormspark]

Blizzard hasn't existed for years. Activision just uses their name. They are a low effort shovelware developer, milking previously popular names and releasing half baked products at full price, and hoping people will be sheep enough to buy them. Honestly at this point I just hope they get shut down. When Activision shuts them down and Brack and his hair have to find another job I'm having a pizza party. Maybe he can use his hair to clean toilets.

[Gimlix]

Blizzard hasn't existed for years. Activision just uses their name. They are a low effort shovelware developer, milking previously popular names and releasing half baked products at full price, and hoping people will be sheep enough to buy them. Honestly at this point I just hope they get shut down. When Activision shuts them down and Brack and his hair have to find another job I'm having a pizza party. Maybe he can use his hair to clean toilets.

Ashame how they have fallen though

[Osmeric]

https://investor.activision.com/news...2018-financial

Those numbers don't support your statement either.

[Nyel]

Which leads me to think that, bar some kind of miracle happening, SL will also be rushed af and they will have to spend the first half of the xpac fixing random stuff that they couldn't or didn't want to address during beta. I'm really interested in the SL beta, since for better or for worse, it will be quite telling.

It’s a vicious cycle. 2020 looks not good for Blizzard. Warcraft 3 was expected to be a redeeming factor after the last rough years and then they come up with this bug-ridden mess.

Shadowlands looks incredibly hollow and bleak and is the only thing they have for 2020, Overwatch will most likely be delayed until 2021.

It’s just so sad what happened to this once unique and fantastic company. When I think about Warcraft, Starcraft, WoW and Diablo, they were the kings of their genres. Nowadays...

[Soon-TM]

I'm glad that I didn't preorder WC3R (though I did burn myself by preordering BfA, shame on me), because the issues there are so big and numerous that no one I asked seemed to be able to put them together. Ars Technica, however, released a good article about it, and damn... it's embarrassing bad for ActiBlizzard lol.

[ReVnX]

they listened to what the players wanted. no changed cinematics, no changed lore, and no changed gameplay, it turned from a reforge, to a remaster, because players refused to let blizz make it new.

It turned into garbage.

No ladder, no stats, no profiles...

I'd rather have the old WC3 than this pile of shit

[Khaza-R]

Its far from just Blizzard. The gaming industry as a whole has changed for the worst. Like music, cinema or sports, its no longer just a hobby built by enthusiasts but a cow for the rich to capitalize on.

Are there still developers who lovingly craft games and make them about the player experience over profit? Sure. But they are few and far between. And will only get more and more rare.

[Vorkreist]

Half of it is Activision and Bobby Kotik are calling the shots.

Half of it though is that "Blizzard Quality" was 20+ years ago, and the people who made it great have all retired.

There no such second half. They all retired or moved on from Blizzard. All thats left in decision making positions at Blizzard are Activision slaves.

[Gimlix]

There no such second half. They all retired or moved on from Blizzard. All thats left in decision making positions at Blizzard are Activision slaves.

Best thing to do atm. Why stick at Blizzard? They seem to have fallen for greed.

[SirCowdog]

Its far from just Blizzard. The gaming industry as a whole has changed for the worst. Like music, cinema or sports, its no longer just a hobby built by enthusiasts but a cow for the rich to capitalize on.

Are there still developers who lovingly craft games and make them about the player experience over profit? Sure. But they are few and far between. And will only get more and more rare.

Good games are still out there. You just have to sift through the trash and be patient. That's something most consumers can't do due to their short attention span and ADHD mentality.

I'm actually really looking forward to Silksong, Will of the Wisps, DOOM, and Cyberpunk. In the meantime there's a backlog of great games I've piled up.

Sadly, for MMOs there just isn't a lot of choice. Largely because Blizzard has gone out of their way to crush competition and set an unrealistic standard that I don't even think they can reach anymore.

[FelPlague]

There no such second half. They all retired or moved on from Blizzard. All thats left in decision making positions at Blizzard are Activision slaves.

not true at all, i linked in i think this very thread how there is still atleast like 100 people still at blizzard who were the original.

- - - Updated - - -

Its far from just Blizzard. The gaming industry as a whole has changed for the worst. Like music, cinema or sports, its no longer just a hobby built by enthusiasts but a cow for the rich to capitalize on.

Are there still developers who lovingly craft games and make them about the player experience over profit? Sure. But they are few and far between. And will only get more and more rare.

The current day is the worst, back in my day everything was great.

nah mate, welcome to the thing called being old.

[SirCowdog]

not true at all, i linked in i think this very thread how there is still atleast like 100 people still at blizzard who were the original.

And a lot were either artists or people who don't actually still work there. Most notably Rob Pardo. Didn't you see the replies making fun of your post? ;D

I made a reply earlier to MoanaLisa about what happened to Blizzard. It's basically exactly what Steve Jobs described in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AxZofbMGpM

[Enabrann]

Blizzard became Ignominious that's why

[Flutterguy]

Blizzard wasn't going to keep hitting home runs and most of the people that were there for those home runs are gone or in much different roles now. It's convenient to go after Activision but they don't make the games. They publish them. Blizzard makes these games. It's time to come to terms with that.

Entertainment as a whole has fallen prey to analytics.

[Kithelle]

What you get when a Dev team is more concerned with developing what they want as opposed to the players...Ion is a raider and most of their decent work goes into dungeons/raids. Not to mention their attitude towards the player some times...sure there are toxic players but there are players who give genuine feedback and ideas. They ignore everything and if they finally admit defeat their response is basically "Screw you and wait till the next expansion"

Wish they would can Ion...

[Martymark]

not true at all, i linked in i think this very thread how there is still atleast like 100 people still at blizzard who were the original.

Of the main/top people that worked on WC3, 0 are at Blizz now.

Sure the janitor and cafeteria workers might be the same, but Metzen, Pardo, etc are all gone.

[AlmightyGerkin]

The total content quality Blizzard has been giving us has been quite bad lately.
Promising us features and not deliver them.
Blizzard used to have a great title under his name, nowadays Blizzard is seen just as bad as EA.

What the hell has happened to the quality blizzard used to put into their games?

That blizzard passed away awhile ago. They sacrificed care and quality for greed and this is were they ended up.

[Zenfoldor]

Well, since Blizzard is earning more money now than before, even with reduced sub numbers, I don't really think they care that much. It's not like WoW is the main source of income for Blizzard anymore.

What is? /10char

[dope_danny]

What is? /10char

The whales you see rabidly defending them and dropping money on "funpay minibuy surprise mechanics" like overwatch lockboxes and the wow mounts you used to get in game instead of reskinned horses.