New President and Chief Operating Officer of blizzard activision - Daniel Alegre

[Volatilis]

Surprised there isnt a thread up on this already considering its quite big news.

Business as usual or a new appointment post continued poor results of products where you consider how warcraft 3 reforged did and overwatch 2/shadowlands/diablo 4 are still a ways off.

"Daniel Alegre said:
“Activision Blizzard is at an exciting point in its history. In addition to a deep library of owned and internationally beloved franchises, the company has tremendous talent that has built a culture committed to inspiration and creativity. More importantly, through thoughtful and creative games, it connects and engages over 400 million people around the world through epic entertainment. I look forward to helping players around the world connect through quality and immersive games.”"

[iosdeveloper]

my friend got a 2week trip to LA on 28th march
won't be cool if he lost all the money, donald

[Eazy]

Nowadays theyr'e not here to make epic games, but just for money. Business is business, he isn't CEO because he wants to deliver epic gaming, he's there so he could say that he's delivering epic gaming but is(mostly) making money.

Just because of:

Activision Blizzard is at an exciting point in its history.

You notice that nothing will change.

Warcraft reforged? Total fiasco.
BFA? One of the most unifinished expansion I've seen, totally alt-unfriendly and with so high RNG I totally lost interest in gearing. I dont even want to say anything about lore, because it's abysmal.
Diablo 3? The dead game?
HOTS? The game that is slowly dying? How many people are playing it? 100?
Overwatch? It's actually not that bad.
Hearthstone? Same as OW.

[NineSpine]

In America, no matter what you do, eventually a company will be taken over by the executive managerial class that will turn the organization into a financial instrument rather than an entity that produces goods/services, and they will suck the corpse they created dry. This already happened a long time ago with Blizzard, so this isn’t really a change.

[unbound]

Pure business focus with no background in games.

BA in Public and International Affairs
MBA
Law Degree

Worked at Bertelsmann as Director of Internet New Business Development in late 90s. Managing Director of BMG Music in Latin America for 3 years. VP Business Development back at Bertelsmann. Member Board of Directors for Sleep Number by Select Comfort. Last 16 years at Google managing operations and partnerships, the last 2 1/2 years leading Google's shopping and retail efforts.

I'm guessing based on this resume that some senior Activision Blizzard bigwig is friends with him, or everyone else worth getting refused to come to the Activision Blizzard dumpster fire, and this was all they could get.

[qwikz]

Why would anyone here care, this isnt a forum for investors. Activision is replacing someone whose sole focus was to make money with someone whose sole focus is to make money. This literally changes nothing, they will keep focusing on making money over making great games.

[Yriel]

Nowadays theyr'e not here to make epic games, but just for money. Business is business, he isn't CEO because he wants to deliver epic gaming, he's there so he could say that he's delivering epic gaming but is(mostly) making money.

Just because of:

You notice that nothing will change.

Warcraft reforged? Total fiasco.
BFA? One of the most unifinished expansion I've seen, totally alt-unfriendly and with so high RNG I totally lost interest in gearing. I dont even want to say anything about lore, because it's abysmal.
Diablo 3? The dead game?
HOTS? The game that is slowly dying? How many people are playing it? 100?
Overwatch? It's actually not that bad.
Hearthstone? Same as OW.

Activison Blizzards most profitable platform is mobile, they make more with mobile games then on PC or console. So with their new mobile Diablo and the mobile Hearthstone they'll probably make lots of money and i bet there are more mobile games in development at Blizzard.
For a business guy thats probably very exciting.

And by the way, you still get matches in seconds in HOTS, Blizz may have abandoned it but there are still a lot of people playing it seems.

[baskev]

Nowadays theyr'e not here to make epic games, but just for money. Business is business, he isn't CEO because he wants to deliver epic gaming, he's there so he could say that he's delivering epic gaming but is(mostly) making money.

Just because of:

You notice that nothing will change.

Warcraft reforged? Total fiasco.
BFA? One of the most unifinished expansion I've seen, totally alt-unfriendly and with so high RNG I totally lost interest in gearing. I dont even want to say anything about lore, because it's abysmal.
Diablo 3? The dead game?
HOTS? The game that is slowly dying? How many people are playing it? 100?
Overwatch? It's actually not that bad.
Hearthstone? Same as OW.

would change some stuff

HOTS = dead
Overwatch is slowly dying. They made a cool game that makes you change hero's to counter enemy teams etc. But because of 1 hero players who can not play it they keep chaning the game and trying to force us to play 1+2+3 or 2+2+2 setups etc. Okay players are ruining that game also. And no lore etc.
Hearthstone: also half alive....to expensive to play it.

[dope_danny]

inb4 the 'ole' soros shakeup' tinfoil.

[Eazy]

Look..I am not here to discuss anything you said about the state of Blizzard games - I just don't understand the logic of your arguments. So if he is not here to make epic games, but money - doesn't that mean "epic games" lose money? And shit games make money? Isn't that the reverse logic of what you say?

No. Because epic is a totally subjective thing. Comparing games nowadays to the games that were like... a decade ago we have, for an example, totally different target.

And yes, I do agree that shit games(I didn't say that, but I wanna follow your logic) - do make a lot of money compared to other types.

Every game out there that makes a ton of money is not epic? They are average and low effort and that is the secret to success?

I wouldn't say that Fortnite is epic game in terms of... anything, but it was(is?) huge success.

I just have no idea what you think goes on in the head of devs and companies. IF they are in the business for making money (and they are) - then good products should make more money.

You may have right about good products, but it's not entirely true. As I wrote above - it's from the subjective perspective. Though I'd rather have a good game that appeals to the smaller group of people, but would have been done right. Just as WoW in the beginning was for nerds.

Activison Blizzards most profitable platform is mobile, they make more with mobile games then on PC or console. So with their new mobile Diablo and the mobile Hearthstone they'll probably make lots of money and i bet there are more mobile games in development at Blizzard.
For a business guy thats probably very exciting.

Why would anyone here care, this isnt a forum for investors. Activision is replacing someone whose sole focus was to make money with someone whose sole focus is to make money. This literally changes nothing, they will keep focusing on making money over making great games.

That's what I fear most. That the gaming industry is going for quantity, not for quality. And we all know that if something is making money it doesn't mean it's good(in terms of quality).

[Nynax]

would change some stuff
Hearthstone: also half alive....to expensive to play it.

Certainly why I stopped, and stopped early. $25 two to three times a year, to keep up with expansions...for a game I mostly played on mobile when bored. Yeah, no.

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Look..I am not here to discuss anything you said about the state of Blizzard games - I just don't understand the logic of your arguments. So if he is not here to make epic games, but money - doesn't that mean "epic games" lose money? And shit games make money? Isn't that the reverse logic of what you say?

*cough* Candy Crush *cough*

Have you looked at the profit margins for shitty mobile games? There's a reason why Konami gave up all AAA development. There's a reason why Raid: Shadow Legends has the budget for a seemingly endless stream of new ads, full CGI animation and live TV quality production. It's literally insane.

[Onikaroshi]

Activison Blizzards most profitable platform is mobile, they make more with mobile games then on PC or console. So with their new mobile Diablo and the mobile Hearthstone they'll probably make lots of money and i bet there are more mobile games in development at Blizzard.
For a business guy thats probably very exciting.

And by the way, you still get matches in seconds in HOTS, Blizz may have abandoned it but there are still a lot of people playing it seems.

Actually, their mobile isn't doing so hot, King is on the downtrend as is hearthstone from blizzard. CoD mobile is the only one doing well and that was eclipsed by CoD:MW

- - - Updated - - -

*cough* Candy Crush *cough*

Have you looked at the profit margins for shitty mobile games? There's a reason why Konami gave up all AAA development. There's a reason why Raid: Shadow Legends has the budget for a seemingly endless stream of new ads, full CGI animation and live TV quality production. It's literally insane.

Kings profit margins are the lowest at actiblizz

[Unholyground]

my friend got a 2week trip to LA on 28th march
won't be cool if he lost all the money, donald

Travel insurance, it exists for a reason lol.

[Corroc]

Surprised there isnt a thread up on this already considering its quite big news.

Business as usual or a new appointment post continued poor results of products where you consider how warcraft 3 reforged did and overwatch 2/shadowlands/diablo 4 are still a ways off.

"Daniel Alegre said:
“Activision Blizzard is at an exciting point in its history. In addition to a deep library of owned and internationally beloved franchises, the company has tremendous talent that has built a culture committed to inspiration and creativity. More importantly, through thoughtful and creative games, it connects and engages over 400 million people around the world through epic entertainment. I look forward to helping players around the world connect through quality and immersive games.”"

Because this has nothing to do with games. That's why there isn't anything in here. If you really think this has effect on what Blizzard as a studio does than I would suggest you to take break from gaming and go outside of your basement for once in your life.

[Onikaroshi]

Because this has nothing to do with games. That's why there isn't anything in here. If you really think this has effect on what Blizzard as a studio does than I would suggest you to take break from gaming and go outside of your basement for once in your life.

Mmo champ makes news of non dev related changes all the time, they talked about the change of cfo back when that happened.

And what actiblizz does can definitely impact blizzard, who do you think greenlight's all the budgets

[Queen of Hamsters]

Look..I am not here to discuss anything you said about the state of Blizzard games - I just don't understand the logic of your arguments. So if he is not here to make epic games, but money - doesn't that mean "epic games" lose money? And shit games make money? Isn't that the reverse logic of what you say?
"

They don't use logic. It's all emotion-based.

Plenty of examples out there of games being mere cash-grabs failing hard to grab cash.

[Aphrel]

So if he is not here to make epic games, but money - doesn't that mean "epic games" lose money? And shit games make money?

You hit the nail on the head there.
Ever heard of diablo 3? Thats a shit game that made a fuckton.

[Nynax]

Actually, their mobile isn't doing so hot, King is on the downtrend as is hearthstone from blizzard. CoD mobile is the only one doing well and that was eclipsed by CoD:MW
- - - Updated - - -
Kings profit margins are the lowest at actiblizz

Huh, that's interesting. Haha, they can't even do "bad" gaming right over there?

[Onikaroshi]

Huh, that's interesting. Haha, they can't even do "bad" gaming right over there?

Oh, they're making a bunch of money. Almost a billion in profit last year, it's just not coming mostly from mobile.

CoD drives a lot of profit

[Nerovar]

Look..I am not here to discuss anything you said about the state of Blizzard games - I just don't understand the logic of your arguments. So if he is not here to make epic games, but money - doesn't that mean "epic games" lose money? And shit games make money? Isn't that the reverse logic of what you say?

Every game out there that makes a ton of money is not epic? They are average and low effort and that is the secret to success?

You'd probably agree with me when I say that financial success can't be the sole indicator of what constitutes good video games. The sentiment that was expressed here is based on the observation that very successful companies that reach a certain threshold will only be able to become more successful through sales and marketing and not through improving their product. Because after all, if your product will be a guaranteed success because it has the name of your company on it, why should you put more money into the development of the actual product when it's much more profitable to focus on sales and marketing instead? This is all fine and good but it ultimately leads to the sales and marketing people (who have no idea about making games) taking over these companies and they will start making decisions in place of the people that are concerned with the quality of the product and so the quality of their products will deteriorate over time.