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  1. #161
    Quote Originally Posted by Kralljin View Post
    Morhaime owns the Company from my understanding, so they cannot be bought by another company by them just putting money on the table, Morhaime can just say no.

    Activision was able to buy Blizzard because Blizzard was owned by Vivendi, hence they bought it from Vivendi, Morhaime most likely had no say in the matter.
    Not quite correct. Vivendi bought Activision and created Activision-Blizzard to hold their gaming studios under one umbrella. Those in Activision-Blizzard a few years later bought themselves out, with clauses.

  2. #162
    I'm cautiously optimistic. Though I suspect it'll be a while until a game is ready for release.

  3. #163
    Quote Originally Posted by Kallisto View Post
    Not quite correct. Vivendi bought Activision and created Activision-Blizzard to hold their gaming studios under one umbrella. Those in Activision-Blizzard a few years later bought themselves out, with clauses.
    Not quite correct. Vivendi arranged a deal with Activision to merge Blizzard into Activision, with Vivendi getting a controlling share of the merged entity. But this merged entity still had other shareholders, so Vivendi did not formally own it. But yes, Morhaime could not have done anything except threaten to leave if he didn't like it.
    "There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
    "The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
    "Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"

  4. #164
    Quote Originally Posted by Kallisto View Post
    Not quite correct. Vivendi bought Activision and created Activision-Blizzard to hold their gaming studios under one umbrella. Those in Activision-Blizzard a few years later bought themselves out, with clauses.
    The historical reference might be off, but the point still stands: Morhaime had no real say in the matter back in 07 / 08, whereas now he does as he (i assume) owns the company.

  5. #165
    Well he certainly has the PR speech still down, because that is all this amounts to for now and it is an easy sentiment to get positive attention in the gaming space. But I doubt he will be able to make games with just dreams and unicorn farts. That being said, the way he announced that is certainly quite a slight against Blizzard, because it implies his previous working conditions were not to that standard.

    I also doubt we will see an interesting title from them in the near future as well. I wonder what they will be working on though, I hope they shoot for quality instead of the mass produced cartoony graphics stuff that everyone from chinese gulag mobile developer to AAA studio is currently farting out for maximum market appeal with the least investment.
    Last edited by Cosmic Janitor; 2020-09-23 at 10:05 PM.
    You are welcome, Metzen. I hope you won't fuck up my underground expansion idea.

  6. #166
    The Lightbringer Sanguinerd's Avatar
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    People will grasp at any straws to further bitch about how evil and bad Blizzard has become.

  7. #167
    Stood in the Fire Uvania's Avatar
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    Great news! lets hope for an amazing mmorpg being developed once again that can be a real "wow killer"

  8. #168
    Quote Originally Posted by Uvania View Post
    Great news! lets hope for an amazing mmorpg being developed once again that can be a real "wow killer"
    I very much doubt he will risk his new company with an oversaturated and almost dead genre.
    You are welcome, Metzen. I hope you won't fuck up my underground expansion idea.

  9. #169
    Quote Originally Posted by Logwyn View Post
    What's the over/under in years before its bought by Microsoft, Tencent, Apple, or Sony?
    I think he would sooner see the company go under rather than have what happened to Blizzard be repeated. That would be my feeling anyway.

  10. #170
    The Insane Syegfryed's Avatar
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    Well, i will wait until they announce/preview some game before putting hopes up

  11. #171
    I can imagine their first game... a WoW clone with horrible balancing and shifting gameplay based on week to week hotfixes, a true WoW clone indeed. Time will tell.

  12. #172
    I like what he says, but words are wind. I want to see what they make and will decide there if it's worth my money.

    Please, please don't have them make an MMO. The market is way over saturated and it requires far too much time and money to both make and maintain for a small-ish team. They can't compete with WoW. But they can make good games in genres that really, really need it such as RTS. The studio needs an early success to build up a fanbase, goodwill, experience and capital before it moves on to a bighueg project. Hopefully Morhaime sees that.
    It is all that is left unsaid upon which tragedies are built -Kreia

    The internet: where to every action is opposed an unequal overreaction.

  13. #173
    Quote Originally Posted by dacoolist View Post
    The amount of mmo-c.com crys about "THIS IS THE REASON HE QUIT - DESTROY ACTIVISION" lol - any big game studio is there for money, it's just the way it is lol
    Nah man. This society is obsessed with draining all fun and life from passions. Artists don't become artists out of a desire to hoard money. Once you're financially stable, and I would call Mike Morhaime that, you spend your time doing what you want to be doing. Games are fun.

  14. #174
    Quote Originally Posted by aceperson View Post
    being a ceo doesn't really matter when you have a parent company who can make you do whatever they want.

    as much as he may have defended stuff like loot boxes, you knew he was someone who cared for quality above all else.
    Maybe I missed the part in which he was forced to sell Blizzard to Activision because someone put a gun against his head.

    It was perfectly clear what direction would have had the company after joining Activision, it’s all about money. But He knew it before, he simply did not care, I bet he earned a couple of dollars too these years.

  15. #175
    Quote Originally Posted by Lefrog View Post
    If your management let's you do what you want, it will absolutely not be efficient and it will take forever, but it will be designed for your customers.
    this is not the complaint people have about blizzard.

    the chief complaints are that
    1. they take far too long to fix obvious problems
    2. they dont listen to customer feedback in betas

    the company morhaime just founded seems to think the biggest problem is that devs should get MORE time to do the stuff THEY want to do, which addresses neither problem. at all.

  16. #176
    Quote Originally Posted by chiddie View Post
    Maybe I missed the part in which he was forced to sell Blizzard to Activision because someone put a gun against his head.
    Noone asked him. He didnt have any say in the decision.
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  17. #177
    Quote Originally Posted by Sluvs View Post
    one of my worries is that they just rely on what they used to do. Gaming today is very different from gaming 16 years ago.

    A good game from 2004 might not be good by today's standard.
    I mean... Classic WoW is PREEEETTY damn good as a starting point though to be fair.

    Obviously they don't HAVE Classic WoW since it isn't Blizzard, but that's 2004 gaming.

    I think the biggest reason I have hope/hype for this is that I understand where a lot of the former devs are coming from. Watching them from the outside, you could see the change that they had in their like... cheesy AF BUT LEGIT THEIR FUCKING SOULS. I watched Metzen and Mike on stage Blizzcon after Blizzcon and you could just kinda tell something was eating at them.

    I think the reason so many people are leaving Blizzard is exactly for the reason Mike mentioned: Activision has been pushing the Blizzard portion for a long time now for shareholder profit over gamer satisfaction which is NOT how Blizzard was. Short term financial gain over customer satisfaction was not what they were about. Blizzard was always about customer satisfaction. They would make a game great because they wanted to make a great game. Their goal was to make a great game while also keeping their company afloat and the paychecks coming. Blizzard's current goal is to make as much profit as humanly possible. I think it's a give and take. You can make a great game that might not be optimized for maximum profit, or you can make a game that's maximized for profit which isn't as good as it otherwise could be. I've yet to really see a game that intentionally does both.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by chiddie View Post
    Maybe I missed the part in which he was forced to sell Blizzard to Activision because someone put a gun against his head.

    It was perfectly clear what direction would have had the company after joining Activision, it’s all about money. But He knew it before, he simply did not care, I bet he earned a couple of dollars too these years.
    I really don't think he "didn't care"

    The dude stepped down from being CEO reportedly because he was unhappy with the fact Activision was about to "maximize profits" by letting go hundreds of employees while making record profits that same year.

    I legit think they were caught up in the trap of that timeframe. There were a ton of smaller companies who thought being bought by a big publisher like EA, Activision, or whatever would be a good thing for them. This was before franchises were completely run into the ground. Guitar Hero, Dead Space, Assassin's Creed... those stories hadn't happened yet. I legit think this dude thought that this would be great for his company. He probably thought they were going to be able to keep doing what they were doing while also getting everybody a nice pay increase and a higher game budget.

    I don't think he foresaw the consequences at all otherwise he wouldn't be making this company now.

  18. #178
    Like, you know, Blizzard?
    Then when it grows you sell, like Blizzard.
    Or is that now a hobby project because you already have all the money you'd need for life?

  19. #179
    Herald of the Titans Will's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Die View Post
    this is not the complaint people have about blizzard.

    the chief complaints are that
    1. they take far too long to fix obvious problems
    2. they dont listen to customer feedback in betas

    the company morhaime just founded seems to think the biggest problem is that devs should get MORE time to do the stuff THEY want to do, which addresses neither problem. at all.
    As an old-school gamer I strongly believe that Mike is correct and the best video games have always been the ones developed not in the interest of profits alone, but "by gamers, for gamers". And such developers tend to not release a product incomplete in the first place.

  20. #180
    Quote Originally Posted by Will View Post
    As an old-school gamer I strongly believe that Mike is correct and the best video games have always been the ones developed not in the interest of profits alone, but "by gamers, for gamers". And such developers tend to not release a product incomplete in the first place.
    I don't think they should just design games for profits, but I also don't think it sounds like morhaime "gets it".

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