Which is a good point because publishers had producers by the balls during that time period; controlling manufacture and distribution.
The climate is very much different now with tons of startups able to self publish and direct download distribution. There is really no motivation to sell unless you need help meeting demand from rapid growth or want to cash out. Plus crowdfunding can eliminate your need for investors.
https://www.youtube.com/@DoffenGG
Gaming and WoW stuff
Zero chance. Instead next year a video will appear on kickstarter/indiegogo/whatever with him smiling and saying:"Hi! I'm Michael Morhaime. You may remember me from titles like ... " Maybe a few concepct art drawings. Then a shitload of people will think "FINALLY! The real Blizzard is back!" and give them money. Lots of money.
Dreamhaven will probably churn out a couple mediocre titles that a couple of people will buy "out of spite" for Blizzard and never even launch them. If you're expecting that company to become some messiah of video games then you're gonna get disappointed.
Waste of time and money. They should just team up with Bonfire Studios (Rob Pardo's) and make a new AAA MMO.
That's really not a flaw of Blizzard at all. Blizzard was getting boat-raced by GGG in terms of putting out new content vis-a-vis Diablo 3 vs Path of Exile. Its a big reason why PoE toppled D3. Major Overwatch updates have been terribly slow. If anything, they need to pump out content faster.
I think a large part of the problem with Blizzard is that they stretched themselves thin and effectively abandoned some of their more successful games in favour of new projects that...didn't quite play out as planned. Overwatch is an excellent example. It was originally some other project, I belief, that was salvaged and sold as something different. Though as you say, it has slowed down significantly in terms of development.
I know Overwatch 2 is a thing, though that in itself is an odd decision when the original game could just...be revamped and expanded.
Give them ten years before actually releasing a game to make money first.
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
How many times did we see "ex-Blizzard employees start X company" a few. They also need a younger versions of themselfs hired to keep the blood fresh. Hopefully they will.
-K
Dreamhaven couldn't buy out blizzard from activision if it wanted to. The only way it would be possible is a hostile take over of activision which dreamhaven isn't even near having the money for that to happen
Activision is making up 49% of all money, King making up 28% and Blizzard making 23%
( https://www.investopedia.com/how-act...-money-4799286 )
Activision is worth 80.62BILLION currently so I again highly doubt Dreamhaven will EVER be able to afford a takeover
The team that made Overwatch originally had no idea what they were going to make. They split up into 3 teams to brainstorm a game and represent to the group. I forget what the first one was. The second one was a Starcraft MMO. They really liked how the SC MMO was coming along and were absolutely confident this was going to be their next game. But they stuck with their plan and checked out the 3 brainstorm which was Overwatch. They were blown away by OW so much they switched to it. Even Bobby Kotick was said to have taken a look at the characters of OW and said "this is what we should make."
We would have had a Starcraft MMO in 2016, probably the first expansion in 2018, and we'd be waiting on the second expansion coming out this year.
Anemo: traveler, Sucrose
Pyro: Yanfei, Amber, diluc, xiangling, thoma, Xinyan, Bennett
Geo: Noelle, Ningguang, Yun Jin, Gorou
Hydro: Barbara, Zingqiu, Ayato
Cyro: Shenhe, Kaeya, Chongyun, Diona, Ayaka, Rosaria
Electro: Fischl, Lisa, Miko, Kujou, Raiden, Razor
I don't think Activision is going to let go of a cash cow like blizzard very easy.
I don’t think they ever will.
I don't think they want the weight of those franchises and the expectations that come with them.
They want to do smaller, different things without ridiculous expectations from what I gathered.
Big franchises seem to ruin studio environments and turn them into things more corporatized. I think they’re trying their best to avoid that, which is why I can’t see them ever doing that.