ActiBlizz Earnings Call is starting, if anyone interested

[Zaqwert]

I mean, you can't really fault official report for investors using proper language that intended recipients understand.

Of all faults and issues, this is just nitpicking.

I was more just lamenting how soulless the corporate world is. Video games are at their best when they are a passion project for the creators but the investors don't give a shit about any of that.

They discuss these games the same way a paper clip company would discuss how many boxes of clips they shipped last quarter. It's all so lifeless and sterile.

[Gaidax]

I was more just lamenting how soulless the corporate world is. Video games are at their best when they are a passion project for the creators but the investors don't give a shit about any of that.

They discuss these games the same way a paper clip company would discuss how many boxes of clips they shipped last quarter. It's all so lifeless and sterile.

If you want AAA games, you need AAA money and for that there are certain obligations to fulfill like this.

After all is said and done, A LOT of things you like made by passionate people as their passion projects were financed by people who want to discuss this in a manner they discuss other dozen investments they made/oversee.

Don't see how it's sad or anything. Product's a product and money is money. This is a symbiotic relationship for benefit of all including us. Passion is very nice, but people need to put food on a table in the end of the day.

[Metrox]

Bobby is probably still loved by investors since he took over Blizzard in 2008 at a $13.50 stock price and it is now at $80.00 or so. I think that this could be the first time that a lot of folks (especially sub 25 year olds) have such a direct interest in a corporation that they subsidize. Not many of us care too much about what goes on at Duke Energy or Comcast as far as working situations. But now we have a very age diverse group that is facing what goes on behind the façade at a corporation they support monthly. I think this is why the opinions/reactions run such a wide gamut. No matter what though, Bobby is going to put oil on the waters to calm them down and let our attention span just wander off to politics or sports.

[Gaidax]

Bobby is probably still loved by investors since he took over Blizzard in 2008 at a $13.50 stock price and it is now at $80.00 or so. I think that this could be the first time that a lot of folks (especially sub 25 year olds) have such a direct interest in a corporation that they subsidize. Not many of us care too much about what goes on at Duke Energy or Comcast as far as working situations. But now we have a very age diverse group that is facing what goes on behind the façade at a corporation they support monthly. I think this is why the opinions/reactions run such a wide gamut. No matter what though, Bobby is going to put oil on the waters to calm them down and let our attention span just wander off to politics or sports.

Bobby Kotick is nothing less than Jesus F. Christ when it comes to the board, the guy pulled out insane magic hat trick to push ActiBlizz to heights it is at when it comes to $$. Those controversial 200m bonus? If you ask me - morality aside, he deserved every penny.

Yes, he will do everything to fix this shit. If he has to load a bloody gun and shoot people and it would fix it, he'd do it. But people who think the board will let Bobby go? Ha ha... nope... that won't be happening - why I bet they pray HE won't dump them eventually.

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Now that I think, it's kind of funny... Bobby's mistake with Blizzard probably was that he did not bloody subjugate them years ago. Who knows, maybe we'd see Blizzard release some actual games and some non-halfassed expansions too, instead of sitting on their hands for half a decade. Maybe this whole shit would not even happen either or at least was fixed way sooner.

[Zaqwert]

What you say about business is true, but

put food on a table in the end of the day.

is not really a good way of putting it. We're more in the realm of: "We made 12 billion dollars last year and we need to figure out how to make 12.5 billion next year"

[MoanaLisa]

You were talking about echo chambers, but it seems like you’re sitting in one, too.

It’s not Bellular alone, basically every major WoW streamer is critical about the game and negative about the direction Shadowlands is taking.

I guess when most of your poster boys and girls on YouTube are producing negative videos about your product, your product sucks and not the ones posting negative videos about it.

The quickest way to lose a mass audience on either Twitch or YouTube is to be relentlessly fair about something. People want controversy, they want to hear someone rant about something. The "what to watch next" algorithms support that. I've never watched an Asmongold stream in my life yet it's often in the top 3 recommended things to see. It's much like a one-person forum in fact. Low-value content but lots of rage and emotion. A quiet calm exposition of the problems and good things about WoW that's high on information would never gain much of an audience.

It's just another form of "If it bleeds, it leads."

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Now that I think, it's kind of funny... Bobby's mistake with Blizzard probably was that he did not bloody subjugate them years ago. Who knows, maybe we'd see Blizzard release some actual games and some non-halfassed expansions too, instead of sitting on their hands for half a decade. Maybe this whole shit would not even happen either or at least was fixed way sooner.

Well put.

I've said this before and possibly even to you directly but Kotick is totally justified to be all up in Blizzard's ass every single day over their lack of new product, high costs, and justifications for not hitting their own deadlines. "Release it when it's ready" is all well and fine but they hardly seem to release anything at all except for retreads, reworks and announcements about which games they will no longer support. That phrase is a justification to never finish anything. They've been coasting ever since Titan's failure and a shakeup is long overdue. This last business of over-promising with WC3, missing their deadlines for release and apparently running over budget is just the latest thing.

I'm not a huge fan of Kotick but he's not dumb. I suspect that Blizzard's free ride on Kotick's dime is over. I also suspect that the stories blaming Santa Monica for the WC3 rework didn't go over well either. Pile this lawsuit on top of it and even I would think that something is seriously wrong in Anaheim.

[TheWorkingTitle]

Did I imply otherwise? We're talking communities... as in, you know, the one we're posting on.

Yes, you did. I will reiterate; the people that post here are an infinitesimal fraction of the playerbase as a whole. So using this "community" as representative of the playerbase as a whole, is nonsense.

[Diaphin]

Bobby Kotick is nothing less than Jesus F. Christ when it comes to the board, the guy pulled out insane magic hat trick to push ActiBlizz to heights it is at when it comes to $$. Those controversial 200m bonus? If you ask me - morality aside, he deserved every penny.

Yes, he will do everything to fix this shit. If he has to load a bloody gun and shoot people and it would fix it, he'd do it. But people who think the board will let Bobby go? Ha ha... nope... that won't be happening - why I bet they pray HE won't dump them eventually.

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Now that I think, it's kind of funny... Bobby's mistake with Blizzard probably was that he did not bloody subjugate them years ago. Who knows, maybe we'd see Blizzard release some actual games and some non-halfassed expansions too, instead of sitting on their hands for half a decade. Maybe this whole shit would not even happen either or at least was fixed way sooner.

The fun thing is, many people who complain about all of that are the same people who will down at politics defend capitalism to their dying breath and cry socialism all day.

[Relapses]

Yes, you did. I will reiterate; the people that post here are an infinitesimal fraction of the playerbase as a whole. So using this "community" as representative of the playerbase as a whole, is nonsense.

Please point out where I used the term community to refer to anything other than online discussion forums. You can't. Because I didn't. You interpreted what I said that way which I guess is partly my fault for not qualifying the statement when I said it. But really, this is just a boring semantic argument and you're not exactly providing an earth-shattering revelation that isn't painfully obvious to anybody who's spent more than 14 seconds on this website.

Ciao, friend.

[TheWorkingTitle]

Please point out where I used the term community to refer to anything other than online discussion forums. You can't. Because I didn't. You interpreted what I said that way which I guess is partly my fault for not qualifying the statement when I said it. But really, this is just a boring semantic argument and you're not exactly providing an earth-shattering revelation that isn't painfully obvious to anybody who's spent more than 14 seconds on this website.

Ciao, friend.

Next time maybe don't use a third-party website's posters as indicative of a game's community at large and you won't get called out for it. Thank you for your capitulation.

[GreenJesus]

The quickest way to lose a mass audience on either Twitch or YouTube is to be relentlessly fair about something. People want controversy, they want to hear someone rant about something. The "what to watch next" algorithms support that. I've never watched an Asmongold stream in my life yet it's often in the top 3 recommended things to see. It's much like a one-person forum in fact. Low-value content but lots of rage and emotion. A quiet calm exposition of the problems and good things about WoW that's high on information would never gain much of an audience.

It's just another form of "If it bleeds, it leads."

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Well put.

I've said this before and possibly even to you directly but Kotick is totally justified to be all up in Blizzard's ass every single day over their lack of new product, high costs, and justifications for not hitting their own deadlines. "Release it when it's ready" is all well and fine but they hardly seem to release anything at all except for retreads, reworks and announcements about which games they will no longer support. That phrase is a justification to never finish anything. They've been coasting ever since Titan's failure and a shakeup is long overdue. This last business of over-promising with WC3, missing their deadlines for release and apparently running over budget is just the latest thing.

I'm not a huge fan of Kotick but he's not dumb. I suspect that Blizzard's free ride on Kotick's dime is over. I also suspect that the stories blaming Santa Monica for the WC3 rework didn't go over well either. Pile this lawsuit on top of it and even I would think that something is seriously wrong in Anaheim.

Yep. Blizzard MAUs are in free fall and the only thing that kept their revenue semi in check was a last minute release of TBC with deluxe editions, boosts, and MTX. Blizzard is basically just a subsidiary studio at this point that only exists to potentially feed IP to the parent company in the future. King makes 1.7x blizzards income with 2 stupid low effort mobile games. Why shouldn't Activision just shut blizzard down and transfer them to King?

"Blizzard" as an entity doesn't even really exist anymore. Nearly everyone has been replaced by Activision plugs. Titan project basicslly killed Blizzard.

[Sluvs]

Yep. Blizzard MAUs are in free fall and the only thing that kept their revenue semi in check was a last minute release of TBC with deluxe editions, boosts, and MTX. Blizzard is basically just a subsidiary studio at this point that only exists to potentially feed IP to the parent company in the future. King makes 1.7x blizzards income with 2 stupid low effort mobile games. Why shouldn't Activision just shut blizzard down and transfer them to King?

"Blizzard" as an entity doesn't even really exist anymore. Nearly everyone has been replaced by Activision plugs. Titan project basicslly killed Blizzard.

To be fair, they should not dismantle blizzard and put them in king because putting more money into something eventually runs into diminishing returns. Blizzard is currently tapping a market that no other Activision studio is tapping. Even if it is less lucrative than the other studios, it still provide a pretty hefty sum.

Blizzard died because they were built around personalities. When they were gone all they left was a shitty culture and no method to their madness.

[Moozart]

All I could gather from this is that TBC Classic is carrying ShitLands on its back.

IM not sure how exactly when all of the classic servers COMBINED have less players than the top 2 largest retail servers.

[GreenJesus]

To be fair, they should not dismantle blizzard and put them in king because putting more money into something eventually runs into diminishing returns. Blizzard is currently tapping a market that no other Activision studio is tapping. Even if it is less lucrative than the other studios, it still provide a pretty hefty sum.

Blizzard died because they were built around personalities. When they were gone all they left was a shitty culture and no method to their madness.

What is "Blizzard" without Chris Metzen? He was the one that created all of the IP's of Blizzard. Blizzard hasn't created a new IP/new game since he left in 2016.

[Lolites]

lol yeah sure keep telling yourself that

well it definitely looks like it, going from 111m in Q3 through 128m in Q4 (when SL was released) through after expansion peak of 150m and back to 127m...
but im sure your favourite streamer talks about massive exodus of people so the actual numbers pointing out something are wrong, angry man on yt/twiter is correct

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WoW is doing fine it seems?

yeah, almost seems like all the doomsayers who were talking about wow dying were wrong in 2021 as they were wrong in 2020
and 2019
and 2018
and 2017
and 2016
and 2015
...
and 2005
and 2004

[Lahis]

I was more just lamenting how soulless the corporate world is. Video games are at their best when they are a passion project for the creators but the investors don't give a shit about any of that.

They discuss these games the same way a paper clip company would discuss how many boxes of clips they shipped last quarter. It's all so lifeless and sterile.

Passion projects have the problem of not returning the fastest and most cost efficient profits.

[GreenJesus]

well it definitely looks like it, going from 111m in Q3 through 128m in Q4 (when SL was released) through after expansion peak of 150m and back to 127m...
but im sure your favourite streamer talks about massive exodus of people so the actual numbers pointing out something are wrong, angry man on yt/twiter is correct

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yeah, almost seems like all the doomsayers who were talking about wow dying were wrong in 2021 as they were wrong in 2020
and 2019
and 2018
and 2017
and 2016
and 2015
...
and 2005
and 2004

Modern WoW is dying.. their earnings call slide all but says it. If it wasn't for classic, WoW and Blizzard itself would have been fucking screwed. Notice how they didn't even mention Shadowlands and it's new 9.1 patch, but mentioned classic god knows how many times. Shadowlands is irrelevant.

And Shadowlands launch in Q4 2020 only boosting quarterly revenue by 15% over Q3 2020 isn't saying a lot considering the box revenue and supposed surge of players coming back.. lol

[Zsadist]

well it definitely looks like it, going from 111m in Q3 through 128m in Q4 (when SL was released) through after expansion peak of 150m and back to 127m...
but im sure your favourite streamer talks about massive exodus of people so the actual numbers pointing out something are wrong, angry man on yt/twiter is correct

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yeah, almost seems like all the doomsayers who were talking about wow dying were wrong in 2021 as they were wrong in 2020
and 2019
and 2018
and 2017
and 2016
and 2015
...
and 2005
and 2004

I found someone I can agree with on this topic of discussion!

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Modern WoW is dying.. their earnings call slide all but says it. If it wasn't for classic, WoW and Blizzard itself would have been fucking screwed. Notice how they didn't even mention Shadowlands and it's new 9.1 patch, but mentioned classic god knows how many times. Shadowlands is irrelevant.

Why do all the Classic TBC servers combined have less than two of Retails highest populated servers?

Why is there a much larger number of guilds completing the current raid tier on Retail as shown on WoWProgress.com than guilds completing their current tier in TBC?

"WoW is dying"... has been chanted since BC. They said it due to the Flying Mounts being introduced. I was there for it. And the forum trolls continue to say WoW is dying until this day. Race To World First and the MIDI attract much more attention and viewers than... streamers on TBC. Classic didn't save WoW. It only saved players who just want to experience the classic era again or players experiencing it for the first time or those players who did experience it but really didn't know what to do until today and now want to flex. Many of these players still log back onto retail for high end M+ keys, and Mythic raiding. I know them personally. They all say the same damn thing... Classic TBC too easy. Love Classic BC but it aint the retail savior.

[GreenJesus]

I found someone I can agree with on this topic of discussion!

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Why do all the Classic TBC servers combined have less than two of Retails highest populated servers?

Why is there a much larger number of guilds completing the current raid tier as shown on WoWProgress.com than guilds completing their current tier?

WoW is dying"... has been chanted since BC. They said it due to the Flying Mounts being introduced I was there for it. And the forum trolls continue to say WoW is dying until this day. Race To World First and the MIDI attract much more attention and viewers than... streamers on TBC. Classic didn't save WoW. It only saved players who just want to experience the classic era again or for the first time. Many of them still log back onto retail for high end M+ keys, and Mythic raiding. I know them personally. They all say the same damn thing... too easy. Love Classic BC but it aint the retail savior.

I don't know man. Look at their presentation. Blizzard seems to think that Classic is what carried WoW and the company this last quarter. Ask them. Do you see them mentioning shadowlands and patch 9.1 anywhere? Heres the link in case you forgot: https://investor.activision.com/stat...9-e7c647d36c03

Below is the title of Blizzard's slide:

Blizzard
Blizzard’s launch of Burning CrusadeTM Classic in June marked the start of what is intended to be a very significant 18-
month period for content releases. Blizzard had 26 million MAUs.

Below is WoW specifically:

"World of Warcraft net bookings again grew a double-digit percentage Y/Y, driven by the launch of Burning Crusade
Classic. Subscriber numbers and hours played were higher following the release. "

Hearthstone, OW, Diablo, Heroes of the storm etc had nothing new offered this quarter.

I haven't even logged in to TBC and I'm unsubbed so I'm not some TBC andy. It's just the facts. Blizzard wants to avoid talking about shadowlands to investors.

[Marrilaife]

Kotick is totally justified to be all up in Blizzard's ass every single day over their lack of new product, high costs, and justifications for not hitting their own deadlines. "Release it when it's ready" is all well and fine but they hardly seem to release anything at all except for retreads, reworks and announcements about which games they will no longer support. That phrase is a justification to never finish anything. They've been coasting ever since Titan's failure and a shakeup is long overdue. This last business of over-promising with WC3, missing their deadlines for release and apparently running over budget is just the latest thing.

It's kinda sad that Blizzard stopped releasing new games, Diablo4 is basically its last hope and new IPs are unheard of, and they fully switched to milking old cows like WOW Classic (now with more mtx and paid services), Starcraft1 remake, WC3 remake, D2 remake... Stop remaking old shit and make something fresh and new ffs.

I feel like the "glory days" of Blizz was when they released Overwatch, Hearthstone, HOTS, last part of SC2 and I thought they will keep making and selling NEW games. Not repackaging old stuff some people already paid for and have to pay for again. One reason I kept playing WOW was to amass gold so I can convert it to bnet balance and buy other Blizzard games - but what games? They're not releasing anything new for years.

Yep. Blizzard MAUs are in free fall and the only thing that kept their revenue semi in check was a last minute release of TBC with deluxe editions, boosts, and MTX.

Yeah, we were promised Classic "as it was back in the day" but nowadays you can buy a tbc levelling boost and a store mount that didn't even exist back then... That argument only works when it's in their favour (like keeping you from using modern store pets and mounts in Classic), but not the other way around. They're also altering the game to "fix" problems they created themselves (Chronoboon displacer, horde vs horde BGs in TBC...) so it's clear there's no reliving nostalgia there, the world moved on and so did the gaming community, you can't replicate the feeling we had when WOW was fresh. The game turned into boost city both on retail and classic, just wait until they realize how many people buy illegal gold on classic and introduce classic token to dip into that market.