Blizzard was once the king of innovation, what happened?

[Sanguinerd]

They decided to push competition instead of focus on innovation.

[Palapop]

What happened?

Go woke > get broke.

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They decided to push competition instead of focus on innovation.

edit: this too.

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Literally M+ competition has ruined class design and dungeons design.

We can't have unique classes anymore because overhauling classes would affect M+ "balance" sooooooooo hard that it would be unplayable for many.

[Chilela]

I think the most straightforward answer is that they became a victim of their own success. The bigger a game studio gets, the bigger in scope their titles will get. The bigger in scope the titles get, the more expensive they are to produce. The more expensive they are to produce, the more money they need to make in order to turn a profit. The more money they need to make in order to turn a profit, the more people they need to attempt to appeal to. The more people they need to attempt to appeal to, the more they need to design with the lowest common denominator in mind. And when you try to appeal to the masses, you ultimately truly appeal to no one, especially those that helped you succeed to begin with.

[Makaloff]

activision takeover started the downfall but in the end it was a combination of scaring talented people away in the past (due to all the stuff they are being sued for atm)but also their greed and arrogance. They thought they were untouchable and knew best, pretty much being carried on the strong name WoW used to be. Hopefully they shape up from DF and onward and realise they arent untouchable and that you cant ignore feedback for another 10 years.

[Cosmic Janitor]

The game currently comes across as if it's designed with significant input from financial department, whereas the 'old guard', for all their flaws, came across as mostly avid gamers first and foremost.

I think the old guard also got complacent/lost interest over the years, even before they left. Some definitely got full of themselves after they've lived the videogame rockstar life, but even those that didn't (as much), working on the same product for a decade is simply not very interesting, especially if you can't really go anywhere with it due technical, structural and financial reasons. MMOs are especially bad in that regard, you can't really go anywhere with the story and general gameplay, because you are supposed to give people new yet the same without shitting too bad on one side of your customers. You also have to drag legacy content with you forever. It's a very stifling enviroment for game design.

[Aerisot]

What do you mean? They still are, they just invented the first ever Gaming Union!

[Mysterymask]

What do you mean? They still are, they just invented the first ever Gaming Union!

..../s right cause no one can be that (remembers where he is)

Nm

[MoanaLisa]

What do you mean? They still are, they just invented the first ever Gaming Union!

Raven Software is not Blizzard.

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I think the old guard also got complacent/lost interest over the years, even before they left. Some definitely got full of themselves after they've lived the videogame rockstar life, but even those that didn't (as much), working on the same product for a decade is simply not very interesting, especially if you can't really go anywhere with it due technical, structural and financial reasons. MMOs are especially bad in that regard, you can't really go anywhere with the story and general gameplay, because you are supposed to give people new yet the same without shitting too bad on one side of your customers. You also have to drag legacy content with you forever. It's a very stifling enviroment for game design.

People don't account for how much Titan's failure changed the company and affected everyone there. You can look through a dozen "What happened to Blizzard" threads and the failure of Titan and the trauma it caused internally at Blizzard is rarely if ever mentioned. And yet, look at what's happened over the long run since.

EDIT: It certainly isn't the only reason but it's a bigger thing than people make it out to be. There's never a single reason.

[Skylarking]

More like taking someone elses idea and make it better rather than innovation. Which they aren't doing anymore. Why? Well I think it's a few things but the main reason I would say is that those devs aren't at blizzard anymore.

[Mysterymask]

EDIT: It certainly isn't the only reason but it's a bigger thing than people make it out to be. There's never a single reason.

I think that's definitely a bigger thing...like imagine working on the same thing for over 20 years and not stopping cause hey it's still making money! Wow is expericing seasonal rot by all accounts it should of shut down YEARS ago

[Lochton]

edit: this too.

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Literally M+ competition has ruined class design and dungeons design.

We can't have unique classes anymore because overhauling classes would affect M+ "balance" sooooooooo hard that it would be unplayable for many.

A lot feels lost when the majority of planning evolves around M+/PvP/Raiding.

Raven Software is not Blizzard.

Naw, they are not, but they are family, and none of them are their own anymore. Welcome to the Activision-Blizzard-King monster, soon just to be called, Microsoft - if lucky.

[Guyviroth]

Discussion of whether Blizzard was ever innovative or not aside, Activision happened.

Look at WC3 Reforged. It was going to be this huge remake of WC3 until various things happened.
-- the dev team didn't even know it was even a thing until it got announced at blizzcon.
-- they had two years to essentially remake an entire game from the ground up save for the engine.
-- their budget was slashed into pieces because Activision didn't think it would make enough money.
-- they had to outsource their graphics design to a Chinese(?) company because they didn't have the time or manpower to redo everything in house.

Basically, it's not about making good games anymore. It's all about trend-chasing and making as much profit as they can. Unfortunately, most of the AAA game development scene is now that.

It's filled with big promises and bigger scopes, trying to cram all of these huge things into a two or three year time frame, which results in hundreds of devs going into crunch mode just to release buggy and unfinished products that are either fixed later or not at all.

[Necromantic]

activision takeover started the downfall but in the end it was a combination of scaring talented people away in the past (due to all the stuff they are being sued for atm)but also their greed and arrogance. They thought they were untouchable and knew best, pretty much being carried on the strong name WoW used to be. Hopefully they shape up from DF and onward and realise they arent untouchable and that you cant ignore feedback for another 10 years.

They've been scaring away all their talented employees for a long time. That's why we end up with products like WoD and beyond.

Raven Software is not Blizzard.

He never claimed it was.

Activision happened.

Activision's acquisition of Blizzard is the exact time they began to go to crap. This isn't coincidence. All the other reasons people give such as "Titan" only fanned the flames. They didn't create the spark.

[WowIsDead64]

Reason is - greed. They don't want to experiment, because they don't want to invest $$$ into content, that isn't guaranteed to pay off.

[rayvio]

Not saying you're wrong but they rushed vanilla out the door half done just to get a product on the market.

that was inevitable since their original plan was far, far bigger than was viable. originally it was supposed to include Outland and a zone or two of the Emerald Dream, Mount Hyjal, Old Ironforge, Karazhan AND lower Kara (a mirror of the tower, descending underground) AND the nearby Crypts... a lot of stuff had to be cut because otherwise it would be outdated long before it was released

[Cracked]

This was mainly true for WoW and their later games.

The 3 WC RTS games and SC1 were all massive innovators that pushed the RTS genre forward.

Diablo invented a completely new genre on its own...

Even if that were true, that means the inventive spirit in blizzard died about 2005. Or put another way, blizzard has existed longer as a maintenance reactionary company than not. Must've been a really cool place to work at around 1999 though. Sadge.

[Exkrementor]

Blizzard almost always copied a different game's formula and refined it. Innovation has not really been their strong point.

True and real. Maybe you can consider Diablo 1 an innovation since its basically the first action rogue-like. But its still based on another game.

[Necromantic]

True and real. Maybe you can consider Diablo 1 an innovation since its basically the first action rogue-like. But its still based on another game.

To be fair, you could go so far down the rabbit hole with that concept that you'd never see the light of day. "I made a video game... he made a video game. Therefore, he copied me!"

The MMO concept has been around a long time but they made a faster-paced MMO with more action than the traditional ones like FFXI where you auto-attack then once in a while can push a button.

[Aedruid]

I think a lot of the design choices for the past 10 years have been awful. Graphics, systems, and content just all stink. Seems like a lot of the money earned was not re-invested into Blizzard titles (like how in the heck does it take so long to release a new Diablo title when you make so much damn money?). Lack of funding lead to stale and/or zero innovation. Lack of pay attracts 0 people with an iota of skill and leads to a lazy culture at the company (why work hard if you get nothing in return?). Makes sense.

[Caprias]

Indeed. This is mostly what they are marked for. Perfecting an idea to function better in their content.

I wonder if this is even possible with something like dragon riding due to the age of the game/engine.
GW2 (where it's obviously copied from) set a really high bar there.

In the past few years I generally wondered how much engine age and limitations have influenced workflow and creativity.