Paul Sams left Blizzard?!?

[Bryntrollian]

Do you know who Paul Sams is? He is like the father of Blizzard, being there for over 20 years... and a COO position is everything, but certainly not paid badly.

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Yeah... RIP BlizzCon then...

Regardless, the move from COO to CEO is a pretty big jump.

[Thage]

Well sweet Mother Teresa on the hood of a Mercedes-Benz. You're alive!

I laughed, then I got sad, because TFS won't be making any more Attack on Titan Abridged due to legal problems. :c

[Herecius]

I laughed, then I got sad, because TFS won't be making any more Attack on Titan Abridged due to legal problems. :c

What noooooooo

[Vilendor]

"Gamers are not driven to buy games because they have a clever business model, they buy games that are fun and immersive that deliver on what was promised."

So that's why he left

Moderation Note: Since Paul Sams has replied directly to the thread please read his response before going further down this road [ML]

[Herecius]

"Gamers are not driven to buy games because they have a clever business model, they buy games that are fun and immersive that deliver on what was promised."

So that's why he left

Jebus... can we get Sams' reply shunted into the OP, so folks can have some context with their assumptions?

[Jester Joe]

Jebus... can we get Sams' reply shunted into the OP, so folks can have some context with their assumptions?

Pft, you think people read the OP. You'd have to put it into the title!

[Flaks]

Pft, you think people read the OP. You'd have to put it into the title!

Please do so Boub or this thread is going to go nowhere again fast.

Wish you the best Mr. Sams. Please help those folks at Ready at Dawn kick back up into full gear after The Order.

[Mormolyce]

And yet - people don't leave companies whose direction they are 100% happy with.

They absolutely do, when other opportunities or life changes come up.

[xact4]

Hey Toro...thanks for the good luck wishes. Just so you know, I can publicly tell you that I 100% support the direction of the company. Again, I left because our entire family wanted to live in my wife's home state of Texas. We have had a home in Austin since 2005 and we spent a ton of time here. We have been planning to move to Austin permanently for years. Our boys wanted to play Texas "Friday Night Lights" football. If you know my family, we are football fanatics and the idea of this pushed our entire family's "geek meter" to 11. There is truly nothing more to the story than what I said in my first post. Good night guys. I hope to see you on Battle.net. :-)

"Friday Night Lights" football /smh :P. I grew up and still live in the town that movie was based on and partially filmed in, a few miles down the road from the stadium even. Attended the cross town rival high school that was conveniently mostly left out of the movie too lol, those filthy Permian Panthers. Remember them coming to the school and asking for extras for some of the stadium scenes. Hope you and your family make it out to Real Tex... I mean West Texas one of these days to visit! Check out the Marfa ghost lights or something.

Anyways, good luck to you and your family and congrats on this opportunity!

[Vilendor]

Everyone calm down... i have read the first 3 pages and posted from there, his comment was on page 12 and the OP wasn't updated at that time. Stop sucking my blood

[Herecius]

Everyone calm down... i have read the first 3 pages and posted from there, his comment was on page 12 and the OP wasn't updated at that time. Stop sucking my blood

You are a good person. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Most folks wouldn't do this!

[Deleted]

it pains me to see my name associated with posts criticizing the company

We read the interview. It was full of hidden criticism. It pains you to see your name associated with posts criticizing the company? Too bad, because the things you've said in that interview speak a clear language. No intelligent person can read that interview, and not be reminded of all the stuff surrounding the development, launch and current state of Warlords of Draenor. No intelligent person can read that interview and not think of how the business model of WoW has changed to include paid character boosts and a mount shop that is quite honestly an insult to players. No intelligent person can read that interview and not think of how Blizzard is branching out into all kinds of genres that are popular at the moment, most likely at the expense of the quality of other Blizzard games. Weren't these all things that you talked about in that interview?

Didn't you mention how important it is to release quality games? How important it is to not force the development team to release a game before it's finished? Yet, Warlords of Draenor was rushed out in an unfinished state. We've witnessed how months before the launch of Draenor features and content were pushed back and scrapped. Are you trying to tell us that was not a jab at how Blizzard rushed out Warlords of Draenor?

Didn't you mention how players don't buy your games because it has a clever business model, but because they are fun and immersive? WoW has included more and more shop-only mounts over the last years, has introduced payed level boosts and just recently allowed players to purchase game time tokens, that they can exchange for gold. Mounts like the rylak, the fey dragon and the grinning reaver would've made excellent rewards for players and fun to acquire, but they are hidden behind a pay wall. The value of gold is enormous right now. Tons of gear that costs immense amounts of gold. Which gives players a good reason to buy the token and sell it for gold. Good cards in Hearthstone are only available if you pay huge amounts of money, or invest countless hours into grinding gold. You will likely spend hundreds of dollars on the game before you have all, or even nearly all of the cards. Blizzard also plans to release an alternative "skin" for the warrior hero, that is really only a different portrait and different emotes, yet will cost the ridiculous sum of 9.99$. The heroes in Heroes of the Storm, and the skins as well, all cost ridiculous amounts of money. If you want access to all of it, you have to drop almost 200 bucks on the game. Those are all very clever business models. But are these elements which make the games more fun? Are you telling me your statement in the interview wasn't a jab at the business models of all these games?

Didn't you mention how being a trend chaser is not a key to victory? Blizzard used to rely on their main games Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo for a long time, but in a very short time has made a virtual trading card game, a MOBA and a TFT-like multiplayer shooter is in the making. Are you telling me this comment was not aimed at Blizzard chasing those trends in gaming?

Those are all criticisms that echo throughout the community for quite some time now. Check out this video of Danger Dolan titled Discussion: WoW is losing 1 million subs a month. In the description of the video he linked several videos of several popular and well-known WoW-Youtubers:

Bellulargaming: WoW Subscribers PLUMMET By 2.9 Million - Time for Serious Talk
Heelvsbabyface: WoD Subscription Numbers Go Up In Smoke - (AzChats Episode #49)
Asmongold: Real Talk about World of Warcraft Losing 2.9 Million Subs in 2015 Q1
Torturevision: Warcraft Recon Report: The Failures of Warlords of Draenor
Bignashgaming: Is WoW Dead?
Crendor: Discussing WoD's Sub Loss

Quite honestly, I don't understand why you have such a problem being associated with people like them, who criticize WoW and Blizzard. Because I think all of their criticisms are valid and worth addressing.

Are you telling me, that Blizzard is not the developer you were thinking of when you said those things - as someone who has worked for the last 20 years for exactly that developer?

Dear Mr. Sams, if that is indeed the case, you gave the most unfortunate interview.

At the very least, you have to admit, that you can't say all the things you have said in that interview and then come here and say you fully support Blizzard's direction.

[Seezer]

Good luck, Paul.

And yet - people don't leave companies whose direction they are 100% happy with.

We get that you can't publicly acknowledge this.

People always want the juiciest answers. And if it isn't juicy enough, they'll play the conspiracy card. Family>Job. Always. Now, you need a job to support your family, and he got one. And I'm sure he's financially secure even if he decided to retire. You're hearing this all from the horses mouth. But you think that because you aren't happy with blizz, that even a former employee can't be.

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We read the interview. It was full of hidden criticism. It pains you to see your name associated with posts criticizing the company? Too bad, because the things you've said in that interview speak a clear language. No intelligent person can read that interview, and not be reminded of all the stuff surrounding the development, launch and current state of Warlords of Draenor. No intelligent person can read that interview and not think of how the business model of WoW has changed to include paid character boosts and a mount shop that is quite honestly an insult to players. No intelligent person can read that interview and not think of how Blizzard is branching out into all kinds of genres that are popular at the moment, most likely at the expense of the quality of other Blizzard games. Weren't these all things that you talked about in that interview?

Didn't you mention how important it is to release quality games? How important it is to not force the development team to release a game before it's finished? Yet, Warlords of Draenor was rushed out in an unfinished state. We've witnessed how months before the launch of Draenor features and content were pushed back and scrapped. Are you trying to tell us that was not a jab at how Blizzard rushed out Warlords of Draenor?

Didn't you mention how players don't buy your games because it has a clever business model, but because they are fun and immersive? WoW has included more and more shop-only mounts over the last years, has introduced payed level boosts and just recently allowed players to purchase game time tokens, that they can exchange for gold. Mounts like the rylak, the fey dragon and the grinning reaver would've made excellent rewards for players and fun to acquire, but they are hidden behind a pay wall. The value of gold is enormous right now. Tons of gear that costs immense amounts of gold. Which gives players a good reason to buy the token and sell it for gold. Good cards in Hearthstone are only available if you pay huge amounts of money, or invest countless hours into grinding gold. You will likely spend hundreds of dollars on the game before you have all, or even nearly all of the cards. Blizzard also plans to release an alternative "skin" for the warrior hero, that is really only a different portrait and different emotes, yet will cost the ridiculous sum of 9.99$. The heroes in Heroes of the Storm, and the skins as well, all cost ridiculous amounts of money. If you want access to all of it, you have to drop almost 200 bucks on the game. Those are all very clever business models. But are these elements which make the games more fun? Are you telling me your statement in the interview wasn't a jab at the business models of all these games?

Didn't you mention how being a trend chaser is not a key to victory? Blizzard used to rely on their main games Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo for a long time, but in a very short time has made a virtual trading card game, a MOBA and a TFT-like multiplayer shooter is in the making. Are you telling me this comment was not aimed at Blizzard chasing those trends in gaming?

Those are all criticisms that echo throughout the community for quite some time now. Check out this video of Danger Dolan titled Discussion: WoW is losing 1 million subs a month. In the description of the video he linked several videos of several popular and well-known WoW-Youtubers:

Bellulargaming: WoW Subscribers PLUMMET By 2.9 Million - Time for Serious Talk
Heelvsbabyface: WoD Subscription Numbers Go Up In Smoke - (AzChats Episode #49)
Asmongold: Real Talk about World of Warcraft Losing 2.9 Million Subs in 2015 Q1
Torturevision: Warcraft Recon Report: The Failures of Warlords of Draenor
Bignashgaming: Is WoW Dead?
Crendor: Discussing WoD's Sub Loss

Quite honestly, I don't understand why you have such a problem being associated with people like them, who criticize WoW and Blizzard. Because I think all of their criticisms are valid and worth addressing.

Are you telling me, that Blizzard is not the developer you were thinking of when you said those things - as someone who has worked for the last 20 years for exactly that developer?

Dear Mr. Sams, if that is indeed the case, you gave the most unfortunate interview.

At the very least, you have to admit, that you can't say all the things you have said in that interview and then come here and say you fully support Blizzard's direction.

List the quotes that you say are full of hidden criticism. Because I'm pretty sure if someone really wanted to something not to get out, they wouldn't even say it at all. But again, that juice. Gotta be juicy. And drama filled. You think there's hidden intent because you couldn't handle it if there weren't any. But again, you can't tell a melodramatic person anything. YOu just used this opportunity to soapbox "OOOH LOOK SOMEONE FROM BLIZZ!! LEMME UNLOOOOOAADDD!"

Pissed off players can read minds now. And tell people "No...Uh uh. That's not what you think. THIS is what you think.". Stop trying to force people to admit something that isn't there. That is something obsessive control freaks do.

[RoKPaNda]

-snip-

Wat.

In all seriousness, your post is nonsensical. If Paul Sams felt the way that you think he does, why would he post here and deny it? He'd have no reason to. There would be ZERO reason for him to do anything other than sit back and let the discussion go that way if that's how he felt.

[Jester Joe]

You are a good person. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. Most folks wouldn't do this!

Agreed. My post was more of just a jab at general forum behavior, not the other poster specifically.

[dejaa]

Hey Toro...thanks for the good luck wishes. Just so you know, I can publicly tell you that I 100% support the direction of the company. Again, I left because our entire family wanted to live in my wife's home state of Texas. We have had a home in Austin since 2005 and we spent a ton of time here. We have been planning to move to Austin permanently for years. Our boys wanted to play Texas "Friday Night Lights" football. If you know my family, we are football fanatics and the idea of this pushed our entire family's "geek meter" to 11. There is truly nothing more to the story than what I said in my first post. Good night guys. I hope to see you on Battle.net. :-)

Best of luck in your new position and in spending more time in the great city of Austin.

While I'm not going to interpret your moving on in anything other than the light it was presented, it's a great opportunity both professionally and personally and after 20 years anywhere change can be a good thing. Nevertheless, it would be very difficult to discount my eyes and recent experience and believe all is well at Blizzard Entertainment. Cheers!

[Gray_Matter]

He became CEO of Ready at Dawn. That's a bit more than joining it. As CEO, it's his studio.

I think the people who own the studio may have a different idea.

[Buu]

Honestly? My first thought was Sams saying "I don't want my name linked to what's happening here. Gotta go. Thanks for all the fish."

[Herecius]

I think the people who own the studio may have a different idea.

Who's that? In the US at least, the President of a company is typically subordinate to the CEO, so... yeah, it's his company, especially considering Ready At Dawn, unlike Blizzard, is not a public company. Who is in charge, if not the CEO, in this case?

[dejaa]

Who's that? In the US at least, the President of a company is typically subordinate to the CEO, so... yeah, it's his company, especially considering Ready At Dawn, unlike Blizzard, is not a public company. Who is in charge, if not the CEO, in this case?

Er, the owner(s)? That would be whoever started up the business. That would make them Mr. Sams' boss(es).