David Brevik : Activision taking over Blizzard

[The7]

Thread is two days old; not a necro. Posting just to call it a necro is spam by the way.

Yep. Sorry, I just woke up and for some reason thought we were in 2019 (I swear lol). Sorry!

[MoanaLisa]

Yep. Sorry, I just woke up and for some reason thought we were in 2019 (I swear lol). Sorry!

We'll keep it just between the two of us then. Proceed.

[Deficineiron]

This entire announcement of Morhaime stepping down is shady because there was no context for it. Blizzard has been doing great and there was no reason for the management shuffle. It seems like a power coup where Activision wants more control in Blizzard and inner power struggles within tightly-guarded corporation PR is often an indicative sign that something is going on in the background. Morhaime hasn't retired nor did he plan to: so why did he give up his power? You don't give up what you've worked so hard to obtain, especially when it comes to power. Something is going on and it wouldn't surprise me if the practices of loot boxes and shady MTx that Activision stands for will be in all Blizzard games at the same levels of rapacity and shamelessness.

It is hard to know why, right? It may be he finally had something on his desk he wasn't willing to budge sufficiently on. If it had been actual personal reasons, usually the PR will state so (and often does when the real reason is not personal but business disagreement).

It could be anything with the current minimal info, and 'anything' could include something coming down the pike he doesn't want to be a part of.

[segara82]

Well, Breivik still has a lot of cloud in AB, the internal backlash last time someone shit-talked him is proof enough for me. So i do take his claims serious.
However, taking him serious does not mean that i will blindly believe everything he says. He is human after all and can (and will) make mistakes or be given bad info.

What i do find troublesome is the fact that Blizzard no longer has a CEO. President is a nice title with some prestige and a payraise, but not the same level of influence/power than the CEO. For now Bobby Kotick is the only CEO in AB if i understood it correctly (and please correct me if i'm wrong).
So my take on this is:
- more influence of Activision,
- (maybe) less pay for Blizzard employees

Not a good combination, especially us customers.

[Simca]

I've talked with Blizzard employees over the years, and most of the things people decry as 'the downfall of Blizzard and increasing influence of Activision' is stuff the individual game producers are doing themselves, independent of each other.

For example, the RMAH in D3 was implemented by its own game producer as a way to have a cash flow from the game that sustained it over time, so they could continue to justify developer headcount on a game that was already released. It wasn't something upper management forced on them, not in any direct way. It was something they invented themselves, so that they could justify spending more time on the game after its release if upper management wanted to retask people.

Well, Breivik still has a lot of cloud in AB, the internal backlash last time someone shit-talked him is proof enough for me. So i do take his claims serious.

I imagine that the internal backlash last time was more over the 'fuck that loser' language, not the target of the language.

I conversed with David Brevik (at least I think it was him, not 100% sure) on the D3 forums a couple of times, and I didn't get the sense that he had a great idea of what modern game development is like in large companies. As a result, I don't take his claims very seriously.

- (maybe) less pay for Blizzard employees

Is that even possible? Their staff may have to resign and pick up jobs at janitorial positions for the salary increase. Lol.

Let's just say when I've asked what a perk of working there is, nobody has -ever- said 'salary'. It sounds quite poor for a West Coast salary (dunno about video game industry salaries in particular, just sounded bad for a programming job). I guess it means you have to have passion to work there at least because if you wanted to make more money, you'd work somewhere else, probably outside the games industry.

[Ron Burgundy]

Metzen left cuz of burnout

[segara82]

I imagine that the internal backlash last time was more over the 'fuck that loser' language, not the target of the language.

I conversed with David Brevik (at least I think it was him, not 100% sure) on the D3 forums a couple of times, and I didn't get the sense that he had a great idea of what modern game development is like in large companies. As a result, I don't take his claims very seriously.

Why not a little bit of both? Some backlash could easily be for the tone, and some for the attacked person.

Is that even possible? Their staff may have to resign and pick up jobs at janitorial positions for the salary increase. Lol.

Let's just say when I've asked what a perk of working there is, nobody has -ever- said 'salary'. It sounds quite poor for a West Coast salary (dunno about video game industry salaries in particular, just sounded bad for a programming job). I guess it means you have to have passion to work there at least because if you wanted to make more money, you'd work somewhere else, probably outside the games industry.

From the infos i can gather (and my workplace has some strange limits on internet-access) the low pay was compensated by their Bonus program. But since said program is getting reworked/was reworked (lack of info on my account) it could very well be a (hidden) paycut. Working for Blizzard may be seen by some as awesome despite the low pay, but it will end like it did at Marvel Comics:
People work their to put it on their résumé and then bail after only a few months, resulting in retraining another newcomer and loss of productivity.

[Keihndeth]

I've talked with Blizzard employees over the years, and most of the things people decry as 'the downfall of Blizzard and increasing influence of Activision' is stuff the individual game producers are doing themselves, independent of each other.

For example, the RMAH in D3 was implemented by its own game producer as a way to have a cash flow from the game that sustained it over time, so they could continue to justify developer headcount on a game that was already released. It wasn't something upper management forced on them, not in any direct way. It was something they invented themselves, so that they could justify spending more time on the game after its release if upper management wanted to retask people.



I imagine that the internal backlash last time was more over the 'fuck that loser' language, not the target of the language.

I conversed with David Brevik (at least I think it was him, not 100% sure) on the D3 forums a couple of times, and I didn't get the sense that he had a great idea of what modern game development is like in large companies. As a result, I don't take his claims very seriously.



Is that even possible? Their staff may have to resign and pick up jobs at janitorial positions for the salary increase. Lol.

Let's just say when I've asked what a perk of working there is, nobody has -ever- said 'salary'. It sounds quite poor for a West Coast salary (dunno about video game industry salaries in particular, just sounded bad for a programming job). I guess it means you have to have passion to work there at least because if you wanted to make more money, you'd work somewhere else, probably outside the games industry.

Simca, David Brevik still has contacts and friends at Blizzard. He doesn't even have to understand "what modern game development is like in large companies" if he is hearing it first-hand from those contacts within Blizzard. If you go back and watch that stream you will see he has quite a bit more insight and knowledge about whats going on than he is even alluding to. I think handwaving who was an ex-studio head at Blizzard is the wrong approach. I'm not saying you have to take him at his word, but ignore his wisdom at our own peril. This should at the very least perk all our collective ears up. If it even *may* be true, we need to hold Activision accountable if we start seeing moves in that direction.

- - - Updated - - -

Metzen left cuz of burnout

Source needed. That is your impression, not a fact, as he didn't state why. Also, he had major health problems. He had a major spinal surgery like 2 weeks after he left which might have played a role.

[Kathranis]

Metzen left cuz of burnout

Less burnout and more stress. He was having panic attacks. Project Titan's cancellation was a huge blow to the team's moral, as I'm sure the backlash to Warlords was, though he was less involved with WoW by that point. The success of Overwatch and Legion were basically redemption and marked a good time for him to retire on a high note. His wife had also just given birth to I believe his second kid, and he wanted to spend more time with his family.

I'd recommend listening to the interviews he's done with Scott Johnson since retiring.

- - - Updated - - -

Source needed. That is your impression, not a fact, as he didn't state why. Also, he had major health problems. He had a major spinal surgery like 2 weeks after he left which might have played a role.

Metzen's spinal surgery was this January. He retired in late 2016.

He talks in detail about his reasons for retirement in the interview podcast he did with Scott Johnson a few months after retiring.

[bluspacecow]

From the infos i can gather (and my workplace has some strange limits on internet-access) the low pay was compensated by their Bonus program. But since said program is getting reworked/was reworked (lack of info on my account) it could very well be a (hidden) paycut. Working for Blizzard may be seen by some as awesome despite the low pay, but it will end like it did at Marvel Comics:
People work their to put it on their résumé and then bail after only a few months, resulting in retraining another newcomer and loss of productivity.

Here's the thing tho -

1. There's no public evidence of the Blizzard Entertainment Bonus Plan is being reworked or taken out. If you have credible evidence to corroborate what Brevik said about the plan being phased out feel free to post it.

2. They used to have a separate program the Blizzard Holiday Plan. Which was phased out at the end of 2017. If it was something that was going to be affecting people's salaries then management would of warned them about it before hand. Meaning that if you take the proviso of Brevik still having friends at Blizzard to be true , whom would talk to him about it .... they would of done that back in Oct/Nov 2017. Not 3 - 4 days again which was about when the stream in question was done.

3. Even with the holiday plan being ended salaries were meant to be adjusted by about how much the holiday plan would of increased it. This would be fairly easily researched but since I'm off to bed I've leave it to others in the thread. Should be fairly simple tho - Just look up the 2017 proxy statement for Activision Blizzard then compare it to the 2018 proxy statement. The proxy statements lists salaries.

[Deficineiron]

Let's just say when I've asked what a perk of working there is, nobody has -ever- said 'salary'. It sounds quite poor for a West Coast salary (dunno about video game industry salaries in particular, just sounded bad for a programming job). I guess it means you have to have passion to work there at least because if you wanted to make more money, you'd work somewhere else, probably outside the games industry.

Glasshouse reviews, even generally positive ones, have been pretty consistent on the attitude that if you are in Irvine, plan on having a roommate if you work at blizzard. the pay does not seem to be generous.

[plaits]

Well, Breivik still has a lot of cloud in AB, the internal backlash last time someone shit-talked him is proof enough for me. So i do take his claims serious.
However, taking him serious does not mean that i will blindly believe everything he says. He is human after all and can (and will) make mistakes or be given bad info.

What i do find troublesome is the fact that Blizzard no longer has a CEO. President is a nice title with some prestige and a payraise, but not the same level of influence/power than the CEO. For now Bobby Kotick is the only CEO in AB if i understood it correctly (and please correct me if i'm wrong).
So my take on this is:
- more influence of Activision,
- (maybe) less pay for Blizzard employees

Not a good combination, especially us customers.

This. All of this. I find it bizarre that people continue to repeat the untruth that Activision Blizzard (ATVI) have nothing to do with Blizzard. Aside from the fact that Blizzard's money is ATVI's money, so of course ATVI cares deeply about Blizzard, they just replaced a CEO President with a President. The only CEO Blizzard has now is Bobby Kotick. If that doesn't concern you then you haven't been paying attention.

Gotta give credit to Blizzard PR and marketing, it's as good as Apple's in the way it creates fans who put aside their ability to think critically and rationally.

I'm not in any way saying anyone should stop buying Blizzard's stuff. EA is a crappy company but I've spent loads on buying every single expansion and pack for Sims4 for example but I knew what to was doing because nobody feels passion for EA they just buy their product or they don't. Realise the hype and the appeals to emotion and nostalgia that Blizzard are so good at are just marketing tactics and nothing more, so you can think about Blizzard's games and whether you should play them in an objective sense.

It's like today's Warcraft Twitter post asking for people's stories about meeting friends etc in WoW. They don't actually care, but they want YOU to. They want you emotionally invested in the game so you feel like you can't quit. It's amazing marketing but they're also basically just trying to keep you addicted by appealing to emotion. Which is fine. Capitalist society etc etc. But just don't lose sight of their core purpose, which is making their shareholders money.

[Mister Cheese]

Destiny 2 and Black ops 4 on battle.net prove enough of a point that Activision has their hold on Blizzard and are unwilling to let go. They are using Battle.net as a platform to sell their games even though many people don't even want to look at these non-blizzard games on their launchers.

You could say it's part of the times that Activison wants to pull away from steam because of the 30% cut but I think it's more than that. They could just make their own platform and sell their own games but they're going with what will give D2 and BO4 the most exposure.

[Bling]

I gotta give Breivik some props. Every game he's been in charge of has been a hit with me. There's a reason Diablo and Diablo 2 made video game history. Diablo 3 when it first came out was a weak shadow of the previous games. It took years of patches to make Diablo 3 decent.

He was a founder and President of Gazillion who made Marvel Heroes. For those that didn't play it was a Marvel game that was Diablo style. While he was there the game was easily hands down better than Diablo 3. Honestly after playing it I couldn't even go back to playing Diablo 3 cause Marvel Heroes so was much better. Imagine Diablo 3 with 10+ acts, 75+ classes and tons of dungeons and raids you could queue for. Imagine having the trade chat of WoW when in your base, a Diablo with a social atmosphere. It also had the best community and developer interactions I've ever seen. Breivik and his wife would have a stream once a week were they would play with the players and answer questions. Their community manager tried to answer everything the community put forth, they listened to their feedback when testing new characters, etc. Unfortunately, he got to see corporate greed when his company got bought out, and he left soon after. The game then went down hill very soon after that.

[temple1337]

Brevik is kind of a crappy dad. I actually met his daughter in college, in the bay area, by pure chance. He basically had no involvement with her life and kind ignores her in favor of the family he started with his second wife.

[Osmeric]

This. All of this. I find it bizarre that people continue to repeat the untruth that Activision Blizzard (ATVI) have nothing to do with Blizzard.

It's bizarre, right? I mean, the owner of a company is able to replace the people running the company. That's what the board of directors does for publicly traded corporations, representing the owners (the shareholders).

[RoKPaNda]

So a disgruntled ex employee who hasn't achieved anything in 20 years has an opinion based on ... nothing really. The idea that Activision and Blizzard are somehow at war is kind of hilarious. Anyone who has ever played any Activision game or has played classic Blizzard games would laugh at the notion that anything that you don't like about WoW is Activision's fault. Even Blizzard's f2p games with loot boxes don't compare to even the most tame of Activision titles.

The idea that Blizzard has somehow changed is hilariously laughable. I've been playing Blizzard games since WarCraft 2 and in that time people have ALWAYS complained about balance, about Blizzard not caring, about Blizzard being greedy, about Blizzard only caring about the casuals and their money. Blizzard has ALWAYS released broken and unfinished games and the idea of "Blizzard polish" is something that Blizzard came up with, not the community. StarCraft wasn't even considered playable until a couple of patches into its first expansion, that's how buggy and unbalanced it was at release. Diablo 2, the title that Brevik is most known for was released with horrendous balance and filled with bugs. Again, most of which wasn't fixed until the expansion.

Activision hasn't done anything to Blizzard, Blizzard has just traveled the same road they've always been on. Most of the people who have left have been at Blizzard for literally decades, some of them are able to retire, some of them want to do something different in the industry. Turnover in the game industry is very high.

tldr: David Brevik is clout chasing, surprise, he did it when D3 was released, he's doing it now. Blizzard is doing what Blizzard has always done, people want to use Activision as a scapegoat.

[Alkizon]

Who cares? It's not depend from community

[Azerate]

you must be joking right?you obviously havent played before legion. those 2 expansions and draenor are absolute trash. well bfa is just a pathetic patch not even an expansion. wow fans are reallu sheeps.im playing since vanilla and its going downhill.

Yeah, I didn't play before Legion, and I registered on this forum in 2011 just to be able to troll you in 2018, because I foresaw that I will start playing WoW in 2017 and want to prove a point.

Another baby hurt by a different opinion.

[Deficineiron]

It's bizarre, right? I mean, the owner of a company is able to replace the people running the company. That's what the board of directors does for publicly traded corporations, representing the owners (the shareholders).

I suspect most of them repeat it because they need to believe it. throw in a good dash of ignorance about US securities law in this area as a requirement but that isn't unusual.

Once you accept that a/b really does OWN blizzard, and kotick really IS the ceo of a/b, largest shareholder of a/b, and he and kelly control significant minority stake in the company (last I read the group kotick heads that bought part of the vivendi stake is the largest single shareholder?), it becomes increasingly uphill to argue that a/b has never influenced blizzard decisions in the face of more and more monetization schemes and other very broad changes. Under this model, making kotick ceo of a/b rather than morhaime was mainly symbolic, right? Tricky Vivendi!!

If we go back to 2008, when blizz (which in 2008 was nearly all wow revenue only) was nearly half the recently combined companies' revenues, suggesting a/b was not going to take a very detailed interest in wow requires suspension of common sense - here is this division that is half the combined company's revenue and obviously what ATVI does is let it run rogue, when everyone's long-term financial well-being depends on it directly (stock holdings, options).

the best way to head of wrong thinking like that is deny the basic premise. a/b is a special company where no one really tells blizzard anything, they just sort of let it do its thing, and maybe blizzard gives them some of blizzard's money once in a while.