Can we talk about Blizzard dying yet? Or is this gonna be removed -_-

[cface]

What a ludicrous topic... Blizzard are still making billions and are still releasing QUALITY content.

A mobile game being announced which is like an insanely lucritive market is not the sign of a game company dying.

Hell no. Their releases sucks more every year, the quality they used to stand for is gone. Every new game they made is just meeh.

But they are making money, and that's the road they've decided to go. Before they used to focus on quality pc games, and thus made money. Now they only care about money, and quality comes second. As a company you got to evovle, not blaming blizzard, but they are dead to most of us who grew up with Blizzard.

Mobile platform is the worst gaming platform ever, but everyone has a phone, so the marked is big. I have never ever played anything fun on mobile. It's a major waste of time when you could rather spend that precious time on a real platform with real controls.

[Topornic]

Acti-Blizz increased yearly revenue from 10 bil to 60 bil since 2012 (I think). They are 4th gaming company by revenue, beating EA. No, they are not dying.

I risk saying that the bigger part of it is Call of Duty and other Activison related products.

Blizzard is dead as it was. It no longer cares and gives in to what gives profit. And dumb people spend their money on microtransactions filling their pockets. Back when WoW had no vanity shop and tokens they had to deliver or they could go fuck themself. Right now they know some people who buy ingame vanity stuff and tokens for gold deliver the money so they don't have to care. (i.e. one person who is able to spend 100 bucks on 5 vanity items is worth as much as 6 subscribers, easy math).

[Irian]

This is blizzard suffering under the pressure of another imminent market crash coming to the games industry. These shitty triple A developers are going to drive themselves into the ground and we'll have to see smaller companies and indie devs try and pick up the pieces.

The writing's on the wall everywhere. Nobody is happy with or trusts any of these companies anymore.

[Deleted]

Its not the game 'we' want.

But the game we deserve.

[Gohzerlock]

Congrats, you're the maker of a "wow is dying" thread. You can now join the legions of others who have done the same over the past 10 years. Flame blizzard more for being a business, that wants to make money and have a mobile game like every other large developer.

[Sansnom]

in 10+ years, I have never witnessed Blizzard so out of touch with their player base. WoW players are at an all time high in disappointment, Diablo fans??? Jesus Christ dont even get me started there. A mobile game? Blizzard wtf were you thinking?

You know something that Blizzard do not know? Or is this simply because they are not doing what you want?

[Deleted]

Riot games need to make mmo. At least the ceo actually has a philosophy he believes in which is creating games for a niche audience and not trying to accustom to everyone the way wow has.

[mysticx]

The big mistake Blizz made with the Diablo mobile game is announcing it at Blizzcon, i don’t know about the gaming market in general, but in the “Paying big bucks to be at Blizzcon”-bracket, nobody wants a mobile game.

It would have been better for Blizz to announce it seperately, people who go to visit Blizzcon are almost exclusively PC-gamers, and PC gamers break out in a rash when people mention the two words “Mobile” and “Gaming” in the same sentence...

[Deleted]

They used to want to make great games and therefore made lots of money.

Now they want to make tons of money and therefore make mediocre games.

So it goes.

W3 reskin. Diablo mobile. BfA (NotSoRandom)RnG sh*tshow.
They went into deep love relationship with scientific revenue. Sad.

[Osmeric]

The big mistake Blizz made with the Diablo mobile game is announcing it at Blizzcon,

Message you are sending Kotick: pull money out of Blizzard and give it to other divisions of ATVI if you want to develop mobile games.

[Onikaroshi]

The big mistake Blizz made with the Diablo mobile game is announcing it at Blizzcon, i don’t know about the gaming market in general, but in the “Paying big bucks to be at Blizzcon”-bracket, nobody wants a mobile game.

It would have been better for Blizz to announce it seperately, people who go to visit Blizzcon are almost exclusively PC-gamers, and PC gamers break out in a rash when people mention the two words “Mobile” and “Gaming” in the same sentence...

They should have just pulled a Bethesda, announce the mobile game and hint at the next big thing(s) immediately after. People talked more about the flyby shot of an empty field in ES VI then the mobile game.

[Bakis]

Now, in contrast, this post.

The hell you expected to see for WoW?
They announced a huge Karazhan-like dungeon, new "Argus", new zones, new huge raid, new allied races, long-awaited goblin/worgen rework and improving a lot on island expeditions and warfronts.
What else? You expected a blowjob on top of that?

Balance, Azerite gear, warfront changes etc.
Mechanics of the game not cosmetics like updated models and to be honest allied races to a large extent.
Regarding new 'huge' raid can be good or not, depends on the quality.

[ReD-EyeD]

Balance, Azerite gear, warfront changes etc.
Mechanics of the game not cosmetics like updated models and to be honest allied races to a large extent.
Regarding new 'huge' raid can be good or not, depends on the quality.

If you don't understand that they would not talk about intricacies like azerite gear and specific mechanic changes on a fucking main stage in front of people who don't even (mostly) play World of Warcraft then I don't know what to say to you.

[chrisnumbers]

I think the notion that a gaming company needs to be "in touch" with their "playerbase" is out of date. Gaming companies make whatever it is that they want to make, and after the release of the product they adapt it to the market. They don't and shouldn't care about the vocal minority. Their interest is simple: what's going to make the most amount of money in the most efficient way possible?

[Deleted]

My personal take on this:

Am I entirely happy with the way game development culture has evolved? Nah, I really wish microtransactions hadn't gained the traction they did and that it wasn't the standard now to gate content on actual game discs behind DLC paywalls, but that's the way it went, that's what gamers either accepted or didn't protest enough to stop it, so that's what we now have.

At the end of the day, every company currently creating content in the games industry exists to make money and pay its employees before anything else. There are a lot that genuinely care about the product and want to make truly groundbreaking stuff, but the fact of the matter is that if you don't make money, you don't make more games.

Blizzard is free to make absolutely any game it wants. The consumer will vote, as we've always been able to, with their wallet. I know a lot of people are disillusioned with their stuff right now, but I can log into WoW and have fun. I can boot up StarCraft 2 and have fun. I can fire up Warcraft 3 and have fun. I can play Hearthstone and have fun. I can have fun on Heroes of the Storm. I can have fun on Overwatch. And personally that's the metric by which I judge the quality of a company's games. I might want some changes in WoW, I might not necessarily agree with the direction the game is going in, but I still enjoy it and acknowledge that ultimately what direction the game goes in is their decision, not mine. If ever comes the day when I log into WoW and don't find something fun to do, I'll cancel my subscription and move on to something else.

So they've decided to make a Diablo game for mobile. Good for them, I'll probably check it out depending on how much it is. They're not obligated to make Diablo 4 until they're ready and willing to. I get that enough fans asking for it will show them how much money is potentially to be made, but if it doesn't fit into the pipeline they're not going to make it just to appease you. I'm sure a Diablo 4 will come eventually, though.

I have seen some people disappointed with this year's BlizzCon, but name another company that does an event like this. And honestly, much with the games they produce, Blizzard can show and announce anything they want at the event. If you paid for the ticket but don't like what was announced, there isn't really much that can be done about that besides not going to BlizzCon next time I guess?

Look, I'm not saying the company doesn't have its faults, because lord knows it does. And they've made some questionable decisions in their games lately. The thing is, those decisions are theirs to make.

[Onikaroshi]

If you don't understand that they would not talk about intricacies like azerite gear and specific mechanic changes on a fucking main stage in front of people who don't even (mostly) play World of Warcraft then I don't know what to say to you.

They also didn't talk about anything of substance during the What's next panel, it leaves a very sour taste, specially with the delayed 8.1 for no good reason. Those systems changes are sorely needed.

[minkage]

Hell no. Their releases sucks more every year, the quality they used to stand for is gone. Every new game they made is just meeh.

But they are making money, and that's the road they've decided to go. Before they used to focus on quality pc games, and thus made money. Now they only care about money, and quality comes second. As a company you got to evovle, not blaming blizzard, but they are dead to most of us who grew up with Blizzard.

Mobile platform is the worst gaming platform ever, but everyone has a phone, so the marked is big. I have never ever played anything fun on mobile. It's a major waste of time when you could rather spend that precious time on a real platform with real controls.

They make suck for you but I still think wow is fantastic, WC3 remake has been on my wishlist forever, overwatch is stellar and the other games are fun. Diablo mobile looks like garbage but it might be fun to play when I get my hands on it... I doubt it as I think ARPG on phones are terrible.

[Machismo]

I think Blizzard will be just fine... more or less. I do think that certain major titles for Blizzard (on the PC) are in serious trouble. Their two main franchises, Warcraft and Diablo, are in a poor state. Starcraft has all but disappeared from view.

I think it's time for the gamers like me, people who have been with Blizzard for 20+ years, to simply move on to greener pastures. I see no real reason to stick with the label, and give them money that they simply no longer deserve. They'll find other sources of revenue, but I hope that the blind followers take a step back to reconsider their loyalty. I used to be very loyal to them. I started playing more than 25 years ago, and pre-ordered almost every single game that I could. Even when I quite Cata, because it was garbage in the beginning, I didn't actually cancel my subscription (oops). Now there is no chance that I will pre-order one of their games. I'll wait and see how the reviews are, and possibly wait until they fix all their issues. Considering the state of BfA, it's clear that it takes more than three months to finish what should have been done in beta.

[ReD-EyeD]

They also didn't talk about anything of substance during the What's next panel, it leaves a very sour taste, specially with the delayed 8.1 for no good reason. Those systems changes are sorely needed.

Oh, here it is again, word juggling. "Nothing of substance", "not fun", "garbage" epithets as facts.

Surely they would talk about new expansion after 2 months of BFA release, new class, complete rework of literally everything while moving the whole game on a new engine.

[pokeadott]

It really is a vote with our wallets situation. Look at the box office for Solo in the wake of episode 8, and Disney (even more of a corporate overlord than Activision) actually altered its Star Wars movie strategy. If you don't like the direction Blizzard is moving in, stop handing them money and they will actually change their approach.