Morale at Blizzard low?

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Regardless of the videos or articles you know something is going on when people that have been with the company start leaving like mad.

Yeah. It's called aging. Blizzard has been around since the 90s, it's inevitable that long-time stalwarts are going to decide they have enough money to retire comfortably and do so.








Anyway that Kotaku article finally sounds like believable internal politics, instead of the trumped-up drama Youtubers feed off of.

No, the Activision vultures are not circling ready to close Blizzard at the next sign of failure. No they are not about to go bankrupt next year. No, they are not "selling out" in the name of free money.
Yes, Blizzard is trying to break into the mobile market, and especially the Asian mobile market. Yes, Blizzard is being told to cut down on operating costs in a year where we know their average users and profits are down. And yes, Diablo 4 does in fact exist.

[Armourboy]

Yeah. It's called aging. Blizzard has been around since the 90s, it's inevitable that long-time stalwarts are going to decide they have enough money to retire comfortably and do so.








Anyway that Kotaku article finally sounds like believable internal politics, instead of the trumped-up drama Youtubers feed off of.

No, the Activision vultures are not circling ready to close Blizzard at the next sign of failure. No they are not about to go bankrupt next year. No, they are not "selling out" in the name of free money.
Yes, Blizzard is trying to break into the mobile market, and especially the Asian mobile market. Yes, Blizzard is being told to cut down on operating costs in a year where we know their average users and profits are down. And yes, Diablo 4 does in fact exist.

It's not just long time guys.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

It's not just long time guys.

Those being? Pretty sure most of the upper game management has been stable compared to the "great exodus" at the launch of Legion. Just shuffling between projects.

[The7]

the Activision vultures are not circling ready to close Blizzard at the next sign of failure

They're not trying to close Blizzard, they want to control it, and we already see signs of that.

Wasn't it last year that Activision was caught in a scheme to try and influence people to buy microtransactions by matching them up with others with more expensive cosmetics, or something like that? That's the kind of thing we fear: you're not spending money in their store because you want, but because you're being manipulated into.

Here: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...rotransactions

[Knarg]

Stop linking this drama monger

^^^^^ This.

[swatsonqt]

Blizzard already had a severe change in strategy. From focusing on making niche games mainstream to focusing on competition and esports.

Infact, blizzard isnt the first in creating accessibility in new games anymore. While that was their strength.

Today blizzard just follows the hype. LoL makes billions with esports, be like LoL. Mobile games sell like bread, make mobile games.

The only trend they set is in MMORPGs, as they completely dominate that niche since World of Warcraft. But WoW is still all about organized group gameplay and didnt evolve towards accessibility as much as it could.

Result is that millions buy an expac, but probably only stay for a month. As the endgame which is engaging is still limited to a few.

At the end, it is not the organized players which are the heart and soul of world of warcraft, but the social guild players and solo players which made wow big. Both Greg Street and Ion Hazzikostas are wrong if they say the organized players are the core of the community. Invoking a virtual caste system based on the level of group organization is not really what WoW should be about. And its development.

Thank you! 10/10 #signed

I just can't stand the "just find a guild an be happy" people anymore.

The community has grown older, most people don't have the time to do organized content for x hours a week, please blizz evolve!

I'm not saying that i want everything handed to me without effort. But if you can't stick to a playing schedule you don't have that much todo right now... and how are you supposed to build new communitys or join one if you don't have the time?

[kamuimac]

Interesting trends:

The best TOTAL sales for any handheld gaming console (Nintendo DS): 154 million
Number of PCs sold in 2018: 162 million
Number of smartphones sold in 2018: 1.4 BILLION

Just pushing out a crappy mobile game is likely to make more money than any AAA PC title. Its a sad thing if you actually like quality games.

and yet the easiest way to clam down your kid nowadays is to give them mobile for playing/watching movies.

blame the parents for using mobiles as new most beloved children toys.

[Rusken]

Blizzard hasn't really done anything spectacular since Overwatch's release, and even that now is also struggling with huge problems within the game and community.

Think about it, since 2014 Blizzcon what's happened? Just the regular expansions for each game (except D3 lul) and now after this year's big reveal being a mobile game when everyone's wanting and expecting a new major title, people are starting to not take Blizzard seriously anymore. All forms of Blizzard forum, both official and not are full to the brim of people complaining about everything they do in every game.

It would be no surprise to me that the game devs at Blizzard are sick to death of trying when no matter what they do they're met with huge amounts of backlash and hate. Not to mention the pressure they'd be getting from Activision to pump out yearly titles that sell like CoD.. Would be a very stressful environment to work in.

[Lumineus]

Interesting trends:

The best TOTAL sales for any handheld gaming console (Nintendo DS): 154 million
Number of PCs sold in 2018: 162 million
Number of smartphones sold in 2018: 1.4 BILLION

Just pushing out a crappy mobile game is likely to make more money than any AAA PC title. Its a sad thing if you actually like quality games.

TFW you realize that all those shitty Nokia knockoffs that run half a dozen poorly made proprietary social media apps and a non-functional YouTube client on JavaBeans or Windows CE count as "smartphones."

[Deleted]

Thank you! 10/10 #signed

I just can't stand the "just find a guild an be happy" people anymore.

The community has grown older, most people don't have the time to do organized content for x hours a week, please blizz evolve!

I'm not saying that i want everything handed to me without effort. But if you can't stick to a playing schedule you don't have that much todo right now... and how are you supposed to build new communitys or join one if you don't have the time?

Community didnt grow older. You did. Community average age is same as it used to be in 2004. There is nice amounth of young people what want waste time in wow. But therei is that big but. Those players are not interested in wow exactly becouse how game cutteres to players with no time to play. Current game sp not cutter to orva ized guilds. Only mythic raida need organized guild which is like 0.001% of all wow content. Rest of the game can be played solo. I also dont inderstand your logic. You want game to be acccessible yet you dont want things to be handed to you. Do you undestand that in order to make game more accessible you have to make things easier? Thats how you make game accessible.

[Ungeir]

Interesting trends:

The best TOTAL sales for any handheld gaming console (Nintendo DS): 154 million
Number of PCs sold in 2018: 162 million
Number of smartphones sold in 2018: 1.4 BILLION

Just pushing out a crappy mobile game is likely to make more money than any AAA PC title. Its a sad thing if you actually like quality games.

As someone who's been in the industry for more than a decade, I've heard this song since my first days. What I've seen in practice is that monetizing the massive smartphone market is extremely difficult. It's very much "winners takes it all" - much more so than AAA.

PC and Console gamers are willing to buy a high price for games and DLC. With the shift to digital distribution the margins are very good. Game/franchise loyalty is also high.

Mobile gamers are not willing to pay much, if anything at all, for the games they play. Freemium and monetizing whales can be extremely profitable, but the vast majority of games fail to do so.

The size of the markets can be very misleading when it comes to profitability and risk. Yes, the number of units and the turnover is impressive for the mobile market - but the profit profile for these games? Very different story.

[Saphyron]

some folks need to realize that this is not a typo.

It insane. I live in Denmark, one of the most expensive countries in the world and my rent is nowhere that insane.
I pay 7000 DKK or 1300 us$ for a 4 bedroom 97 square meters. I live in the middle of a city.

[DesoPL]

When it comes to cutting costs in corporations like Blizzard. you know that something is not right. Look how EA killed by cutting costs Visceral Games year ago.

Yep i mean here Kotaku.

[Deleted]

Interesting trends:

The best TOTAL sales for any handheld gaming console (Nintendo DS): 154 million
Number of PCs sold in 2018: 162 million
Number of smartphones sold in 2018: 1.4 BILLION

Just pushing out a crappy mobile game is likely to make more money than any AAA PC title. Its a sad thing if you actually like quality games.

First of all. People do not change their PC every year like mobile phone which many people buy new one every year. You havent counted in sold pc hardware as many people only upgrades their pc or build one at home. My pc is 5y old and i dont consider replacing it for another 5.

[swatsonqt]

Community didnt grow older. You did. Community average age is same as it used to be in 2004. There is nice amounth of young people what want waste time in wow. But therei is that big but. Those players are not interested in wow exactly becouse how game cutteres to players with no time to play. Current game sp not cutter to orva ized guilds. Only mythic raida need organized guild which is like 0.001% of all wow content. Rest of the game can be played solo. I also dont inderstand your logic. You want game to be acccessible yet you dont want things to be handed to you. Do you undestand that in order to make game more accessible you have to make things easier? Thats how you make game accessible.

Why does it has to be easier? Accessibility can be achieved on many ways. Split the raid into several wings (hello there SoO) so that you have more "miniraids" which can be done in more little time sessions rather then 2 evenings a week with 4 hours each. 1 tank 2 heals 6 dps or something like that for dungeons, maybe new options? solves time issues for a lot of dps players. It doesn't necessarily have to be easier, simply reworking several things would do a great deal.

[Jinzuru]

When it comes to cutting costs in corporations like Blizzard. you know that something is not right. Look how EA killed by cutting costs Visceral Games year ago.

Yep i mean here Kotaku.

I know where they could cut costs if they had that "autonomy". They'd cut cost of that Activision CFO position.

[Eapoe]

Activision has been part of Blizzard since 2008. Why are people jumping on the bandwagon that this is all Activision’s fault suddenly? Maybe Blizzard themselves are making this shift.

[Gorsameth]

First of all. People do not change their PC every year like mobile phone which many people buy new one every year. You havent counted in sold pc hardware as many people only upgrades their pc or build one at home. My pc is 5y old and i dont consider replacing it for another 5.

The 2017 Year In Review Report by SuperData shows that mobile games remain the biggest sector, generating $59.2bn, followed by PC at $33bn and consoles at $8.3bn.

Source
Mobile gaming is bigger then PC and Console combined.

Mobile is a bigger market and growing faster then PC/Console. It makes sense for any developer to try and get a piece of the pie.

[Deleted]

The simple statement that somehow, Blizz cannot make ends meet, despite their games selling massively, despite WoW subs coming in every month, and despite their expansions and other services being overpriced as they are, and still selling massively, is just laughable.

Meanwhile other studios are making do with far less, selling fewer copies for cheaper, without resorting to predatory triple-A antics or needing phone games to supplement their cash flow.

I suppose that's what you get when you have a merchant doing what's supposed to be artists' work.

[Sularian]

I dont support Blizzard with my money anymore so I dont care if it crashes and burns. I'm just sad for the employees that are sinking with the ship.

Then why are you on a Blizzard fan site lol?