AZ's latest epic rant: Blizzard are making games for shareholders, not players

[snackfeat]

LOL indeed exactly what im saying

How in the world can someone make the game good for shareholders? Without making the game good for players?

What kind of logic is that?

Because they don't need to make the game good for players when they are making more money from milking the whales with store mounts and loot boxes in OW and card packs in HS.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

On screen buttons are a joke at best. Nothing feels as great as fucking up a move because your thumbs slid off the non-existant button.

And you can also fit, what 2 buttons on the screen? Hows that against the 10+ on a controller or fuckton on a keyboard?

Have you ever played a phone game? The very few I’ve played easily had 5 or so buttons without blocking much of the screen only having 2 buttons is nonesense.

[Morssoe]

LOL indeed exactly what im saying

How in the world can someone make the game good for shareholders? Without making the game good for players?

What kind of logic is that?

Players are mentally ill and buy tons of items from shop. That is not good game.

They design their games around that shop.

[ro9ue]

Short-term investors are not looking for quick profit - they don't care about dividends. They care about the stock price. And what drives stock prices? Sentiment and growth expectations. That's why EA and Activision-Blizard are in such dire straits. They need to convince Wall Street that they're going to have massive growth. That they have the next Fortnite on their hands. That they can expand into mobile gaming and new markets - resulting in double or triple digit growth numbers.

That's why they bought King for 6 BILLION dollars. Because it added a big chunk of revenue to the balance sheet and helped create the illusion of massive growth. But this maneuver only buys a year or two of time before they need a new growth vector.

Blizzard is seeing stagnation across their games. Any layoffs and monetization shenanginans serve only stabilize the bleeding while they scramble to find a new golden goose.

This golden goose doesn't have to be actual profit - merely something which can check enough boxes with analysts to send stock prices up. I think this is why they're pushing mobile so hard despite not having anything but a partnership to show.

The 2018 financial are not going to be the disaster some people are predicting - they will show healthy profit margins across the subsidiaries. But that's not enough. Investors are going to be disappointed at the signs of stagnation, lack of growth potentials - and they'll go look for more exciting bets.

I expect to see Activision-Blizzard do some crazy things in 2019 to restore investor confidence. We may even see a merger, large sell-off or acquisition.

To sum up: Wall Street capitalism is not about quick profits - it's about controlling market sentiment to cause massive stock price movements. Cashing in on stock options is what makes C-levels rich, not the actual balance sheet.

Actually good post.

In a way it's almost a beware message for players. It's possible Blizzard will release just some random half baked game to generate hype around their stock, but not adhere to traditional Blizzard quality.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

You must have been living under a rock if you've missed the global reaction to them moving over to mobile gaming starting with the insane dislike ratio of the diablo immortal trailer and the censorship methods they used in order to silence their previously loyal customers.

But I suppose it's a good thing Blizzard stating that they're taking all their best developers and moving them on to mobile games development causing the PC projects to suffer even further because of it?

It's pointless arguing with someone who's obviously got their nose so far up Blizzards backside so I'll just leave it at that and we'll not have any further discussion on the subject.

This is just silly. Blizzard said SOME of there best devs moved to mobile games becauss thoses are the kinds of games they like which also would include hearth stone. Your response is that ALL of the best devs have gone to mobile and that pc games are suffering because of it when in reality you have no idea who is working on what in blizzard.

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Yeah, they are pure low fps, lame graphics trash, can't do anything competitive on the phone.

In a few years, when phones are as powerful as a PC, and can be put on a huge screen, sure, we can talk then.

Until that time, mobile gaming is pure, unadulterated trash.

If phones are as powerful a even say a game boy advance they could already make great games on them now but I haven’t played any phone games in years so I don’t know if they have got to even that level.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

lol, typical responses in here, attacking the guy who made the video instead of addressing the actual points he made. That's if they even watched the video, which most of them probably didn't.

That's the fault of the youtuber, not the posters. He built his channel on rants and bullshit. Is it any wonder people won't take him seriously?

[Low Hanging Fruit]

The funniest part of all these threads is people come here and play the "Az who" game or "youtubers shouldn't have a voice" game when the people posting those things are like "random poster who?" and "why the fuck does this random poster have a say either". Just deal with these people having an audience and having an opinion and then since its a lot larger than most that discussing it isn't such a bad thing. To discuss a topic they bring up doesn't mean they are some sort of gods or there opinion matters most its just a platform to spur discussion. Sadly though, on MMO Champion, it becomes as jealousy check to where a lot of posters seem to get upset that Az can make a video and send ripples throughout the games landscape while all they can do is argue about how they don't matter to I guess appear to matter at all themselves. When just the fact people play these games shows.. well.. they matter..

[Flutterguy]

Last I checked Blizzard was a for profit business.

[Keihndeth]

I think Az is genuine, but he clearly sensationalizes for views. In other words if you're looking for objective commentary, you won't find it in his channel.

[Vargur]

Last Blizzcon would make you wonder...

"Do you not all have Phones?!", their major announcement... to a mostly PC gaming crowd.

Yup, phones aren't for gaming, they exist for enabling communication between 2 or more people.
PCs and consoles (not the eye-straying handheld ones) are for gaming.

[Zka]

OP doesn't seem to care that AZ has no other content on his channel, but mindless Blizz bashing and doomsaying since several months. It's the laziest and least useful content possible. Mind you, this is how he makes money. Don't you find that repulsing? Sure as hell I do.
Anyway, we as players can't do SHIT about the company's situation, so why worry?

[Kohtra]

Pretty sure shareholders won't buy enough copies of Blizzard games to make that a viable business strategy. Pretty sure Az is being an idiot here.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

Yup, phones aren't for gaming, they exist for enabling communication between 2 or more people.
PCs and consoles (not the eye-straying handheld ones) are for gaming.

Are you really gatekeeping gaming? Why?

[zlygork]

Every single of AZ videos he acts like he is personally offended that a business dares act like a business and not put the "spirit of gaming" above all else. I would give his opinions credit if he at least mentioned the economic aspect of it all, whether he agrees with it or not.

[Soon-TM]

Pretty sure shareholders won't buy enough copies of Blizzard games to make that a viable business strategy. Pretty sure Az is being an idiot here.

Maybe you are trying to look smart, but your equating shareholders to players isn't the brightest thing I've ever read. And it isn't what Az is doing btw - even if I don't like him in general.

[Kohtra]

Maybe you are trying to look smart, but your equating shareholders to players isn't the brightest thing I've ever read. And it isn't what Az is doing btw - even if I don't like him in general.

Do you think BfA is making Blizzard more money than Legion? Because if Blizzard was making games "for shareholders" then we can expect BfA is making more money than Legion.

[Violetti]

Every single of AZ videos he acts like he is personally offended that a business dares act like a business and not put the "spirit of gaming" above all else. I would give his opinions credit if he at least mentioned the economic aspect of it all, whether he agrees with it or not.

hes a parasite whos way to make money is talking about how blizzard is evil and shit

[roahn the warlock]

Dont believe so.

Making the game good for players so it attracts more players...so the shareholders are happy is the way to go.

How in the world can you make the game good for shareholders and attract players at the same time.
Makes no sense.

Blizzard is doing its best for the players.
You can argue that "Blizzards best" is bad atm.

This isn't really true. It would be if long term profitability mattered. But in today's unregulated hedge fund market a large group of wealthy investors can kill a company in an afternoon. What matters is Quarterly profit growth. Each quarter you need to do better than the last. This is obviously unsustainable so eventually the bubble pops and the company dies. Big companies can afford to have bad quarters. Activision isn't thaaat big.

[Soon-TM]

Do you think BfA is making Blizzard more money than Legion? Because if Blizzard was making games "for shareholders" then we can expect BfA is making more money than Legion.

We don't know, and speculating about it is ultimately futile. If anything, I'd say that BfA's budget was substantially inferior to Legion's though, if we are going to judge it by the amount of available content (so far). Which would mean that all those sub-inflating tricks introduced with Legion didn't work out as expected, so now they are doubling down on it. But hey, it's all speculation

[zlygork]

hes a parasite whos way to make money is talking about how blizzard is evil and shit

That is a fairly appropriate way of wording it, yeah.