By the numbers Ion Hazzikostas is the worst game director in MMO history

[Nightstalker]

And we got a new disaster called BfA and it is not even only the launch.

At least they haven't already given up on it, so it must have been less of a failure for their numbers and standards than WoD has been.

[MoanaLisa]

He is overall resp for the games devolpment at end of the day, and I think someone at economy should have started calling out the huge losses of income when the game has lost so many subs. At msot situations it has been linked to either not enough new content or linked to a bad expansion....

I have no clue how noone in the top of the org. has not tried to get him repalced or tried to found out what made the earlyer iterations wow so much more succesful.

Game subscriptions fell off a cliff during Cataclysm and practically no one called Chilton out for it. They all got mad at Ghostcrawler for various reasons mostly because he was visible and Chilton was not. Blizzard quite clearly did nothing to replace Chilton as game director then which in terms of impact on Blizzard was far, far greater than anything that's going on now. The idea that you can even think that earlier iterations of WoW--thinking Cataclysm and Warlords specifically--were so much more successful is non-intuitive. Even Mists, which people generally rate above either Cataclysm or Warlords, lost baskets of subs.

There's a lot about the game I don't find especially engaging as it is right now and I'm OK with laying responsibility for that with Hazzikostas and the lead designers but most of what you wrote is nonsense and should equally be called out as such. There's some evidence that BfA is not doing all that well and I personally find that evidence compelling but I don't even believe for one minute that these are the worst of days for the game in comparison to past expansions and subscription contractions.

[Micronetic]

At least they haven't already given up on it, so it must have been less of a failure for their numbers and standards than WoD has been.

I liked WoD more than BfA, but it is just a personal thing.

[Osmeric]

Game subscriptions fell off a cliff during Cataclysm and practically no one called Chilton out for it. They all got mad at Ghostcrawler for various reasons mostly because he was visible and Chilton was not. Blizzard quite clearly did nothing to replace Chilton as game director then which in terms of impact on Blizzard was far, far greater than anything that's going on now.

However, in Cataclysm, WoW was still a larger ongoing entity, even after the decline. Management may have been reluctant to spoil what remained by rash action. And Morhaime may have had personal reasons.

But Morhaime is gone, and if WoW is approaching the point that it is no longer profitable then management at Activision-Blizzard may feel less inhibition to really shake things up. After all, what do they have to lose in that situation?

[Wolfrick]

SINCE THE VERY START HE HAS BEEN THE BEST BLIZZARD HAS EVER HAD... so just SHUT IT... Ion Hazzikostas is the very best at what he does... so if you wanna talk about it... we should have more like him.


Blizzard and Ion Hazzikostas has always kept my Hope up and always will, keep up the good work, Love you guys!!!

[MoanaLisa]

But Morhaime is gone, and if WoW is approaching the point that it is no longer profitable then management at Activision-Blizzard may feel less inhibition to really shake things up. After all, what do they have to lose in that situation?

A practical answer to what they have to lose is the time it would take to get someone else into the position. And to be realistic if theoretically Brack wants to see the game changed entirely in approach they need to replace some of the lead designers as well. If disrupting the team in major ways causes say a 12-18 month delay in development then that's some real money lost, a lot of it, in the hopes that a brand new team could build something that would be well-liked enough to make the up-front losses worthwhile.

My own bias is that I hated the idea of the expansion from the moment it was announced. I didn't like the title, the theme as it was expressed at the start, or afterwards in the promotion that led up to launch. I was not alone in that and while I'll allow that Blizzard may have some clever twist at the end of the expansion that will reveal that Battle for Azeroth was not about the faction wars at all that's how it was sold and for me, that's tired and boring.

This is very basic stuff which works at a level that has nothing to do with classes, grinds or anything else. I think it's quite possible--but again this reflects my own biases--that people bought the expansion, leveled and saw no particular reason to stay around for anything else. That's especially true if the faction war emphasis wasn't to their liking. In that, we should look at someone like Afrasiabi who has much, much more to do with theme and story than Hazzikostas. I'm not saying any of this is fact and it clearly reflects my own ambivalence about the expansion's theme and particulars but there's an undertone to all of the other complaints that not many people have any interest in the story. Story is the only thing they have left that can actually be "new". Class changes, as annoying as they are, largely are rearranging the furniture of skills and abilities into new configurations. Some of that will work; some of it won't.

I have many, many problems with the more technical parts of the design, most of which are constant sources of chatter here. But I'm pretty firm in my belief that if the expansion theme and story don't resonate with players there's not much else they can do: the expansion will fail over the long run. Personally, if I were going to replace anyone in the upper echelons of the design team I'd start with Alex.

[Seezer]

Look I get that Ion Hazzikostas is being praised for FINALLY admitting that "hey guys maybe we went too far" but lets talk about what it took for them to finally reach this decision. As we know prior to being game director Ion was raid design and was very solid at his job although content was often released buggy.

Lets says he took full power in 2013. When Ion took over going by the below link when we used to get public information WoW had over 10 MILLION subs. Now if we can agree that between 2013 and 2019 being very generous WoW is sitting at 1-2 million active subs. This is honestly just a guess but most people I see seem to land around this number.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft

So between 2013 and 2019 under his leadership WoW has between 8-9 million subs. Now as that population is dwindling even more during BFA due to a host of reason we FINALLY get a video acknowledging things the players have been telling him since 2013. No other MMO game director was allowed to stay around this long with this many failures to his credit. Even at his worst when Smedley destroyed SWG that was only a million subs.

Ion has overseen the destruction of most RPG elements of WoW, the stripping of classes down to complete bare bones and has ignored constant feedback leading up to battle for azeroth with a year of feedback stating how bad things were. The GCD changes were allowed to go live, Azerite armor the main system was poorly test and not thought out, and classes were pruned to being almost unrecognizable.

Now we are told to put our faith in Ion to get it right in 9.0. This game is a shell of its former glory and the numbers prove it. I do not think WoW can move forward with Ion as game lead because he has burned all of his good will with the community.

On the internet movie, game, tv, book, comic nerds are some of the most hyperbolic, passive/aggressive, bratty weirdos.

Angry weirdos want everyone else to pay for their unhappiness. Disregarding a persons accomplishments because you're upset looks childish. You may not like where BFA is. I don't either. But wow is an old game now, and people are going to bitch no matter what happens. To get to be the lead on anything you've proven yourself. And the game is not one man. Ion has bosses.

It's time to grow up.

[RobertMugabe]

Look I get that Ion Hazzikostas is being praised for FINALLY admitting that "hey guys maybe we went too far" but lets talk about what it took for them to finally reach this decision. As we know prior to being game director Ion was raid design and was very solid at his job although content was often released buggy.

Lets says he took full power in 2013. When Ion took over going by the below link when we used to get public information WoW had over 10 MILLION subs. Now if we can agree that between 2013 and 2019 being very generous WoW is sitting at 1-2 million active subs. This is honestly just a guess but most people I see seem to land around this number.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft

So between 2013 and 2019 under his leadership WoW has between 8-9 million subs. Now as that population is dwindling even more during BFA due to a host of reason we FINALLY get a video acknowledging things the players have been telling him since 2013. No other MMO game director was allowed to stay around this long with this many failures to his credit. Even at his worst when Smedley destroyed SWG that was only a million subs.

Ion has overseen the destruction of most RPG elements of WoW, the stripping of classes down to complete bare bones and has ignored constant feedback leading up to battle for azeroth with a year of feedback stating how bad things were. The GCD changes were allowed to go live, Azerite armor the main system was poorly test and not thought out, and classes were pruned to being almost unrecognizable.

Now we are told to put our faith in Ion to get it right in 9.0. This game is a shell of its former glory and the numbers prove it. I do not think WoW can move forward with Ion as game lead because he has burned all of his good will with the community.

I can't believe you put the effort to write a wall of text that's just childish hating and no constructive critique.

Heck even the title is just wrong facts.

[Casperite]

Do you not realize that WoW is an old game? Of course the numbers have dropped since Wrath. Those 11mill subs occurred long before Fortnight or Minecraft even existed. FtP games were not really a thing yet.

I have played both Wrath and Legion and they are both my favorite expansions. Legion may even be better. BfA is a shell of everything good about Legion, and that sucks. But I know the next expansion will be good. It's basically a pattern that we get one good xpac, followed by a bad one, and then another good one. Here's my WoW experiences thusfar:

Wrath good
Cata bad
MoP good
WoD bad
Legion good
BfA bad

Maybe it has to do with devs getting lazy or burnt out after proving themselves, who knows? But there is a definite trend here.

Interesting. For me it is:

Wrath good
Cata good
MoP bad
WoD okay
Legion good
BfA good

I guess I am not super critical of expansions like most here. If it entertains me then it is good. MoP is only expansion that I was absolutely bored and quit for a while.

[tankbug]

you aren't too bright are you buddy?

no u! and ur mum are stupid

Am I doing this right? I usually don't argue in a "primary school" format.

[Vilendor]

Majority of ATVI shareholders are institutional. So your mom and pops pension funds.
If you have 401k plan, you're probably ATVI shareholder as well.

None of those owners care rats ass about the game design. 0% of the game is designed to please those owners.

I'm from the EU, we have state/tax funded pension here

Owners, funds handlers, your mom and pops care about their money, profit. At the end of the decision chain they chose/elect company leaders who will focus on that goal. That's the basics of how the stock market and shareholding works... But is this a fucking joke that i have to explain this in the era of Activision, EA, Bobby Kotick, lootboxes etc? Keep acting clueless if you want...

[Vorkreist]

Byt atht you mean Ion won't cater the game solely to you so he doesn't care.

Newsflash, he absolutely does care. You just need to realize that you are not the only one playing the game and that your opinion is not held by every single other player either. ALl of you who recite this same tired BS need to get that through your heads.

It is held by the majority that left the game. You must be one those who still believe in their phased little spaces that theres MILLIONS still playing the garbage called Bfa.
Also I'm sorry your standards are so low you can even attempt to defend Ion and his design, did you start playing wow yesterday? . What other favourite past times do you have? Fortnite and Pokemon Go?

[THEORACLE64]

Said this from day one - he's fucking appauling.

[Chedruid]

I think he is kinda ok, he did listen for 8.2

[redfinale]

I think he is kinda ok, he did listen for 8.2

Possibly because of the threat of his own potential firing given how terrible BfA has been

[D3athsting]

Lore is worse than him

[rrayy]

It is held by the majority that left the game. You must be one those who still believe in their phased little spaces that theres MILLIONS still playing the garbage called Bfa.
Also I'm sorry your standards are so low you can even attempt to defend Ion and his design, did you start playing wow yesterday? . What other favourite past times do you have? Fortnite and Pokemon Go?

Again, people leave for all kinds of reasons. And millions still do play the game.

Since your last sentence outs yourself as a troll, no reson to take you seriously.

[Tumile]

no u! and ur mum are stupid

Am I doing this right? I usually don't argue in a "primary school" format.

schat up poo poo brain.

[Vorkreist]

Again, people leave for all kinds of reasons. And millions still do play the game.

Since your last sentence outs yourself as a troll, no reson to take you seriously.

Millions don't still play the game. You outed yourself as the 2 year at best wow player that your are with the mandatory pretentious ultra stupid views.
Go get those ttttmogs and pokemons POGGERS!!!!!

[Muajin76]

I think he is kinda ok, he did listen for 8.2

I'm sure he didn't listen by his own free will. He most likely got pressure from the higher ups to actually DO something. :P

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Again, people leave for all kinds of reasons. And millions still do play the game.

Since your last sentence outs yourself as a troll, no reson to take you seriously.

Yep..they still have subs in the millions, ppl dont seem to realize this. :P