How did J. Allen Brack become president of Blizzard?

[Cthulhu fhtagn]

All the speeches and apologies lately that he has signed have all had the shittiest non-human rhetoric imaginable without actually saying anything. Quite the opposite of Morhaime.

[rhorle]

I love how you go: Yes, they did that but not all of them, so you're fabricating it. xD

Except that isn't anything close to what I said. If the owners did not care about the company then they would have not been caring since 1994. We know that isn't true which means you are the one fabricating things. And yes a founder still working for the company clearly means the "owners" didn't abandon the company after making boat loads of money.

Your complaint is just general anti-corporate anti-wealth rant that isn't even based in any reality of the situation surrounding Blizzard.

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All the speeches and apologies lately that he has signed have all had the shittiest non-human rhetoric imaginable without actually saying anything. Quite the opposite of Morhaime.

Not really but the grass is always greener.

[Tsamane]

With a position like that, its about the people you know.

[Swnem]

Except that isn't anything close to what I said. If the owners did not care about the company then they would have not been caring since 1994. We know that isn't true which means you are the one fabricating things. And yes a founder still working for the company clearly means the "owners" didn't abandon the company after making boat loads of money.

Your complaint is just general anti-corporate anti-wealth rant that isn't even based in any reality of the situation surrounding Blizzard.

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Not really but the grass is always greener.

So, you gonna say it's not the corporate greed that is ruining blizzard?
The fact it was sold to notably greedy company and it's leader leaving is completely irrelevant? Huh... i see.

[rhorle]

So, you gonna say it's not the corporate greed that is ruining blizzard? The fact it was sold to notably greedy company and it's leader leaving is completely irrelevant? Huh... i see.

That is the point you keep missing. Blizzard as a company was sold to a a company in 1994 (They weren't even called Blizzard mind you). You can't sell out if you've already sold out. They also were not sold to a notably greedy company. Their parent company Vivendi merged Vivendi games with Activision. Activision Blizzard later bought themselves out from under Vivendi.

No it is not the corporate greed that is ruining Blizzard. It is Blizzard that is ruining Blizzard.

[Queen of Hamsters]

MMO-C never changes.

It's pretty sad that some can repeat the same narrative over and over, only changing the names and moving goalposts as they go.

[Shiza]

Blizzard hasn't released a new game in four-and-a-half years and that was recovered from the shambles of their most public and expensive failure ever. Gaming has moved on and the market cares little about a studio that can't seem to produce a new title on whatever platform they prefer to play on in nearly five years. There's nothing much on the plate for this year either. A WoW expansion at the end of the year for a game that is no longer attracting new customers to any great extent. Diablo IV (another sequel) who knows when, not in 2020. An expansion for Hearthstone this year sometime. Starcraft: Dead. Heroes of the Storm: Left for dead. No new IP's announced.

That's not healthy and someone needs to shake them up. Maybe it's Brack and maybe it's not. Whatever time you're talking about is years and years ago, probably pre-Titan which I still believe broke the company and they still haven't recovered. There's an argument to be made that if in all those years Morhaime couldn't shake them out of whatever funk they've been in maybe it's a good thing he's out of the way.

This one kinda makes me notice how Blizzard is basically the american Square, with the slight difference, that we only get one Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts a decade at this point, but at least they tend to be visually stunning experiences which show off the capabilities of the current console generations. I don't really get how Blizz games take that long, considering that even the best of the best of them look at most average compared to other current generation games.

[Kyphael]

Same way everyone else does it. Either he's the longest-tenured lifer, has connections or kissed all the right amounts of the right corporate ass.

[Swnem]

That is the point you keep missing. Blizzard as a company was sold to a a company in 1994 (They weren't even called Blizzard mind you). You can't sell out if you've already sold out. They also were not sold to a notably greedy company. Their parent company Vivendi merged Vivendi games with Activision. Activision Blizzard later bought themselves out from under Vivendi.

No it is not the corporate greed that is ruining Blizzard. It is Blizzard that is ruining Blizzard.

I got it very well, but you want to be pedantic. Blizzard sold but it wasnt for a huge ammount in 1998. Vivendi and other owners were hands off parent companies, but activision isn't. Once activision came in they grabbed the money from shares presumably and left once they realised how they were. Sure it's not a carbon copy of other direct sales, but it still tells the same story. Big company wants hands on to ruin it/power play, they grab whatever money they can and leave.

So, i have to say i completely disagree with you. Activision is doing it to blizzard. I don't know how you can even say otherwise. You got evidence from bobby kotick himself saying record numbers, lets fire some people.

[Melchior]

He knows how to work Bobby boy's horns.

[Leadsop]

...nothing more than an attempt to create a hate circle jerk, but hey you do you

Says the guy with the "Impeach the MF" image in his sig

[LiteTheWay]

I'unno, but he looks like he's about 5 minutes away from trooning out.

Off Topic but, where the hell is your Signature gif from?? Why does it look so...damn...familiar?

[Eosia]

Before working for Blizzard, Brack's big job was being a producer for Star Wars Galaxies, during a time period where many players felt that the game's quality started to go downhill.

Which was the responsibility of Julio Torres, who was the producer from LucasArts assigned to SWG.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I have 2 guesses why it was him.

1. They brought all the people into the room that were qualified and asked everyone to jump. Everyone jumped but him. Instead he asked "how high?" and then he was told how high he had to jump. He jumped that high. Then he was instantly given the position.

2. More qualified people were in the winds, but, with them being more qualified and intelligent people saw that the next 2-3 years at Blizzard were going to be bad. I mean let's face it they pretty have had nothing to release since BFA outside of a couple of remasters of sorts with Classic (which went well) and Warcraft III that turned into a disaster on top of a disastrous announcement for Diablo Immortal.

I lean more towards #2. Only because I have seen President/CEO types cycle though a couple of places I have worked. Usually a long timer is replaced with a stop gapper. The stop gapper is usually an idiot that just an axe man (some justified but mostly not) from the old way of thinking. The board then will get rid of him, blame the problems the board demanded he do on him, and then hire a productive acceptable replacement. They ride out a rocky times with him until the axe man gets axed and replaced with who is going to be the longer term position holder more or less. But this really isn't a bad thing for J Allen Brack either. Because once you have stepped foot into the world of CEO/President of billion dollar companies you will always be another one looking for you because now you have done it before and at your next stop you will be the longer term position holder instead of the stop gap. It is kind of like being part of the elite club and once your in.. you are usually in for life.. unless you really really screw it up (which usually means screwing over the elites in that club more than blowing up companies and projects). Some of these types even remain axe men types their whole CEO/President careers. I can follow the career of one we had at my company pretty closely. He goes to a place. He axes people. He gets paid 2 years. Then off to the next company where he does the same thing. In the past 10 years he has been the axe man CEO at 5 different companies. It is actually his passion I guess.

[rhorle]

So, i have to say i completely disagree with you. Activision is doing it to blizzard. I don't know how you can even say otherwise. You got evidence from bobby kotick himself saying record numbers, lets fire some people.

The "owners" of Blizzard can't sell out to Activision if they already sold a long time ago. It isn't being pedantic it is being accurate. Vivendi was still "in control" until Activision Blizzard bought back control. So some of the "evil" still happened under the watch of Vivendi. Activision didn't grab money and leave. I don't even know how you can claim that unless all you care about is false narratives.

Activision doesn't want to ruin WoW. It is still one of their biggest money makers. They do want to increase its revenue which isn't bad because it is what all companies want to do. If you want an example of a company taking anything of value look at Eddie Lampert and Sears Holding. Activision is not hacking away at Blizzard to drain it of money.

And yes Blizzard is 100% to blame. Stop using a scapegoat to shift any blame from Blizzard when they are the ones making the games and designing the games. It isn't Bobby Kotick that designs all the things that people hate.

[Swnem]

The "owners" of Blizzard can't sell out to Activision if they already sold a long time ago. It isn't being pedantic it is being accurate. Vivendi was still "in control" until Activision Blizzard bought back control. So some of the "evil" still happened under the watch of Vivendi. Activision didn't grab money and leave. I don't even know how you can claim that unless all you care about is false narratives.

Activision doesn't want to ruin WoW. It is still one of their biggest money makers. They do want to increase its revenue which isn't bad because it is what all companies want to do. If you want an example of a company taking anything of value look at Eddie Lampert and Sears Holding. Activision is not hacking away at Blizzard to drain it of money.

And yes Blizzard is 100% to blame. Stop using a scapegoat to shift any blame from Blizzard when they are the ones making the games and designing the games. It isn't Bobby Kotick that designs all the things that people hate.

Of course they don't want, they just don't know better. They see mobile is big, let's put things on mobile. They see record numbers they say: let's make this even more insane for investors by firing some people and increase their margins. But it is simply a greedy money making short term perspective. The results are in front of us.
There is nothing false about that narrative. It's fact. It's action and consequence. The people at activision don't get the business, they just get money. WoW revenue is reduced, they reduce investment in the next xpac.

I totally disagree. Blizzard isn't it's own entity. Activision calls the shots. They are the ones that hand over the salary money.

[rhorle]

Of course they don't want, they just don't know better. They see mobile is big, let's put things on mobile. They see record numbers they say: let's make this even more insane for investors by firing some people and increase their margins. But it is simply a greedy money making short term perspective. The results are in front of us.

There is a bunch of false things with that narrative. There is nothing wrong with developing for mobile. You are trying to make a false narrative by implying that it is is bad. You are making a false narrative with the firings that took place in 2019 because redundant jobs or restructuring has nothing to do with record profits. You don't keep things around just because you can. Some of those jobs were no longer needed and others were restructured.

It isn't a greedy short term money making perspective. They are looking at the larger picture of creating a healthy company which means sometimes you have to fire people. Wow Revenue isn't reduced and actually increased as they doubled the active players since Q2.

So the developers at Blizzard are not responsible for designing a bad mechanics? Bad encounters? "bad" anything? It is all the fault of Activision Blizzard because they are the ones who own Blizzard Entertainment? Seriously. That kind of ignorant hate gets you no where in life.

[Tazr]

He's a dude. We let incompetent insulting men do ALL KINDS of things, like run a country.

[Leadsop]

Because that has anything to do with anything?

Try harder if you are going to troll pls.

Actually it does.

See you're talking about someone stirring up hate, yet you're calling another human a "MF" in your signature. Calling anyone you don't know a fairly derogatory name is pretty much the definition of hate, but you already knew that.

[Mackwiss]

Bungie didn't buy themselves out and were never owned by Activision. They had a contract that was ending which they didn't renew. Blizzard is wholly owned and would take a lot to buy out. The people you want to get together and "save" Blizzard were also perfectly fine with selling out to a parent company. People need to quit romanticizing the people that already sold the company out long ago.

If only you knew what I know.