Fresh rumour...mickey mouse and murlocs?

[Eurhetemec]

I think the backlash may be because Disney is making these IPs appeal to a mainstream audience in ways that may irk the people that were invested into them from comics and the original triology. Like Star Wars, a lot of people who were hardcore into it hate the new ones. However, my fiance who never saw the original ones but went with me to see the new ones said she liked them. I enjoyed them despite noticing some questionable things that has people hated online. I could be entirely wrong but I don't think its because they are bad.

I guess a similar scenario would be Blizzard being bought by Disney and they make a movie that retcons lore and changes a popular character in ways that don't mesh with the existing Blizzard fans.

The new movies definitely aren't bad. They might not all be mind-blowing, but they're solid, and Rise is clearly the worst in most ways (Rogue One has some big issues despite people like it, but that's another discussion). What's curious to me is, in general they're a lot better than the Marvel movies, especially the first "set" of Marvel movies, but the response has been less positive and I think a lot of that is because of two groups - Gen Xers who think they "own" Star Wars (especially older Gen Xers), and that their vision of it (often massively shaped by EU stuff zapped when Disney bought Lucasfilm) and Zoomers who think the Prequels were "Pretty cool actually" (lol) and kind of object to anything that makes the Prequels look bad (which is to say, pretty much all other Star Wars stuff except maybe Clone Wars which is Prequels era, but even it kinda does), or anyone who says the Prequels were bad. More people feel ownership of the SW stuff than Marvel stuff. Give it 15+ years and attitudes to Marvel stuff will likely be similar.

And you're right re: the Blizzard IP. I think if they bought it they'd probably re-work a lot of the characters, and the setting. In the grand scheme of things the changes would likely be tiny, but I'm sure they'd rile up some nest of angry fans, who would be incredibly loud and venomous, no matter how few in number. Whether that even matters is another question. I suspect not. But I think people who have a "Well Disney would do a better job than Activision!!!" would be in for a really rude surprise if that actually happened.

[Torgent]

Well, if we ignore diablo, rest of blizard's active IP does fit in with disnep's air of superficial and light hearted story telling.

The light-hearted storytelling like mass murder, chemical weapons, racism, etc.

[Bodakane]

Like when Disney "saved" Star Wars?

Disney is saving Star Wars.

You guys act like Star Wars was doing great after the prequels....it was fucking dead.

Yes, the last two movies blew....but Solo, Rogue One, TFA and the Mandalorian are all allowing the universe to expand.

Plus, unless you've ridden the Rise of the Resistance ride at one of the parks, you've no idea what Disney can do with Star Wars.

[Yelmurc]

Disney has a new CEO and he might be looking to make a acquisition in the future to make his mark. While Disney might be good stewards to the existing Blizzard IP. From a strategic point of view if they purchased a video game company they’d rather buy one that is setup to develop games with their existing IP. I’d expect if they are successful developing their own IPs in house they’d then be willing to expand their video gaming IP.

[Deferionus]

The new movies definitely aren't bad. They might not all be mind-blowing, but they're solid, and Rise is clearly the worst in most ways (Rogue One has some big issues despite people like it, but that's another discussion). What's curious to me is, in general they're a lot better than the Marvel movies, especially the first "set" of Marvel movies, but the response has been less positive and I think a lot of that is because of two groups - Gen Xers who think they "own" Star Wars (especially older Gen Xers), and that their vision of it (often massively shaped by EU stuff zapped when Disney bought Lucasfilm) and Zoomers who think the Prequels were "Pretty cool actually" (lol) and kind of object to anything that makes the Prequels look bad (which is to say, pretty much all other Star Wars stuff except maybe Clone Wars which is Prequels era, but even it kinda does), or anyone who says the Prequels were bad. More people feel ownership of the SW stuff than Marvel stuff. Give it 15+ years and attitudes to Marvel stuff will likely be similar.

And you're right re: the Blizzard IP. I think if they bought it they'd probably re-work a lot of the characters, and the setting. In the grand scheme of things the changes would likely be tiny, but I'm sure they'd rile up some nest of angry fans, who would be incredibly loud and venomous, no matter how few in number. Whether that even matters is another question. I suspect not. But I think people who have a "Well Disney would do a better job than Activision!!!" would be in for a really rude surprise if that actually happened.

Well, there are not many Warcraft stories that would translate well into a movie. We saw that with the Warcraft movie that they did. The only one that would work really well would be an adaptation of the Arthas novel, in my opinion. Its one of the few plot points where you have a character introduced and developed and there is a direct focus on him. Everywhere else you kind of zoom around due to the nature of the campaigns the various factions had in the RTS. Frozen Throne was different in that regard.

To make these other plot areas work as a movie you would have to leave out details or do minor changes to make the story flow. And I am convinced Disney would use the Warcraft IP to make movies. Its one of the most iconic and known gaming IPs out there along with Starcraft and Diablo.

[AcidicSyn]

If it means a disney budgeted Warcraft series produced for Disney+ I'm down.

[ravenmoon]

I don't even get the hate about midi-chlorians... It explains why some have more potential in using the force. It's also just mentioned one or twice and that's about it. Hardly changes anything if it is in the movie or not to me, but hey, not that into star wars lore. Neither am I a big fan of "not knowing is mysterious". More times than not I find it more interesting knowing why.

I don't get it either, it's no more b/s than any of the stuff in 4-6.. why get hung up on that and not all the other stuff.

I liked 4-6, they were enjoyable, had great f ight scnes, and high cool factor, they also looked futuristic in a next level sort of way.

[Echeyakee]

The light-hearted storytelling like mass murder, chemical weapons, racism, etc.

Even when it gets spicy, it's at best grandma's soup level of spicy, so perfect for disnep.

[Ticj]

yeah, Disney has done so well with Star Wars games.

To be fair, the star wars games are still made by EA

[sam86]

did disney try to buy planet earth and just get done in 1 deal already?
seriously rumors of disney wants to buy x or y is now so common it is annoying, anything in entertainment now is either going to be bought by disney or already bought

[FelPlague]

I've always wondered why you guys are giving Blizzard design team such a free pass by blaming everything on ATVI?
I think Blizzard (and the WoW design team of 50 people in particular) are more than capable of taking bad game design decisions on their own.
I don't think Bobby Kotick actually takes part in their morning stand-ups.

I don't think we can ever magically time travel back to 2004 and I don't think new WoW releases will be significantly different, no matter who owns the corporate mothership.

Cause people like to choose a villian to be mad at, and they like to m ake everything into "us versus them"

Like with gamefreak, everyone yells that they lied, and this and that and those... meanwhile they did everything they promised, just people dont like it, then gamefreak decides to do what the fans wanted and bring back mons, after having said they wouldnt, and like with blizz "you dont want classic"

Instead of "hey they are listening! good job guys, we are so happy you are listening to us!"
no, it is
"LOL YOU GUYS WERE SO WRONG, WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO "WE WILL NEVER" LOL FUCKING FAIL"
my dude, these companies are doing their best, if that is good or bad, is their own fault, everyone freaks out about how good for example CD projekt red is "They are delaying their game, their games are so good, they are the best company"
Yes, the best company that forces their devs to work overtime (without overtime pay), every day, 5-6 days a week, for MONTHS to "crunch" to make sure the games can come out well. but people ignore this, cause... welcome to society... League of legends is like this too, people love to ignore their pampering to china, and their long list of sexisim in their offices.


when people cry about all this BS about "Blziz is doing this BS, its activisions fault!"
no, its blizz doing it, cause its blizz's fault.

blizz has done stupid stuff since far before Activision came out.


"Loot crate" TCG cards giving rewards in wow that are not obtainable any other way, so literally a loot crate store, ingame, all the way back to vanilla.
collectors editions, same thing, limited time, IRL cash for ingame rewards you CANNOT earn ingame.
hell the store is better these days, cause now with the wow token you CAN buy the collectors editions with ingame gold, meaning you can earn them ingame.

but back then you couldnt, so unless you had like 300$ back in 2006, there was NO WAY to get the spectral tiger.. so tough outta luck man.

blizz has had ingame store "Item ingame you cannot earn ingame" since 2004. and people want to ignore that because they want to make a boogyman.

[MoanaLisa]

In the real world this is how this likely works:

Kotick will not sell or spin off Blizzard from ATVI. I don't believe he would even if he could. I doubt that the board would approve of him spinning it off.

If Disney wants to acquire Blizzard then they'll do it through acquiring the entire group of divisions that make up the ATVI family. As a pure profit play Disney would be more interested in cross-promotions with Candy Crush and Skylanders than with anything Blizzard.

Kotick would likely stay where he is and report up to Disney management because in all the ways that matters to the Disney bean counters he's been a good CEO.

At the end of all of this there would yet another management layer. Nothing much would change for a while. Disney would be free to close down any of the divisions that are not profitable enough in their eyes.

[Gadzooks]

In the real world this is how this likely works:

Kotick will not sell or spin off Blizzard from ATVI. I don't believe he would even if he could. I doubt that the board would approve of him spinning it off.

If Disney wants to acquire Blizzard then they'll do it through acquiring the entire group of divisions that make up the ATVI family. As a pure profit play Disney would be more interested in cross-promotions with Candy Crush and Skylanders than with anything Blizzard.

Kotick would likely stay where he is and report up to Disney management because in all the ways that matters to the Disney bean counters he's been a good CEO.

At the end of all of this there would yet another management layer. Nothing much would change for a while. Disney would be free to close down any of the divisions that are not profitable enough in their eyes.

I don't see it happening at all. Disney making a move like this into gaming would be eyebrow raising for sure, especially with their softening in terms of growth, and how hard they could be hit with coronavirus, with the travel restrictions and potential lockdowns. Bad time to be spending billions, for anyone. I don't know if Disney is interested or not - but I'm extremely skeptical.

There are people who make a living spending corporation's money, when they don't work for them, and selling their "insight" to the media - people have been spending Apple's hoarded cash for years. This sounded familiar to me, so I did a quick check, and yep, investment sites were running the "the 3 games companies Disney should buy" last year.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ker-activision

Which Forbes then fed off being contrarian:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultas.../#e884b0f52e91

If and unless Disney themselves enter talks with ATVI (don't hold your breath), I would discount all of this as pure media fluff and analysts peddling the same old "spend other people's money" advice.

[MoanaLisa]

I don't see it happening at all.

To be honest I don't either. There's been a lot of talk about Blizzard in this thread as if it were somehow a totally separate entity from Activision; as if Disney could just buy Blizzard out from under Kotick. That's ridiculous. It's as ridiculous as anyone who talks about "Blizzard Stock" which is not a thing and never has been.

This rumor is not "fresh" at all. It's been around for over a year now.

[rhorle]

To be honest I don't either. There's been a lot of talk about Blizzard in this thread as if it were somehow a totally separate entity from Activision; as if Disney could just buy Blizzard out from under Kotick. That's ridiculous. It's as ridiculous as anyone who talks about "Blizzard Stock" which is not a thing and never has been.

That isn't even a close comparison. Blizzard stock doesn't exist but it is 100% possible to buy a wholly owned subsidiary from a parent company. Its not like Disney didn't just demonstrate this when they acquired 20th Century Fox and other pieces. It is unlikely that ActivisionBlizzard would part with Blizzard but not anywhere near impossible.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't see it happening at all. Disney making a move like this into gaming would be eyebrow raising for sure, especially with their softening in terms of growth, and how hard they could be hit with coronavirus, with the travel restrictions and potential lockdowns. Bad time to be spending billions, for anyone. I don't know if Disney is interested or not - but I'm extremely skeptical.

Disney already has a presence in gaming on the mobile front. What would be eyebrow raising is them entering back into "first party" development when they shut that down a few years ago. They license now. But the coronavirus would be the perfect time for them to establish and branch out into a medium that doesn't require "personal" contact and can be done remotely. Look at how even restrictive countries like Iran are giving internet bandwidth for free or Japan giving free access to magna.

The source was a small investor in Disney (if the same as last years) so there is nothing to show Disney is really interested. They would be more likely to buy ActivisionBlizzard as a whole then Blizzard since it would be a better fit.

[Gadzooks]

That isn't even a close comparison. Blizzard stock doesn't exist but it is 100% possible to buy a wholly owned subsidiary from a parent company. Its not like Disney didn't just demonstrate this when they acquired 20th Century Fox and other pieces. It is unlikely that ActivisionBlizzard would part with Blizzard but not anywhere near impossible.

- - - Updated - - -



Disney already has a presence in gaming on the mobile front. What would be eyebrow raising is them entering back into "first party" development when they shut that down a few years ago. They license now. But the coronavirus would be the perfect time for them to establish and branch out into a medium that doesn't require "personal" contact and can be done remotely. Look at how even restrictive countries like Iran are giving internet bandwidth for free or Japan giving free access to magna.

The source was a small investor in Disney (if the same as last years) so there is nothing to show Disney is really interested. They would be more likely to buy ActivisionBlizzard as a whole then Blizzard since it would be a better fit.

C'mon now, "Coronavius is the best time to buy a company(that's not for sale) for reasons" is more than a bit of a stretch. These threads tend to get silly, but I can't honestly take that seriously at all.

[rhorle]

C'mon now, "Coronavius is the best time to buy a company(that's not for sale) for reasons" is more than a bit of a stretch. These threads tend to get silly, but I can't honestly take that seriously at all.

Oh I get it. Its okay for you to say it is a terrible time to do so but anyone else is dismissed as being silly. I wasn't aware you were playing that game but I got you now. If people are quarantined for 14 days in their home what do you think they will do? Twiddle their thumbs? Nope. They will turn to entertainment. Netflix, Disney+, Online games, etc.

It isn't going to be a "weak" point for the industry. As I referenced in my last post many people are going to be stuck with nothing but the internet and their digital devices for a period of time. Netflix is expected to exceed subscriber forecasts because of the virus. Gaming as a whole will see a boost during the outbreak. Someone just bought $45 million in ActivisionBlizzard shares. Its not like the world is going to stop. I also said it is a perfect time for them to do so which isn't necessarily the same as the best time. In increase in demand with a decrease in stock price can be a good time to invest. That is also ignoring that any deal that happens now would take time to close and likely be longer then COVID-19 remains a large threat.

[FuxieDK]

Disney is saving Star Wars.

You guys act like Star Wars was doing great after the prequels....it was fucking dead.

Yes, the last two movies blew....but Solo, Rogue One, TFA and the Mandalorian are all allowing the universe to expand.

Plus, unless you've ridden the Rise of the Resistance ride at one of the parks, you've no idea what Disney can do with Star Wars.

TFA = The Farce Awakens.. It was an abomination.. It was a movie that cause me (and many others) to forget all about the entire uninverse.

Phantom Menace was 1000x better than TFA.

Disney have done NOTHING good for Star Wars universe.

[Bodakane]

TFA = The Farce Awakens.. It was an abomination.. It was a movie that cause me (and many others) to forget all about the entire uninverse.

Phantom Menace was 1000x better than TFA.

Disney have done NOTHING good for Star Wars universe.

I mean that’s a ridiculous take, but it us your right to have it.