On the topic of Pro Skater 5, that game was announced in November 2014 and released in September/October 2015 - within 12 months of announcement. Though I don’t know when Reforged entered development, I’d say it had 18 months (I don’t think it started any later than July 2018) minimum though probably a full two years (starting at January 2018). So Pro Skater 5, your example of Activision Shoddy Craftsmanship, was developed in less than a year.
And the reason for that is that the license to produce Tony Hawk games was set to expire at the end of 2015. So it had a very real time limit on when it could be developed and released. By contrast, Reforged had no real time limit (Blizzard owns the IP and thus can develop Warcraft for as long as they own it) and (as I pointed out) Activision Publishing had no real reason to pressure Blizzard into pushing it out unfinished and it made little sense for them to do so (Stronger 2019 Q4, immediate damage to Q1 2020 - not worth it when you’re chasing growth).
Formulaic, by-the-books, numbers-focused, “responsible” (to borrow a corporate term from the Q1 report of 2019) operations can result in shoddy craftsmanship, but it worked out well for Activision Publishing in 2019. By contrast, Blizzard Entertainment’s riskier plays have largely backfired with it’s only real numbers-driven release (Classic) being both what fans had been asking for and their only major success in 2019.
True, but Activision seems to have ultimate authority over Blizzard, so the most logical place to put the blame is at the very top of Activision-Blizzard’s hierarchy- in this case, Bobby Kotick. First rule of leadership- everything is the leader’s fault.
Also, it’s worth noting that Blizzard wasn’t always so careless and risky. Their increasingly reckless and unscrupulous behavior coincides with their acquisition by Activision. Virtually all of Blizzard’s major PR disasters and failures occurred after the merger with Activision.
WoW’s subs began to decline and never stopped, Diablo 3’s launch was botched, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm were released (They weren’t necessarily bad games or failures, but they do indicate that Blizzard was starting to adopt Activision’s play-it-safe mentality), Diablo Immortal was announced, and WC3 Reforged’s launch was botched.
It doesn’t strike me as a coincidence that all of this happened after they were acquired by Activision, especially when there were very few incidents like this before the acquisition. I’m almost certain that someone (Or some group of people) from Activision has been influencing their decisions greatly over the years. Blizzard no longer seems to have the independence that they did under Vivendi Games.
If you you wanna go a little bit further, I’d say when Mike Morheim left was probably the breaking point. My point is NOT that Activision has been a bad influence on Blizzard (or that only the worst parts of Activision have gone into Blizzard), but only that if I had to blame one leader, it would be Brack before Kottick (hence why Brack, halfheartedly, claimed accountability over Blitzchung). Because, again, Activision-Blizzard (where “Big Bucks” Bobby sits) didn’t need Reforged to launch in Q4 to have an amazing quarter with a “success” nor did the subsidiary Activision Publishing…but Blizzard Entertainment most certainly did.
True, but Mike Morhaime was still in charge at Blizzard when WoW’s subs started to decline (Notably, he was in charge when Cataclysm was released and WoW’s subs declined for the first time, and he was in charge when Warlords of Draenor was released; the point where WoW’s sub count dropped so low that they stopped reporting it), when Diablo 3 had a botched launch, and when Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm were released.
You may have a point. I certainly haven’t been impressed by J. Allen Brack’s leadership. But Mike Morhaime led Blizzard to one success after another for many years; he only seemed to start slipping up after Activision acquired the company. I guess there’s no irrefutable proof that Activision is the cause of Blizzard’s decline, but the theory fits the evidence.
The usual every bad thing at Blizzard is Activision’s fault, yet Activision has constantly been the most successful game company during the same time period.
So which is it? Why does Activision constantly keep putting out top selling stuff while Blizzard is “failing”. Maybe people need to start switching their blame around.
activision is not a game company, activision is a publisher - its a reseller job essentially.
activision doesnt have any meaningful franchises outside of call of duty. and call of duty seems to be something like fifa - you can shove anything down the throat of the “fanbase” and milk it really hard year over year.
the real money makers for activision are world of warcraft, call of duty and mostly king mobile games, generating more revenue than whole activision franchises (call of duty etc) and blizzard franchises (wow, diablo, overwatch) together.
destiny 2 was an activision published game until bungie bought their own game free of activision to keep it alive. bungie forcefully split with activision.
activision is the bad guy in this, and always has been. the question rather is whether blizzard is innocent. and im inclined to answer this with a bold “no”.
activision forces monetization methods and release schedules and budget, but blizzard is still responsible for the quality they deliver. theres alot wrong in reforged that doesnt need funds to be fixed, but better leadership, methods and skill.
Doesn’t have any meaningful franchises…outside of the largest franchise in the world. Blizzard these days on the other hand can only slightly (even failed that in the year with WoW classic’s launch) make more money than a mobile game division focused entirely on Bejellwed clones. 2018 for example King+Blizzard generated $1.4 Billion profit while Activision generated $1 Billion alone. 2019 was even better for the Activision division. (Activision > King > Blizzard 2019 profits-operating cost…and WoW Classic even launched last year)
There real money makers are no longer King or Blizzard…it’s now the Activision branch with CoD mobile taking that to a whole new level.
(Notable all 3 divisions operate around 40-50% revenue rates currently aka they make double what they spend. So all 3 are worthwhile investments. But if you want pure profits Activision has been in the top slot at least the last 3 years.)
They clearly don’t care. Beta had the exact same bugs and problems. Took them 4 months to fix one or two bugs. Going to take years to get it to the point we w want it. Graphics are a disaster anyway. I find it hilarious that’s shills are spreading misinformation. Just look at honest trailers Warcraft video. Your losing shills
So true… If they would only give us a roadmap or biweekly information about things done / planned. Instead there is silence… I check for a new patch every few days just to get disappointed again and see that there still is no new information. Not knowing what is going on and what is planned is way worse than knowing that it takes several month to fix the most issues and bring the lost features.
Yeah but all the things have been there for all the years working better than now… They didn’t created the possibility to play custom games out of nowhere. They didn’t reinvented the campaign. The campaign was there all the time. The versus mode is kind of broken at the moment crashing so often and is there since first RoC release… Really you can not claim credits for the features from WC3 now! Also it is a joke for a competitive game not having a profile and stats. Yes, I know it will come, but this is a feature that was also there before… So in my humble opinion this game is at least more unfinished than it was before Reforged. All of the games components have been working pretty good before the release of Reforged. And Reforged charged you quite a bit for that! Only for different graphics, which are a matter of taste whether you like it or not and a more broken experience.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe. The things they had to scrap for the re-release of WC3 was due to it being more complicated to make work with the updated game interface? That maybe it is not so easy to reprogram something, because that’s what they’ve been doing in order to get both WC3 and WC3 reforged to be able to communicate together. While you can obviously blame that on their total lack of enough time (which it is), it was done to give everyone a broader audience to play with (to avoid longer queues etc).
It obviously had its drawbacks - the game was not thoroughly tested and (excuse you me) from looking at the bug forum… bugs have not been reported properly either.
“X/Y/Z does not work - fix”.
Yeah, GG. It does not tell them:
A) What happened leading up to the encounter of the bug.
B) It does not tell them what the bug entails.
C) It does not give them a time frame when the bug occured (in case they have logs they can check.)
D) It does not give them any clue about your system details so they know what systems it affects - because not all bugs affect everyone.
E) It does not provide them with an error log (if there is one).
And many other things that I can’t be arsed to list. See, what it comes down to is that.
They don’t ensure quality testers anymore. That’s a common theme in the video game industry though, not solely a Blizzard thing.
The testers that do buy a beta copy/get invited do not do it for testing and/or has no idea how to test - they do not try to break the game and report in a proper manner so it can be reproduced.
Let’s get one thing clear tho. I’m not on either side. I find both sides are flawed big time. Blizzard can claim credits though. WC3 was their game. WC3 Reforged/Refunded/Deforged (whatever term you like) is their game and they tried to do something that backlashed as it probably required major restructuring that did not work out as planned. Impart due to time needed to do it, but most certainly also due to incomplete bug reports.
Well I mean they did give Beta access to people that bought Blizzcon 2019 Virtual tickets, idk if that’s the best way to go about getting the best bug testers
I can’t remember exactly which way it was, but one group was getting it faster than the other group. One group being preorders, the other Blizzcon ticket, but from what I remember, the ticket players got in instantly and preorders had to wait.
Eh, no… I’m blaming both side… Blizzard for not giving enough time to the project as well as not ensuring proper testers and the testers for not doing what they were invited/paid their way to do.
This is not only Blizzards fault. There’s a reason why betas exists. It’s to get a broad audience that purposefully break the game and make proper reports so it can be reproduced.
See, Blizzards fault is for not ensuring ace testers, but inviting people through loyalty to their products, because they buy a ticket and randomly.
Once upon a time you had to apply and list your previous testing experience. That was back when good games were released from Blizzard. This day and age it seems to be more of a promotional tool which I despise. I used to get invited to each Blizzard beta because I had extensive testing experience. Now, I have to pray that I get invited randomly because I am not loyal enough of a customer to get it that way and I don’t buy tickets to BlizzCon xD
Sounds like it’s 100% Blizzards fault. They stopped inviting people who test and instead used it as a marketing tool to sell more tickets. I don’t see how that’s the consumers fault at all.
You can’t complain people didn’t send in bug reports when you’re literally on stage saying “Well if you bought the Virtual Ticket you get to play the multiplayer in 2 days”. They didn’t ask for bug testers, they asked for more money.
It’s not all on Blizzard. It’s mostly on Blizzard for their way of handling betas.
The beta testers, however, also fail big time at what they’re supposed to be doing.
I’m sorry, but you should not need to tell people - hey you may be paying money for this, but we also need you to test and break the game as much as possible and report it like this. Betas have not changed - they always been like this. Sadly, most consumers just treat it as a way of getting to play the game before everyone else.
Hench why I’d love if Blizzard stopped that practice and went back to their old format of applying to betas (though I’d imagine that they stopped because it was time consuming to choose every single one…)
You’re right, you shouldn’t have to, but if you market it as a “get into the beta to play multiplayer” you can’t expect them to give any s*** about bug testing. That’s not what they bought in for, nor what you sold them.
At this point, since Blizzard has stated they have no intention on delivering what was advertised, it’s in their best interest to try and ignore this game and sweep it under a rug. That’s exactly what is happening right now.
