People blame Activision because they want to believe that Blizzard is the company they loved, not what y’all have become today.
And anyone who’s ever been involved with a merger understands that one party will come to control the other company and their subsidiaries. It’s a well-documented function of hiring and strategic authority.
This forum posting must be your first big job, which is fine, but it also means you came to Blizzard well after Activision’s merger with Vivendi took place and the gradual process of control was already many years underway.
I am not part of the angry mob, but I work for a company that has a holding company above it. Our holding company doesn’t tell us what to do, but they have operating income and earnings expectations that influence the decisions we make every single day. I agree that “Activision is ruining Blizzard” is silly and troll-y. That said, I do know how companies work, and I think it would be fair to ask if maybe “Activision-Blizzard” might be increasing operating income expectations that might be influencing some decisions.
I think the better question is are they changing expectations on ROI. We see a lot of people speculating based on corporate guidance and there’s some decent commentary out there in the investment community (a lot of it currently speculating that it’s probably oversold). EBITA is a good measure, too. What can be controlled before the tax boogeyman comes into play.
But I think what Yth is talking about is the constant painting of there being some evil Activision overlord pulling strings on a Blizzard marionette. It’s just not realistic. And you’re better off talking about what you like and don’t like in the game rather than wrapping yourself in tinfoil.
I wish we knew that answer, but we know Activision is forcing blizzard to cut costs. Their new CFO (chief financial officer) is proof of that which is profit>players. The loss of Mike Morhime was a big blow for the old blizzard.
Blizzard ‘used’ to embrace a lot of community things, but that’s not simply the case.
They gutted the HOTS pro scene because it wasn’t profitable. Must’ve been real hard to ruin a lot of people’s lives without warning when it was simply looked at as not making enough money.
Their focus on lootboxes for overwatch which helped create a staple of profitable micro transactions through gambling.
The decision to move from PC to mobile (Wow GO- a pokemon go inspired mobile game and Diablo immortal) and act like there wouldn’t be an outcry from fans of a beloved franchise was humorous as well.
Adding Activision titles to the blizzard launcher, (why do I need destiny 2 and BO-4 for my blizzard titles?) If you want it under the store page great. Not on my launcher.
But if you’re looking for a collective answer, Yongyea would be a good source on youtube (avoid the games “journalist” sources) Just my 2 cents from what i’ve seen.
I think its more that people don’t want to believe that the company they grew up with has fallen so far as to be unrecognizable. Blaming the known bad guy makes it easier I guess
Well said. While it is hard to believe that the old Blizzard is gone or fading away, I can believe that they were or are being replaced by a different company. That is, after all, the nature of businesses and corporations. It doesn’t make it any less sad. Seeing the nerdy, passionate people leave - who founded this awesome game that I’ve been in love with since 2006 - is incredibly disheartening. And Mike Morheim passing the torch at Blizzcon broke my heart. With him goes the passion.
Most kids today weren’t around for the many missed launch dates for Diablo 2 back in the day. Blizzard was known for revising release dates.
From the first time they said D2 would be launched until the actual release date came was like 2 years difference. It was pushed back so many times we wondered if it would ever come out.
It’s a pretty easy conclusion for them to come to though, when Blizzard is doing a lot of things these last few years that are very uncharacteristic of Blizzard, and contrary to the game design philosophies we came to expect from the company (like, for example, releasing a game when it’s ready, not pushing it out months early while telling people with broken classes that they’d just have to wait for a fix in a later patch… These days an expansion isn’t “release ready” until we’re halfway done playing it).
When a bigger company buys the smaller company you work for and holds its stock it basically looks like this…
They don’t send some suit in that puts stamps of approval and disapproval on stuff. They don’t bring in ideas and demands certain projects. What they do is demand size and revenue increases. Often times stated as simply as that. In some meeting with board members, the smaller companies managers and board members give presentations on income and costs and etc… And then they are basically told what the holding company goals for them are. “You had X% of increase here and here and we want to see an increase of Y% this year. Make it happen or find other work.”
They arn’t micro managed, but they arn’t given freedom either. When you need to hit a 20% profit increase goal, you may only have 2-3 options to get you there and none of them are going to make the product quality better, just the profit margin.
It’s not being forced, but it’s not, not being forced either…get it?
Ahh yes - the snarky response from the recent college graduate working as a community manager who knows everything about the business world that us ignorant and foolish plebians do not.
Newsflash - you guys are the least profitable segment of Activision-Blizzard, and you have the lowest active monthly users. The category you seem to lead the company in is office space.
The entire industry isn’t moving towards less polished products and more microtransactions because they are evil - it is because they are profitable.
Now, you are honestly going to sit at your cubicle and tell us that the CEO, who ran Activision for decades, and controls your pursestrings, has no interest in maximizing profits at his lowest performing division? Whatever you say buddy.
All true. However there’s a difference between having corporate tell Blizzard “get more efficient and profitable” and telling them HOW to be more efficient and profitable.
There may well simply be pressure from above (even, perhaps, heavy pressure), but it’s probably up to Blizzard as to how they pull that off.
Exactly.
If you look at Call of Duty releases after Modern Warfare, and then look at WoW the pattern then becomes very clear. The development of WoW is following a design philosophy that is nothing like Blizzard’s. It’s Activision through and through. Pump out mediocre products riddled with micro transactions to boost profits.
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quot+e=“Midnâ-darrowmere, post:187, topic:68419”]
so if all of a sudden UPlay merged with the blizzard app even though they remained separate companies you wouldn’t see any problem
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Nope. Not at all.Because, if you had bothered to actually read what I wrote, you would know it is smart business sense to use assets you already have rather than spending time and money duplicating what you already have.