The story of Blizzard and Activision is what would have happened if the gang didn't have a good ending in the movie EMPIRE RECORDS and MUSIC TOWN Had won.
11/03/2018 08:02 AMPosted by DraboeSo I don’t really know how any of this works, I’m just going off of things I’ve heard.
So it’s my understanding that Activision is the one who’s driving blizzard devs/employees out and strong arming them into releasing content before it’s actually ready (like BFA). If this is true.... why or how does Activision have this kind of power over Blizzard?
I also heard something about them wanting to completely take over and change it to their name so then we will see “Activision presents”.... if Activision is the cancer that’s ruining the company... couldn’t they take steps to end the “partnership”?
I know a lot of people weren’t happy when they first announced the partnership. If Activision is responsible for most of the problems we have, then yeah I agree they need to go. Could something be done about it? Is it too late?
That's because game company like blizzard are not longer run by brunch of Nerd who loves game and making games, now gaming industry run by Corp and they hire brunch of talentless people to their company who just wants to get fame by working in one of this big company.
It finish
I've watched other companies engage in what they initially thought were co-operative relationships with larger companies, beneficial to all parties.
And I've watched the initial glee fade into weary disillusionment as those in the small company gradually see the sell-out and take-over for what it is, and struggle to still produce something worthwhile as the pressure on them gets stronger and the squeeze tighter. The company with the power wants more and more for less and less. The top people in the small company get squeezed out like orange pips, leaving only greedy yes-men at the top and people who couldn't get another job if they tried still working under them.
Not being psychic I don't know if this is happening at Blizzard. But I do know it happens.
And I've watched the initial glee fade into weary disillusionment as those in the small company gradually see the sell-out and take-over for what it is, and struggle to still produce something worthwhile as the pressure on them gets stronger and the squeeze tighter. The company with the power wants more and more for less and less. The top people in the small company get squeezed out like orange pips, leaving only greedy yes-men at the top and people who couldn't get another job if they tried still working under them.
Not being psychic I don't know if this is happening at Blizzard. But I do know it happens.
It's not so simple, Activision and Blizzard are not partners. Activision is more of a parent company than Blizzard has to get permission to do anything for.
It's basic economics. In the early days, gaming had relatively low barriers to entry. Anyone who knew how to code could write a game. They didn't cost a whole lot to make, and there were a LOT of different games. People tried many different kinds of games and there was not a lot of brand loyalty. The result was a competitive market that encouraged the creation of the most awesome games.
Then, these awesome games developed a strong following with die hard fans. They reaped insane profits making sequels. Huge companies ended up being formed around these games. The result? Brand loyalty, large market share, limited competition, and reduced innovation. And modern standards for games have resulted in games being a huge undertaking to develop. It now takes millions to make a AAA game. The result is a noncompetitive industry dominated by a few players.
It makes sense that the end product would be relatively worse in quality than it was in the past. Furthermore, you should consider the fact that WoW has never raised its subscription fee. This means the game's relative price has actually dropped over time. In a market, the price USUALLY reflects the quality of the good. They need to make up revenue somehow, and so, it makes sense that they would add a cash shop and incentivize the purchase of tokens, boosts, etc to supplement their sub revenue. What you are seeing is just standard economics. If people say "the game is worse now relatively", the price of the sub certainly reflects that. If people say they are changing the game to encourage cash shop and game services purchases, it makes perfect sense that Blizzard would. Not raising the sub fee to at least keep up with inflation every few years was a really dumb decision, and it certainly had an impact on the quality of the game. It sort of HAD to economically.
When people say "big companies ruined x", they aren't really wrong. It's almost always true -- even with economies of scale because you still have issues with monopoly behavior. WoW has(had?) an effective monopoly (or very close to it) on the MMORPG genre, and Warcraft/Starcraft was similar for the multiplayer RTS genre. As expected, the early iterations of these games were widely acclaimed and considered excellent while the company was building its brand in these sectors. The later versions are generally regarded as relatively worse in quality. And that's because there is no reason for them to be better. It's actually surprising when a company with an already huge brand and large market share comes out with a great, consumer friendly product.
Then, these awesome games developed a strong following with die hard fans. They reaped insane profits making sequels. Huge companies ended up being formed around these games. The result? Brand loyalty, large market share, limited competition, and reduced innovation. And modern standards for games have resulted in games being a huge undertaking to develop. It now takes millions to make a AAA game. The result is a noncompetitive industry dominated by a few players.
It makes sense that the end product would be relatively worse in quality than it was in the past. Furthermore, you should consider the fact that WoW has never raised its subscription fee. This means the game's relative price has actually dropped over time. In a market, the price USUALLY reflects the quality of the good. They need to make up revenue somehow, and so, it makes sense that they would add a cash shop and incentivize the purchase of tokens, boosts, etc to supplement their sub revenue. What you are seeing is just standard economics. If people say "the game is worse now relatively", the price of the sub certainly reflects that. If people say they are changing the game to encourage cash shop and game services purchases, it makes perfect sense that Blizzard would. Not raising the sub fee to at least keep up with inflation every few years was a really dumb decision, and it certainly had an impact on the quality of the game. It sort of HAD to economically.
When people say "big companies ruined x", they aren't really wrong. It's almost always true -- even with economies of scale because you still have issues with monopoly behavior. WoW has(had?) an effective monopoly (or very close to it) on the MMORPG genre, and Warcraft/Starcraft was similar for the multiplayer RTS genre. As expected, the early iterations of these games were widely acclaimed and considered excellent while the company was building its brand in these sectors. The later versions are generally regarded as relatively worse in quality. And that's because there is no reason for them to be better. It's actually surprising when a company with an already huge brand and large market share comes out with a great, consumer friendly product.
Also, while Blizzard still is supposedly autonomous, keep in mind that the CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, is on record saying stuff like this:
Real class act, that guy.
Kotick responded not by addressing any of the games by name, but by talking about Activision’s publishing philosophy. The games Activision Blizzard didn't pick up, he said, "don't have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million franchises. … I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus… on the products that have those attributes and characteristics, the products that we know [that] if we release them today, we'll be working on them 10 years from now."
Jeetil Patel, Deutsche Bank Securities - Analyst
"What do you think the retailers' willingness these days is to hold inventory on the video game side? Are they building positions today or are they still very reluctant and very careful of how they are buying?"
Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard, Inc. - President and CEO
"I don't think it is specific to video games. I think that if you look at how much volatility there is in the economy and, dependent upon your view about macroeconomic picture and I think we have a real culture of thrift. And I think the goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks that we brought in to Activision 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."
"I think we definitely have been able to instill the culture, the skepticism and pessimism and fear that you should have in an economy like we are in today. And so, while generally people talk about the recession, we are pretty good at keeping people focused on the deep depression."
Real class act, that guy.
1 Like
11/03/2018 09:01 AMPosted by MonsterskillIt's basic economics. In the early days, gaming had relatively low barriers to entry. Anyone who knew how to code could write a game. They didn't cost a whole lot to make, and there were a LOT of different games. People tried many different kinds of games and there was not a lot of brand loyalty. The result was a competitive market that encouraged the creation of the most awesome games.
Then, these awesome games developed a strong following with die hard fans. They reaped insane profits making sequels. Huge companies ended up being formed around these games. The result? Brand loyalty, large market share, limited competition, and reduced innovation. And modern standards for games have resulted in games being a huge undertaking to develop. It now takes millions to make a AAA game. The result is a noncompetitive industry dominated by a few players.
It makes sense that the end product would be relatively worse in quality than it was in the past. Furthermore, you should consider the fact that WoW has never raised its subscription fee. This means the game's relative price has actually dropped over time. In a market, the price USUALLY reflects the quality of the good. They need to make up revenue somehow, and so, it makes sense that they would add a cash shop and incentivize the purchase of tokens, boosts, etc to supplement their sub revenue. What you are seeing is just standard economics. If people say "the game is worse now relatively", the price of the sub certainly reflects that. If people say they are changing the game to encourage cash shop and game services purchases, it makes perfect sense that Blizzard would. Not raising the sub fee to at least keep up with inflation every few years was a really dumb decision, and it certainly had an impact on the quality of the game. It sort of HAD to economically.
When people say "big companies ruined x", they aren't really wrong. It's almost always true -- even with economies of scale because you still have issues with monopoly behavior. WoW has(had?) an effective monopoly (or very close to it) on the MMORPG genre, and Warcraft/Starcraft was similar for the multiplayer RTS genre. As expected, the early iterations of these games were widely acclaimed and considered excellent while the company was building its brand in these sectors. The later versions are generally regarded as relatively worse in quality. And that's because there is no reason for them to be better. It's actually surprising when a company with an already huge brand and large market share comes out with a great, consumer friendly product.
plus in the middle of all that, the stock market crashed and effected every nation with a central bank based on the oil dollar. we had in the usa, over 90 banks. now we have 4. businesses went bankrupt all over the world. game companies were out of business. billions of people lost their life savings, their retirement nest eggs and their jobs. the token was a brilliant move, honestly. it saved the company. that 5 dollar increase in sub cost it represents, allows them to adjust inflation a bit.
i've always wondered why they never raised the sub cost even though everything else costs more, like electricity and grocerices and so on, but it was because the whole planet nearly got put in the poor house over night in 2008.
11/03/2018 09:28 AMPosted by Hypêrspace11/03/2018 09:01 AMPosted by MonsterskillIt's basic economics. In the early days, gaming had relatively low barriers to entry. Anyone who knew how to code could write a game. They didn't cost a whole lot to make, and there were a LOT of different games. People tried many different kinds of games and there was not a lot of brand loyalty. The result was a competitive market that encouraged the creation of the most awesome games.
Then, these awesome games developed a strong following with die hard fans. They reaped insane profits making sequels. Huge companies ended up being formed around these games. The result? Brand loyalty, large market share, limited competition, and reduced innovation. And modern standards for games have resulted in games being a huge undertaking to develop. It now takes millions to make a AAA game. The result is a noncompetitive industry dominated by a few players.
It makes sense that the end product would be relatively worse in quality than it was in the past. Furthermore, you should consider the fact that WoW has never raised its subscription fee. This means the game's relative price has actually dropped over time. In a market, the price USUALLY reflects the quality of the good. They need to make up revenue somehow, and so, it makes sense that they would add a cash shop and incentivize the purchase of tokens, boosts, etc to supplement their sub revenue. What you are seeing is just standard economics. If people say "the game is worse now relatively", the price of the sub certainly reflects that. If people say they are changing the game to encourage cash shop and game services purchases, it makes perfect sense that Blizzard would. Not raising the sub fee to at least keep up with inflation every few years was a really dumb decision, and it certainly had an impact on the quality of the game. It sort of HAD to economically.
When people say "big companies ruined x", they aren't really wrong. It's almost always true -- even with economies of scale because you still have issues with monopoly behavior. WoW has(had?) an effective monopoly (or very close to it) on the MMORPG genre, and Warcraft/Starcraft was similar for the multiplayer RTS genre. As expected, the early iterations of these games were widely acclaimed and considered excellent while the company was building its brand in these sectors. The later versions are generally regarded as relatively worse in quality. And that's because there is no reason for them to be better. It's actually surprising when a company with an already huge brand and large market share comes out with a great, consumer friendly product.
plus in the middle of all that, the stock market crashed and effected every nation with a central bank based on the oil dollar. we had in the usa, over 90 banks. now we have 4. businesses went bankrupt all over the world. game companies were out of business. billions of people lost their life savings, their retirement nest eggs and their jobs. the token was a brilliant move, honestly. it saved the company. that 5 dollar increase in sub cost it represents, allows them to adjust inflation a bit.
i've always wondered why they never raised the sub cost even though everything else costs more, like electricity and grocerices and so on, but it was because the whole planet nearly got put in the poor house over night in 2008.
Still doesn't change the economics of it though. Your bread costs more. Your movies cost more. Every other game costs more. Why doesn't WoW?
BTW Token came in WoD. WoD was like 6 years after the crash. Don't blame the US economy for Blizzard's doubling down on their irrational pricing strategy and running their own game into the mud as a result.
11/03/2018 09:26 AMPosted by MonsterskillAlso, while Blizzard still is supposedly autonomous, keep in mind that the CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, is on record saying stuff like this:Kotick responded not by addressing any of the games by name, but by talking about Activision’s publishing philosophy. The games Activision Blizzard didn't pick up, he said, "don't have the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential and have the potential to become $100 million franchises. … I think, generally, our strategy has been to focus… on the products that have those attributes and characteristics, the products that we know [that] if we release them today, we'll be working on them 10 years from now."Jeetil Patel, Deutsche Bank Securities - Analyst
"What do you think the retailers' willingness these days is to hold inventory on the video game side? Are they building positions today or are they still very reluctant and very careful of how they are buying?"
Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard, Inc. - President and CEO
"I don't think it is specific to video games. I think that if you look at how much volatility there is in the economy and, dependent upon your view about macroeconomic picture and I think we have a real culture of thrift. And I think the goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks that we brought in to Activision 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."
"I think we definitely have been able to instill the culture, the skepticism and pessimism and fear that you should have in an economy like we are in today. And so, while generally people talk about the recession, we are pretty good at keeping people focused on the deep depression."
Real class act, that guy.
There you go folks. This is the philosophy behind Blizzard game production now, "....focus on the deep depression"
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
1 Like
Yep, we're being kept focused on the deep depression alright...
Monsterskill
notice i said, in the middle of all that
the shop helped to meet inflation and loss of subs
and the token was a great way to roll inflation into sub cost
without impacting the people who pay normally. (not to mention
solving gold seller abuse)
i dont know if paying a higher sub will help now. many have not gone
back to work. hiring quotas based on ethnicity and gender, have impacted that and globalism as well. farming out jobs overseas has encouraged things like targetting of the chinese market which is much bigger than here. companies are in the business of making money. and our economy is only now starting to recover. if more of us were using the cash shop that'd at least make us more important to the bean counters.
only solution i can see is to buy out activision, donate their shares back to blizzard on the contingency that they hire back employees who were fired because they were actually fans of wow and stop basing the game's future on whether they corner the chinese market.
notice i said, in the middle of all that
the shop helped to meet inflation and loss of subs
and the token was a great way to roll inflation into sub cost
without impacting the people who pay normally. (not to mention
solving gold seller abuse)
i dont know if paying a higher sub will help now. many have not gone
back to work. hiring quotas based on ethnicity and gender, have impacted that and globalism as well. farming out jobs overseas has encouraged things like targetting of the chinese market which is much bigger than here. companies are in the business of making money. and our economy is only now starting to recover. if more of us were using the cash shop that'd at least make us more important to the bean counters.
only solution i can see is to buy out activision, donate their shares back to blizzard on the contingency that they hire back employees who were fired because they were actually fans of wow and stop basing the game's future on whether they corner the chinese market.
11/03/2018 09:45 AMPosted by HypêrspaceMonsterskill
notice i said, in the middle of all that
the shop helped to meet inflation and loss of subs
and the token was a great way to roll inflation into sub cost
without impacting the people who pay normally. (not to mention
solving gold seller abuse)
i dont know if paying a higher sub will help now. many have not gone
back to work. hiring quotas based on ethnicity and gender, have impacted that and globalism as well. farming out jobs overseas has encouraged things like targetting of the chinese market which is much bigger than here. companies are in the business of making money. and our economy is only now starting to recover. if more of us were using the cash shop that'd at least make us more important to the bean counters.
only solution i can see is to buy out activision, donate their shares back to blizzard on the contingency that they hire back employees who were fired because they were actually fans of wow and stop basing the game's future on whether they corner the chinese market.
The cash shop was the worst decision they could ever have made for the long term health of WoW. Now there is every incentive for them to encourage cash shop purchases, and since they no longer value subs as much, they can compensate for a loss of subs by catering to people who use the cash shop more. Who uses the cash shop the most? Addicts who are willing to spend lots of their real money on gold/collector's items. The result is a game that will be engineered to be pay to progress, ultimately less fun for the majority, and exploitative of addicts. You will see more RNG/gambling mechanics, more obsessive collecting, more expensive consumables for raiding, etc. We've already seen some of this in Legion/BFA, but if Blizzard continues with this trend, it is going to get really bad.
I mean it's already basically happened. Who does WoW cater to today? Raiders/M+ folks who use lots of consumables (many of whom spend real money on gold tokens) and addicted collectors (who spend enormous amounts on gold and cash shop purchases). The game has very little to offer anyone else. People say WoW caters to casuals...maybe in the sense of how easy it is to get gear, but not in the sense of having any long term lasting gameplay experience. Most casual WoW players play at the start of the expansion and then quit until the next big patch. There is nothing worthwhile to offer them. Free welfare gear means nothing when you have nothing interesting to do in the game.
Blizzard's official stance used to be that they would never offer any in game advantage via cash purchase. However, there are currently many high ilvl gear boes available for gold. Furthermore, Blizzard does not punish and ban M+/heroic/mythic carries. The result is that there is very patently a path to converting money into in game power directly sanctioned by Blizzard. This, coupled with the decision to offer sales of boosts, shows that Blizzard did a complete 180 on their original stance. And when did this start happening? Well, I can tell you it was after the merger.
You think you do but you don't. Or now Don't you people own phones? Cheng next blizz president confirmed.
Activision =/= Blizzard they are two completely different companies PERIOD.
activision-Blizzard is a STOCK HOLDING company just like Vivendi Games was before that.
Why now that you can put a face to the name do they suddenly have control that they didn't have before ?
Activision has no influence on Blizzard or King games, King games has no influence on Activision or Blizzard, Blizzard has no influence on King Games or Activision, as far as development goes.
Vivendi had no influence on Blizzard (or Activision) development because just like Activision-Blizzard they only cared about the stock side not development.
activision-Blizzard is a STOCK HOLDING company just like Vivendi Games was before that.
Why now that you can put a face to the name do they suddenly have control that they didn't have before ?
Activision has no influence on Blizzard or King games, King games has no influence on Activision or Blizzard, Blizzard has no influence on King Games or Activision, as far as development goes.
Vivendi had no influence on Blizzard (or Activision) development because just like Activision-Blizzard they only cared about the stock side not development.
11/03/2018 09:00 AMPosted by MagrilaxIt's not so simple, Activision and Blizzard are not partners. Activision is more of a parent company than Blizzard has to get permission to do anything for.
And Blizzard's budgets get approved by Activision's board of directors. Bobby Kotick is on the board:
https://www.activisionblizzard.com/board-of-directors
"Mr. Kotick has been a Director and Chief Executive Officer of Activision, Inc. since February 1991 until July 2008, when he became Chief Executive Officer of Activision Blizzard in connection with the combination of Activision and Vivendi Games."
11/03/2018 10:03 AMPosted by SomalionActivision =/= Blizzard they are two completely different companies PERIOD.
activision-Blizzard is a STOCK HOLDING company just like Vivendi Games was before that.
Why now that you can put a face to the name do they suddenly have control that they didn't have before ?
Activision has no influence on Blizzard or King games, King games has no influence on Activision or Blizzard, Blizzard has no influence on King Games or Activision, as far as development goes.
Vivendi had no influence on Blizzard (or Activision) development because just like Activision-Blizzard they only cared about the stock side not development.
You think the shareholders don't have a say in how a company is run? Well guess who has a ton of shares and directs the company?
1 Like
Activision-Blizzard, the holding company (not a publishing company, not a development company), owns Blizzard Entertainment.11/03/2018 08:09 AMPosted by ValarienActivision literally owns Blizzard now. Theres no separating the two.
Activision the publishing company (not Activision-Blizzard) and Blizzard Entertainment are lateral partners, along with three other companies, none of which own any of the others.
09/07/2018 11:42 AMPosted by YthisensActivision Publishing is involved in franchises like Call of Duty, Destiny, etc but is a separate company from Blizzard, however we're both under the same umbrella known as Activision Blizzard.
In the same way that PepsiCo is the owner of Frito-Lay and Pepsi, but the people who make Pepsi don't ever touch the chips.
Do you think Sharholders micromanage the features of one of the games, of one of the divisions, of one of the franchises? Of course not. Shareholders want profit. If profit comes, then the money makers stay the course. If Wow is being permitted to stay the course, then the shareholders are getting what they want.11/03/2018 10:09 AMPosted by MonsterskillYou think the shareholders don't have a say in how a company is run? Well guess who has a ton of shares and directs the company?
11/03/2018 10:09 AMPosted by Monsterskill11/03/2018 10:03 AMPosted by SomalionActivision =/= Blizzard they are two completely different companies PERIOD.
activision-Blizzard is a STOCK HOLDING company just like Vivendi Games was before that.
Why now that you can put a face to the name do they suddenly have control that they didn't have before ?
Activision has no influence on Blizzard or King games, King games has no influence on Activision or Blizzard, Blizzard has no influence on King Games or Activision, as far as development goes.
Vivendi had no influence on Blizzard (or Activision) development because just like Activision-Blizzard they only cared about the stock side not development.
You think the shareholders don't have a say in how a company is run? Well guess who has a ton of shares and directs the company?
Of course they have a say in how activision-blizzard is run as you can't have direct shares in Activision or Blizzard to be able to affect their development, you can affect their budget possibly but that's it, and I'm sure Blizzard has a nice sized budget to do with as they please (multiple things coming out within the next year would imply that)
well then who's fault is this? lol
tell us who needs to be bought out lol
tell us who needs to be bought out lol
Activision-Blizzard, the holding company (not a publishing company, not a development company), owns Blizzard Entertainment.11/03/2018 08:09 AMPosted by ValarienActivision literally owns Blizzard now. Theres no separating the two.
Activision the publishing company (not Activision-Blizzard) and Blizzard Entertainment are lateral partners, along with three other companies, none of which own any of the others.09/07/2018 11:42 AMPosted by YthisensActivision Publishing is involved in franchises like Call of Duty, Destiny, etc but is a separate company from Blizzard, however we're both under the same umbrella known as Activision Blizzard.
In the same way that PepsiCo is the owner of Frito-Lay and Pepsi, but the people who make Pepsi don't ever touch the chips.Do you think Sharholders micromange the individual features of one of the games, of one of the divisions, of one of the franchises? Of course not. As long as a company is profitable, the shareholders are profitable.11/03/2018 10:09 AMPosted by MonsterskillYou think the shareholders don't have a say in how a company is run? Well guess who has a ton of shares and directs the company?
You don't think the CEO has any say or control over the general direction of the companies he is responsible for? He literally has to approve each game they finance. He looked at Diablo Mobile and said "Yeah sure let's do that.". He probably thinks mobile is the next big "exploitable platform", and he wants to make the Diablo IP multiplatform -- just like he said in the quote btw. Process that. Let that sink in, Mr Greenie McShillington.