Per Barron's
Activision Blizzard was probably hoping for cheers from gamers when it unveiled a new mobile app in its important Diablo franchise. That didn’t happen, and now Wall Street is more skittish about the company.
The news came Friday at the company’s BlizzCon conference: The company is working with NetEase, a Chinese developer, to produce Diablo Immortal. Gamers were apoplectic, putting a flurry of negative comments on the YouTube page that showed the trailer. As of midday Monday, the trailer for Diablo Immortal had 430,000 down votes, versus 16,000 up votes.
“Blizzard announced its first mobile-only title on Friday and to say the reaction was negative would be an understatement,” Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote on Monday. “Blizzard severely miscalculated how their fans would respond, which suggests they aren’t in touch with their players as maybe they should be.”
Some gamers had hoped the company would announce a Diablo sequel for personal computers. Others were concerned Diablo Immortal is being created in a partnership with NetEase, whose games are known for pushing gamers to buy digital items with real money.
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11/06/2018 04:11 AMPosted by AbsyynthePer Barron's
Activision Blizzard was probably hoping for cheers from gamers when it unveiled a new mobile app in its important Diablo franchise. That didn’t happen, and now Wall Street is more skittish about the company.
The news came Friday at the company’s BlizzCon conference: The company is working with NetEase, a Chinese developer, to produce Diablo Immortal. Gamers were apoplectic, putting a flurry of negative comments on the YouTube page that showed the trailer. As of midday Monday, the trailer for Diablo Immortal had 430,000 down votes, versus 16,000 up votes.
“Blizzard announced its first mobile-only title on Friday and to say the reaction was negative would be an understatement,” Cowen analyst Doug Creutz wrote on Monday. “Blizzard severely miscalculated how their fans would respond, which suggests they aren’t in touch with their players as maybe they should be.”
Some gamers had hoped the company would announce a Diablo sequel for personal computers. Others were concerned Diablo Immortal is being created in a partnership with NetEase, whose games are known for pushing gamers to buy digital items with real money.
Hopefully this is what it takes for blizzard to listen to their gamers. They are so disconnected from the gaming community its silly. I remember back when Blizzard was a company comprised of mostly gamers. Seems like these days they just sit in their ivory towers and push out crap.
https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/atvi/stock-chart?intraday=off&timeframe=3y&splits=off&earnings=off&movingaverage=None&lowerstudy=volume&comparison=off&index=&drilldown=off
Yeah right. Play the long game.
Players have been screaming to get rid of Titanforging and put vendors back in the game for a long time. Blizzard fails to listen
Players have been screaming about allowing player housing in the game (before you say garrisons, that was not player housing). Blizzard fails to listen
Players have been screaming about allowing player housing in the game (before you say garrisons, that was not player housing). Blizzard fails to listen
The important thing here is this key statement
"which suggests they aren’t in touch with their players as maybe they should be."
Please Blizzard listen to us, we don't give feed back just to hear ourselves! We do know what we like and what we want in an MMO
"which suggests they aren’t in touch with their players as maybe they should be."
Please Blizzard listen to us, we don't give feed back just to hear ourselves! We do know what we like and what we want in an MMO
11/06/2018 04:33 AMPosted by ShadowsóngPlayers have been screaming to get rid of Titanforging and put vendors back in the game for a long time. Blizzard fails to listen
Players have been screaming about allowing player housing in the game (before you say garrisons, that was not player housing). Blizzard fails to listen
Funny how everyone thinks their idea is the player majority screaming about the same thing.
I don't care, and nobody I play with cares about player housing. I wouldn't care if they added it or not, and neither would every other player I know.
Titanforging isn't the worst. In a day and age with so many welfare epics, it doesn't matter if they get rid of it or not. !@#$ty players will still get their trophies regardless of TF or not. It's just how Blizzard works now, everyone gets a trophy.
And in regards to vendors, no I dont want that. Nobody i know wants that. That's something I've only seen on the forums since it was implemented.
Give it a week. Shareholders take note of earnings, not fan feedback. As long as the revenue stream is stable or growing, the stock will recover and probably climb. We're not as important to Wall Street as many of us think we are. One studio going Tango Uniform (worst case scenario) will not break Activision; they have too many streams of revenue that can be massaged to make up any losses from a single studio. They can always add a few more microtransactions .....
Ha!
He wrote personal computers. That's adorable.
He wrote personal computers. That's adorable.
Every single analyst I've read has pinned the stock pullback to CoD sales results.
I know there's this ever present overwhelming need to pin whatever people can on WoW/Blizzard to justify whatever narrative they're pushing, but the reality is the market is more concerned with a bell weather product not producing at the level anticipated.
Apparently a half billion dollar launch wasn't good enough.
The next thing they're looking for is the quarterly report. Not response from Blizzcon.
I know there's this ever present overwhelming need to pin whatever people can on WoW/Blizzard to justify whatever narrative they're pushing, but the reality is the market is more concerned with a bell weather product not producing at the level anticipated.
Apparently a half billion dollar launch wasn't good enough.
The next thing they're looking for is the quarterly report. Not response from Blizzcon.
11/06/2018 04:40 AMPosted by Edri11/06/2018 04:33 AMPosted by ShadowsóngPlayers have been screaming to get rid of Titanforging and put vendors back in the game for a long time. Blizzard fails to listen
Players have been screaming about allowing player housing in the game (before you say garrisons, that was not player housing). Blizzard fails to listen
Funny how everyone thinks their idea is the player majority screaming about the same thing.
I don't care, and nobody I play with cares about player housing. I wouldn't care if they added it or not, and neither would every other player I know.
Titanforging isn't the worst. In a day and age with so many welfare epics, it doesn't matter if they get rid of it or not. !@#$ty players will still get their trophies regardless of TF or not. It's just how Blizzard works now, everyone gets a trophy.
And in regards to vendors, no I dont want that. Nobody i know wants that. That's something I've only seen on the forums since it was implemented.
You must know a very small group of people. Check forums more regularly and you will see quite a few housing posts as well as vendor posts.
Good day.
11/06/2018 04:54 AMPosted by CrepeEvery single analyst I've read has pinned the stock pullback to CoD sales results.
I know there's this ever present overwhelming need to pin whatever people can on WoW/Blizzard to justify whatever narrative they're pushing, but the reality is the market is more concerned with a bell weather product not producing at the level anticipated.
Apparently a half billion dollar launch wasn't good enough.
The next thing they're looking for is the quarterly report. Not response from Blizzcon.
Uh, That's blatantly false, see the stocks increased right before blizzcon precisely because of pre-blizzcon hype. Is diablo the sole determining factor of shares dropping 5+ dollars overnight? No, but to try and pin it solely on CoD underperforming is just as bad as trying to say it's purely because of Diablo.
To quote some mvp:
I know there's this ever present overwhelming need to pin whatever people can on Activision to justify whatever narrative they're pushing
This and people not understanding how the stock market works. Companies go down a bit but often recover as well but people seem to be hellbent on pushing this narrative to crap on Blizzard over a game that they weren't there to try the demo for/even play for upvotes,clicks in the case of YouTube gaming pundits who want the company to die. People need to stop being salty as they mentioned the update was Diablo related but was never going to be "Diablo 4". These digs at Blizzard lately are just childish.11/06/2018 04:54 AMPosted by CrepeEvery single analyst I've read has pinned the stock pullback to CoD sales results.
I know there's this ever present overwhelming need to pin whatever people can on WoW/Blizzard to justify whatever narrative they're pushing, but the reality is the market is more concerned with a bell weather product not producing at the level anticipated.
Apparently a half billion dollar launch wasn't good enough.
The next thing they're looking for is the quarterly report. Not response from Blizzcon.
Edit typo
11/06/2018 04:54 AMPosted by CrepeEvery single analyst I've read has pinned the stock pullback to CoD sales results.
I know there's this ever present overwhelming need to pin whatever people can on WoW/Blizzard to justify whatever narrative they're pushing, but the reality is the market is more concerned with a bell weather product not producing at the level anticipated.
Apparently a half billion dollar launch wasn't good enough.
The next thing they're looking for is the quarterly report. Not response from Blizzcon.
You're probably correct....just more totally fake news reported by Barron's....
11/06/2018 04:54 AMPosted by CrepeEvery single analyst I've read has pinned the stock pullback to CoD sales results.
I know there's this ever present overwhelming need to pin whatever people can on WoW/Blizzard to justify whatever narrative they're pushing, but the reality is the market is more concerned with a bell weather product not producing at the level anticipated.
Apparently a half billion dollar launch wasn't good enough.
The next thing they're looking for is the quarterly report. Not response from Blizzcon.
Even a person with common sense who has no part in the game development or advertisement aspects could tell you that PC gamers dedicated to franchise based on PC games of the last decade or two expect a PC game. At the very least a PC game. Then maybe a mobile game version. Perhaps later down the line of the life of the new game being introduced. But what Blizzard did was wrong. And a blatant disrespect to the fan base. Their expectations I'm assuming were high but they got the exact opposite response and this is evidence of them being so beyond disconnected that it makes even my head spin.
EDIT - And how can we say that Blizzard really tried with this Immortal game? It's an obvious rip of an already existing mobile game. A game that is most likely used to milk as much money from the player base as possible and to do it in quick fashion.
People don't understand. And how could they? They're sitting on mountains of money that pushes them up into the clouds. How can they possibly hear us down here? Let alone know how we feel or think about their games? They claim to be listening and enjoying feedback and the like... I don't buy it. I'm seeing improvements to BFA, but that was out of pure desperation. I am grateful Blizzard is taking baby steps into the correction direction with WoW. Thank the Gaming Gods! But this "strategic" move with the Diablo name... they're destroying it with what they thought was a good idea.
These posts are strange.
I don't want to discourage anyone from learning how to invest or how to read the market but perhaps it would be best to do so before trying to use it to prove a point?
Otherwise it's just the blind trying to lead the blind.
I don't want to discourage anyone from learning how to invest or how to read the market but perhaps it would be best to do so before trying to use it to prove a point?
Otherwise it's just the blind trying to lead the blind.
11/06/2018 04:33 AMPosted by ShadowsóngPlayers have been screaming to get rid of Titanforging and put vendors back in the game for a long time. Blizzard fails to listen
Players have been screaming about allowing player housing in the game (before you say garrisons, that was not player housing). Blizzard fails to listen
I like titanforging - and all the people I know in game like it.
I also like my vendors.
I think developing a mobile game is a good idea for them as a business. I also think they totally shot themselves in their feet with their bungled announcement of it. The thing that bothers me about it is that if they are doing the story, the level design, and art; why not port it to PC and make it a DLC for D3?
It does feel like they are disconnected with their customer base on what people want. Though to be fair their customers sometimes want vastly different things. After all some people like titanforging, and some people think everyone hates it.
I was just playing BFA and thinking, man this would be so much more fun if I could fly...
11/06/2018 04:33 AMPosted by ShadowsóngPlayers have been screaming to get rid of Titanforging and put vendors back in the game for a long time.
The player base here represents a small percentage of their player base, we just tend to be more focal about things is all. If they actually thought the vast majority of their customers disliked those two, they would probably be changed.
Anyone played Archeage? Putting aside the crap publisher.
Our guild had a 'church'. We could upload our own images and set it up as portraits in our dwellings. Or even on the sail of our boats/galleons.
For our church, we had an image of 'Rngesus'. The guild would gather, and we would pray, before we went after world bosses. Cheeky ainnit?
I'm not one of those crying for player housing till my face turns blue. But for those downplaying it, I just wanna say, not to underestimate it in terms of bringing back community interaction. Not just between strangers, but within the guild.
Most guilds have members who are strangers to each other. A mythic raiding guild could have 30+ members online, 0 on discord, and 2 hours can go by with nothing said on guild chat. 1 guy goes, anyone for (dungeon)+7? No one replies. I've hopped on a number of guilds with such symptoms.
Archeage felt like a genuine MMO. But even great games can be ruined by useless publishers. And I'm glad Trino is dead. Especially that chubby CM with his smug face as his portrait is jobless as well. Yes.. Scapes.
Went on a tangent, but yeah, the idea is there.
Our guild had a 'church'. We could upload our own images and set it up as portraits in our dwellings. Or even on the sail of our boats/galleons.
For our church, we had an image of 'Rngesus'. The guild would gather, and we would pray, before we went after world bosses. Cheeky ainnit?
I'm not one of those crying for player housing till my face turns blue. But for those downplaying it, I just wanna say, not to underestimate it in terms of bringing back community interaction. Not just between strangers, but within the guild.
Most guilds have members who are strangers to each other. A mythic raiding guild could have 30+ members online, 0 on discord, and 2 hours can go by with nothing said on guild chat. 1 guy goes, anyone for (dungeon)+7? No one replies. I've hopped on a number of guilds with such symptoms.
Archeage felt like a genuine MMO. But even great games can be ruined by useless publishers. And I'm glad Trino is dead. Especially that chubby CM with his smug face as his portrait is jobless as well. Yes.. Scapes.
Went on a tangent, but yeah, the idea is there.
There was another thread asking why WoW: Classic players hate modern WoW and it's players. I couldn't think of how to put it into words, but this sums it up pretty well. Although, it still doesn't include certain aspects, like getting into PUG groups (Dungeon Finder, Raid Finder, Group Finder), and NO ONE is social; they get in, they do things, then they leave, not a single word or ANY form of communication is exchanged!11/06/2018 04:40 AMPosted by Edri!@#$ty players will still get their trophies regardless of TF or not. It's just how Blizzard works now, everyone gets a trophy.
But yeah, this reminds me of that one Billy Crystal film, Parental Guidance, the one scene where he's finally about to spank his grandson (or what ever relative the kid is to him, been a while since I watched it), in public and in front of a big crowd of people that are shocked and about to go nuts over it, and he delivers the greatest speech about what this generation has come to, and how "everybody is a winner, there is NEVER any loser" anymore, which is now how real life works.
I may have remembered the message completely wrong, but even so, it's true. Now Actizzard is going by this "everyone is a winner, there are NO losers" for WoW (to some degree, I think this mostly would pertain to PVE, and PVP would be a completely different story; I may be wrong though), and it does factor in to how they are continually making bad decisions for just about all of their games (I can't speak for ones like Overwatch, Heroes Of The Storm or what ever, but as far as their oldest and most popular IP's in WoW, Diablo and Starcraft, I've both experienced and seen all the negative feedback towards all three).