Is there a way for Blizzard to cut ties with Activision at this point?
Failing that, can some of the corporate bean counters who think they know how to run a game company get on basically ANY social media platform and see that the people who love old Blizzard are not happy with the crap that is coming out of Activision Blizzard and realize they should step off?
I mean, if Activision Blizzard REALLY like profit and money, they might want to stop making bad decisions that cause their customers to abandon the brand.
Is gone. I hate Activision, a lot, but you have to realize most of the old guard is gone. Removing Activision from the equation isn’t going to suddenly give quality content. The developers might have tight deadlines, but they’re the ones coming up with this content. Activision isn’t telling them how to make the content or write the stories; the current developer team isn’t like the old guard.
I honestly don’t think separating from Activision would do anything.
There is no such thing as Blizzard without activision. They aren’t separate companies. It isn’t like Bungie and Destiny 2. Blizzard hasn’t been an independent corporation since before any of the games that any of us care about. It has never been alone, it will never be alone. Let’s move on from this.
Last I heard some of the old Blizzard North people were working on Torchlight 3. That nearly got messed up by Perfect World Entertainment and the BN people basically told PWE their design stank for players with evidence and are changing it to what made the first two games fun.
You have to admit there are some serious problems with Activision Blizzard right now.
Unhappy customers who used to love the Blizzard brand.
By all accounts horrible morale inside the company.
Decisions that seem strictly based on short term profit instead of long term brand building and customer satisfaction.
Right, but is he telling them to make Corruption? Is he telling them how fun Essences will be? Is he telling them to write a story so bad, Fanfiction has better?
No, he’s giving them a deadline and KPI and telling them to make something in that. And the developers have made the choice of awful systems. They make the content, regardless of if Activision is calling the shots or not.
Blizzard isn’t an innocent victim being made to do awful stuff under a corporate demon; they’re being given timelines and creating what they think is fun, and failing to do so. Activision is awful, but Blizzard isn’t innocent either.
Sure. But it is Activision Blizzard. It’s not Activision AND Blizzard. It doesn’t matter if we think there are issues or not. They are not separate entities. Blizzard cannot separate itself from activision. Additionally, there is no Blizzard to separate itself from. It absolutely does not matter if you like the idea of Activision or no, or Blizzard or no. They are one company. They will stay one company. It’s never changing. If you want to campaign for something, focus on something real, not imaginary solutions to completely misunderstood issues.
There is no new Activision CEO. The same person has been running it since 1991. Ya’ll people need to do a little bit of research before running around with your weird fantasies.
All Bobby Kotick wants is for us to be happy because if we’re happy we’re spending. Like I said in another one of these threads if you could prove to the owners a better MMORPG design exists AND is cheaper they would move to it. Classic may have actually done that but we won’t know right now. It’s too early to know actually if it did.
People have this weird idea that Activision moved in and started designing WoW. Even if they wanted to they don’t have the expertise so why would they do that. Why kill your brand. They aren’t that stupid.
Lots of money and time was spent on BFA. Island Expeditions and Warfronts and the armies of dailies and world quests aren’t free. It was all for us to enjoy and we largely didn’t. Just like the garrison of WoD. These are ideas new to the game mostly off the back of what we ask for but perverted to the extent they don’t work for anything. Like asking for Player Housing and getting Garrisons.
Player concerns and designer implementations aren’t one to one and haven’t been for a very long time. The Classic design proves this. It’s not an accident that Classic scored the largest subscription renewal event in the history of WoW.
It’s too early right now to know how this affected 10.x. I think it was possibly too late to affect 9.x which is why I am seriously considering a 2+ year break. I don’t want another BFA or even Legion experience, tbh. I hate mandatory WQ/Dailies that much.
Blizzard and Activision merged that is something they can’t just undo. They aren’t like Bungie who just had a publishing deal with Activision, whats funny is Destiny 2 got better right when they left. So maybe it is Activisions fault.
People want to believe that Blizzard isn’t the problem behind these issues that they have. They want to believe that the old Blizzard, the one that created the games they’re so fond of, is still there. That Activision is this Satan being that is causing Blizzard to fail.
Honestly? I just think Blizzard had bad ideas.
WoD and BfA both failed because they tried something new and it didn’t pan out. It’s far too late to steer the massive ship in another direction when their ideas are rejected by the general population, so they have to try and correct it in time for the next expansion or the one after that. I agree, it’s too late for Shadowlands. They have the groundwork set up and everything at the ready; there won’t be major system changes when we have the chance to test it.
But more to the point: Activision is still releasing successful games, despite being under…well, Activision Blizzard. The new CoD was well received, and I’ve heard nothing but good things about Sekiro. They’re both under Activision and both were revived much better than BfA. So really, is it Activision failing or is it Blizzard?
Tight deadlines result in rushed, poor quality and poorly planned content. Also, isn’t it possible that if activision set the deadlines, they also make other major decisions about the game and it’s systems. Seems pretty likely to me.