When did money become more important to you than producing good working games. Don’t get me wrong I love World of Warcraft and am a constant player and play Diablo3, even dip my toes into Overwatch. Recently played Warcraft 3 reforged, it was the first Blizzard game I played back when I had a poop computer in my moms basement and it was the time of my life. When you delayed WC3 reforged I was kinda disappointed but I was ok with it because I thought hey if they need extra time to make it good I’ll wait, and I was completely fine with waiting as I’m sure many were. I’d rather wait longer for a game then receive some buggy, scrambled together, missing pieces game. I don’t know where you went blizzard, your not acting like your making games for the gamers anymore. I don’t intend to leave wow because I love it, but im hoping that you come back to your roots, because making games for gamers is how you got to the top in the first place. I don’t want to see you fall, and I’m sure others don’t either which is why we are hard on you. We know you can do better.
This is truly a Battle for Azeroth but it’s blizzard who needs to save her, not us. We want you to succeed, we want to see the fantastic games you can make to bring people together again from all over the world.
When the original devs were basically forced out by the activision ceo and other people on the corperate side they don’t understand how to make money for video games. blizzard would be far better if it was runned by the original leaders and game designers.
Since then:
Chris Metzen, Frank Pearce, Mike Morhaime, Greg Street, Rob Pardo, Ythisens, the 4+(i think now 6?) major OWL commentators… I mean the list goes on and on and on and grows every year.
The same Blizzard that almost went belly up if it wasn’t for Vivendi, or are you referring to the Blizzard that was ‘forced’ to merge with Activision because, you know, it was Activision that was in dire straights.
That’s not being toxic. That’s called messing with people. I’m kidding. Regardless you are still the person raging about this, and I recommend you don’t let little things go to your head. Especially when someone tells you not to.
You 2 need to quit winding each other up over a giant nothing burger.
Hug it out, we are not in control of this game, glad you’re so passionate but watching my fellow gamers poke each others eyes out over nothing is just breaking my heart.
Left to do his own thing after the disappointing reviews of D3 and WoD development.
Took a better offer from Riot.
Retired for personal life.
Also left for personal reasons.
Left to start his own brand.
…
In each of these cases people had their own reasons for leaving. It wasn’t like Bobby Kotick walked into their offices and told them to get out. Maybe the job was just getting old. You know when someone has this kind of influence and wealth they can just ditch a career and start a new one.
The brand has been damaged through numerous scandals and issues dating way before any of these guys left. So the pressure has been on of course. You could say maybe they saw the writing on the wall. That would be opinion though not fact.
As Garrosh said, “Times change.” The consumer demand now isn’t what it was 20 years ago. The company is held to higher standards. Not unrealistic standards either. I have no problem with Activision-Blizzard seeking the very best people for those vital roles in game creation. What I truly dread is the corporate sterility that pushes away very talented people. I hope that isn’t the problem.
The company hasn’t been living up to their own standards of late and a lot of it is avoidable. Of course deadlines factor into it but we all have deadlines. Some positive things can be said about deadlines. They don’t allow for procrastination for one.
Sometimes I think this is just the nature of the internet now. Many big named game publishing companies put out absolute trash in the 80s and 90s. You’d never see them review bombed because online review sites were small or non-existent. It’s just not like that anymore which is why a lot of internal stuff they develop never sees the light of day. The problem then is if you go years without producing anything of value it looks very bad to your shareholders. So you have to leak crap and you know it’s crap but dire times are dire times.
What the answer is IMO is to sniff out any corporate decay. Anything that might be influencing the Pareto principle in a negative way for the company. Specifically what office rules are potentially driving talent away. Are they being paid well enough. Do they need more incentives. All of that needs to be asked in this situation. Do not allow office rules to ruin a good thing.
