It all makes sense now.
I just realized that the people defending poor systems, game design, and intentionally time-gated requirements for everything likely own shares of Activision Blizzard.
I guess the desire for an increased dividend of 1 cent per share is more important than the quality of life for all of the players.
To any Male Human Paladins out there… Cough cough… You know who you are… Stop pretending like you own enough shares to care about time-played metrics.
I wish there were time-played metrics reported to investors, that way I could support them.
Shareholders will never really be blamed, they make the devs take responsibility for their bidding.
You are right. The board of directors always makes any important decisions. The devs are just there to play puppet to their corporate masters.
The CEO directs, but always ALWAYS answers to the board.
Care to explain how all the stuff you listed which is supposedly causing people to quit in droves is helping increase the value of the stock?
I have NO idea who you’re talking about… 
(/s)
Brother. Activision Blizzard is more than just WOW. WOW could be causing hemorrhaging, but other areas performing so well, they pick up the slack.
Proof you ask? WOD. How many accounts were lost? Never recovered.
Very rarely does a business succeed in all its endeavors.
So if my left arm is bleeding profusely I can just ignore it because my right arm is ok?
When you are a 100 legged octopus, yes. You can ignore one leg bleeding profusely. Your analogy does not work, it implies that they only have two sources of revenue.
Yes but you said all that stuff is producing an increased dividend. How?
Oh, that is simple.
With the introduction of micro transactions. They have increased the growth of the stock, potentially increased dividends, and made holders happy.
The issue is, the quality of life within the game itself is nosedived. I would be a very large sum of money that if everyone agreed to stop buying ANY microtransactions, we would see a quality increase of drastic proportions to classes and content.
They having been losing subs consistently since about WOD, but the players remaining are loyal and older now, mid 30s or so. They have money and they spend it in the Blizzard store on microtransactions.
Just wait. The next step is adding tokens to classic WoW. 
Nope… just no. It’s too early and I have not had nearly enough caffeine.
(puts out a tray of cookies because it’s Friday and I’m polite)
Are we thinking about the same person…? A certain MALE HUMAN PALADIN that pretends to be a comic book hero?
It just doesn’t add up. The only microtransactions are mounts, pets, toys,and tokens. Time gating doesn’t help sell mounts.
I’ve seen this argument before about how ruining the game some how makes it more valuable to shareholders. It’s like saying you keyed your own car to increase the trade in value.
If you didn’t buy shares in this cash cow thats on you now keep playing your time gate loot box sim I want a better then average quarterly profits review.
Level boosts and race changes. Ever notice how many new races they have been adding? There are A LOT of people that race change when a new one comes out. They used to add the new races playable without a lock of rep or time investment. Burning Crusade. Now they lock them behind exalted rep and a questline. That adds a month of a sub to complete before you can even pay for a race change.
So, they did not key their own car. They are however keeping it in running condition for as long as possible without ever cleaning it though. So the value technically doesn’t decrease, you still keep driving it cause it runs, but the car is a pile of doodoo visually / feel.
Ever notice the amount of races added in the last two expansions? Post the WOD loss of subs? Odd timing isn’t it?
Did the GD hivemind take some skill share course in finance that now fuels this entire corporate conspiracy theory
It is not theory nor conspiracy. It is simple business. Does not take a course or a genius. Money is the ultimate driver in a capitalist country and a corporation. It drives ALL decision making. Thinking otherwise is blatant dishonesty to yourself.
I am amazed that people think shareholders care about the corruption rotation vendor or alts getting cloaks leveled up fast.
Yeah but don’t you think it’s a bit of a stretch to think that the average WoW player is going to be investing in shares and also being on the GD to defend the game. Like I’d think people who do that have other things to do with their time like building up a portfolio