The last movie “Split” was actually pretty decent, mainly due to James McAvoy being brilliant.
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Google various company stocks and stretch them out over a six month period. EA, Nintendo, Take Two, etc all show decline in value, even though certain games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Pokemon Lets Go and Smash have had record sales. It’s a bear market right now and a lot of stock prices are going down, even for companies that are making all the right decisions.
That being said I don’t have much opinion on the change in CFO. It’s a pretty simplified view but the CFO has always in my mind been primarily an accounting guy and their decisions might bear some impact on the bottom line, but they deal with the administrative and financial side of the business more so than the operating side. I just feel like the CFO’s influence is going to be more indirect.
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It’s a bear market right now and
Hehe. It’s funny because you’re a pandaren.
Ah…but seriously, it’s low-key scary that we might be heading towards another recession O.o
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We are absolutely heading toward another recession. If you follow financial news (which I don’t on purpose but have ended up with a bunch in my mentions somehow) a lot of experts are predicting an unavoidable crash in the next couple of years.
Which makes sense as they never actually fixed what was wrong with the economy after the last one but just patched some of the cracks so rich people could keep getting richer.
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…do you think we can handle another crash?
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lol I dunno the whole world is burning anyway. I’m just here to play games and not think about how we’re all gonna die in the next ten years.
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To me, the problem would stem from what could pull the industry out of the crash were it to happen again. Last time, the NES saved the day, but we’re so progressed past the innovations of an accessible home console that it would probably take something else entirely new to kick-start the industry as the NES did in the 80s. Could there be something? Sure, who knows, but if the crash happens in the next couple years we could be in for a rough ride.
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I did read an article that basically said blizzards stock dropping was a correction, not really an indication of bad times specifically on Blizzards part. Corrections, from what I understand based on my five seconds of looking at investopedia, are general trends in a market that allow advisors to predict stock drops like this one. If all gaming companies are showing negative points, it can probably be assumed that Blizzard will be affected too.
What’s interesting is that corrections, I guess, are normal and supposedly healthy for the market. So, while to us it may seem like because blizzcon was bad blizzards doomed and needs to adjust their plans or all is lost, they were probably expecting something like this to happen sooner or later because stocks always go up and down and despite the drop, they’re still up by a lot over the past 5 years. They were riding high from BfAs launch and now have leveled out… which is something that happens probably every expansion.
Maybe the CFO was fired for a Netflix thing and not this. Maybe not, who knows, but it’s not looking so black and white as I initially thought.
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Same, different industry but same beaucracy. My company went without a CFO for idk how long but it was still just business as usual. We had some upper management changes recently and the affects are pretty minimal for myself and most folks I work with.
Also pure speculation, the firing may have been a result of some sorta breach of contract by the CFO for reaching out to Netflix or letting Netflix poach them and Blizz firing the CFO frees them from paying out any stock or bonuses etc.
I don’t really think of this as a doom and gloom thing. Like others have said, stocks have slumped since the start of the year.
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Tech stocks are down across the board, so I’m not quite in the “SEE, BLIZZARD?! THIS IS BECAUSE OF BFA!!” camp. It’s as much of a general tech downturn with a lot of factors than a company-specific dive based on a title or two.
But with that said - I don’t think I’d put too much weight into the idea the changing CFO stuff will “fix” anything. Blizzard’s now a transitional company - think Disney moving from “that company that makes nice cartoon movies” into “a multimedia empire” kind of thing.
The writing’s been on the wall about this for a while now, with the departures of people you’d have to describe as “quality-driven” - the people wanting to make great games, and who have been willing to cancel titles to maintain quality.
But we’re now dealing with a Blizzard who own their own e-sports arena and who are charging $20 million to create a licensed e-sports team, and who are licensing out their own IP to external companies (Diablo Immortal).
Those speak of a company that just isn’t the same animal as the one that’s been around for the past 30-odd years, and without people that guard the company’s founding principles that have been there from the beginning, the people who are willing to do so are likely to be getting more and more thin on the ground.
I think it’s far more likely that a new CFO is going to be directed to tighten up the company’s finances, make sure money isn’t “being wasted” on what will be framed as “lost revenue” (but that people like Morhaime would have called “ensuring Blizzard quality”), and who will be willing to do those things in order to keep their job no matter what their personal feelings about Blizzard may have been previously.
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Activision also just laid off 100 people. That coupled with reports that things between Activision and Blizzard are tense right now, Diablo: Immortal’s horribly-received announcement, and WoW’s sub numbers… isn’t good. I still think it’s safe to say things are looking rough for them right now. Doesn’t mean Blizzard is done for. But we also don’t have to pretend things are going great for them currently.
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Yeah, kind of a rough patch I suppose. That’s healthy for them, though. Blizzard has taken beatings in the past and risen to the challenge to deliver something good.
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Well let’s just hope it’s a wake up call. Instead of them playing “what are our customers doing wrong that brought us here?” As they’ve been so fond of the last 6 months.
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This is my hope. I’m dissatisfied as hell with their games at the moment, so seeing if that spark of ingenuity and creative passion can still rise up to create something great is what I crave. We can only hope this is the case. If not, I doubt I’ll have patience for another chance in me.
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Their process no longer seems to be figuring out “What would be a good, fun idea?” and more “What would result in the most sales?”
The problem is, doing the first thing can usually turn a nice profit. While ironically, designing something from the ground up with the intent of making it as financially efficient as possible often leads to it flopping.
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It’s my theory (as in, I’d have a hard time proving it) that the beatings tend to deliver better products, honestly.
Blizzard’s feedback system is so strange in that they only ever seem to register negative feedback and interpret praise in some very peculiar ways.
“How do you like Artifacts?”
“It’s great having another source of progression, as well as something that makes you feel powerful and changes up your gameplay. But the grind is kind of obnoxious and the RNG element of having to find Legendaries isn’t great.”
“Got it. Well, here’s a new system like Artifacts except you still grind, it doesn’t give you active abilities, you get only one trait instead of several and the RNG is incorporated right into the armor so you have to find different armor rather than different legendaries.”
“W-what?”
That’s a simplified version of things, don’t get me wrong, but you see where I’m going with this.
“It’s great, but” is thoughtful and nuanced, which means its implementation usually gets convoluted.
“This sucks because [reasons]” is direct, which demands a response, which they frequently deliver on.
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I loved the Spiderman films, especially because of J. J. Jameson. I didn’t know that actor’s name until just now, but I definitely agree! He was pretty much the real life Jameson! It was fantastic.
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I find myself waning on playtime with WoW again honestly. I resubbed to give the content a chance and while I did enjoy the Alliance stuff I find myself going back to Guild Wars 2 and ESO (especially with the rumors of an Elsweyr DLC and a Necromancer class on the horizon for ESO)
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This is my mantra lately.
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I told one of my friends who was concerned to give it one last wait - I fully believe this is the last war Blizzard plans on doing. Everything points at it being the last, big slap-fight. If it is, maybe they’ll be able to move on to other, more interesting things at last.
I’m hopeful. Skeptical, but hopeful. If they keep it up after this, I don’t know if I’ll stick around.
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