I’m not a fan of Windows, especially Windows 11. I use Windows OS because most everything I use is optimized for Windows. This gives me a negative view of Microsoft. To be fair, I’m asking for other opinions. I know some have said MS will be the last nail in WOW’s coffin, at least for them. I’ll wait & see before I make any comments concerning if I play future expansions or not.
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I expect massive microtransactions and gambling boxes coming to the game so they can recoup their investment cost.
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Possibly. It’s really a toss up when you trade one corporate leadership for another.
Microsoft has killed studios in the past, but they’ve gotten better, and also recognize that Blizzard’s IPs are cashcows that need to be properly supported.
I’d say I’m optimistic.
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They did layoffs earlier this year
You really think Microsoft is their angel? Once Microsoft deal is finalized they’re gonna wish they never been merged
They’re gonna wish Bobby back so bad after Microsoft butchers job positions left and right
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The outlook doesn’t look good.
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Praying for WoW on gamepass. All my buddies that left to start families would return if the sub gets rolled into GP.
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Yes, they have a reputation to uphold and it’s not a redundant IP in their lineup.
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Who wants to wish Bobeelzebub to be back? 
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Potentially can improve WoW anyway. Only time will tell, assuming the bri’ish stop mucking up the merger process.
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hope so. 
replace dumb ion though, he is a cancer on this game.
hey clueless director that’s too lazy to say anything constructive.
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Step 1: Fix WoW
Step 2: New IP
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit
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That’s pretty naive.
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People think Microsoft acquisition of Activision-Blizzard is bad. Imagine if it was Amazon Gaming?
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i believe i said hopefully. meaning im hoping. not that it will.
also do you think Blizz is killing it with wow? thats some pretty low standards then.
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It’s a mistake to assume that things can’t get any worse. Too many times they have.
I was with one company for 13 years – I did the implementation with its very first for-pay customer. Then about a year after it was sold to Boeing, all the executive team’s retention deals were up, they started leaving and were replaced with new executives who knew nothing about the company.
I was the designer and lead developer on two of the company’s past products – the only two that anyone was interested in buying, and a major contributor to their new project, which was building off my previous designs.
But I got hands-down the worst boss I’ve ever had in my life. I got laid off by him after suffering under him for a few months. He wasn’t even interested in understanding what we were doing. Within two months a different engineering manager called me and asked if I’d come back on contract to keep working on the project I’d developed. I already had another job by that point and I told him “No. I don’t work for companies that don’t value me.” Within a year, the company was out of business.
The good guys get laid off all the time. At that same company in a much earlier, pre-Boeing round of layoffs, I watched them lay off the guy who was the primary architect and developer of the company’s single most important application. I actually sent an email to the new at the time CEO saying, basically, “Don’t lay off this guy. He’s essential. The loss would be incalculable.” But they didn’t listen. That was the beginning of the end for that company. It just took a while.
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You said:
…which is the kind of thing a bad manager does. Developers aren’t interchangeable. Every time you let a long-standing developer go, you lose institutional knowledge. With code as large and complex as World of Warcraft, the new guys will never completely understand everything, which is a recipe for disaster – new things they implement cause old things to break, and they don’t understand why. Then they become afraid of changing the old stuff, because they can’t predict the consequences. I’ve seen this in real life. Repeatedly. Blizzard is already down that path since the Activision acquisition and all the employee turnover due to the “scandals.” It’s not going to get better under Microsoft. They’ll have executives and replacements who not only don’t understand what they have, but don’t want to take the time to understand what they have.
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I would say that generally speaking, the best employees don’t get laid off. They leave on their own, because they have the best options, and they’re sharp enough to see how things are going.
Note to all: if your company leader tells employees there are no layoffs ahead, there’s a big wave of layoffs coming.
The issue is that it’s the managers who are the problem. For the most part, the people who do the work are just doing their jobs as best they can, given the poor guidance they often get from managers who got their job because of who they knew.
I feel like this is why it’s important to be subcontracted rather than W2ed, so valuable people can insulate themselves from inevitable disruption as businesses change hands/leadership.