Current Events > Blizzard is doomed

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://kotaku.com/with-activisions-influence-growing-blizzard-is-cutting-1831263741

Blizzard has spent the year taking big measures to cut costs as it prepares for a lean 2019. Those measures, as conveyed by people who work or have worked for the iconic studio, include employee buyouts in which workers are offered money to leave, a broadening of the finance department, and the limitation of budgets for any team at the company that isnt directly making video games.

Much of Blizzards cost-cutting has gone unreported until recently, but its been a consistent theme throughout 2018 at the Irvine, California-based studio behind mega-hits like Overwatch and World of Warcraft. One Blizzard program, for example, is called Career Crossroads. It offers healthy severance packages to people who voluntarily take buyouts and choose to leave the company. At first, Career Crossroads was designed for veteran customer service representatives who had been at Blizzard for more than five years, but this year, it opened up to QA and IT, according to one person familiar with the program. Blizzard has also lowered the number of years required to take a buyout, opening up Career Crossroads to even more employees, likely in hopes of increasing those numbers.

Over the course of the last year, Blizzard has been trying very actively to find creative ways to cut costs that wont draw negative press attention, said a former employee.

Last month, a Kotaku investigation revealed that Blizzards staff have been told to reduce expenses while at the same time produce more games. There are likely several reasons for this shift in priorities, including a lack of consistent output, a weak year for Activision-Blizzard overall, and Activisions increasing influence on Blizzard, which has traditionally been an autonomous company but has been overseen by Activisions CEO, Bobby Kotick, since the two companies merged in 2008. That influence has grown this year in many ways both blatant and subtle.

For Novembers report, we talked to 11 current and former Blizzard employees. Since then, weve heard from even more current and former Blizzard staff about the companys cost-cutting measures and how theyve materialized. The Career Crossroads program is one example. Another, according to three Blizzard staff who all left recently, is a power shift that has seen the finance department cultivate influence that it had never had in the past.

Finance in general in Blizzard has been one of these invisible functions thats there, but doesnt have a say, said one veteran employee who left recently and asked not to be named because they were not authorized to talk to press. Now theyre suddenly in meetings.

Said a second, who also asked not to be named: A lot of decisions now are being driven by business folks, marketing and finance folks. Theres a real struggle now between developers and the business people Strategic decisions are being driven by the finance group.
Yadda Yadda Yadda
Blizzard has gone years without releasing a brand new game, while Activision hasnt let a fall go by without a new Call of Duty since 2004.

Now, Morhaime is gone, and Activision appears to have more influence on Blizzard than it ever has. Will Blizzards games-as-a-service, release-it-when-its-ready approach to development survive these new changes?

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Even if Blizzard gets shut down, Activision will maintain the various series. No way will they let Warcraft StarCraft and Diablo just end

You either die a hero, or live long enough to get bought out by a major publisher and gutted for every penny you're worth
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Hardcore / Legacy fans for blizzard games are no longer the core target audience.

They realise they can make more money aiming to hit the newer casual gamer than the older hardcore games.

A vocal minority of fans will make a lot of noise, but ultimately outside of a few very specific cases, aiming to the casual market makes more money.

You cant blame them. Despite it being frustrating to me and I definitely agree with the complaints. With how expensive it is to make games these days gearing your product towards a niche market of hardcore fans just isnt financially viable. Shame really.
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They shouldve bought GGG and Path of Exile, too late since Tencent is way smarter than their ass.
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They'll be fine.
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Zikten posted...

Even if Blizzard gets shut down, Activision will maintain the various series. No way will they let Warcraft StarCraft and Diablo just end

You should check out what they did with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Guitar Hero before they executed those franchises unceremoniously

Get ready for a surge of shitty spinoffs and mobile games before those games are just dead and gone, with one dogshit revival after a few years just to drive home the fact that if they could nail those franchises to a cross, they would
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Morhaime leaving was the final nail.

Now it's just the slow death of a behemoth...
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Crepes posted...

They realise they can make more money aiming to hit the newer casual gamer than the older hardcore games.

They've been targeting casual gamers since 2010. This isn't anything new.
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The state of the industry today really does hurt having grown up alongside it.

No more heroes, just dead reanimated shells shambling along at best.
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VectorChaos posted...

The state of the industry today really does hurt having grown up alongside it.

No more heroes, just dead reanimated shells shambling along at best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsD4im7K3wg" data-time="
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ZMythos posted...

Crepes posted...

They realise they can make more money aiming to hit the newer casual gamer than the older hardcore games.

They've been targeting casual gamers since 2010. This isn't anything new.

Sure thing. Curious. Did you get from my post I was saying this was a new thing? Wasnt meaning to if it came across that way.
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Crepes posted...

Sure thing. Curious. Did you get from my post I was saying this was a new thing? Wasnt meaning to if it came across that way.

Maybe it came off that way at first.

I wasn't trying to be aggressive, so I apologize if I did.
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ohnoitschris posted...

Zikten posted...

Even if Blizzard gets shut down, Activision will maintain the various series. No way will they let Warcraft StarCraft and Diablo just end

You should check out what they did with Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and Guitar Hero before they executed those franchises unceremoniously

Get ready for a surge of shitty spinoffs and mobile games before those games are just dead and gone, with one dogshit revival after a few years just to drive home the fact that if they could nail those franchises to a cross, they would

At the very least WoW will survive. It still makes a lot of money

RIP
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The company's quality is lost.

BfA is an example.
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Wow, you mean to tell me a company bought out by Activision is gonna churn out garbage games and get worse overall? Im shocked. This is totally the first time this has ever happened.
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I was kinda excited for Warcraft 3 Remake, but now I'm worried.
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Zikten posted...

At the very least WoW will survive. It still makes a lot of money

It really doesn't...at least not compared to something like Overwatch. The game is losing people on the daily. Its no coincidence that they tied a rather unique mount like the pirate ship to paying for 6 months of sub time upfront...no matter what they want people to believe.
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sylverlolol posted...

Zikten posted...

At the very least WoW will survive. It still makes a lot of money

It really doesn't...at least not compared to something like Overwatch. The game is losing people on the daily. Its no coincidence that they tied a rather unique mount like the pirate ship to paying for 6 months of sub time upfront...no matter what they want people to believe.

Or add an insane layer of RNG to increase time played metric.
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Spooking posted...

VectorChaos posted...

...

Good ol' Westwood. I remember PvP being so chaotic in Nox back in the day: somebody would hook you, and as you were being dragged a random spell would kill you. Wild times.

That sounds hilarious and fun.
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