The Blizzard Problem - Garrett Fuller - MMORPG.com

SBFord · February 2019

The Blizzard Problem - Garrett Fuller - MMORPG.com

This was a tough week for anyone who works for Blizzard Entertainment or anyone who is a fan of the games. The Blizzard community has grown and fostered over many years now. Always heightened at BlizzCon the company was preaching unity, equality, and passion for their games worldwide. This message rung true to millions and it showed. However, all that began to take a turn for the worse these past few months.

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Avanah · February 2019

All that writing I see and there is really only ONE word to answer the Title:

Greed!

Galadourn · February 2019

yeah, when things get out of scale the swings of the pendulum are much more fierce. Was to be expected really.

Aeander · February 2019

Blizzard is a company that prides itself on longer development times and polished games.

This isn't conducive to the shareholder-driven quarterly earnings of a publicly traded company, and that is why the merge with Activision is so detrimental to Blizzard's identity.

It's only going to get worse as Blizzard is contorted and restructured, with too many cooks in the kitchen developing games and expansions on shorter time tables to fit Activision's fiscal-year mold.

Pher0cious · February 2019

Blizzard is dead. Just let it die. Put your money and support behind CD Projekt.

laserit · February 2019

Reputation that took years or even decades to build can be lost in an instant.

Looking back at 2018 the writing was on the wall when Morhaime left. I think he was forced out.

Lobotomist · February 2019

You remember when EA bought Bioware. And lot of us said Bioware is dead. But most said, give them a chance its not over yet. And years passed and we never ever seen anything resembling their old days games.

Well this is that moment for Blizzard. Basically its dead now in all but name. The key people left. The rest will be forced to churn projects that they have little love for fast.

It is opposite to all that defined Blizzard.

They might just as well change their name now

Panther2103 · February 2019

It's interesting to see how companies that were looked at as greats, are slowly diminishing into garbage.

Pher0cious · February 2019

Lobotomist said:

They might just as well change their name now

They have. They're called Activision.

Aeander · February 2019

Pher0cious said:

Blizzard is dead. Just let it die. Put your money and support behind CD Projekt.

My current developers/publishers of choice:

CDProjekt Red
Nintendo (especially Intelligent Systems)
Atlus
Sony (especially through Insomniac and Santa Monica Studio)

jj7009 · February 2019

I'll have to politely disagree with a point the author made. WoW's problem isn't that it changed to little and failed to experiment. It's that it changed to much and failed to innovate on their original formula. Trial of the crusader is the point where it started to change, It really is sad because I feel if they had kept adding new content with harder end game activities besides raiding and dungeons (think benedition and anathema quest/world pvp) and instead focused on revamping classes every expansion and losing sight of what made each individual aspect that came together to make the game great. It really is a case of the whole being more than the sum of its parts.

Scot · February 2019

What no one seems to be asking is how much does this relate the merger. How many of these non-developer jobs where lost after the merger? If hardly any you have to ask does your company need two marketing divisions and so on. And the "merger" seems to be very much in Activisons favour.

Now if your profit is huge you may decide to keep things as they are, but if it goes down then you start the cuts. But here profits were good so is this just down to wringing every last penny they can out of the company? Possibly but it could also be that the outlook does not look good, no new projects etc does not look good for future profitability.

So it maybe that the job cuts are a reflection of that, the "merger" has hit home.

Hatefull · February 2019

Oh the drama.

turinmacleod · February 2019

I wouldn't say Blizz has been "changing for the last couple of months", I'd say we started seeing the influence of Activision YEARS ago. 2014, soon after the merger was signed, we started seeing small changes that I judge as put forth by the Activision influence. Now the decay has gone too deep and too long, I don't see Blizzard escaping this situation before their demise and complete assimilation into the Activision shitshow.

T

rodarin · February 2019

LOL everyone trying to 'fix' shit thats not theirs. Its the mantra of the video gamer. I do it myself. But bottom line is theyre making record profits so what exactly is wrong? Theyre catering to enough people to make more money than they EVER have and thats (supposedly) with all these negative issues they have had including some games that (opinion) werent received well.

At one point the flagship game World of Warcraft had 12-15 million people playing it. People can argue semantics on who paid what for subscriptions but bottomline is theyre making MORE than that now and that game probably doesnt have 3 million subs right now.

Its like me sittign and railing on Cris Roberts for what he does. He is never going to change because he still has money coming in. Doesnt matter what anyone thinks of how he goes about doing it or even WHAT he is doing with it (apparently it ISNT making the best damn space sim ever).

It has been and will continue to be about money regardless of any rainbows and unicorn stories people want to try and make you believe. And right now Blizzrd/activison is making more than they ever have.

Ziboo · February 2019

If they'd LOST money and needed to make the changes, but when you didn't make as much as you'd like, with the CEO and others not making any 'sacrifices' in their wages - screw that greedy mentality.

Cancelled my sub when this news came out. Heartless greed like that - you don't need my measly sub then do you? Money's what they understand well goody Bliz/Act, hope more people will give you the message you can understand.

As the previous poster has mention Chris Robert - OMG don't get me started on that vision - and he keeps selling new pixel ships.

Pemmin · February 2019

OldSchoolGamer said:

Blizzard still made more money than the rest of ActivisionBlizzard. Blizzard didn't have a bad year. Matter of fact, it was record profits for Blizzard. World of Warcraft is still their top producing product thanks to the item mall and token selling. IMHO, the entire reason for the 800 layoffs is because Activision is going to use Blizzard's check book to pay off the nearly $400 million tax debt that is due this year for Activision buying King. IMHO, King should have to pay off it's own tax debt since their CEO, COO and CFO made out like bandits on Aciivision buying out King.

where are you getting that number? I only see like ~50 million in tax deferment on the ATVI balance sheet. Feel like its just a cost cutting measure because they know revenue in 2019 is going to be down significantly because of lack of releases.

mmrv · February 2019

uhm say what? There is no blizzard problem. This is the SJW socialist crew sticking their nose where it doesn't belong. Blizzard is blizzard nothing has changed. they have always been greedy its why the original owners sold off their ownership for millions and walked off into the sunset lol. Its why blizzard even before they sold off refused to ever make another mmorpg,"why should we they said we are making hundreds of millions of our customers now so why compete with ourselves who cares what the fans want, we are trying to make as much money as possible!

I mean really you have the gall to suggest this is going to be a hard year for gamers because blizzard lays off 800 unneeded staff? I'm a gamer and sorry to bust the bubble but this wont impact me at all, further more all over this country people lose jobs every day 800 is nothing....in comparison. Where are you to defend the poor companies as employee's constantly flee the coup for a 3% raise at the next company? who is greedy then?

Better yet why isnt this webpage only covering mmorpg's like it used to? gasp it couldnt be greed could it? I mean lets add fortnite articles we will get more clicks, we can then use the higher visits to raise add revenue so i can make more profits! that type of greed is okay who cares what our core readers and fans who made this site what it is think or want!

The hypocrisy is thick and political undertones are thick and get thicker everyday on this website. I can list off tens and tens of actual MMORPG's your site barely covers if at all which should be covered, but i get fortnite info and anthem info, thats not greed based right its not because this sites goal isnt to milk every penny it can right?

Pot meet kettle, hard to believe how many people fall for this stuff. No i'm sorry blizzard laying off 800 people because they just had a huge product cycle (expansions) and has no work for these excess employees wont make for a hard year for gamers, its just the usual ebb and flow of game development just like how every MMORPG ever released results in a good portion of the staff laid off in the months that follow, blizzard is just a larger scale company, and make no mistake those people who developed those games all run away with fat checks yet crickets from people like you...oh yea you depend on them to get your next "scoop" so its okay /boggle.

WarEnsemble · February 2019

Maybe its just me, but I can't believe anyone really gives a shit about Blizzard employees getting laid off. All I care about is a quality game and quality updates. If these things don't exist, I stop playing, and in some cases, buying, their games. I haven't bought a blizzard title since Burning Crusade.

SBFord · February 2019

@jj7009 Your comments are out of line and off topic. Stop immediately please.

Signex · February 2019

Hatefull said:

jj7009 said:

Hatefull said:

Oh the drama.

Welcome to the internet, panzy little nightlord complaining about drama. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE, MAIM KILL BURN!

Where did I complain? It's a statement, not a complaint.

I am certainly not a panzy, I am actually a highly decorated Veteran of the U.S. Marines. I fought in real wars.

I have been on the internet, I would guess, decades longer than you.

Why do you feel it necessary to attack me personally? Over a sentence?

Just ignore people like that lol, don't get yourself worked up over a random person online.

And tbh i don't see why you have to bring up that you're a marine though.
No offense intended, just find it weird.

Viper482 · February 2019

This is what happens when you stop listening to your customers and thinking you know what they want better than they do.

Iselin · February 2019

Blizzard is behaving exactly like the corporation they have become. They're no different than EA and the other heavy hitters and any semblance of giving shit about what gamers care about is just PR spin based on what it once was but has not been for many years now.

What surprises me is that this surprises anyone in 2019.

If you still insist in wanting to like studios and not just individual games you need to set your sights much lower to independent studios before they become too big and start behaving just like every other corporation.

FlyByKnight · February 2019

All hail unmitigated, scale tipping, tribal capitalism.

Pemmin · February 2019

OldSchoolGamer said:

Pemmin said:

OldSchoolGamer said:

Blizzard still made more money than the rest of ActivisionBlizzard. Blizzard didn't have a bad year. Matter of fact, it was record profits for Blizzard. World of Warcraft is still their top producing product thanks to the item mall and token selling. IMHO, the entire reason for the 800 layoffs is because Activision is going to use Blizzard's check book to pay off the nearly $400 million tax debt that is due this year for Activision buying King. IMHO, King should have to pay off it's own tax debt since their CEO, COO and CFO made out like bandits on Aciivision buying out King.

where are you getting that number? I only see like ~50 million in tax deferment on the ATVI balance sheet. Feel like its just a cost cutting measure because they know revenue in 2019 is going to be down significantly because of lack of releases.

It's the tax penalty for Activision buying a Swiss company. Activision knew going in that this year, $400 million would be owed. Activision is trying to fight this, but it just isn't going to work. The bottom line is, if you do the research, Activision bought King knowing full well of tax liability they'd have to pay because of the loss of revenue to that government that funded King to begin with.

thanks for the information it must be listed with other miscellaneous liabilities then

Margrave · February 2019

The Blizzard of old is dead. What's left is a zombie husk. The suits with their greed killed it, and now won't let it die restfully.

It's just Weekend at Blizzard's instead of Bernie's, and yes I just dated myself.

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