Blizzard's Grave Mistake

On May 31 2010 14:52 Megalisk wrote:
Blizzard is a business. Money comes first, we come second, we are not their "masters".

On May 31 2010 14:54 dybydx wrote:

who do you think they get their money from?

On May 31 2010 14:54 dybydx wrote:

who do you think they get their money from?

On May 31 2010 14:58 404.Delirium wrote:
Reminds me of something said on that After Talk concerning the scandal that stuck out to me.

Are the fans the root or the fruit?

On May 31 2010 14:48 dybydx wrote:
Look at Starcraft for example. Why was it godly popular in Korea but not in USA? Because the gamers and fans of SK supported SC. It is not because SK broadcaster had more money than US ones.

On May 31 2010 14:54 dybydx wrote:

who do you think they get their money from?

On May 31 2010 14:58 404.Delirium wrote:
Reminds me of something said on that After Talk concerning the scandal that stuck out to me.

Are the fans the root or the fruit?

On May 31 2010 14:48 dybydx wrote:
If our servant fails to please us, he will be replaced. Blizzard has no monopoly over us. The video game industry is cut throat, many (Command and Conquer, Halo Wars, Guitar Hero) programmers and game developers have been fired in the last 2 yrs. They are eager to seek a new master.

On May 31 2010 14:57 kNyTTyM wrote:


the masses of casuals.

On May 30 2010 07:18 Froadac wrote:

Knowing somebody that works there, it's a great environment. They are trying to cut benefits but Morhaine is holding strong. Also, the employees are stuck in an interesting position. From what I've heard they get pretty ridiculously good percs from activision, but everyone's alliance still lies with Morhaine. (at least the old timers)

On May 31 2010 15:14 TheYango wrote:

Given the issues mentioned with regard to employee benefits brought up in the Activision-Blizzard history thread:


I would say that Morhaime and Kotick are the masters of virtually all of Blizzard, seeing as they control who gets paid how much (which, at the employee level, is the only thing that actually affects anyone). And Kotick probably has enough control over Morhaime on a lot of issues to have control over everything that Morhaime isn't extremely adamant about.

As romantic as it sounds for the fans to be the ultimate decider, it's really not the case for the most part. Yeah, if Blizzard's sales are poor, heads will roll and people will get fired, but if they start going out of line with regard to what Activision wants them to do, that's also going to make heads roll and get people fired (look what happened to Infinity Ward).

In the long term, we make an impact on what's going to happen, but in the short term, that's not realistic. I'm sure most of the Blizzard employees would rather get fired in 18 months rather than get fired now.

On May 31 2010 15:19 mOnion wrote:
im not understanding this activision >>> blizzard garbage people keep spraying.

blizzard still remains as a separate entity and held all their corporate leadership after the merger.

On May 31 2010 15:25 TheYango wrote:

They answer to the same Board of Directors, which happens to have Bobby Kotick on it, who is also president of the Activision side of things. Effectively, the guy who runs Activision has a hand in decisions that directly affect Blizzard.

On May 31 2010 15:29 mOnion wrote:


right but its not "what he says goes"

it'd be the decision of the BoD as a whole for any significant changes to take place. people just assume that activision is the mommy, and if mommy aint happy, no one happy. which isnt true.

its an indirect effect at best.

On May 31 2010 15:29 mOnion wrote:
its an indirect effect at best. and no morhaime does not answer directly to him. activision is a garb 3rd party developer, whereas Blizzard owns the RTS and MMO market and brings in far more revenue (i'd imagine)

On May 31 2010 15:32 TheYango wrote:

I made an edit. Bobby Kotick is the president of "Activision Blizzard". Mike Morhaime is the president of "Blizzard Entertainment". The corporate structure of Blizzard is maintained, but as I put in my previous post, it makes sense for Morhaime to be directly beneath Kotick alone in the structure of things.

the masses of casuals.

On May 31 2010 15:40 dybydx wrote:

you can not generate "superior profit" from casuals.

On May 31 2010 15:14 TheYango wrote:

Blizzard in effect has a monopoly over us by virtue of the fact that no other major RTS developer can really deliver the same gameplay experience.

SC1 blows SC2 out of the water, but SC2 also trumps every other major RTS by just as much.

Nintendo would disagree with you.

On May 31 2010 16:11 dybydx wrote:

Nintendo's line of casual games do not generate superior profit from casual gamers. this does not mean they dont generate profit, it only means they make about as much money as any other mass dump titles.

while you can name examples like Wii Sports as exception, this is largely due to unique development of the Wii console rather than the game itself. It is very easy to copy the code of Wii sports into say... XBox360, but it will not have the same success. On average, casual games can not generate superior profit largely because of how easy it is for competitors to copy the game.

Although my definition of casual may be different than yours. For example, you may claim Mario Bros series is casual, but given the addition and speedruns ppl devote to it, its hardly casual anymore...

On May 31 2010 16:18 mOnion wrote:


...wat are you saying.

you cant make wii sports on the 360 because the 360 doesnt market to the casual audience. if you made a port to it, no one would buy that garbage cuz your mom doesnt own a 360.

you're really not making any sense

the Wii continues to be the superior (using your word) console on the market because they advertise properly to the casual crowd and push out shovelware that appeals to that crowd. people only have to buy the game once

blizzard is following the current trend of marketing to casuals because it WORKS. there are more of them and they're easier to please.

On May 31 2010 16:25 JohannesH wrote:
casual this casual that...

On May 31 2010 15:40 dybydx wrote:

you can not generate "superior profit" from casuals. casuals are ppl who are as likely to pickup a copy of SC2 as they would pick up Tetris. This is because they are unable to distinguish the quality difference between the products. When quality doesnt matter, it became a competition of who can pump out the most number of titles to flood the market, since each product has an equal likelihood of being purchased. Look at EA's games. EA publish the most titles and all of them are garbage quality. Like auto-makers, consumers will eventually know a BMW is not the same as Honda.

Look at Command and Conquer, they released 8 games (+10 expansion) in the same time span as SC+BW. In the end, despite selling 30 million copies, the entire C&C dev team got fired.

On May 31 2010 16:28 Xeris wrote:


Uh. Evidence please?

Do you realize that SC2 has already had $13,000++ in prizes for events. Do you know that even when everyone and their grandma can get an SC2 beta key, people are still buying them? I don't know what you see, but every sign points to SC2 being HUGE. At this point, Blizzard could care less if they alienate the 10,000 hardcore foreign fans. If the current "top" players are disgusted with the game and won't play it, a buncha newbs will pick it up, get good, and win the tournaments. It's our loss if we don't buy into their game. We can try to change it, maybe we'll win out and get the final product we want, but we probably won't. We're going to have to live with it.

With society the way it is, this is how these things work. Blizzard's name is already so well established, SC2 has been hyped for about 3 years now, there's absolutely nothing anyone here can do to change that. This game will be huge whether you like it or not. Blizzard is going to make an insane amount of profit, whether you like it or not. The game will probably not end up the way many hardcore people at TL want it to be like, and whether you like it or not, that's how it will be.

And I can guarantee you this: I'm more involved in the community than you are, I've been around it longer, I've been more into the competitive scene as a player and in every other aspect than you. And personally, I love SC2. It's really fun, and competitive enough to make for entertaining games. I play it at a reasonably skilled level, I really enjoy sitting down and playing the game. I love watching streams and tournaments, and following events, teams, and players. This is all I need to make me happy. Sure, Bnet 2.0 or whatever is cumbersome and lame, but does it detract from my SC2 experience as a whole, not really.

And I can say with confidence that I'm a much more hardcore fan than the "casuals" that will flock to the game. If I love it, that's really all that matters. GG.

you cant make wii sports on the 360 because the 360 doesnt market to the casual audience. if you made a port to it, no one would buy that garbage cuz your mom doesnt own a 360.

you're really not making any sense

the Wii continues to be the superior (using your word) console on the market because they advertise properly to the casual crowd and push out shovelware that appeals to that crowd. people only have to buy the game once

blizzard is following the current trend of marketing to casuals because it WORKS. there are more of them and they're easier to please.

On May 31 2010 14:52 Megalisk wrote:
Blizzard is a business. Money comes first, we come second, we are not their "masters".

On May 31 2010 16:28 Xeris wrote:
Uh. Evidence please?

On May 31 2010 16:29 mOnion wrote:


hey >_< this is my argument, your punctuation and grammar aren't wanted here!

On May 31 2010 17:21 SoManyDeadLings wrote:
I laugh so hard whenever a random BW player thinks so highly of himself and the community in general.

Die-Hard BW fans: 8%

Hordes of 12-year old 30apm gamers: 92%

An exaggeration? Surely, but you get my point.

On May 31 2010 17:00 dybydx wrote:

you just answered your own question. Blizz owed its fame and success to its loyal fans like you, not to the group who will randomly pick up a copy of any game.

there are thousands of video games published every year. Very few of them are published by Blizz. In fact, there have been some years that Blizz did not publish a single game. However, Blizz has been one of the most valuable game developers.

Why arn't every developer catering to casual gamers as valuable as Blizzard?

On May 31 2010 18:32 IdrA wrote:
you're wrong and your arguments are terrible
blizzard is a company, their goal is to make as much money as possible. they dont have any debts of honor or whatever bullshit you're talking about and they only care if people value them in so far as it makes people more likely to buy their products. if sacrificing the competitive community would make them more money theyd do it in a heartbeat and it would suck ass, but it would be perfectly understandable.

On May 31 2010 15:29 mOnion wrote:


right but its not "what he says goes"

it'd be the decision of the BoD as a whole for any significant changes to take place. people just assume that activision is the mommy, and if mommy aint happy, no one happy. which isnt true.

its an indirect effect at best. and no morhaime does not answer directly to him. activision is a garb 3rd party developer, whereas Blizzard owns the RTS and MMO market and brings in far more revenue (i'd imagine)

On May 31 2010 19:24 IdrA wrote:
ya but like i said, you're wrong. theyve already established themselves as good. this means a shitload of people are gonna buy their game, more than would buy a mediocre game put out by a different company. so now their goal is to make something thats gonna make all those casual players want to buy more of their games, because thats where the money is. they outnumber us, and honestly we're all going to buy the game anyway, theres going to be a competitive sc2 scene no matter what. so why should they give a shit what we say?

casual gamers may not be able to tell the difference between a "good" and a "bad" game, but thats only because you're looking at competitive standards of good and bad. something can certainly be more or less enjoyable for a casual gamer, and thats obviously what blizzard is going for with the retarded ladder system and a bunch of other features.

On May 31 2010 20:47 CharlieMurphy wrote:
I like the part where you say something about a monopoly then list alternative games we could play. Very convincing

On May 31 2010 20:43 dybydx wrote:

A: i dont argue that blizz was already established as good based on prior work. i only argue their priority of immediate cash milking over customer satisfaction is running their company to the ground, financially. while they may still generate a profit, it will be low and bitter.

B: i am not measuring Blizz's decisions on SC2 solely by how competitive the game will be, but by our satisfaction of it (which is related its competitiveness).

C: i already pointed out, sales number doesn't always mean profit. shareholders don't care about sales, they care about return on investment.

A+B+C: You can generate superior return even when you have lower sale volume, as long as you maintain strong customer satisfaction (ie fan base). If you want some examples...

Blizzard vs EA: EA actually lost money when Blizz was rolling in cash, despite EA has 2x the sales.
Coke vs Pepsi: Pepsi slightly ahead in sales, but Coke far ahead in profit and market cap. Pepsi also make snacks so the comparison isnt perfect, but Coke's profitability is still higher.
BMW vs Volkswagen: Technically VW earned more total profits than BMW because of sheer volume but VW's margins are thinner and BMW is better return for your dollar.