I was writing this in response to the creativity and Blizzard thread and thought I would make my own blog post.
Basically, people were complaining that Blizzard games are declining in quality/creativity and this is a bad thing, blah blah. Okay, so I would like to shed some light on the situation by looking at it from a different perspective: by looking at Blizzard's financials.
If you really want to understand Blizzard as a company, I encourage you to read there investor related materials (they are no secret), such as there SEC filings and other publically available information and to listen to there quartlerly conference calls. Here is an example of some stuff (see below)
As a Blizzard share holder (semi-significant holdings) (fyi, I am LONG on Activision Blizzard, ATVI), I want Blizzard to make money $$, whether that means through creativitly launching new titles or through managing existing brands. The problem with companies like Blizzard, EA, etc. are two fold (1) young people today are financially strapped and (2) it's a huge risk to take on a new project (that could potentially be a huge flop, i.e. like a John Carter).
Number 1 is a problem that affects young people today in America, specifically young males 18-30. Unfortunately, this segment of the population tends to be riddled with student loan debt and historically low employment (essentially this demographic had the worst of if it during the recession). This not only affects video game sales (this demographic has less disposable income) but hurts other industries like beer/alcohol, for instance. Thus, the video game market, as a whole, rests on shakey financial footing, but I see room for long term growth as this segment of consumers recovers and Blizzard moves towards a younger audience, as well (i.e. Skyland) and social gaming (less hardcore folks/ advertisement based model).
Number 2, is a problem that faces companies large and small, but can litterally sink the ship of a small company (less so if it is a large one). From a financial perspective, I think it would be hard to justify spending enormous capital on severl original titles, in this economy. Of course, companies need to include some growth, but Blizzard should be very selective (which they seem to be). Throwing out several new creative titles, seems like a very high risk/only moderate reward strategy, especially when there is "easy money" on the table.
Historically, Blizzard's most profitable source of income has been WoW subscriptions, which have been declining, although it could have been worse (thankfully EA's mmorpg star wars thing is crap). If you follow Blizzard stock closely, you will notice that Blizzard stock will jump percentage points (up/down depending on the news) on whether WoW subscriptions are up or down. Blizzard knows that this is a risky model and has worked hard to diversify its revenue. For instance, one of there fastest growing products is this Skyland stuff (which is meant for little kids ~$1 Billion US) (I had never heard of the stuff until I researched). Anyways, Blizzard is committed to long term growth and I hope there new MMO will be a success. As the economy improves, and assuming Blizzard revenue steadily increases, I suspect Blizzard will be open to riskier plays (and new creative/original works).
Finally a juicy tid bit (related to the MMO). If you have been following Blizzard's suit against West and Zampella (Call of Duty guys), you would notice that Blizzard was forced to make public a contract between Activision and Bungie that highlights a huge project between the two companies (the new MMO). As a contract/patent/licensing lawyer and my personal opinion, I think the Blizzard negotiator(s) did an AMAZING job.
*Bungie must develop four "sci-fantasy, action shooter games," code-named "Destiny," released every other year, beginning in late 2013. Bungie must release four downloadable expansion packs code-named "Comet," every other year beginning in the fall of 2014.
*Bungie would only be entitled to royalties ranging from 20% to 35% of "operating income," the amount left over after Activision deducts its costs, including development, production and marketing expenses. (Personal note: I don't know if this is typical in these type of arrangements in this industry, but I think this is a very good deal for Blizzard)
*Clause 10.3 gives Bungie a $2.5 million bonus if the game hits over 90 on gamerankings.com
*Also, I dont know who general counsel at Bungie is but I would have tried to water down clause 14, a whole bunch, as well as 15 (this stuff only matters if you litigate, but then it REALLY MATTERS). Also, it's a good thing for Blizzard that they used standard confidentiality language in 16.1 lor they would haveen in breach for disclosing the agreement.
*Clause 20 gives Activitision the deciding vote if there are managerial disputes (this is interesting, I don't negotiate with this type of language, so I am not sure if this is standard).
*Activision got its own forum selection provision in (rather than Bungie) (again very good for suits); if I were negotiating for Bungie I would have contested this (maybe try to go silent, best case), although in the end probably not that big of a deal.
TLDR, the market dictates Blizzard's actions. If you think you can do better, go start your own company, or buy different products. If you think Blizzard is headed in the wrong direction, short the stock, buy some put options, don't buy their products, write them a nasty email, or post your complaints on TL
Good analysis. The thing is, there are quite a few idiots out there who think Blizzard trying to make money is "selling out" or "hurting creativity" or hell even "hurting esports (had to throw that in there)." These are the same people that think saying Blizzard is doing X just to make money is some huge revelation, like this is a big outing of Blizzard being revealed for that company that... makes money?
There is also the whole nostalgia rose-tinted glasses thing, were people will always remember good times with games from their past and instantly think "they were better," without taking the time to think about why they feel that way.
Basically the whiners are dumb, shortsighted or just don't understand how things in the real world work.
Support Blizzard. They are great for us and with the video game market the way it is, they are doing the best they can.
They aren't unreasonable in anything, imo. The game I love seems to be going in the right direction, and I hope for a brighter future.
I kind of agree with the lack of LAN. The ability to resume games, which sounds FRIGGIN AWESOME (the way they're doing it.. you can play against your opponents again after losing.. and try something different, albeit a computer AI or a friend playing.. its going to make it amazing.) should easily solve the LAN problem..
They have to make money, and piracy is a huge issue these days, especially when they try to keep their projects afloat and employees paid and at the end of the day, feel good about it. Activision would shut Blizzard Entertainment down in a heart beat if they weren't making any money..(I think they're owned by Activision now, right? :O)
Back in the days of Brood War, piracy wasn't thought about the way it was today. And in the beginning, I don't remember it being a huge problem because most people would buy their own copy anyway. You could even say that piracy helped promote Brood War long after it had its hey-day, but I think that SC2 is far from that point. Maybe once development stops on the game altogether, hopefully...atleast ten years from now? : ) : ): )
On June 30 2012 00:21 HardlyNever wrote: Good analysis. The thing is, there are quite a few idiots out there who think Blizzard trying to make money is "selling out" or "hurting creativity" or hell even "hurting esports (had to throw that in there)." These are the same people that think saying Blizzard is doing X just to make money is some huge revelation, like this is a big outing of Blizzard being revealed for that company that... makes money?
There is also the whole nostalgia rose-tinted glasses thing, were people will always remember good times with games from their past and instantly think "they were better," without taking the time to think about why they feel that way.
Basically the whiners are dumb, shortsighted or just don't understand how things in the real world work.
The rose tinted glasses holds no weight when people still play Diablo 2 and BW over D3 and SC2.
Actually pretty much everyone who preferred the old games, still play the old games.
On June 30 2012 00:21 HardlyNever wrote: Good analysis. The thing is, there are quite a few idiots out there who think Blizzard trying to make money is "selling out" or "hurting creativity" or hell even "hurting esports (had to throw that in there)." These are the same people that think saying Blizzard is doing X just to make money is some huge revelation, like this is a big outing of Blizzard being revealed for that company that... makes money?
There is also the whole nostalgia rose-tinted glasses thing, were people will always remember good times with games from their past and instantly think "they were better," without taking the time to think about why they feel that way.
Basically the whiners are dumb, shortsighted or just don't understand how things in the real world work.
The rose tinted glasses holds no weight when people still play Diablo 2 and BW over D3 and SC2.
Actually pretty much everyone who preferred the old games, still play the old games.
This is the short-sightedness I'm talking about. Yes, there are people who still play those games. But how many, compared to the number that play the new games? Very small. Look what is happening to BW, even in Korea. It is being pushed aside for SC2. It is like seeing 100 people playing games, 98 of them are playing sc2 and 2 are playing BW, and saying "Look they are still playing Brood War. That means it must be better!" No...
There are always small communities that hold on to a certain game, and that is fine. There are people who only play SSB melee, not brawl. There are people only only play Street Fighter 3rd strike, and will never play SFIV. There are people who will only play CS 1.6 and not CS:GO or CS:S. They will argue until they are blue in the face why the version they play is better than the newer stuff, and almost no one will care. They are a minority, and the majority moves on and the majority is where the money is. If people want to enjoy older games, that is fine. "Go play Brood War" is a valid response. That isn't where the money is though, because as vocal as those people are, they are the minority by far. The money is the majority and Blizzard is here to make money.
I don't know what your point was here besides Blizzard is a company aiming for financial growth, which isn't a huge surprise. And is kind of irrelevant re: the whole stuff they make and whether we like it or not discussion. Comparatively few people complained about them making SC2 or Diablo3, that's not where the perceived gripes are.
Also not sure what you're trying to prove with gems like "Blizzard's suit against West and Zampella". It really isn't.
Is it even possible for a AAA gaming company to produce smaller games on the side? It seems Blizzard founded it's 3 franchises in the 90's and stuck by them ever since. AAA games may be difficut to experiment with because of the cost involved, but you'd think it would worth a company's while to produce a bunch of experimental game for cheap and sell them for $10-20. (Rather than getting stuck in the every game must be $60 model.)
Basically, similar to Pixar's commitment to producing short films. The short films have specific purpose pushing into new territory while telling a tight, little story. They are allowed be more experimental because they're inexpensive and the company isn't going to go belly up if it flops. And it's not being experimental for it's own sake. Often those shorts are built around a technical problem that Pixar wants to solve for one of their big budget films. The smaller projects feed into the bigger ones,
@HardlyNever I don't know. Your defence of Blizzard is the same sort that could be used to defend brainless flicks like Transformers or the Eisner era Disney sequels. Sure they are there to make money and sure people can just go back to playing/ watching older films if they don't like it. And yes money is in new movies and not old movies (unless you're re-releasing it for the billionth time.) But is it too much to hail back to past successes and demand more from directors/ videogame makers.
On June 30 2012 02:37 Falling wrote: Is it even possible for a AAA gaming company to produce smaller games on the side? It seems Blizzard founded it's 3 franchises in the 90's and stuck by them ever since. AAA games may be difficut to experiment with because of the cost involved, but you'd think it would worth a company's while to produce a bunch of experimental game for cheap and sell them for $10-20. (Rather than getting stuck in the every game must be $60 model.)
Basically, similar to Pixar's commitment to producing short films. The short films have specific purpose pushing into new territory while telling a tight, little story. They are allowed be more experimental because they're inexpensive and the company isn't going to go belly up if it flops.
This might work for another game companies, but for Blizzard specifically I don't think it would work. The Blizzard brand is all about polish ("it's done when it's done) and iteration. There is definitely a standard of "Blizzard quality" that they like to hold to, and whether you agree that they meet that or not, it is something they clearly take seriously. Making cheaper, more experimental games would run very counter to that type of branding.
Blizzard never does anything terribly innovative, they just polish existing ideas into their best iteration, in my view. That is what I expect from Blizzard games. It seems like they spend more of their time on patching/iterating/expanding existing games than coming up with new ones. They have limited resources like any other company, and I think that method fits Blizzard best at this point.
But I think you could have Blizzard polish, but just on a smaller scale. You just have to collapse the size of the project. Don't try and build an entire world by hand. Don't have 30 missions with movie-like cutscenes. (Interestingly as the quality of the cutscenes have gone up the number of them have gone down.) You're not selling a $60 product, so the game itself can be much smaller. A change is scope doesn't necessarily mean a change in quality.
For instance on a shoestring budget and a month of programming with one guy managed to create a procedural generated world the size of WoW. And yet it generates the world to make sense geographically. Project Frontier- Shamus Young
@OP have you followed riot Games? Because in my opinion they display a Kind of different company, because they look much more Community-driven, a lot of employees previously played THE Game (LoL) and then started working for riot. I think riot has excellent marketing, they manage to look really indie, but in reality theyre making a toooon of money from theyre game. Another reason for their popularity is that they are only focusing on one game, which for Exempel is very beneficial for the customer-support. For me they seem like the new shit in the Gaming scene. I mean ~20 million monthly players is just crazy.
I of course understand why Blizzard does what it does, but there's something that is not acounted for here. The loss of Blizzard's trademark polish in their games. This is particularly noticeable on D3. D3 was released as an incomplete game, almost worthy of a beta stage, with glaring flaws and an amount of bugs that surpasses by far those of other Blizzard releases. There's also the details. Music, lore, voice acting, characters, storylines, ambience, ALL of these aspects in D3 are vastly inferior to the likes of SC vanilla, vanilla WoW, and Warcraft 3. Cinematic visual quality is insane, yet the content is retarded.
I can understand Blizzard are trying to make money, they must, particularly when they joined forces with Activision, they must be on much tighter schedules which is, imo, hurting game polish a bit (And no, I don't buy it at all when they say Activision has no influence on them, there's lots of money on the line). But what I don't understand is why Blizzard lost their touch, there's nothing there explaining why their games are buggier, less polished and overall lacking the magic of previous games, I also can't understand why Bnet 2.0 is so inferior to Steam.
I like to take Vanilla wow as an example. That game is so beautiful on such a horrendous graphic engine it's goddamn crazy, it plays so smooth on a seemingly clumsy UI it's ridiculous, and is so much fun on a rather simple premise it's amazing. WoW was a gigantic achievement, as were Starcraft, Diablo and Warcraft 3, the games just had the Blizzard seal of quality and you knew for years you were gonna buy a fucking awesome game. Nowadays all that is left from that is the guarantee of long-time support and improvement, which is nice, but still not enough imo.
Valve is the new Blizzard apparently, even Dota 2 shows things that Blizzard used to have. The voice acting, for example, is as hilarious as warcraft 3's. Well played Valve.
On June 30 2012 02:37 Falling wrote: @HardlyNever I don't know. Your defence of Blizzard is the same sort that could be used to defend brainless flicks like Transformers or the Eisner era Disney sequels. Sure they are there to make money and sure people can just go back to playing/ watching older films if they don't like it. And yes money is in new movies and not old movies (unless you're re-releasing it for the billionth time.) But is it too much to hail back to past successes and demand more from directors/ videogame makers.
This is getting dangerously close to a BW > SC2 or D2 > D3 debate, which is utterly pointless in my opinion, so I won't really try to take it there. The only thing I'll say in that regard, is that I've played every single major Blizzard release and expansion starting with Warcraft 1 (and exempting WoW Cataclysm), and I feel every sequel was better and more enjoyable than its predecessor. I don't 100% agree with every decision Blizzard has made, but they have made better games each time, in my opinion. Your opinion may be 100% the inverse of that, or somewhere in between, and that is fine.
In response to asking for more, people always ask for more, no matter what, ESPECIALLY on the internet. For every one post praising something Blizzard (or any game company) did right, there are 99 telling you what they did wrong. That is just the way of the world, or the internet. So saying that people are simply asking for something that used to be better doesn't hold water for me; I see the vast majority of it as self-entitled, baseless whining. Again, your opinion may differ.
In the end, no, you really can't buy and ask for something better next time. Sure, they MIGHT listen, but with so much feedback, most of it negative, there is no telling who or what they will listen to. In the end, you can't please everyone, someone is going to end up unhappy because the game didn't come out exactly the way THEY wanted it to be, so you can only truly make an impact with your wallet. If you really feel like they didn't deliver, get a refund or don't buy again, or both.
I think blizzard has lost sight of the real reason they were successful. They used to give the people what they wanted, and they produced really good games.
Nowadays, they seem to cater to their shareholders. Greed is the word of the week. Instead of focusing on making the best games possible, they try to create models of passive income so their stocks are at their highest value. Most of their shareholders don't even care about the games, they just want to make money.
Of course, Blizzard wants to make great games. Great games = money, and therein lies the problem. Their priorities are in this order 1)money 2)quality. It should be quality first, money second.
I mean, if you have an artist who is passionate and wants nothing but perfection, and only cares about the quality of his product, he is going to produce nonstop gems. If you take another artist who only cares about maximizing his expected value, quality is going to suffer.
Investors and consumers are on opposite sides of the coin.
On June 30 2012 00:21 HardlyNever wrote: Good analysis. The thing is, there are quite a few idiots out there who think Blizzard trying to make money is "selling out" or "hurting creativity" or hell even "hurting esports (had to throw that in there)." These are the same people that think saying Blizzard is doing X just to make money is some huge revelation, like this is a big outing of Blizzard being revealed for that company that... makes money?
There is also the whole nostalgia rose-tinted glasses thing, were people will always remember good times with games from their past and instantly think "they were better," without taking the time to think about why they feel that way.
Basically the whiners are dumb, shortsighted or just don't understand how things in the real world work.
The rose tinted glasses holds no weight when people still play Diablo 2 and BW over D3 and SC2.
Actually pretty much everyone who preferred the old games, still play the old games.
This is the short-sightedness I'm talking about. Yes, there are people who still play those games. But how many, compared to the number that play the new games? Very small. Look what is happening to BW, even in Korea. It is being pushed aside for SC2. It is like seeing 100 people playing games, 98 of them are playing sc2 and 2 are playing BW, and saying "Look they are still playing Brood War. That means it must be better!" No...
There are always small communities that hold on to a certain game, and that is fine. There are people who only play SSB melee, not brawl. There are people only only play Street Fighter 3rd strike, and will never play SFIV. There are people who will only play CS 1.6 and not CS:GO or CS:S. They will argue until they are blue in the face why the version they play is better than the newer stuff, and almost no one will care. They are a minority, and the majority moves on and the majority is where the money is. If people want to enjoy older games, that is fine. "Go play Brood War" is a valid response. That isn't where the money is though, because as vocal as those people are, they are the minority by far. The money is the majority and Blizzard is here to make money.
And therefore the players should just give up on game quality because of that?
On June 30 2012 00:21 HardlyNever wrote: Good analysis. The thing is, there are quite a few idiots out there who think Blizzard trying to make money is "selling out" or "hurting creativity" or hell even "hurting esports (had to throw that in there)." These are the same people that think saying Blizzard is doing X just to make money is some huge revelation, like this is a big outing of Blizzard being revealed for that company that... makes money?
There is also the whole nostalgia rose-tinted glasses thing, were people will always remember good times with games from their past and instantly think "they were better," without taking the time to think about why they feel that way.
Basically the whiners are dumb, shortsighted or just don't understand how things in the real world work.
The rose tinted glasses holds no weight when people still play Diablo 2 and BW over D3 and SC2.
Actually pretty much everyone who preferred the old games, still play the old games.
This is the short-sightedness I'm talking about. Yes, there are people who still play those games. But how many, compared to the number that play the new games? Very small. Look what is happening to BW, even in Korea. It is being pushed aside for SC2. It is like seeing 100 people playing games, 98 of them are playing sc2 and 2 are playing BW, and saying "Look they are still playing Brood War. That means it must be better!" No...
There are always small communities that hold on to a certain game, and that is fine. There are people who only play SSB melee, not brawl. There are people only only play Street Fighter 3rd strike, and will never play SFIV. There are people who will only play CS 1.6 and not CS:GO or CS:S. They will argue until they are blue in the face why the version they play is better than the newer stuff, and almost no one will care. They are a minority, and the majority moves on and the majority is where the money is. If people want to enjoy older games, that is fine. "Go play Brood War" is a valid response. That isn't where the money is though, because as vocal as those people are, they are the minority by far. The money is the majority and Blizzard is here to make money.
And therefore the players should just give up on game quality because of that?
Damn, people nowadays are zombies.
I'd respond to this, except I have no clue what you mean.
On June 30 2012 00:21 HardlyNever wrote: Good analysis. The thing is, there are quite a few idiots out there who think Blizzard trying to make money is "selling out" or "hurting creativity" or hell even "hurting esports (had to throw that in there)." These are the same people that think saying Blizzard is doing X just to make money is some huge revelation, like this is a big outing of Blizzard being revealed for that company that... makes money?
There is also the whole nostalgia rose-tinted glasses thing, were people will always remember good times with games from their past and instantly think "they were better," without taking the time to think about why they feel that way.
Basically the whiners are dumb, shortsighted or just don't understand how things in the real world work.
The rose tinted glasses holds no weight when people still play Diablo 2 and BW over D3 and SC2.
Actually pretty much everyone who preferred the old games, still play the old games.
This is the short-sightedness I'm talking about. Yes, there are people who still play those games. But how many, compared to the number that play the new games? Very small. Look what is happening to BW, even in Korea. It is being pushed aside for SC2. It is like seeing 100 people playing games, 98 of them are playing sc2 and 2 are playing BW, and saying "Look they are still playing Brood War. That means it must be better!" No...
There are always small communities that hold on to a certain game, and that is fine. There are people who only play SSB melee, not brawl. There are people only only play Street Fighter 3rd strike, and will never play SFIV. There are people who will only play CS 1.6 and not CS:GO or CS:S. They will argue until they are blue in the face why the version they play is better than the newer stuff, and almost no one will care. They are a minority, and the majority moves on and the majority is where the money is. If people want to enjoy older games, that is fine. "Go play Brood War" is a valid response. That isn't where the money is though, because as vocal as those people are, they are the minority by far. The money is the majority and Blizzard is here to make money.
You are missing the point. You can't accuse someone of having "rose tinted glasses syndrome", when they still play the game.
EPT
