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51406 Posts
Blizzard Absorbs Activision Studio After Dismantling Classic Games Team
Video game publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. took another step in consolidating control over division Blizzard Entertainment, which once took pride in its autonomy, by shifting a 200-person design studio to its ranks.
The studio, Vicarious Visions, had been a subsidiary of Activision since 2005 and worked on franchises like Skylanders, Crash Bandicoot and Tony Hawk. It will now focus entirely on Blizzard’s franchises, including Diablo, instead of making its own games. Former Vicarious Visions studio head Jennifer Oneal will take a seat on Blizzard's leadership team, reporting directly to the president.
The news, reported by GamesIndustry.biz, arrived just a few weeks after Blizzard quietly dismantled one of its internal development teams, according to people familiar with the company.
More details here: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-22/blizzard-absorbs-activision-studio-after-dismantling-classic-games-team
Safe to say that further development on both SC:R and WC3:R won't be happening anymore.
Thankfully for WC3:R there is the W3Champions team implementing ladder, host servers etc and with SC:R it looks like ShieldBattery has quietly revived itself .
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I agree. I think 1.23.x is probably the end of the road for SC:R, and the only updates will be ladder map updates and if any gamebreaking bugs show up.
So anyone who is still holding out that Blizzard will add 2v2 matchmaking & ladder. Give it up. No one left to keep the promises.
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The last paragraph of the article says that Blizzard still wants to update WC3:Reforged, although obviously it's no longer in Team 1's hands. Remains to be seen how they will fix the game and how much it will get support.
Team 1 was also responsible for Heroes of the Storm, SC2 as well as SC:R. That explains why Blizzard recently dropped support for all of these games. This pretty much marks the end of old-school Blizzard (if you still had hope of the Blizzard of old to make a resurgence) since it shows that Activision is very willing to interfere with Blizzard's operations.
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Just the final nail in the coffin.
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Well this is terrible news, although I am really excited to play more ShieldBattery.... FULL SCREEN 2D YES
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No surprise at this point. Just confirmation of what most of us already thought.
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tec27 and 2pac the saviors we need but don't deserve
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Honestly disgraceful to outsource the classic titles which were crucial to Blizzard's success. Shame.
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Yeah, I thought we already knew a lot of this news? Hmm. Well, VV working on remakes with the HotS team was what I wanted all along, but it's a shame how other elements are getting dissolved and scrambled up. Them slowing production on Diablo 4 to work with VV to make a Diablo 2 Remaster/Remake makes sense, since the assumption was D4 was still very early in development with core systems designs being a long ways from starting actual development and they know they're overdue to give people what everyone knows they want.
Does the article say anything more about what really happened, in more detail, with War3:R? I thought the Classic Games team only ended up making orders for art assets from a bunch of scattered external studios then pasting all the pieces together because of terrible management, and that Team 1 and the rest of Classic Games were working on other things before getting combined (collectively still spread too thin between HotS, SC2, SC:R, then War3:R and possibly something else). It's still so eye-roll-inducing how well the process for Crash and Spyro remakes went even though they did use many freelancers and studios, then apparently again with a brand new Crash 4, and Blizz was totally incapable of following that blueprint or was somehow totally unaware of the other side of their company.
Eh, whatever. I just feel bad for people working there as artists, programmers, small team leads and managers who have cool visions and high goals and just want to make cool games but get thrown around so much now at Blizz, and I assume Activision. VV getting taken away from more Tony Hawk remakes and potential new games might not doom that franchise, I feel that Killer Instinct 2013 with Double Helix and Iron Galaxy is a good example of how a good team with proper direction and management can pick up and carry a torch to victory. They even managed to do a great job with a limited budget for the base game, subsequent seasons, and even overcame the music production moving from Mick Gordon to Celldweller and Atlas Plug for the last season.
Lessons to learn for everyone else, hopefully. D4 has so much potential and yet I'm only planning on drooling over a few pieces of art here and there and otherwise not paying attention to anything else until it gets released at some point in the next five years.
*Might as well add: I couldn't help but imagine what TB and Incontrol would be saying about all this, and maybe how excited they might be for other studios starting up. Sigh...
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ALLEYCAT BLUES49993 Posts
On January 23 2021 10:58 Jonoman92 wrote:
tec27 and 2pac the saviors we need but don't deserve
you really have to stress the don't deserve part.
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So... who wants to play some on Shield Battery? I want to feel the amazing Latency again and play full screen 2D.... it is like a dream come true after years and years of lag instead of being able to use this or ChaosLauncher again.
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Hype for never-ending ladder season 8
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On January 23 2021 09:48 Torchise wrote:
The last paragraph of the article says that Blizzard still wants to update WC3:Reforged, although obviously it's no longer in Team 1's hands. Remains to be seen how they will fix the game and how much it will get support.
Team 1 was also responsible for Heroes of the Storm, SC2 as well as SC:R. That explains why Blizzard recently dropped support for all of these games. This pretty much marks the end of old-school Blizzard (if you still had hope of the Blizzard of old to make a resurgence) since it shows that Activision is very willing to interfere with Blizzard's operations.
I never liked the game but the War3 rehash has been out for a year now so surely it's in a far more playable state than it was right?
The user rating of 0.6/10 on metacritic with 30,000 reviews is an exaggeration yeah? People scoring it low due to blizzard bricking the original client? Nobody should be surprised they closed the team after that PR disaster.
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On January 23 2021 16:18 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 09:48 Torchise wrote:
The last paragraph of the article says that Blizzard still wants to update WC3:Reforged, although obviously it's no longer in Team 1's hands. Remains to be seen how they will fix the game and how much it will get support.
Team 1 was also responsible for Heroes of the Storm, SC2 as well as SC:R. That explains why Blizzard recently dropped support for all of these games. This pretty much marks the end of old-school Blizzard (if you still had hope of the Blizzard of old to make a resurgence) since it shows that Activision is very willing to interfere with Blizzard's operations. I never liked the game but the War3 rehash has been out for a year now so surely it's in a far more playable state than it was right? The user rating of 0.6/10 on metacritic with 30,000 reviews is an exaggeration yeah? People scoring it low due to blizzard bricking the original client? Nobody should be surprised they closed the team after that PR disaster.
Still missing important stuff that was in the original game AFAIK (any ladder first and foremost, the community has produced their own ladder system but Blizzard's is still completely missing). Certainly I don't think the game would have deserved a 0.6/10 on its own merits, but Blizzard was asking (forcing?) people to pay for the game a second time, so it should *at least* provide all the stuff it had before that point.
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We have managed without their help for so long, so I think we will still be able to manage after the dissolution.
FIGHTING!
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On January 23 2021 16:18 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 09:48 Torchise wrote:
The last paragraph of the article says that Blizzard still wants to update WC3:Reforged, although obviously it's no longer in Team 1's hands. Remains to be seen how they will fix the game and how much it will get support.
Team 1 was also responsible for Heroes of the Storm, SC2 as well as SC:R. That explains why Blizzard recently dropped support for all of these games. This pretty much marks the end of old-school Blizzard (if you still had hope of the Blizzard of old to make a resurgence) since it shows that Activision is very willing to interfere with Blizzard's operations. I never liked the game but the War3 rehash has been out for a year now so surely it's in a far more playable state than it was right? The user rating of 0.6/10 on metacritic with 30,000 reviews is an exaggeration yeah? People scoring it low due to blizzard bricking the original client? Nobody should be surprised they closed the team after that PR disaster.
Nobody in the competitive scene plays on "Reforged" graphics.
95% of work was done by the community after Bli$$ard basically destroyed the game (still no "official" ladder support).
I just really wish they have left it alone, the community will manage like they always did.
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On January 23 2021 17:01 tec27 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 23 2021 16:18 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:On January 23 2021 09:48 Torchise wrote:
The last paragraph of the article says that Blizzard still wants to update WC3:Reforged, although obviously it's no longer in Team 1's hands. Remains to be seen how they will fix the game and how much it will get support.
Team 1 was also responsible for Heroes of the Storm, SC2 as well as SC:R. That explains why Blizzard recently dropped support for all of these games. This pretty much marks the end of old-school Blizzard (if you still had hope of the Blizzard of old to make a resurgence) since it shows that Activision is very willing to interfere with Blizzard's operations. I never liked the game but the War3 rehash has been out for a year now so surely it's in a far more playable state than it was right? The user rating of 0.6/10 on metacritic with 30,000 reviews is an exaggeration yeah? People scoring it low due to blizzard bricking the original client? Nobody should be surprised they closed the team after that PR disaster. Still missing important stuff that was in the original game AFAIK (any ladder first and foremost, the community has produced their own ladder system but Blizzard's is still completely missing). Certainly I don't think the game would have deserved a 0.6/10 on its own merits, but Blizzard was asking (forcing?) people to pay for the game a second time, so it should *at least* provide all the stuff it had before that point.
When can we expect more promotion / more announcements about Shield Battery? Thanks for all of your hard work.
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South Korea2105 Posts
didnt they also announce theyre absorbing the studio responsible for tony hawk with rumours of a remastered version of diablo 2 surfacing again?
mb theyre restructuring i dunno
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EPT
