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Active: 15811 users

Blizzard Classic Games "quietly dismantled"

Forum Index > BW General
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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next All
GTR
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
51406 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-01-23 00:39:30
January 23 2021 00:37 GMT
#1
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
.
Commentator
Chris_Havoc
Profile Joined August 2016
United States600 Posts
January 23 2021 00:41 GMT
#2
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.
Owner of the SC2 Esports Anthology channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SC2EsportsAnthology
Torchise
Profile Joined May 2012
Canada245 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-01-23 00:49:42
January 23 2021 00:48 GMT
#3
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.
The baylife, it burns!
Miragee
Profile Joined December 2009
8478 Posts
January 23 2021 00:53 GMT
#4
Just the final nail in the coffin.
TelecoM
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States10667 Posts
January 23 2021 01:18 GMT
#5
Well this is terrible news, although I am really excited to play more ShieldBattery.... FULL SCREEN 2D YES
AKA: TelecoM[WHITE] Protoss fighting
T45
Profile Joined April 2020
Germany16 Posts
January 23 2021 01:36 GMT
#6
No surprise at this point. Just confirmation of what most of us already thought.
I do not feel I have a quote I would call my quote. You can quote me on this.
Jonoman92
Profile Blog Joined September 2006
United States9103 Posts
January 23 2021 01:58 GMT
#7
tec27 and 2pac the saviors we need but don't deserve
Jealous
Profile Blog Joined December 2011
10108 Posts
January 23 2021 02:12 GMT
#8
Honestly disgraceful to outsource the classic titles which were crucial to Blizzard's success. Shame.
"The right to vote is only the oar of the slaveship, I wanna be free." -- бум бум сучка!
blunderfulguy
Profile Blog Joined April 2016
United States1415 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-01-23 03:04:51
January 23 2021 03:02 GMT
#9
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...
Blunder Man doing everything thing a blunder can.
BLinD-RawR
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
ALLEYCAT BLUES49993 Posts
January 23 2021 03:03 GMT
#10
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.
Brood War EICWoo Jung Ho, never forget.| Twitter: @BLinDRawR
TL+ Member
TelecoM
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States10667 Posts
January 23 2021 03:54 GMT
#11
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.
AKA: TelecoM[WHITE] Protoss fighting
Wrath
Profile Blog Joined July 2014
3174 Posts
January 23 2021 06:19 GMT
#12
more on twitter:
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1352766999823314949?s=19
TT1
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
Canada9991 Posts
January 23 2021 06:31 GMT
#13
heh
ab = tl(i) + tl(pc), the grand answer to every tl.net debate
Megaliskuu
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States5123 Posts
January 23 2021 06:33 GMT
#14
Hype for never-ending ladder season 8
|BW>Everything|Add me on star2 KR server TheMuTaL.675 for practice games :)|NEX clan| https://www.dotabuff.com/players/183104694
iPlaY.NettleS
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
Australia4329 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-01-23 07:22:14
January 23 2021 07:18 GMT
#15
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7PvoI6gvQs
tec27
Profile Blog Joined June 2004
United States3696 Posts
January 23 2021 08:01 GMT
#16
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.
Can you jam with the console cowboys in cyberspace?
M3t4PhYzX
Profile Joined March 2019
Poland4168 Posts
January 23 2021 09:40 GMT
#17
We have managed without their help for so long, so I think we will still be able to manage after the dissolution.

FIGHTING!
odi profanum vulgus et arceo
M3t4PhYzX
Profile Joined March 2019
Poland4168 Posts
Last Edited: 2021-01-23 09:45:46
January 23 2021 09:44 GMT
#18
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.
odi profanum vulgus et arceo
TelecoM
Profile Blog Joined January 2010
United States10667 Posts
January 23 2021 09:54 GMT
#19
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.
AKA: TelecoM[WHITE] Protoss fighting
Ziggy
Profile Blog Joined June 2013
South Korea2105 Posts
January 23 2021 10:02 GMT
#20
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

WriterDefeating a sandwich only makes it tastier. @imjustziggy
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