EPTUntil someone other than this guy can provide an exact name and exact date on an exact quote the entire firestorm brewing on TL.Net is a waste of time. Soren is just trying to cause trouble to give his strategy game some visibility. The best way to do this is to go after the Starcraft franchise.
StarCraft 2 not worth it according to Activision? - Page 10
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17992 Posts
Until someone other than this guy can provide an exact name and exact date on an exact quote the entire firestorm brewing on TL.Net is a waste of time. Soren is just trying to cause trouble to give his strategy game some visibility. The best way to do this is to go after the Starcraft franchise. | ||
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Cheerio
Ukraine3178 Posts
On May 02 2011 16:15 eviltomahawk wrote: Rough transcript: "In New York City a few weeks ago, apparently the CFO of Activision basically said that Starcraft 2 is not really worth it. Monetarily (something something). We spent a lot of money on it. We got more money, but the return on the dollar is nothing compared to what the online, free-to-play companies are making. That profit margin just doesn't compare. When you're a major company like Activision, you have an obligation to the shareholders to pursue... if there is a strategy where the profit margin is twice as high as what you're pursuing, then it's time to exchange strategies. It doesn't make sense for Blizzard, it doesn't make sense for anyone. But here's the thing. I don't necessarily believe the middle class game is dead because not every company out there needs to be making decisions based off of what's going to make them the most money, and in fact many don't. In the strategy gaming space, the two classic examples are Paradox and Stardock (?). Those companies are making those games not because they think are going to make the most money but because those are the games that they choose to make." (goes on to discuss the "mid tier" game and other stuff, including stuff about League of Legends) Those are very dumb things for a CFO to say. Who the hell values investment projects based on profit margin lol? Online games have much more return? Fine go make some instead of bitching how sc is not worth it. If SC2 has positive Net Product Value stfu and be happy. | ||
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Bensio
United Kingdom621 Posts
On May 02 2011 21:51 PatouPower wrote: And when this company doesn't own blizzard? Activision has "merged" with blizzard to create Activision-Blizzard, but they each have their division and do what they want with their own games. Yet Kotick is the master of the universe "The merger makes Activision parent company of Vivendi Games former divisions" | ||
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ReketSomething
United States6012 Posts
If there were portraits that you could buy with money, unit models you could buy, interfaces you could buy, backgrounds, color changes, I wouldn't buy it but I would be happy for blizzard and would support this despite never buying this. If there were things you could buy that gains you more points, lose less points, more bonus pool, or allow you to stay in your league despite losing, I would HATE blizzard, HATE their ladder even more that I already do, but I would still play. If there were things you could buy that made you better in game (ie. runes in LoL) that cost money, I would never play the game, even if it was attack speed +0.002% Those are my personal opinions. edit: items that allow you private chatrooms, more than one public channel at a time, spam filter off (so you can talk as much as you want) or golden letters and what not I would also not mind, although I would never buy | ||
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shinyA
United States473 Posts
Mainly, one character per account. Since we have no clan support, every team is forced to buy their members new accounts just for them to be able to tag up. Thinking about it, this was quite genius by Blizzard. How many millions more in copy sales do you think they've made just because people want a new name for their team, to play different race on ladder without ruining their main account, smurfing, etc? The fact that they don't have a paid name change for cheaper, clan support, or an option to either create another character or buy a character slot seems to be purely to get more money, the sad thing is that it's from people who already bought the game. SC2 might not ever have a monthly fee but I foresee either them charging us for every little thing and delaying new features such as clan support and name changes so we have to continuously buy new accounts. | ||
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Baarn
United States2702 Posts
On May 02 2011 21:54 Cheerio wrote: Those are very dumb things for a CFO to say. Who the hell values investment projects based on profit margin lol? Online games have much more return? Fine go make some instead of bitching how sc is not worth it. I SC2 has positive Net Product Value stfu and be happy. Obviously Activision does and that's why they are the top company when it comes to games. It's just this guys opinion and I doubt it's gonna influence anything changing drastically with Star 2. | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
On May 02 2011 20:49 LittLeD wrote: We just gotta wait some years until these old capatilistic men, who practically understands nothing of today's youth and what's going on in the different communities and where the interests are, fade away and the new generation of entrepreneurs and businessmen, who actually understands something, enters the topspots. Maybe by then, the tides have turned once again, who knows. I guess what im trying to say is, these CEOs shouldnt just look for stuff that can squeeze out the most money, they should look for what people want, where the interest are, and how well people respond to different stuff and act accordingly. That'd be a company that people like, and that will stay strong for the future. I think It's pretty much the exact opposite. We are the old generation, back in the days of BW, everything in internet was free, and everything was about fun fun fun, party party party, now it's all about money. From diablo 2 to wow, from napster to itune, the change is quite clear imo. | ||
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eviltomahawk
United States11135 Posts
On May 02 2011 21:57 shinyA wrote: Not so much thread related, but in a way they do have fee's in the game other than just the initial upfront cost, things that even WoW has for free. Mainly, one character per account. Since we have no clan support, every team is forced to buy their members new accounts just for them to be able to tag up. Thinking about it, this was quite genius by Blizzard. How many millions more in copy sales do you think they've made just because people want a new name for their team, to play different race on ladder without ruining their main account, smurfing, etc? The fact that they don't have a paid name change for cheaper, clan support, or an option to either create another character or buy a character slot seems to be purely to get more money, the sad thing is that it's from people who already bought the game. SC2 might not ever have a monthly fee but I foresee either them charging us for every little thing and delaying new features such as clan support and name changes so we have to continuously buy new accounts. Although Blizzard is making a bit of extra money on possible smurfs, clan tags, and race changes, I doubt it's a significant, noteworthy amount. The game's high price already discourages most players from buying more than one account, and the few that do purchase additional accounts hardly affect any profit margins. The vast majority of casual players aren't willing to cough up an additional $60 to tidy up their ladder accounts, and the average clan member is probably more willing to keep their old clan tag in exchange for saving $60. I would not estimate the additional sales to be in the millions. I would put the estimate to be in the thousands, probably at most in the tens of thousands, which is hardly anything to consider at all in the grand scheme of things. | ||
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st3roids
Greece538 Posts
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bmml
United Kingdom962 Posts
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Count9
China10928 Posts
On May 02 2011 16:21 On_Slaught wrote: Activision and EA... the worse things to ever happen to gaming. Sure we get more games, but we also get worse ones. I don't know about worse since they've released the same game over and over again the quality has actually stayed fairly constant. | ||
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Furycrab
Canada456 Posts
This is likely taken SUPER out of context. Activision is only the publisher to Blizzard, they have no real say as to what Blizzard actually does or should do. He was likely suggesting that they invest into different types of studios, and that if there was something similar but NOT starcraft it wouldn't be worth it. | ||
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zanmat0
188 Posts
That said, I don't think it's unreasonable to charge say, $5 a month for Battle.net. However, if that's the case, I think they should make the Single Player (the game itself) free. Like others have said, the development costs are huge for games nowadays and there is also a non-negligible cost to keeping the servers running, even if it's small, it adds up in the long term. DLC and pay per month (xbox live or MMOs for example) are part of the new business model for gaming. It doesn't excuse paying $25 for a flying translucent horse or a couple of goofy hats in my mind, but if that is what it takes to keep companies making quality games, then so be it. I think most people here could easily justify paying a small monthly fee for a game they love and play a lot. Think about it in terms of hours of entertainment provided. How much is a night out at the bar? A DVD? A movie ticket? Paying $5 or $10 or $15 per month for a game, when you calculate how many hours of fun you get out of it, is really trivial. Surely there is some corporate greed involved but times really have changed so let's be realistic. | ||
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nihoh
Australia978 Posts
Sigh. | ||
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Bensio
United Kingdom621 Posts
On May 02 2011 22:28 Furycrab wrote: If you are a big CEO that just looks at the end line. You have SC2 who has a dev team that costs X and a game that makes Y amount of profit. Then you have a ton of much much smaller studios cropping up that make much better profit lines at much lower risk. This is likely taken SUPER out of context. Activision is only the publisher to Blizzard, they have no real say as to what Blizzard. Since he was likely suggesting that they invest into different types of studios, and that if there was something similar but NOT starcraft it wouldn't be worth it. I distinctly remember in the press conference for Activision they said that Blizzard must release 2 titles in 2011... Granted, we had HoTS and D3 lined up for 2011, however, HoTS has been propably delayed to 2012, will Bobby say "We need, more money" in a canadian accent? we may never know.... | ||
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duracell
53 Posts
It is not set in stone that a video game must cost less than X amount. It should cost what the market is willing to pay for it. They gave you a taste of Broodwar. How much was that experience worth for you guys? $100? $200? $500? Whatever amount it was, it is almost surely many times what you paid for. You received excess benefits from an economic standpoint, and the company is realizing it, and is acting to balance it out a bit more. Nothing about it is unfair, it is basic economics. From a producer point of view, they have just been getting shafted for years, from a consumer standpoint you are now going to get shafted, when in reality it is just balancing the surplus benefits. I'm not going to be happy about paying more money for SC2, but I support the franchise and realize how much enjoyment the game has given me, and it would be worth the extra couple of dollars to keep it around. Sitting around ranting and raving about greed and capitalism won't do much good. SC2 doesn't make enough money for any sort of consumer protest to have a huge visible effect at this point. | ||
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hmunkey
United Kingdom1973 Posts
Get your heads out of your asses and think about it reasonably. A company answers solely to their stockholders. That means they need profits. SC2 can be as much of a fucking amazing game as it is, but if it doesn't continue to make sales (and money) for Activision, they don't consider it to be as important. It's fun to jump on the hate bandwagon when you have basically no logical knowledge of how companies work. Sure, there are a bunch of tournaments coming out, but I hope you realize the small royalties Blizzard gets from them are pretty much insignificant compared to say Call of Duty sales or WoW subscriptions. Welcome to the world. | ||
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Onlinejaguar
Australia2823 Posts
On May 02 2011 22:28 zanmat0 wrote: I always knew this day would come. Blizzard got too used to the good life with the massive revenue that WoW has provided them for so long. They bracing themselves for a future where that might not exist anymore. That said, I don't think it's unreasonable to charge say, $5 a month for Battle.net. However, if that's the case, I think they should make the Single Player (the game itself) free. Like others have said, the development costs are huge for games nowadays and there is also a non-negligible cost to keeping the servers running, even if it's small, it adds up in the long term. DLC and pay per month (xbox live or MMOs for example) are part of the new business model for gaming. It doesn't excuse paying $25 for a flying translucent horse or a couple of goofy hats in my mind, but if that is what it takes to keep companies making quality games, then so be it. I think most people here could easily justify paying a small monthly fee for a game they love and play a lot. Think about it in terms of hours of entertainment provided. How much is a night out at the bar? A DVD? A movie ticket? Paying $5 or $10 or $15 per month for a game, when you calculate how many hours of fun you get out of it, is really trivial. Surely there is some corporate greed involved but times really have changed so let's be realistic. Who said Blizzards WoW revenue will stop? WoW will only stop when blizzard wants it to stop and besides they have another MMO in the works. On to Activision they are just a terrible company. Both them and EA are working on ripping off gamers, not providing them with great games. | ||
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Ghad
Norway2551 Posts
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ControlMonkey
Australia3109 Posts
1. A game like Starcraft is always going to be significantly less profitable than subscription based games such as WoW, franchises released yearly like COD. This is for many reasons, such as a 7 year development cycle, consumer expectations of patches for 2-3 years, hosting battle.net, and the fact that it is not as mainstream as a COD or WoW. It is a game that (when played online) is specifically designed to make you feel terrible at it. Because compared to everyone else out there, you are. It is a niche game. A hugely popular niche game (if that makes any sense), but a niche game none the less. 2. Just because Starcraft is not as profitable as other games, does not necessarily mean that it will be turned into a subscription game, or become debased by crappy yearly releases. There is room in a business model for a variety of different revenue models. What happens if suddenly people decide that subscription based games are a rip-off. They will switch to the standard $100 (Australian prices :[ ) release game. Diversification is good. 3. What makes Blizzard great is their dedication to quality in gameplay. I think I speak for most of TL when I say that if The Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void expansions are anywhere near as good as Brood War was, then I will be waiting on launch day to get my copies. Starcraft 1 & Brood War are amazing. Starcraft 2 is amazing. Blizzard's reputation is based on quality games, I do not believe they would not jeopardise that. 4. People hate big companies because they are "big" and "evil" and "greedy". I don't get it. Of course the head of activision is going to look at SC2 compared to WoW and go "SC2 makes less money". That is his job. However, it is these big companies which allow big games like SC2 to exist. Turns out skilled people cost money to employ. | ||
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