On May 30 2010 11:33 Spawkuring wrote: Second of all is that a lot of people assume that Blizzard raised BlizzCon prices out of pure greed, yet a lot of you don't realize that not only is BlizzCon expensive, but Blizzard actually LOSES money after each BlizzCon.
Employees have to pay for BlizzCon tickets like anyone else, but even with that (and other ticket sales) BlizzCon still results in a substantial monetary loss for the company.
I'm not sure if you're trolling with that comment but I'm going to respond anyways. The convention is obviously not going to be able to directly support itself through ticket sales. The advertising and hype that it gives which improves future/current sales is where the monetary gain comes in. I don't see that quote on the page you linked, but I have to say that it is a pretty fucking stupid quote.
Because people wanted a feature that is pretty simple and could be done by automatically migrating a few database-entries/entities from one system to another or cause a few’d even pay money for it, doesn't mean that the community "requested" it and wanted... no rather they begged to pay for it ... I'm not sure what the numbers of profit is that Blizzard rakes in monthly with WoW, but having paid for the game, add-ons and paying a monthly subscription, one could expect that something like this would be a case of fair deal... and even if they make it a paid feature, something like 15-25$ for an employee to start a script is ridiculous...
Another aspect to consider, is that in this case (the "virtual world" of World of WarCraft) Blizzard Entertainment is the only one that can provide such a service on everything it entails and it is a slippery slope from a market economy perspective, while in the real world there is a freely competing market.
The convention is a promotional event, for Blizzard to show, advertise and build hype towards their products. The gains of such events are invaluable and immeasurable. Claiming they are operating at a loss is like claiming companies are stupid cause they pay advertising space in public transportation, cause they're losing money and there is no "direct benefit" one can perceive. That they’re expecting their own employees to pay for tickets would only serve to prove even more that they’re greedy xD
What “lack of knowledge” did I exactly show regarding the merger though?
Both of your counter-arguments basically amount to "they charged money for it, how ridiculous."
Like it or not, a lot of what goes into pricing is determined by how much customers are willing to pay. If a company sells an OPTIONAL service, and that service turns out to be a massive success, then there is nothing wrong with charging money for it (and keep in mind Blizzard has offered plenty of free transfers in WoW). Prices in many ways are set to what a customer wants to pay, not just to make up for the expenses of making the product.
On May 30 2010 06:04 Vynakros wrote: Amagad, just read through it... And at first I thought the merger was going to be positive for us end users...
EDIT: Because I was such a hardcore Blizz games fan, this day feels like a familiar friend died. And now he returns as a zombie...
On May 30 2010 06:10 inforsomechop wrote: And here I thought that Blizzard was a potential future employment possibility! Thanks for the summary. I think I will stick to my 20-man developer team back home
Really sad. Boy, Kotick sure seems like an unpleasant character.
Fantastic job doing the research to put this article together. It's too bad seeing the company you thought could see past profits and realize the benefits of creating a loyal community by making great quality games disgrace itself like this.
This is completely disheartening. I honestly have never felt any reason to not buy SC2, but this article makes me want to pirate the entire thing and play private servers because I don't want to give activision any more money.
That's the joy of capitalism - you fuck your fans and they're going to fuck you right back. =D
Alright everyone, Blizz has become just like EA... time to find the next gaming company that actually listens... my vote goes to Riot Games.
On a more serious note (although seriously, Riot Games = the coolest bunch of people in a company ever...), Blizz has always been about $$$ really, all companies are, and you have to kid your self if you don't think that they are that way.
Sure Blizz seems a bit worse now considering the differences in SC and SC2, but look at the growth of the video game market since then... look at the difference between movies 10 years ago and now, between cable 10 years ago and now... Why do you think video gaming would be any different?
Companies offer less for more and expect people to enjoy it, happens with everything. The only way we will be able to change it is by speaking out, but there aren't enough people willing to do so to make a real change.
Society today is too complacent and well... this is why there are like 11 million subscibers to WoW even though 99.9999% of the community say its worse now then it was before.
Nice post. To me the biggest issue is that Blizzard is feels that they should totally control the game. For example, they seem to believe that they have the right to E-sports broadcasts using the game. Forget about KeSPA, that just seems insane to me. If I buy a Canon camera, Canon doesn't have the rights to the pictures I take. After I pay my 60 bucks for the game I should be able to do what I want with it.
This idea of control extends over the entire SC universe. With no LAN, they completely control when and where you can play multi-player. Instead of selling something like a quality tool, they are renting access to a sandbox. "Go play kiddies, but only on our terms. BTW, we know what's best for you". Maybe I'm an old grouch but much recent technology seems to be going this way (e.g. locked iPhone).
This desire for control seems to be profit motivated but even if it wasn't I would find it disgusting. The fact is, no matter what company you are and how smart your developers are, the community contains people who are smarter and more creative. Restricting what they can do really cripples your product in the long term. Look at what modders have done, e.g. DoTA, Counter-strike, etc.
This thread makes me sad. Blizzard being as successful as it has been, why did they even consider the Activision partnership? The only reason, it seems, is monetary. So even before Activision 'poisoned' our beloved Blizzard, they were already thinking of ways to expand and get more dough.
Honestly, knowing this information makes me just mad. I'm almost positive that i wont buy sc2 after hearing this. Also, notice that the year that Blizzard tried to cancel KeSPA in order to get more money was the same year they merged. If theres any bright side, its that even with all this I can still retain my respect for broodwar develepors because they worked for a different company.
On May 30 2010 11:27 bendez wrote: From a shareholder perspective, they're doing a damn fine job.
Dunno, as an avid watcher of the markets and as a gamer following gaming stocks, I really can't say "they're doing a damn fine job." Maybe on the fundamentals and revenue but the stock price hasn't supported it. As a "buy and hold" type play, ATVI wouldn't have made you squat in the past 1 year, of course with any stock, prices constantly change and you can enter at a "good price" and sell at a better one. But it has not performed well at all, compared to something like AAPL.
Keep in mind there is more to stock price then just "how much money" they made. Bad PR, or future expectations play a large role in what happens today. If any thing, the stock itself would show that people don't exactly think ATVI will be of much more value in the future then it is currently.
Here is a 1.5 year chart of ATVI.
Notice it's last closing price is $10.75. On June 11th, 2009 the stock hit a HIGH of $13.14 per share. So practically one year ago, if you bought a bunch of shares of ATVI at $13+ you would have lost a significant amount of money so far. A few days ago the stock hit a recent low of $10.02, flirting with that $10 dollar line and it held it off.
Overall the stocks 1.5 year chart, in my opinion, represents a stock not on the rise, but in what I would call a "holding pattern" trading in a specific range. This isn't the first time it's flirted with the $10 mark either.
As you can see from the chart, you can make money short term trading ATVI. It gets cheap, and eventually enough people get interested in it to bring it back up but ultimately gets dumped back down when people quickly lose interest. In other words, no one wants to be the person buying near that $13 mark.
However, if you're a long term investor, the stock is actually trading at $2.39 less then it was nearly one year ago, about an 18% drop. I'm not quite sure how that could be considered "a damn fine job."
Sure it is trading higher then it was early 2009 but keep in mind nearly every stock is currently doing better then it was back then. That was the worst "recession" we have experienced, well ever. You could have bought just about any stock in march 2009 and made money by now, the markets were that LOW. Let me put it this way, in march 2009 the Dow was trading at 6,469 and it's currently at 10,136.
It is actually no wonder why Kotick is feeling so much pressure to do "whatever it takes"
P.S. For what it's worth, I'm a firm believer that if blizzard was on the Nasdaq as it's own company, without activision's "attachment" the stock would likely be fairing quite a bit better but that's just me.
P.S. For what it's worth, I'm a firm believer that if blizzard was on the Nasdaq as it's own company, without activision's "attachment" the stock would likely be fairing quite a bit better but that's just me.
I feel like Blizzard doesn't have the infrastructural demands to be an independent company, and if it were to assume them, it would negate the advantages of therof for a player. I also think that having Blizzard answer to a shareholders board through ATVI instead of independently actually results in more gains for the player.
That being said I wish Activision would stop being...evil. lol.
Plus theirs the issue of IP rights, contracts, partnerships, which would probably be impossible for blizzard to extricate itself out of at this point.
But a business can be a force for good. If the people at the top wish to do good then they do good. I believe that the wonderful people at Blizzard who go to work everyday want to have fun, want to make Starcraft better and will find a way to make it what it can and should be.
Because people wanted a feature that is pretty simple and could be done by automatically migrating a few database-entries/entities from one system to another or cause a few’d even pay money for it, doesn't mean that the community "requested" it and wanted... no rather they begged to pay for it ... I'm not sure what the numbers of profit is that Blizzard rakes in monthly with WoW, but having paid for the game, add-ons and paying a monthly subscription, one could expect that something like this would be a case of fair deal... and even if they make it a paid feature, something like 15-25$ for an employee to start a script is ridiculous...
Another aspect to consider, is that in this case (the "virtual world" of World of WarCraft) Blizzard Entertainment is the only one that can provide such a service on everything it entails and it is a slippery slope from a market economy perspective, while in the real world there is a freely competing market.
The convention is a promotional event, for Blizzard to show, advertise and build hype towards their products. The gains of such events are invaluable and immeasurable. Claiming they are operating at a loss is like claiming companies are stupid cause they pay advertising space in public transportation, cause they're losing money and there is no "direct benefit" one can perceive. That they’re expecting their own employees to pay for tickets would only serve to prove even more that they’re greedy xD
What “lack of knowledge” did I exactly show regarding the merger though?
Both of your counter-arguments basically amount to "they charged money for it, how ridiculous."
Like it or not, a lot of what goes into pricing is determined by how much customers are willing to pay. If a company sells an OPTIONAL service, and that service turns out to be a massive success, then there is nothing wrong with charging money for it (and keep in mind Blizzard has offered plenty of free transfers in WoW). Prices in many ways are set to what a customer wants to pay, not just to make up for the expenses of making the product.
You don't know what people want. How about you give me better SC 2 and a million dollars also? I might want that. People don't line up to give their money away. Maybe there is some kind of transaction fetish some might have but I think that would be very rare. It is ridiculous to charge several times for something so simple. I know in US they spend massive amounts of money to make people think that money is heavenly and pure and the market knows best so some of these posts aren't a surprise. When companies have Unique products like games and they have the power to determine what is optional you can see a lot of pretty ridiculous possibilities if you just want to see it.
EPT![[image loading]](http://img534.imageshack.us/i/atvichart.jpg/)
It is ridiculous to charge several times for something so simple. I know in US they spend massive amounts of money to make people think that money is heavenly and pure and the market knows best so some of these posts aren't a surprise. 
