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On September 29 2010 01:17 228zip wrote:
Kotick, which apparently some believe is the devil himself, is definitely doing his job as he's expected, and he's quite ambitious too. Can't blame him for that.
Is he? The problem isn't that a CEO is trying to make money, The problem is whether the CEO's ideas for making money are any good.
The most successful gaming company - Blizzard - has thrived on: innovation + quality. That's what made them a ton of money and that's why they are successful now. Kotick's core philosophy seems to be directly in contrast with this: innovation is secondary to repetition, and quality is secondary to finding ways of charging people for stuff.
I'd say Kotick as a manager seems to come across as a crude, short-term hack. Like the businessman whose great idea is slapping the Mercedes or Rolls Royce brand on a bunch of cheap Chinese cars and trying to sell them at premium prices to suckers. Ethically questionable, and terrible long-term perspectives.
So, the studios who created WoW, SC2 and CoD are the people who actually made the money and the success - through their dedication to product quality and innovative ideas. Kotick is an ignorant amateur who tries to poach on their success by coming up with garbage monetization schemes instead of actually looking at how to make the best product and to make sure these brands are treasured and remain a part of gaming.
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On October 14 2010 20:15 Red_beard wrote:Show nested quote +On September 29 2010 01:17 228zip wrote:
Kotick, which apparently some believe is the devil himself, is definitely doing his job as he's expected, and he's quite ambitious too. Can't blame him for that. Is he? The problem isn't that a CEO is trying to make money, The problem is whether the CEO's ideas for making money are any good. The most successful gaming company - Blizzard - has thrived on: innovation + quality. That's what made them a ton of money and that's why they are successful now. Kotick's core philosophy seems to be directly in contrast with this: innovation is secondary to repetition, and quality is secondary to finding ways of charging people for stuff. I'd say Kotick as a manager seems to come across as a crude, short-term hack. Like the businessman whose great idea is slapping the Mercedes or Rolls Royce brand on a bunch of cheap Chinese cars and trying to sell them at premium prices to suckers. Ethically questionable, and terrible long-term perspectives. So, the studios who created WoW, SC2 and CoD are the people who actually made the money and the success - through their dedication to product quality and innovative ideas. Kotick is an ignorant amateur who tries to poach on their success by coming up with garbage monetization schemes instead of actually looking at how to make the best product and to make sure these brands are treasured and remain a part of gaming.
Kotick is a CEO, he is only interested in making money and maintaining shareholder confidence. The problem is that (much like Mr. Zuckerburg) he is an ignorant child with a narcissistic worldview. This will often lead to him having a rather unique viewpoint on certain issues.
For example:
Most people think that the Developer makes the game and the publisher fronts the finances for the game to be made. The publisher is responsible for ensureing that their investment is being appropriately resourced and not wasted. As such the publisher is entitled to meetings with the developers to ensure that the game is proceeding according to schedule.
Kotick's point of view is that the publisher is the one to be credited for the creation of a good game because they had the forsight to provide capital to the developer even thought they spent most of their money rushing the game and cutting corners.
Most people think that Full Creative Authority means that the developer gets to choose what games they want to make, how much time it will take to make the games, and what to keep/remove from a game.
Kotick believes that Full Creative Authority means that the developer has the right to make whatever game Activision wants them to make and Activision has the right to fire them before they get paid.
Most developers believe that producing a steady stream of quality games that are varied in content will generate a group of followers who will purchase future content produced by the developer because they trust the developers quality.
Kotick doesn't give a shit if consumers lose confidence in a company because as soon as they do, Kotick will place all of the blame on the developer and fire all of their staff.
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what disgusts me most about this is that alot of hobbyist-gone-professional transition through creating mods/maps for games. think team fortress, counter strike, even dota is making big bucks for people these days.
With the stranglehold this new regime has on the community, if you EVER try to be creative and hone your hobbyist skills, know that blizzard now own your content and any professional industry you could creative for yourself will now belong to them instead.
This is sad because if this sort of regime is the future the only way joe average can 'make it' is to go to uni, get a degree, get employed by faceless corp, and make someone elses games, not your own.
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Kotick. Fired. A lot of people. For no real good reason. Kotick is a douchebag, who only wants money for himself, and doesn't even properly pay his employees. What happens in the movie is that some meddling kid visits the headquarters and Kotick gets arrested for doing something illegal and stupid. Only in the movies of course.
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Well this is how the monetary system works. If you're not against it you shouldn't say anything about kotick. He's just doing his job.
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I certainley hope this won't affect the upcoming expansion Heart Of The Swarm.
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Wow I missed this post, and I don't know what to think. I'll be having nightmares about this.
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Much appreciate bumping this. It was obvious to me that Blizzard and Activision deserved no support even before reading this but this thread just adds fuel to the fire.
I hate hate hate hate hate giving money to Blizzard. I used to be happy to supported them. Unfortunately the alternatives are very limited when it comes to RTS communities of Starcraft 2's quality. Me playing Starcraft 2 has very little to do with the quality of Starcraft 2 or bnet, instead it's mostly because of communities like teamliquid and the fact that my friends play Starcraft 2.
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On March 01 2011 01:01 Gigaudas wrote:
Much appreciate bumping this. It was obvious to me that Blizzard and Activision deserved no support even before reading this but this thread just adds fuel to the fire.
I hate hate hate hate hate giving money to Blizzard. I used to be happy to supported them. Unfortunately the alternatives are very limited when it comes to RTS communities of Starcraft 2's quality. Me playing Starcraft 2 has very little to do with the quality of Starcraft 2 or bnet, instead it's mostly because of communities like teamliquid and the fact that my friends play Starcraft 2.
I assure you, Teamliquid wouldn't be what it is for SC2 if SC2 wasn't a quality product. I have no doubts that if SC2 was horrible for one reason or another you wouldn't see great communities surrounding it.
How anyone posting on a Starcraft website can say Blizzard deserves no support is beyond me.
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i have been supporting blizzard since WOW TBC and it has become disgusting very lately. it isnt even profit maximizing. they are just trying to suck out all your money like EA
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First of all,we must remember that most of the ppl who developed SC 1/SC: BW are not working with blizz anymore (most of them worked for Blizzard North i think).That means the ideas and general tought process who created BW isn't there anymore.
Blizz lost valuable ppl time and time again. Mike Morhaime fired ppl,Kotick fired ppl.But while when Mike Morhaime was CEO,they were also interested in making lots of money,they understood that they way to do that is through quality games.It didn't matter that at first they weren't so noob friendly (SC 1 or WoW),if someone sees his buddy play and thinks it's cool,he will buy the game.
The people who played Vanilla WoW remember how it was in the beginning and how is it now.
I'm not trying to turn this into a "casual vs hard core " WoW fight,but lets just say that the game became more and more casual just to atract more people.
That is a good thing,but Kotick wants every game to be squeezed to the max.
At start WoW had like 1-2 million subscribers and after people started learning about it,it grew to about 7 million.But for Kotick that isn't enough.After dumbing the game down,it grew to 13 million.
Yay for Blizz no ?
Lets just say that the same will happen to SC 2. Lets observe the "new stuff"
-Alert for MULE/Chronoboost/Inject Larva?
-Hiding losses?
-Balancing based on 2v2/3v3/4v4? Pls note that BW wasn't balanced based on 2v2/3v3/4v4.
-Nerf every possible "trick" which would rewarded ppl with high APM. That includes the worker "bug" (the one which if u spammed return cargo it would not w8 that amount of time to return the minerals),the burrowed infestor NP (i don't think that would had been game changing,but i think it been talked to death already),the "archon toilet" (this is not something trully APM challenging,but more related to how u can get the MS /archons safely).
What would BW would had look like if blizz would "fix" vulture atack-move,muta-stacking and others?
Don't want to be the "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! THE WORLD WILL END!" guy,but things get catered to casuals. And kotick doesn't give a s..t about the game is not "fun" to watch or that u are spoon fed with everything u need.If the bronze players are happy,they're happy.
Yes i know they are the vast majority of the playerbase,but remember,the ppl who will play this game in 4-6 years are not them.
Also something not strictly related to the topic,but somewhat related.When i heard Browder say that not all the expansions will bring new units,because "it will be too hard to balance",i lost most of my hope in Blizz.
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On March 01 2011 01:26 Akash wrote:
Also something not strictly related to the topic,but somewhat related.When i heard Browder say that not all the expansions will bring new units,because "it will be too hard to balance",i lost most of my hope in Blizz.
i wish to have the quote if you could.
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On March 01 2011 01:07 vyyye wrote:Show nested quote +On March 01 2011 01:01 Gigaudas wrote:
Much appreciate bumping this. It was obvious to me that Blizzard and Activision deserved no support even before reading this but this thread just adds fuel to the fire.
I hate hate hate hate hate giving money to Blizzard. I used to be happy to supported them. Unfortunately the alternatives are very limited when it comes to RTS communities of Starcraft 2's quality. Me playing Starcraft 2 has very little to do with the quality of Starcraft 2 or bnet, instead it's mostly because of communities like teamliquid and the fact that my friends play Starcraft 2.
I assure you, Teamliquid wouldn't be what it is for SC2 if SC2 wasn't a quality product. I have no doubts that if SC2 was horrible for one reason or another you wouldn't see great communities surrounding it. How anyone posting on a Starcraft website can say Blizzard deserves no support is beyond me.
The only influence I have over Blizzard's products is whether I chose to spend money on them or not.
If Blizzard were to try their best to offer the best products possible then I would like to reward them for trying so that they continue trying.
If Blizzard purposely make the decisions to screw their customers over in ways that they think might profit them then the only thing I can do about that is to keep my money in my pocket. If I'm lucky, everyone else will do the same and Blizzard will release a better product.
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On March 01 2011 01:26 Akash wrote:
First of all,we must remember that most of the ppl who developed SC 1/SC: BW are not working with blizz anymore (most of them worked for Blizzard North i think).That means the ideas and general tought process who created BW isn't there anymore.
Blizz lost valuable ppl time and time again. Mike Morhaime fired ppl,Kotick fired ppl.But while when Mike Morhaime was CEO,they were also interested in making lots of money,they understood that they way to do that is through quality games.It didn't matter that at first they weren't so noob friendly (SC 1 or WoW),if someone sees his buddy play and thinks it's cool,he will buy the game.
Can't speak for SC1 and when it was released, but WoW was a noob friendly game when you compare it to the other big MMOs at the time. Compare the endgame of WoW to Everquest for example.
The people who played Vanilla WoW remember how it was in the beginning and how is it now.
I'm not trying to turn this into a "casual vs hard core " WoW fight,but lets just say that the game became more and more casual just to atract more people.
That is a good thing,but Kotick wants every game to be squeezed to the max.
You could argue the game was more fun, people tend to look at vanilla with rose tinted glasses. Running one dungeon for fire resistance gear for hours upon hours isn't fun, it was a needless and pain staking grind. The game did become more "casual", but I find that most who say it is aren't even raiding end game.
I haven't played Cata personally but from what I hear it isn't a cakewalk, ditto for ICC. Sure, any tard can grind some heroics and get purples but you still need a fucking big investment to get the best of the best shit.
At start WoW had like 1-2 million subscribers and after people started learning about it,it grew to about 7 million.But for Kotick that isn't enough.After dumbing the game down,it grew to 13 million.
Yay for Blizz no ?
The game grew because people loved it and do to this day. You seem to have forgotten that most really hard bosses got nerfed to hell and back shortly after being released, long before Activision became a part of Blizzard.
Oh and Blizzard started charging for shit they promised they would never charge for before Acti came along, they aren't quite the saints people make them out to be. They're a business in the end.
C'thulu anyone?
[/quote]
Lets just say that the same will happen to SC 2. Lets observe the "new stuff"
-Alert for MULE/Chronoboost/Inject Larva?
-Hiding losses?
-Balancing based on 2v2/3v3/4v4? Pls note that BW wasn't balanced based on 2v2/3v3/4v4.
-Nerf every possible "trick" which would rewarded ppl with high APM. That includes the worker "bug" (the one which if u spammed return cargo it would not w8 that amount of time to return the minerals),the burrowed infestor NP (i don't think that would had been game changing,but i think it been talked to death already),the "archon toilet" (this is not something trully APM challenging,but more related to how u can get the MS /archons safely).
-Okay, I'd say this helps newer players and will barely affect pro play. I don't particularly like it, but it's hardly going to change my play at least.
-New players won't be intimidated by stats, whatever. Helping new players enjoy SC2 isn't a bad thing, whatever you might think.
-Stupid, I agree.
-Archon toilet was broken, I don't see how you can bring that up as a bad nerf. It was an hilarious exploit but it needed to get nerfed in one way or another, shit man, that was overpowered.
The mineral trick? Well, damn. Do you really want to do that? Could argue that one all day, but I know that I'm happy that's not a mechanic in the game, it was retarded to say the least.
What would BW would had look like if blizz would "fix" vulture atack-move,muta-stacking and others?
I don't know, how is it relevant? You aren't comparing muta stacking to holding shift and right clicking a mineral patch, are you?
Don't want to be the "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! THE WORLD WILL END!" guy,but things get catered to casuals. And kotick doesn't give a s..t about the game is not "fun" to watch or that u are spoon fed with everything u need.If the bronze players are happy,they're happy.
Yes i know they are the vast majority of the playerbase,but remember,the ppl who will play this game in 4-6 years are not them.
Also something not strictly related to the topic,but somewhat related.When i heard Browder say that not all the expansions will bring new units,because "it will be too hard to balance",i lost most of my hope in Blizz.
To me it looks like you've decided you're going to hate Blizzard and their "casual" baby and now you only need to find reasons to fuel it. Hey, you could always play BW if you prefer it to SC2, I know there's plenty who do.
And Browder said he didn't want to make the MP cluttered with units just for the sake of adding units, nothing more and nothing less. There might be 3 new units for each race, there might not. We have no fucking idea at this point.
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On March 01 2011 01:26 Akash wrote:
First of all,we must remember that most of the ppl who developed SC 1/SC: BW are not working with blizz anymore (most of them worked for Blizzard North i think).That means the ideas and general tought process who created BW isn't there anymore.
Blizz lost valuable ppl time and time again. Mike Morhaime fired ppl,Kotick fired ppl.But while when Mike Morhaime was CEO,they were also interested in making lots of money,they understood that they way to do that is through quality games.It didn't matter that at first they weren't so noob friendly (SC 1 or WoW),if someone sees his buddy play and thinks it's cool,he will buy the game.
There are some new ones. But most of the team of SC2 is made up out of Blizzard Veterans a lot of them having working on Warcraft 1,2 SC, Diablo, WoW. Then there are some people who worked on Dawn of War, Everquest, etc. So I don't think it's the fault of staff.
Understand that people's mindset can progress and change over the 12 years that was between SC and SC2. Then there's the fact that the game industry evolved from that time to now, games progressively gotten easier and that's just something to get used to. I don't mind if they add casual stuff as long as there's button to switch it off.
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so a CEO wants to make money... Keep in mind that blizzard has largely been left alone to devleope and operate as it deems fit. I believe that was a stipulation of there agreement to be bought. There was alot of language in that contract that basically said leave us alone we make great games that make alot of money.
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Someone needs a tinfoil hat. Sure, I don't much like Kotick either: I think he's a narcissistic asshat, but he's probably a shrewd CEO and good enough at making money that the stakeholders see no reason to fire him and put someone else in charge of Actiblizz. What I don't think he's doing is forcefully controlling everything in the company to be released prematurely and milked for cash in some huge conspiracy to make money as quickly as possible, rather than bet on lasting value.
As for the whole "casual vs. hardcore" thing: vanilla WoW was fun, sure, but it had retarded stuff in it that, however hardcore you are, were simply retarded: having to run MC months on end to collect the FR gear to be able to kill Ragnaros, let alone start BWL. Then do the same for NR gear was mindnumbing. The PvP grind was horrible (rewarded quantity over quality) and there was plenty of other stuff wrong with the game. I enjoyed it, but the game has definitely gotten more polished through the expansions, despite my own interest waning slowly but surely. Do I think it's a shame that there have been moments in the game where extremely high-level gear was given out for near-free? Sure, but it probably kept a LOT of people playing who would otherwise have quit and for me WoW is still awesome simply because of the number of people playing (even if I hardly play anymore).
As for whether Blizzard is treating SC2 as a cash cow, rather than a product they care for? I don't see any reason to think the latest patch is breaking the game. I personally like the alert for spawn larvae: it really won't make noobs play like pros all of a sudden, but it will help them streamline an important part of Zerg macro a little bit better. Just as protoss have the warp gate button. In fact, a "creep tumor off cooldown" would be rather nifty too! As for fixing balance issues: you can argue for or against the balance fixes, but you can hardly say that because they are fixing obviously broken parts of the game (archon toilet) they are treating it as a cash cow, rather than a quality product. You want to see a game that was released broken and still hasn't been fixed properly? I recommend Civilization 5. SC2 had far far far higher production values to start with and blizzard is fixing new issues as they come up.
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On March 01 2011 01:26 Akash wrote:
The people who played Vanilla WoW remember how it was in the beginning and how is it now.
I'm not trying to turn this into a "casual vs hard core " WoW fight,but lets just say that the game became more and more casual just to atract more people. wow was never hard, I'm sorry it just wasn't, it was just tedious. All end game raiding is that way in every game.
Lets just say that the same will happen to SC 2. Lets observe the "new stuff"
-Alert for MULE/Chronoboost/Inject Larva?
-Hiding losses?
-Balancing based on 2v2/3v3/4v4? Pls note that BW wasn't balanced based on 2v2/3v3/4v4.
-Nerf every possible "trick" which would rewarded ppl with high APM. That includes the worker "bug" (the one which if u spammed return cargo it would not w8 that amount of time to return the minerals),the burrowed infestor NP (i don't think that would had been game changing,but i think it been talked to death already),the "archon toilet" (this is not something trully APM challenging,but more related to how u can get the MS /archons safely).
-There is a alert for mule/chrono boost/inject larva now? Well i just read that in the 1.3 notes. How is that bad? As it is now there is nothing bad about losing timing on a mule, it's not good to miss chrono boost timing unless you're saving for something specific and missing larva injects is horribad. That's balance.
-hiding losses? well i don't agree with it, but blizzard didn't just make this game for the pro scene, it will only stay around if "casuals" play it, Im sorry but that's the cold hard fact. Casuals, in blizzard's eyes, don't need to see their losses, it's the exact opposite of motivational. Me not being pro, but being more than casual I would prefer to see more in depth statistics (% against race as race on what map etc) but that's me /shrug.
-what team balancing is going on? looking at 1.3 notes i don't see anything that directly affects 1v1 based on 2v2+ adjustments. I'm not going to get into if the balance changes are needed or not because this isn't the thread for it.
-Burrowed infestor NP went against blizzard's balance. Archon toilet isn't hard to do, and it's not very balanced (same with vortex and 6 colossi ready to rape everything)
Also something not strictly related to the topic,but somewhat related.When i heard Browder say that not all the expansions will bring new units,because "it will be too hard to balance",i lost most of my hope in Blizz.
exact quote or it never happened. There would have been a bigger uproar if that was said.
If you don't like Actiblizzard as much as you seem to be putting off, don't buy their game.
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On March 01 2011 01:25 lofung wrote:
i have been supporting blizzard since WOW TBC and it has become disgusting very lately. it isnt even profit maximizing. they are just trying to suck out all your money like EA
I've been supporting blizzard since WC1, and everything was great up until they sold out to activision, that is the defining downhill point from what I've seen.
I still have faith in them to a point, and I have high hopes for them in the future, as long as they don't find themselves being taken over by executive assholes wanting quick money grabs so they can cash out.
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Hopefully their data analysis team or whatever will notice that I bought starcraft II and have not payed for a month of WoW since, and hopefully this will make them decide that players like non-subscription based games better, and not that SCII should be subscription based so they get more of my money.
But trying to squeeze money out of customers is what business is all about. What really makes me hate Kotick is the way he has treated his own employees, especially the Infinity Ward guys.
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