Isn't it funny in the hindsight that the WoW killed Blizzard?
After hearing that Blizz got new CFO from Activision in 2018 and 2018 was the year of "cutting costs", it all made sense to me. Before 2018 it was all just memes about ActiBlizz. Now it's the real shit.
WoW brought the money, killed passion and drive, we got abominations that are SC2 and D3 and general creative stagnation afterwards because of WoW's success and it imploded on it. WoW killed WoW. WoW killed Blizzard. And NOW Activision intervenes. But it's not like they have a choice today.
I honestly believe SC:R, WC3:R and WoW:C are Mike's children and his last breath in the Blizzard to protect the legacy. Thanks Mike and SC:R team that I can boot up StarCraft and play on battlenet. I couldn't before SC:R.
On November 24 2018 15:46 chuDr3t4 wrote: Isn't it funny in the hindsight that the WoW killed Blizzard?
WoW brought the money, killed passion and drive
It's hard to prove this. It could just be that their talents left long ago to other companies for better pay / different opportunities. Don't forget the average U.S. employee tenure is about 4 years.
not that you were not unjustified in feeling that way, I have too, but its been a long time and a lot of us have moved on into actually trying to bring that scene up again and I personally don't think remastered and the classic games division would have been even on the cards for blizzard if not for mike.
basically I could just warn you for talking about telling him to go kill himself, but I thought I'd use your post for some self reflecting of the last 6 years.
On November 24 2018 15:46 chuDr3t4 wrote: Isn't it funny in the hindsight that the WoW killed Blizzard?
After hearing that Blizz got new CFO from Activision in 2018 and 2018 was the year of "cutting costs", it all made sense to me. Before 2018 it was all just memes about ActiBlizz. Now it's the real shit.
WoW brought the money, killed passion and drive, we got abominations that are SC2 and D3 and general creative stagnation afterwards because of WoW's success and it imploded on it. WoW killed WoW. WoW killed Blizzard. And NOW Activision intervenes. But it's not like they have a choice today.
I honestly believe SC:R, WC3:R and WoW:C are Mike's children and his last breath in the Blizzard to protect the legacy. Thanks Mike and SC:R team that I can boot up StarCraft and play on battlenet. I couldn't before SC:R.
Can't wait to play WoW:C.
SC2 an abomination? Please, why is there necessary to write such comments. I tried BW last week after only playing the campaign in the early 2000's and i really hated it. Still wouldn't call it abomination.
On October 09 2018 23:29 Carnivorous Sheep wrote: ATVI has outperformed peers since the start of September. + Show Spoiler +
ATVI is at $50. MAU's remained the same even after Blizzard biggest product release in 2 years. Blizzard is bleeding badly man. They've been losing MAU's for over a year before their biggest product release in 2 years.
What has Blizzard released since Overwatch? 2 WoW expansions.
On November 24 2018 05:50 koplivc wrote: What has Blizzard released? Content across 7 games. And Starcraft Remastered. Why would they release such a niche game? Why not develop a mobile version of Starcraft instead? Starcraft Remastered was probably morhaimes last breath, right?
the content for these 7 games doesn't generate as much revenue as a complete $60 full sized title. Hence, their falling revenue. Also, new $60 games cause an increase in the player base. This is why MAU's are falling.. a lack of full $60 games. The only thing that has stopped the declining player base temporarily is the WoW expansion. Expect ATVI to report yet another decline in the Blizzard MAU count during the next investor call.
Rather than having Blizzard employees patrolling youtube.com searching for Overwatch players saying naughty words they don't like... its time for them to MAKE A GAME.
It is so damn ironic that Overwatch has the title it does.. because Blizzard's decline is partly due to the fact that they are "overwatching" their player base and not committing their limited resources towards making games.
Blizzard needs to quit their social engineering experiments and get back to what they do best: make games and sell games.
I don't think they stopped. They're just typically a slow company. It took them 6 years to release a new game after WoW. The key number here is: 2016. 2016 is when they released Overwatch, but its also the year D4 went into production. It's when Team 1 moved off of SC2 and Dustin Browder started working on his project, then we got news that Tom Chilton and Eric Dodds, director of WoW and Hearthstone moved to a different project as well.
Right now, we're just in an awkward time of the company where we're in between generations of games. Identical to 2005-2010 where no new Blizzard games came out.
big difference between 2005-2010 and 2016-2018 is money.
From 2005 to 2010 WoW's and Blizzard's revenues and player base skyrocketed. ATVI was happy directing Blizzard to service one game, namely, WoW and pulling people off of other projects just to service WoW. This is not the case right now. revenue is falling and so is the player base.
since Overwatch made its quick $1 Billion in 2016 .... revenues and player base has fallen. A billion sounds like a lot but its not for ATVI. ATVI pulls in over $6 Billion per year in revenue; WoW by 2010 was pulling in over 2.5 billion every year.
its clear from the investor call Brack was surprised to get this promotion and he is still familiarizing himself with all of Blizzard's operations. Once he has a complete handle on all of Blizzard's various teams .... look for cutbacks.
The way I understood what Mike vaguely hinted about at Blizzcon - he stepped down from being one of the greatest most successful CEOs in the history of game dev to... take care of his parents whose health is in decline. That's one of the most honorable things a son can do. Of course, Mike only ever so delicately mentioned that topic. He's not the kind of person who would go in detail about personal drama in public. Yet I respect him for mentioning that, the way he did.
I admire Mike Morhaime for simultaneously being a very pragmatic reasonable leader of Blizzard with good business sense, and at the same time being a very down to earth guy who's shown his humane side and social awareness on multiple occasions. Whatever the real reason for stepping down was, I certainly hope Mike finds personal fulfillment and enrichment from his choice. He's done great things for Blizzard; and particularly for Starcraft in desperate times solely based on his passion for the game.
On November 27 2018 15:09 JimmyJRaynor wrote: big difference between 2005-2010 and 2016-2018 is money.
From 2005 to 2010 WoW's and Blizzard's revenues and player base skyrocketed. ATVI was happy directing Blizzard to service one game, namely, WoW and pulling people off of other projects just to service WoW. This is not the case right now. revenue is falling and so is the player base.
since Overwatch made its quick $1 Billion in 2016 .... revenues and player base has fallen. A billion sounds like a lot but its not for ATVI. ATVI pulls in over $6 Billion per year in revenue; WoW by 2010 was pulling in over 2.5 billion every year.
its clear from the investor call Brack was surprised to get this promotion and he is still familiarizing himself with all of Blizzard's operations. Once he has a complete handle on all of Blizzard's various teams .... look for cutbacks.
Isn't the biggest diference in the Activision involvement? The merge was happening somewhere in the period of 2005 - 2010 IIRC. Nowadays it's the same time of the year but already in the full control of Activision.
no, if revenue and player base were stlll skyrocketing like it was from 2005 to 2010 Activision would leave Blizzard alone and just count its billions. Interference only began once revenue stopped growing.
MIke had the same deal with Davidson & Associates that he had with ATVI. As long as its raining money they'll leave him alone.
As long as 1 game is bringing in several billion per year like WoW was.. you have the luxury of cancelling games like SC:Ghost and Titan 5 years into their development. You can also have little pet projects like the GSL and OWL and no one will care if they lose money. As soon as your cash cow stops producing milk all these things... GSL, OWL, SC:Ghost, Titan, Diablo4 cancellation.. they all add up.
On November 27 2018 15:09 JimmyJRaynor wrote: big difference between 2005-2010 and 2016-2018 is money.
From 2005 to 2010 WoW's and Blizzard's revenues and player base skyrocketed. ATVI was happy directing Blizzard to service one game, namely, WoW and pulling people off of other projects just to service WoW. This is not the case right now. revenue is falling and so is the player base.
since Overwatch made its quick $1 Billion in 2016 .... revenues and player base has fallen. A billion sounds like a lot but its not for ATVI. ATVI pulls in over $6 Billion per year in revenue; WoW by 2010 was pulling in over 2.5 billion every year.
its clear from the investor call Brack was surprised to get this promotion and he is still familiarizing himself with all of Blizzard's operations. Once he has a complete handle on all of Blizzard's various teams .... look for cutbacks.
Err, I get that. I'm just saying they're between generations to make the games that will get them said money.
They weren't just focusing on 1 game, they had at least 6 games in development during those years (7 if we're counting Blizzard North's D3) , 4 of which released between 2010-2014.
I'd imagine there's now even more projects in development.
But yeah, Overwatch's success is probably making Activision crack the whip, since I think Activision is the side thats slipping with the downfall of Skylanders and Call of Duty.
On November 27 2018 15:09 JimmyJRaynor wrote: big difference between 2005-2010 and 2016-2018 is money.
From 2005 to 2010 WoW's and Blizzard's revenues and player base skyrocketed. ATVI was happy directing Blizzard to service one game, namely, WoW and pulling people off of other projects just to service WoW. This is not the case right now. revenue is falling and so is the player base.
since Overwatch made its quick $1 Billion in 2016 .... revenues and player base has fallen. A billion sounds like a lot but its not for ATVI. ATVI pulls in over $6 Billion per year in revenue; WoW by 2010 was pulling in over 2.5 billion every year.
its clear from the investor call Brack was surprised to get this promotion and he is still familiarizing himself with all of Blizzard's operations. Once he has a complete handle on all of Blizzard's various teams .... look for cutbacks.
Err, I get that. I'm just saying they're between generations to make the games that will get them said money.
They weren't just focusing on 1 game, they had at least 6 games in development during those years (7 if we're counting Blizzard North's D3) , 4 of which released between 2010-2014.
I'd imagine there's now even more projects in development.
But yeah, Overwatch's success is probably making Activision crack the whip, since I think Activision is the side thats slipping with the downfall of Skylanders and Call of Duty.
For a company that makes 6+ billion a year Overwatch is not much of a success. It made 1 billion .. 1 year. Now its Humble Bundled for $12. OWL has done nothing and remains categorized as "Strategic Investment" ... which is a polite way to say its losing money.
Investors chose to believe MLG and eSports would bring in new amazing mutli-billion dollar growth. That was 3 years ago. Investors are no longer listening to that song and dance. Judging by what the stock price has done lately I don't think they're listening to the "Blizzard has many more games coming" song and dance either.
Blizzard is busy milking its extremely loyal hard core fan base for every nickel and not adding in any new players.
On November 27 2018 15:09 JimmyJRaynor wrote: big difference between 2005-2010 and 2016-2018 is money.
From 2005 to 2010 WoW's and Blizzard's revenues and player base skyrocketed. ATVI was happy directing Blizzard to service one game, namely, WoW and pulling people off of other projects just to service WoW. This is not the case right now. revenue is falling and so is the player base.
since Overwatch made its quick $1 Billion in 2016 .... revenues and player base has fallen. A billion sounds like a lot but its not for ATVI. ATVI pulls in over $6 Billion per year in revenue; WoW by 2010 was pulling in over 2.5 billion every year.
its clear from the investor call Brack was surprised to get this promotion and he is still familiarizing himself with all of Blizzard's operations. Once he has a complete handle on all of Blizzard's various teams .... look for cutbacks.
Err, I get that. I'm just saying they're between generations to make the games that will get them said money.
They weren't just focusing on 1 game, they had at least 6 games in development during those years (7 if we're counting Blizzard North's D3) , 4 of which released between 2010-2014.
I'd imagine there's now even more projects in development.
But yeah, Overwatch's success is probably making Activision crack the whip, since I think Activision is the side thats slipping with the downfall of Skylanders and Call of Duty.
For a company that makes 6+ billion a year Overwatch is not much of a success. It made 1 billion .. 1 year. Now its Humble Bundled for $12. OWL has done nothing and remains categorized as "Strategic Investment" ... which is a polite way to say its losing money.
Investors chose to believe MLG and eSports would bring in new amazing mutli-billion dollar growth. That was 3 years ago. Investors are no longer listening to that song and dance. Judging by what the stock price has done lately I don't think they're listening to the "Blizzard has many more games coming" song and dance either.
Blizzard is busy milking its extremely loyal hard core fan base for every nickel and not adding in any new players.
Milking? What are you paying for all day long? Can you give some insight on other companies as well? Really looking for advice in what i have to invest
On November 27 2018 15:09 JimmyJRaynor wrote: big difference between 2005-2010 and 2016-2018 is money.
From 2005 to 2010 WoW's and Blizzard's revenues and player base skyrocketed. ATVI was happy directing Blizzard to service one game, namely, WoW and pulling people off of other projects just to service WoW. This is not the case right now. revenue is falling and so is the player base.
since Overwatch made its quick $1 Billion in 2016 .... revenues and player base has fallen. A billion sounds like a lot but its not for ATVI. ATVI pulls in over $6 Billion per year in revenue; WoW by 2010 was pulling in over 2.5 billion every year.
its clear from the investor call Brack was surprised to get this promotion and he is still familiarizing himself with all of Blizzard's operations. Once he has a complete handle on all of Blizzard's various teams .... look for cutbacks.
Err, I get that. I'm just saying they're between generations to make the games that will get them said money.
They weren't just focusing on 1 game, they had at least 6 games in development during those years (7 if we're counting Blizzard North's D3) , 4 of which released between 2010-2014.
I'd imagine there's now even more projects in development.
But yeah, Overwatch's success is probably making Activision crack the whip, since I think Activision is the side thats slipping with the downfall of Skylanders and Call of Duty.
For a company that makes 6+ billion a year Overwatch is not much of a success. It made 1 billion .. 1 year. Now its Humble Bundled for $12. OWL has done nothing and remains categorized as "Strategic Investment" ... which is a polite way to say its losing money.
Investors chose to believe MLG and eSports would bring in new amazing mutli-billion dollar growth. That was 3 years ago. Investors are no longer listening to that song and dance. Judging by what the stock price has done lately I don't think they're listening to the "Blizzard has many more games coming" song and dance either.
Blizzard is busy milking its extremely loyal hard core fan base for every nickel and not adding in any new players.
1 billion for a brand new IP in less than year. That's massive. And yeah, its humble bundled because it came out 2 years ago, the money is in the lootboxes now + MAU padding not the boxed copy sales.
And if OWL is losing money when they've made AT LEAST 400m dollars (idk if the slots they sold recently sold for 30, or 40m, so for the sake of argument im saying 20), if its losing money then they're a lost cause.
And Blizzard is only 1 small piece of the puzzle here, which was my point. I don't think everyone at Blizzard Entertainment are at the beach. The only game they can possibly pull of their ass quickly is a mobile game, hence we have the multiple mobile titles coming out while the next gen AAA titles are in the pipeline.
On November 28 2018 08:29 lestye wrote: And if OWL is losing money when they've made AT LEAST 400m dollars (idk if the slots they sold recently sold for 30, or 40m, so for the sake of argument im saying 20), if its losing money then they're a lost cause.
OWL continues to be listed as a strategic investment. No revenue #s have ever been reported. "leaking franchise fees to esports journalists" is not a credible source of info.
The Toronto franchise is owned by some guy who owns 0.1% of the Pittsburgh Penguins and 8 restaurants in Toronto. This is who they got for a city with a GDP over $160 billion a year? hilarious stuff.
Until ATVI puts in writing the franchise fees i'm not buying what "esports journalists" are saying about the franchise fees. Especially with the Toronto franchise owner being a total joke.
On November 28 2018 08:29 lestye wrote: And if OWL is losing money when they've made AT LEAST 400m dollars (idk if the slots they sold recently sold for 30, or 40m, so for the sake of argument im saying 20), if its losing money then they're a lost cause.
OWL continues to be listed as a strategic investment. No revenue #s have ever been reported. "leaking franchise fees to esports journalists" is not a credible source of info.
The Toronto franchise is owned by some guy who owns 0.1% of the Pittsburgh Penguins and 8 restaurants in Toronto. This is who they got for a city with a GDP over $160 billion a year? hilarious stuff.
Until ATVI puts in writing the franchise fees i'm not buying what "esports journalists" are saying about the franchise fees. Especially with the Toronto franchise owner being a total joke.
I don't know. I trust ESPN on their shit.
I think we'd see a lot more endemic teams in OWL if that was true, every single team outside of disputed Toronto has unquestionably serious money behind them.
Granted, even if we agree its a fraction of the reported numbers, ATVI clearly can't be spending THAT much on OWL seeing how much teams have to pay out of their own pocket. The Blizzard Arena and renting the Barclays Center is a far cry from even the most conservative numbers.
On November 27 2018 15:09 JimmyJRaynor wrote: big difference between 2005-2010 and 2016-2018 is money.
From 2005 to 2010 WoW's and Blizzard's revenues and player base skyrocketed. ATVI was happy directing Blizzard to service one game, namely, WoW and pulling people off of other projects just to service WoW. This is not the case right now. revenue is falling and so is the player base.
since Overwatch made its quick $1 Billion in 2016 .... revenues and player base has fallen. A billion sounds like a lot but its not for ATVI. ATVI pulls in over $6 Billion per year in revenue; WoW by 2010 was pulling in over 2.5 billion every year.
its clear from the investor call Brack was surprised to get this promotion and he is still familiarizing himself with all of Blizzard's operations. Once he has a complete handle on all of Blizzard's various teams .... look for cutbacks.
Err, I get that. I'm just saying they're between generations to make the games that will get them said money.
They weren't just focusing on 1 game, they had at least 6 games in development during those years (7 if we're counting Blizzard North's D3) , 4 of which released between 2010-2014.
I'd imagine there's now even more projects in development.
But yeah, Overwatch's success is probably making Activision crack the whip, since I think Activision is the side thats slipping with the downfall of Skylanders and Call of Duty.
For a company that makes 6+ billion a year Overwatch is not much of a success. It made 1 billion .. 1 year. Now its Humble Bundled for $12. OWL has done nothing and remains categorized as "Strategic Investment" ... which is a polite way to say its losing money.
Investors chose to believe MLG and eSports would bring in new amazing mutli-billion dollar growth. That was 3 years ago. Investors are no longer listening to that song and dance. Judging by what the stock price has done lately I don't think they're listening to the "Blizzard has many more games coming" song and dance either.
Blizzard is busy milking its extremely loyal hard core fan base for every nickel and not adding in any new players.
Back in 2011 or 2012, I would've told you that MLG was going to be huge. They already experienced a huge amount of growth and even their later PPV events did quite well to bring the company some much-needed revenue.
In my eyes, WCS and the rise of montage parodies killed MLG as a brand. The company's disastrous running of WCS America 2013 tarnished the brand and pretty much ostracised them from the StarCraft scene. Then there are spoof montages that turned MLG (and other terms associated with the Call of Duty community) into a running joke. Given MLG's later partnerships with Activision and their elevation of CoD, they became the laughing stock to the point where Acti-Blizzard were inevitably going to buy them out for their infrastructure.
I think if WCS didn't happen, MLG would have rivalled ESL and Dreamhack as an esports powerhouse by now. We would have seen a far greater presence in the Smash Bros and Dota 2 communities from them.
On November 28 2018 12:37 lestye wrote: I don't know. I trust ESPN on their shit.
ESPN is as much gossip as substance in the era of the 20 second 140 character news cycle. i trust what ATVI puts in their investor calls because if they lie about historical statements about their company they go to jail. When ESPN misleads people about Roberto Osuna's domestic violence "charge" ... what happens to them? nothing. its pretty obvious ESPN's people know zero about the Canadian legal system. That doesn't stop them from yapping away though.
This is why ATVI has provided zero revenue #s about OWL and continue to list it as a "strategic investment"... because its drowning in red ink.
EPT
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