When Blizzard’s founder Allen Adham first invited me to join him in creating Silicon & Synapse (our original name), nothing could have prepared me for the amazing adventure that we would share for the next 27 years. Our original mission and values consisted of four simple words that formed our foundation: “We make great games.” We crafted that statement before we had even released our first game, but we were committed to living up to it.
After many years of working with some of the industry’s most talented people to create games and worlds for you to play in, I’ve decided it’s time for someone else to lead Blizzard Entertainment. I will now serve as an advisor to the company I so love and admire. My duties as president of Blizzard will be assumed by my friend, colleague, trusted advisor, and longtime steward of World of Warcraft, J. Allen Brack.
J. is an inspiring leader who has shown unwavering commitment to Blizzard’s community in his 12 years with the company. His leadership on World of Warcraft leveraged his vision, creativity, and commitment to quality, and together with the rest of the dev team helped deliver an experience that is unprecedented in our industry. I couldn’t be happier for J. and know that Blizzard will continue to make great games with him at the helm.
I am grateful to all of the hardworking and talented people at Blizzard for their dedication and creativity. Their belief in our mission and care for our players has helped Blizzard reach greater heights than I ever could have imagined.
I am also grateful to all of you in the community. We have been through so much together. Not only have you been with me through many of the greatest moments and biggest triumphs of my life, but you have also been there through some of the most difficult. I am fortunate to have been able to meet many of you in person, while the many messages, emails, Tweets, Reddit discussions, and forum posts have provided an unbelievable connection as well. Even Twitch chat. It has always brought me joy, comfort, and inspiration to see the beacons of brilliance, voices of reason, and the passion that exists and evolves every day in all of our communities.
When we started Blizzard we just wanted to make great games. What we realized is that the games we create are really just a framework for communities and human interaction. When we look back, what we often find that’s most lasting and meaningful from our experiences in games are the relationships we create and foster. You have given me the inspiration and drive to pour my heart and life into what I do. I literally couldn’t have done any of it without you. We have created these worlds, but you have given them life, through your passion, fan art, cosplay, videos, and in so many other ways.
I truly believe that this amazing community has the potential to be a shining light to the rest of the industry by setting a positive example of inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance toward others. In the words of one of Blizzard’s core values: remember to always play nice; play fair. I know this community is capable of changing the world.
It has been an honor to serve this community for over 27 years, and I thank you for your many years of support. I look forward to being a member of the community alongside you. See you on Battle.net!
Blizzard has been hemorrhaging MAU's for the last year. OW and Heroes of the Storm being the main culprits.
i'm not a big Heroes Of The Storm fan by any stretch... but i'd be worried about that franchise ending up on the chopping block.
Mike does have a young child... hopefully.. he is doing this to spend more time with his young family. That is just hope though. "Strategic Advisor" is a bullshit title that has no meaning.
This could be bad for SC2. From what I remember Morhaime was one of the people on the inside who was a fan of the game and kept funding for WCS/GSL, and with him gone we could see some downsizing for 2019.
I'm sure the company will do great, but it was always nice knowing the CEO as a fanboy for the Starcraft franchise above all else. Blizzcon won't be the same without him.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mike a few times while I was living in Korea. A stand-up guy who you could tell he was just another nerd like the rest of us. Wish him and his family all the best for the future post-Blizzard.
On October 04 2018 07:36 Solar424 wrote: This could be bad for SC2. From what I remember Morhaime was one of the people on the inside who was a fan of the game and kept funding for WCS/GSL, and with him gone we could see some downsizing for 2019.
Mike was a HUGE sc supporter. I remember he was following wcs eu 2013 when dimaga played an insane series vs mvp.
On October 04 2018 07:31 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Blizzard has been hemorrhaging MAU's for the last year. OW and Heroes of the Storm being the main culprits.
On October 04 2018 07:31 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Blizzard has been hemorrhaging MAU's for the last year. OW and Heroes of the Storm being the main culprits.
On October 04 2018 07:36 Solar424 wrote: This could be bad for SC2. From what I remember Morhaime was one of the people on the inside who was a fan of the game and kept funding for WCS/GSL, and with him gone we could see some downsizing for 2019.
Mike was a HUGE sc supporter. I remember he was following wcs eu 2013 when dimaga played an insane series vs mvp.
Best of luck to him in the future.
Pretty sure I've seen him show up in random streamers twitch chat every now and then and shoot the scheisse with them. I specifically remember him dropping in on one of Cyan's streams.
Seems like a really cool guy, and I wish him the best. I hope his advisory role isn't PR baloney, it'd be nice if he was still around keeping the guys at Blizz real.
On October 04 2018 07:31 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Blizzard has been hemorrhaging MAU's for the last year. OW and Heroes of the Storm being the main culprits.
On October 04 2018 07:36 Solar424 wrote: This could be bad for SC2. From what I remember Morhaime was one of the people on the inside who was a fan of the game and kept funding for WCS/GSL, and with him gone we could see some downsizing for 2019.
I have no idea if what your saying has any credibility backing it. But if we're going to run with that idea they should probably consider shutting Heroes of the Storm down - probably D3 as well, nobody would miss them.
Thanks Mike for being a champion of Starcraft even when it was waning. With Blizzard sponsorship both BW and SC2 have had a resurgence in recent years.
This would only have been possible if there was a champion for these games, and not someone who would capitulate to the Activision money-grubbing overlords.
I'm genuinely sad. Like wtf in the last couple of years we have lost Metzen, Mike, Rob Pardo, Ben Brode, Wei Wang. At this point I'm expecting Dustin Browder and, Jeff Kaplan and Samwise to announce retirement next year.
I just don't understand. If I had a dream, and I co-founded a company, and then that company became one of the biggest ever, producing some of the most critically aclaimed videogames there are, and I was the president….I would never think of leaving. They'd have to take company papers from my dead body cause I'd not give them away otherwise.
We'll never know if something happened or not, but honestly he seemed like such a cool guy, would love to meet him some day and hear some stories.
I'm genuinely sad. Like wtf in the last couple of years we have lost Metzen, Mike, Rob Pardo, Ben Brode, Wei Wang. At this point I'm expecting Dustin Browder and, Jeff Kaplan and Samwise to announce retirement next year.
I just don't understand. If I had a dream, and I co-founded a company, and then that company became one of the biggest ever, producing some of the most critically aclaimed videogames there are, and I was the president….I would never think of leaving. They'd have to take company papers from my dead body cause I'd not give them away otherwise.
We'll never know if something happened or not, but honestly he seemed like such a cool guy, would love to meet him some day and hear some stories.
He's already accomplished the dream. He's in fact carried it for at least 15 years after it was accomplished. The luster starts to fade and the stress starts to take over after that long. I don't know if you've stuck with *anything* in your life for more ~27 years besides your family (if you've even lived that long). Ever thought about that? Jobs, cities, friends, hobbies, for most people all these things change anywhere from 2-10 years. This man dedicated nearly half his life expectancy to that. I am incredibly grateful he gave us that much, and was a diehard SC fan through the very end.
Hats off, that's some dedication to making the world have more fun.
On October 04 2018 13:28 [Phantom] wrote: I'm genuinely sad. Like wtf in the last couple of years we have lost Metzen, Mike, Rob Pardo, Ben Brode, Wei Wang. At this point I'm expecting Dustin Browder and, Jeff Kaplan and Samwise to announce retirement next year.
I just don't understand. If I had a dream, and I co-founded a company, and then that company became one of the biggest ever, producing some of the most critically aclaimed videogames there are, and I was the president….I would never think of leaving. They'd have to take company papers from my dead body cause I'd not give them away otherwise.
We'll never know if something happened or not, but honestly he seemed like such a cool guy, would love to meet him some day and hear some stories.
As far as Morhaime is concern he is probably a multimillionaire/ billionaire (edit: Forbes has him at 1.8B he's gonna be fine) at this point so it make leaving a lot easier, he can do what the hell he want after that lol. He was in higher management of a big company having to answer to shareholder and did a pretty long run at it, while also being a public figure, it can be reasonable to think he want a break from it. Maybe management at Activision wasn't happy with his performance in the last few years. All in all someone with that kind of pedigree will be able to find a job in high up in pretty much any multinational that he would be interested in, so I'm not to worry for him.
Props for his time at Blizzard tho, he worked on some awesome games and made his company is one of the biggest game publisher in the world.
For the others, some of them probably just want to work on other games or in another environnement, I know Ben Brode worked like 10 years on Hearstone, at some point everyone want to do something else and it doesn't mean that Blizzard had an interesting opening for him (or the other) at this point.
On October 04 2018 13:28 [Phantom] wrote: I'm genuinely sad. Like wtf in the last couple of years we have lost Metzen, Mike, Rob Pardo, Ben Brode, Wei Wang. At this point I'm expecting Dustin Browder and, Jeff Kaplan and Samwise to announce retirement next year.
I just don't understand. If I had a dream, and I co-founded a company, and then that company became one of the biggest ever, producing some of the most critically aclaimed videogames there are, and I was the president….I would never think of leaving. They'd have to take company papers from my dead body cause I'd not give them away otherwise.
We'll never know if something happened or not, but honestly he seemed like such a cool guy, would love to meet him some day and hear some stories.
Holy shit, those guys all left?! I had no idea. Oh well, best of luck to Mr Morhaime. Seems he was a well regarded figure in the scene and will be missed.
ATVI revenue went from $1.63 B in Q2 of 2017 to $1.655B in Q2 of 2018. that is weak growth in an environment where NASDAQ is soaring. investors expect big growth when we are in a big bull market. Portion of Revenue from PC games FELL from 31% in first half of 2017 to 27% in 2018. Blizzard's Monthly Active Users have fallen 9 MILLION in the last year.,, from 46 million to 37 million. OUCH.
Morhaime got pushed out the door. Its not like he is leaving for some new venture like Pardo did. Kotick is fast with his executions. Guitar Hero got canned super fast after 1 title of mediocre performance. Skylanders had 1 season of weak results. Kotick acted swiftly and decisively. Kotick is doing the same thing with Blizzard.
best of luck to him, a pillar for Blizzard and for the SC world fingers crossed for the future of SC2, let's hope it will be kept as it is now (if not better)
Wow i never expected Mike to leave, thought he might just keep his title and do less and less like and the board of directors take more decision, but never expected him to step down
What he build with Blizzard is absolutely legendary. It does not matter if he was pushed out the door or left voluntarily, he had an incredible long and good run. The games of this company have given me so many great moments and memories. He did a wonderful job with this company and I will miss him.
You will be missed Mike, as one of the greatest SC fans out there. ...and Blizzard has yet to announce anything concerning WCS 2019 and future development of SC2, I have a real bad feeling about this.
On October 04 2018 16:01 JimmyJRaynor wrote: after a bit more thought here is what i have...
ATVI revenue went from $1.63 B in Q2 of 2017 to $1.655B in Q2 of 2018. that is weak growth in an environment where NASDAQ is soaring. investors expect big growth when we are in a big bull market. Portion of Revenue from PC games FELL from 31% in first half of 2017 to 27% in 2018. Blizzard's Monthly Active Users have fallen 9 MILLION in the last year.,, from 46 million to 37 million. OUCH.
Morhaime got pushed out the door. Its not like he is leaving for some new venture like Pardo did. Kotick is fast with his executions. Guitar Hero got canned super fast after 1 title of mediocre performance. Skylanders had 1 season of weak results. Kotick acted swiftly and decisively. Kotick is doing the same thing with Blizzard.
Knowing this... It doesn't look good for Blizzard funded sc2 esports :/
On October 04 2018 07:14 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote:
I truly believe that this amazing community has the potential to be a shining light to the rest of the industry by setting a positive example of inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance toward others. In the words of one of Blizzard’s core values: remember to always play nice; play fair. I know this community is capable of changing the world.
[/b][/QUOTE]
Sometimes i just hate these official statements. Only Oscar awards have higher level of smugness in their speeches. Everyone so offended and fragile these days.....
Hats off to Mike for everything he's done, i like the guy. Just hating the current culture.
On October 04 2018 07:14 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote:
I truly believe that this amazing community has the potential to be a shining light to the rest of the industry by setting a positive example of inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance toward others. In the words of one of Blizzard’s core values: remember to always play nice; play fair. I know this community is capable of changing the world.
Sometimes i just hate these official statements. Only Oscar awards have higher level of smugness in their speeches. Everyone so offended and fragile these days.....
Hats off to Mike for everything he's done, i like the guy. Just hating the current culture.
Looks like you're the one that's flustered by this statement...
What does it change for you that a company that wishes to sell games is more inclusive. It's in their best interest... The gaming market has always been targeting young males. By changing company culture and representing all facets of society inside their games, they can make their targeted market larger.
On October 04 2018 07:14 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote:
I truly believe that this amazing community has the potential to be a shining light to the rest of the industry by setting a positive example of inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance toward others. In the words of one of Blizzard’s core values: remember to always play nice; play fair. I know this community is capable of changing the world.
Sometimes i just hate these official statements. Only Oscar awards have higher level of smugness in their speeches. Everyone so offended and fragile these days.....
Hats off to Mike for everything he's done, i like the guy. Just hating the current culture.
You're right, nothing seems to offend people more than inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance in the current culture.
On October 04 2018 07:14 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote:
I truly believe that this amazing community has the potential to be a shining light to the rest of the industry by setting a positive example of inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance toward others. In the words of one of Blizzard’s core values: remember to always play nice; play fair. I know this community is capable of changing the world.
Sometimes i just hate these official statements. Only Oscar awards have higher level of smugness in their speeches. Everyone so offended and fragile these days.....
Hats off to Mike for everything he's done, i like the guy. Just hating the current culture.
You're right, nothing seems to offend people more than inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance in the current culture.
I have nothing against inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance. I just hate that public people have to mention those things every single time they write public statements, at least in some form. Like beauty pageants wish for world's peace.
On October 04 2018 07:14 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote:
I truly believe that this amazing community has the potential to be a shining light to the rest of the industry by setting a positive example of inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance toward others. In the words of one of Blizzard’s core values: remember to always play nice; play fair. I know this community is capable of changing the world.
Sometimes i just hate these official statements. Only Oscar awards have higher level of smugness in their speeches. Everyone so offended and fragile these days.....
Hats off to Mike for everything he's done, i like the guy. Just hating the current culture.
You're right, nothing seems to offend people more than inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance in the current culture.
I have nothing against inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance. I just hate that public people have to mention those things every single time they write public statements, at least in some form. Like beauty pageants wish for world's peace.
I've never watched beauty pageants so I'll take your word for it, but I'm also hoping for world peace to prevent any further triggering.
On October 04 2018 07:14 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote:
I truly believe that this amazing community has the potential to be a shining light to the rest of the industry by setting a positive example of inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance toward others. In the words of one of Blizzard’s core values: remember to always play nice; play fair. I know this community is capable of changing the world.
Sometimes i just hate these official statements. Only Oscar awards have higher level of smugness in their speeches. Everyone so offended and fragile these days.....
Hats off to Mike for everything he's done, i like the guy. Just hating the current culture.
You're right, nothing seems to offend people more than inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance in the current culture.
I have nothing against inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance. I just hate that public people have to mention those things every single time they write public statements, at least in some form. Like beauty pageants wish for world's peace.
why? why would you "hate" that? if you hate hearing about social morality it really reflects something about you and has nothing to do with the authenticity of our culture. maybe you should reflect on why you think kindness is a bad thing.
i'm a grown man, and i can handle a few seconds out of my starcraft time for people to name-check common decency. if anything i find public figures talking about sponsors and merchandise much more irritating than social justice.
On October 04 2018 16:01 JimmyJRaynor wrote: after a bit more thought here is what i have...
ATVI revenue went from $1.63 B in Q2 of 2017 to $1.655B in Q2 of 2018. that is weak growth in an environment where NASDAQ is soaring. investors expect big growth when we are in a big bull market. Portion of Revenue from PC games FELL from 31% in first half of 2017 to 27% in 2018. Blizzard's Monthly Active Users have fallen 9 MILLION in the last year.,, from 46 million to 37 million. OUCH.
Morhaime got pushed out the door. Its not like he is leaving for some new venture like Pardo did. Kotick is fast with his executions. Guitar Hero got canned super fast after 1 title of mediocre performance. Skylanders had 1 season of weak results. Kotick acted swiftly and decisively. Kotick is doing the same thing with Blizzard.
Knowing this... It doesn't look good for Blizzard funded sc2 esports :/
Correlation doesn't imply causation, but Jimmy may be on to something here... As much as people on TL are often sheltered from the greater gaming on context or mostly stick with Blizzard stuff and maybe a MOBA or CS:GO, Activision has been one of the most disgusting exponents of unchecked capitalist greed that will stop at nothing to make its shareholders more money.in the gaming space of the last 10 or so years. People tend to forget amidst all the shouting of "EA bad" but it's true.
Furthermore as others have mentioned in this thread it's well known by this point that Mr. Morhaime was very passionate about everything StarCraft even when the scene was at its nadir, in terms of both how the community felt about the game and eSports stats and numbers. Not only is it as much of an emotional loss as you could reasonably expect from this, but it may have very worrying implications for the future of the game or at least its eSports scene.
Thank you to Mike for everything he did for StarCraft. I wish good luck for the future, and hope the next guy can fill this massive responsibility well; looking forward to that
On October 04 2018 07:14 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote:
I truly believe that this amazing community has the potential to be a shining light to the rest of the industry by setting a positive example of inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance toward others. In the words of one of Blizzard’s core values: remember to always play nice; play fair. I know this community is capable of changing the world.
Sometimes i just hate these official statements. Only Oscar awards have higher level of smugness in their speeches. Everyone so offended and fragile these days.....
Hats off to Mike for everything he's done, i like the guy. Just hating the current culture.
You're right, nothing seems to offend people more than inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance in the current culture.
I have nothing against inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance. I just hate that public people have to mention those things every single time they write public statements, at least in some form. Like beauty pageants wish for world's peace.
why? why would you "hate" that? if you hate hearing about social morality it really reflects something about you and has nothing to do with the authenticity of our culture. maybe you should reflect on why you think kindness is a bad thing.
i'm a grown man, and i can handle a few seconds out of my starcraft time for people to name-check common decency. if anything i find public figures talking about sponsors and merchandise much more irritating than social justice.
I'd like to believe that Beyond Magic prefers doing concrete things to fix these issues over empty words.
On October 04 2018 16:01 JimmyJRaynor wrote: after a bit more thought here is what i have...
ATVI revenue went from $1.63 B in Q2 of 2017 to $1.655B in Q2 of 2018. that is weak growth in an environment where NASDAQ is soaring. investors expect big growth when we are in a big bull market. Portion of Revenue from PC games FELL from 31% in first half of 2017 to 27% in 2018. Blizzard's Monthly Active Users have fallen 9 MILLION in the last year.,, from 46 million to 37 million. OUCH.
Morhaime got pushed out the door. Its not like he is leaving for some new venture like Pardo did. Kotick is fast with his executions. Guitar Hero got canned super fast after 1 title of mediocre performance. Skylanders had 1 season of weak results. Kotick acted swiftly and decisively. Kotick is doing the same thing with Blizzard.
Knowing this... It doesn't look good for Blizzard funded sc2 esports :/
Well that's the issue when you base your scene on the devs. Once they pull out it's dead. We had a foreign scene that was able to survive without Blizzard before WCS, but even Dreamhack and ESL only do SC2 when Blizz pays for it nowadays. Even though GSL has always been paid for by Blizzard, we were once at a point were we had other stuff in Korea without Blizzards funding (SSL, PL). I'm just happy that ASL has been able to survive inspite of all the hurdles Blizz has put in it's way rather than by being fundet by blizz. At least Korean Brood War will survive, should drastic changes come with Mike stepping down. SC2 will probably die in Korea and shrink hugely in the West.
But who knows, maybe nothing will change and we are over reacting.
On October 04 2018 16:01 JimmyJRaynor wrote: after a bit more thought here is what i have...
ATVI revenue went from $1.63 B in Q2 of 2017 to $1.655B in Q2 of 2018. that is weak growth in an environment where NASDAQ is soaring. investors expect big growth when we are in a big bull market. Portion of Revenue from PC games FELL from 31% in first half of 2017 to 27% in 2018. Blizzard's Monthly Active Users have fallen 9 MILLION in the last year.,, from 46 million to 37 million. OUCH.
Morhaime got pushed out the door. Its not like he is leaving for some new venture like Pardo did. Kotick is fast with his executions. Guitar Hero got canned super fast after 1 title of mediocre performance. Skylanders had 1 season of weak results. Kotick acted swiftly and decisively. Kotick is doing the same thing with Blizzard.
Knowing this... It doesn't look good for Blizzard funded sc2 esports :/
Well that's the issue when you base your scene on the devs. Once they pull out it's dead. We had a foreign scene that was able to survive without Blizzard before WCS, but even Dreamhack and ESL only do SC2 when Blizz pays for it nowadays. Even though GSL has always been paid for by Blizzard, we were once at a point were we had other stuff in Korea without Blizzards funding (SSL, PL). I'm just happy that ASL has been able to survive inspite of all the hurdles Blizz has put in it's way rather than by being fundet by blizz. At least Korean Brood War will survive, should drastic changes come with Mike stepping down. SC2 will probably die in Korea and shrink hugely in the West.
But who knows, maybe nothing will change and we are over reacting.
DH and ESL wouldn't be able to run SC events at a profit today even if WCS had never existed. At today's viewership numbers, only the devs pouring in money can sustain the scene at its current size.
On October 04 2018 16:01 JimmyJRaynor wrote: after a bit more thought here is what i have...
ATVI revenue went from $1.63 B in Q2 of 2017 to $1.655B in Q2 of 2018. that is weak growth in an environment where NASDAQ is soaring. investors expect big growth when we are in a big bull market. Portion of Revenue from PC games FELL from 31% in first half of 2017 to 27% in 2018. Blizzard's Monthly Active Users have fallen 9 MILLION in the last year.,, from 46 million to 37 million. OUCH.
Morhaime got pushed out the door. Its not like he is leaving for some new venture like Pardo did. Kotick is fast with his executions. Guitar Hero got canned super fast after 1 title of mediocre performance. Skylanders had 1 season of weak results. Kotick acted swiftly and decisively. Kotick is doing the same thing with Blizzard.
Knowing this... It doesn't look good for Blizzard funded sc2 esports :/
Well that's the issue when you base your scene on the devs. Once they pull out it's dead. We had a foreign scene that was able to survive without Blizzard before WCS, but even Dreamhack and ESL only do SC2 when Blizz pays for it nowadays. Even though GSL has always been paid for by Blizzard, we were once at a point were we had other stuff in Korea without Blizzards funding (SSL, PL). I'm just happy that ASL has been able to survive inspite of all the hurdles Blizz has put in it's way rather than by being fundet by blizz. At least Korean Brood War will survive, should drastic changes come with Mike stepping down. SC2 will probably die in Korea and shrink hugely in the West.
But who knows, maybe nothing will change and we are over reacting.
DH and ESL wouldn't be able to run SC events at a profit today even if WCS had never existed. At today's viewership numbers, only the devs pouring in money can sustain the scene at its current size.
Well those viewership numbers took a dip when WCS started. And if the game itself can't sustain it then the scene needs to shrink. Otherwise it all falls apart once the devs pull out.
On October 04 2018 16:01 JimmyJRaynor wrote: after a bit more thought here is what i have...
ATVI revenue went from $1.63 B in Q2 of 2017 to $1.655B in Q2 of 2018. that is weak growth in an environment where NASDAQ is soaring. investors expect big growth when we are in a big bull market. Portion of Revenue from PC games FELL from 31% in first half of 2017 to 27% in 2018. Blizzard's Monthly Active Users have fallen 9 MILLION in the last year.,, from 46 million to 37 million. OUCH.
Morhaime got pushed out the door. Its not like he is leaving for some new venture like Pardo did. Kotick is fast with his executions. Guitar Hero got canned super fast after 1 title of mediocre performance. Skylanders had 1 season of weak results. Kotick acted swiftly and decisively. Kotick is doing the same thing with Blizzard.
Knowing this... It doesn't look good for Blizzard funded sc2 esports :/
Well that's the issue when you base your scene on the devs. Once they pull out it's dead. We had a foreign scene that was able to survive without Blizzard before WCS, but even Dreamhack and ESL only do SC2 when Blizz pays for it nowadays. Even though GSL has always been paid for by Blizzard, we were once at a point were we had other stuff in Korea without Blizzards funding (SSL, PL). I'm just happy that ASL has been able to survive inspite of all the hurdles Blizz has put in it's way rather than by being fundet by blizz. At least Korean Brood War will survive, should drastic changes come with Mike stepping down. SC2 will probably die in Korea and shrink hugely in the West.
But who knows, maybe nothing will change and we are over reacting.
DH and ESL wouldn't be able to run SC events at a profit today even if WCS had never existed. At today's viewership numbers, only the devs pouring in money can sustain the scene at its current size.
Well those viewership numbers took a dip when WCS started. And if the game itself can't sustain it then the scene needs to shrink. Otherwise it all falls apart once the devs pull out.
WCS in any iteration similar to what we have today only really started in 2013. Viewership and player numbers had been going down since 2012 for numerous reasons.
the scene was not able to survive before all of this, they simply over-invested, event organizers and teams both. a lot of people believed sponsors would pay for everything and there simply wasn't enough return. there are now no major teams and salaries, and a lot of the injection comes from the game company themselves. this is not so different from a bunch of titles out there, except for the fact that they tend to earn some bit of revenue.
the size and frequency as it is is fine now and it is a worthwhile continued investment for blizz if they plan on ever releasing another RTS.
On October 04 2018 16:01 JimmyJRaynor wrote: after a bit more thought here is what i have...
ATVI revenue went from $1.63 B in Q2 of 2017 to $1.655B in Q2 of 2018. that is weak growth in an environment where NASDAQ is soaring. investors expect big growth when we are in a big bull market. Portion of Revenue from PC games FELL from 31% in first half of 2017 to 27% in 2018. Blizzard's Monthly Active Users have fallen 9 MILLION in the last year.,, from 46 million to 37 million. OUCH.
Morhaime got pushed out the door. Its not like he is leaving for some new venture like Pardo did. Kotick is fast with his executions. Guitar Hero got canned super fast after 1 title of mediocre performance. Skylanders had 1 season of weak results. Kotick acted swiftly and decisively. Kotick is doing the same thing with Blizzard.
Knowing this... It doesn't look good for Blizzard funded sc2 esports :/
Well that's the issue when you base your scene on the devs. Once they pull out it's dead. We had a foreign scene that was able to survive without Blizzard before WCS, but even Dreamhack and ESL only do SC2 when Blizz pays for it nowadays. Even though GSL has always been paid for by Blizzard, we were once at a point were we had other stuff in Korea without Blizzards funding (SSL, PL). I'm just happy that ASL has been able to survive inspite of all the hurdles Blizz has put in it's way rather than by being fundet by blizz. At least Korean Brood War will survive, should drastic changes come with Mike stepping down. SC2 will probably die in Korea and shrink hugely in the West.
But who knows, maybe nothing will change and we are over reacting.
DH and ESL wouldn't be able to run SC events at a profit today even if WCS had never existed. At today's viewership numbers, only the devs pouring in money can sustain the scene at its current size.
Well those viewership numbers took a dip when WCS started. And if the game itself can't sustain it then the scene needs to shrink. Otherwise it all falls apart once the devs pull out.
WCS was not what made sc2 numbers dip. There are many potential reasons why it happened, but WCS is certainly not one of them.
As far as funding goes, while this is worrying, I don't think people understand how little sc2 actually gets as far as esports go. OWL has had literally hundreds of millions put into it. Blizz put a few million into sc2 every year ($2M for prize money, and then whatever they happen to contribute to production), and they even get a large amount back from warchests, the latest of which sold $1M worth in the first 2 weeks.
Simply put, Overwatch is more popular, but not by 100x, which is what you'd expect if funding and viewership were directly correlated. The latest csgo major peaked at like 500K viewers, I'd expect sc2 at blizzcon to reach at least 25% of that. Not bad given how much more money is in the former (although the profit valve make from cs esports is ridiculous).
On October 04 2018 07:14 TeamLiquid ESPORTS wrote:
I truly believe that this amazing community has the potential to be a shining light to the rest of the industry by setting a positive example of inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance toward others. In the words of one of Blizzard’s core values: remember to always play nice; play fair. I know this community is capable of changing the world.
Sometimes i just hate these official statements. Only Oscar awards have higher level of smugness in their speeches. Everyone so offended and fragile these days.....
Hats off to Mike for everything he's done, i like the guy. Just hating the current culture.
You're right, nothing seems to offend people more than inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance in the current culture.
I have nothing against inclusivity, tolerance, and acceptance. I just hate that public people have to mention those things every single time they write public statements, at least in some form. Like beauty pageants wish for world's peace.
why? why would you "hate" that? if you hate hearing about social morality it really reflects something about you and has nothing to do with the authenticity of our culture. maybe you should reflect on why you think kindness is a bad thing.
i'm a grown man, and i can handle a few seconds out of my starcraft time for people to name-check common decency. if anything i find public figures talking about sponsors and merchandise much more irritating than social justice.
I think the starcraft community especially is a great one for these values. I've always loved this community.
That said, his issue is probably with the basic nature of the statement, and the fact that those virtues are extolled far more often than other virtues. Like, when stepping down, he didn't say, "...setting a positive example of work ethic, personal responsibility, and the drive to self improvement". No one says that in this current culture, even though those are all things you need to get good at starcraft also.
I can see it being annoying that the same 2-3 "voter friendly" virtues are always the ones that get extolled to the opportunity cost of other, equally valid virtues.
And also, it's basic and broad. But hey, it's a closing statement, so that's fine.
blizzard probably aren't doing so great right now; BFA has possibly one of the worst receptions in MMO history, HS has been dropping off and now has some serious competition in MTGA/Artifact, SC2 and SCR probably aren't bringing in big money, D3 is as good as dead, and did anyone ever watch OW and HOTS esports in the first place?
I think we can expect at the very least a new franchise announced at blizzcon, and possibly WC4 considering they've been patching WC3 for a few months now, possibly to build some sort of anticipation.
Did anyone notice that Brack was named president, but not CEO? So Blizzard no longer has its own CEO. I wonder if that means anything. While Blizzard has ostensibly been an 'equal partner' with Activision, Kotick has always been the one in charge. With Morhaime out, I could see Activision having even greater influence in Blizzard operations.
Edit: I also found the phrasing he used in his statement interesting:
After many years of working with some of the industry’s most talented people to create games and worlds for you to play in, I’ve decided it’s time for someone else to lead Blizzard Entertainment.
On October 05 2018 05:07 Garrl wrote: blizzard probably aren't doing so great right now; BFA has possibly one of the worst receptions in MMO history, HS has been dropping off and now has some serious competition in MTGA/Artifact, SC2 and SCR probably aren't bringing in big money, D3 is as good as dead, and did anyone ever watch OW and HOTS esports in the first place?
I think we can expect at the very least a new franchise announced at blizzcon, and possibly WC4 considering they've been patching WC3 for a few months now, possibly to build some sort of anticipation.
To be fair, WoD is still widely considered the worst expansion of all time. It was definitely the most poorly received.
I think the major problem with BFA is that it regressed in design from Legion, which makes no fucking sense. Same exact thing as Destiny 2, they removed the good systems that were developed later in the last expansion and reverted improved systems to their original, worse iterations.
The only thing hearthstone had going for it was its extremely well developed accessibility. As soon as anything came along with comparable user ease of access hearthstone was going down.
D3 always made me sad because I think the recent seasons (10 onwards) have been really fun, but I personally don't like PoE.
Who knows about OW and HOTS, OW was really fun for the first year, but I haven't been interested since Doomfist's release and even then I had quit before he came out, and did anyone ever play HOTS?
You got to be the guy speaking @ Blizzconn. It just wont be the same thing without you, mate.
Anyways, i hope that this is a personal decision, and not because the board doesn't like the company's charts. Blizzard has been the best game provider for the past 3 decades, you are one of the reasons for that.
On October 05 2018 05:07 Garrl wrote: blizzard probably aren't doing so great right now; BFA has possibly one of the worst receptions in MMO history, HS has been dropping off and now has some serious competition in MTGA/Artifact, SC2 and SCR probably aren't bringing in big money, D3 is as good as dead, and did anyone ever watch OW and HOTS esports in the first place?
I think we can expect at the very least a new franchise announced at blizzcon, and possibly WC4 considering they've been patching WC3 for a few months now, possibly to build some sort of anticipation.
Overwatch League has been doing relatively well. Drew 100k-ish viewers throughout the whole first season, and they are adding even more teams for the second season. Expect to see lots of brags on that at blizzcon. I can't speak for the numbers of the actual player base though.
For new games, I wouldn't mind a F2P Diablo 4 to directly compete with Path of Exile.
On October 05 2018 05:07 Garrl wrote: blizzard probably aren't doing so great right now; BFA has possibly one of the worst receptions in MMO history, HS has been dropping off and now has some serious competition in MTGA/Artifact, SC2 and SCR probably aren't bringing in big money, D3 is as good as dead, and did anyone ever watch OW and HOTS esports in the first place?
I think we can expect at the very least a new franchise announced at blizzcon, and possibly WC4 considering they've been patching WC3 for a few months now, possibly to build some sort of anticipation.
Overwatch League has been doing relatively well. Drew 100k-ish viewers throughout the whole first season
Is that actually good though? The amount of money invested into OWL is on a different magnitude to SC2.
So we won't have any more of those passionate speeches at big event finals from this one random old nerd, who just happened to actually be the CEO of Blizzard
On October 05 2018 05:07 Garrl wrote: blizzard probably aren't doing so great right now; BFA has possibly one of the worst receptions in MMO history, HS has been dropping off and now has some serious competition in MTGA/Artifact, SC2 and SCR probably aren't bringing in big money, D3 is as good as dead, and did anyone ever watch OW and HOTS esports in the first place?
I think we can expect at the very least a new franchise announced at blizzcon, and possibly WC4 considering they've been patching WC3 for a few months now, possibly to build some sort of anticipation.
Overwatch League has been doing relatively well. Drew 100k-ish viewers throughout the whole first season
Is that actually good though? The amount of money invested into OWL is on a different magnitude to SC2.
I'm no expert but it's enticing enough to draw in 8 other big investors for the second season. From what I've heard it's doing better than expected for the first season.
On October 05 2018 00:58 Fango wrote:As far as funding goes, while this is worrying, I don't think people understand how little sc2 actually gets as far as esports go. OWL has had literally hundreds of millions put into it. Blizz put a few million into sc2 every year ($2M for prize money, and then whatever they happen to contribute to production), and they even get a large amount back from warchests, the latest of which sold $1M worth in the first 2 weeks.
Simply put, Overwatch is more popular, but not by 100x, which is what you'd expect if funding and viewership were directly correlated. The latest csgo major peaked at like 500K viewers, I'd expect sc2 at blizzcon to reach at least 25% of that. Not bad given how much more money is in the former (although the profit valve make from cs esports is ridiculous).
Several hundred million was not spent on Overwatch League this year. Yes, the franchise partners and Twitch have combined paid ActiBlizz several hundred for rights, but that's not the same as operating expenses. There's no way they are burning anywhere near that much money annually (unless OWL expands massively). The reason for franchise buy-ins is so Blizzard doesn't have to front the full investment AND they get partners with a strong vested interest in the success of the league. At the same time, it's absolutely a gamble.They aren't putting this money in thinking it will stay the same or grow a little. They expect OWL to grow significantly.
On October 05 2018 05:07 Garrl wrote: blizzard probably aren't doing so great right now; BFA has possibly one of the worst receptions in MMO history, HS has been dropping off and now has some serious competition in MTGA/Artifact, SC2 and SCR probably aren't bringing in big money, D3 is as good as dead, and did anyone ever watch OW and HOTS esports in the first place?
I think we can expect at the very least a new franchise announced at blizzcon, and possibly WC4 considering they've been patching WC3 for a few months now, possibly to build some sort of anticipation.
To be fair, WoD is still widely considered the worst expansion of all time. It was definitely the most poorly received.
I think the major problem with BFA is that it regressed in design from Legion, which makes no fucking sense. Same exact thing as Destiny 2, they removed the good systems that were developed later in the last expansion and reverted improved systems to their original, worse iterations.
The only thing hearthstone had going for it was its extremely well developed accessibility. As soon as anything came along with comparable user ease of access hearthstone was going down.
D3 always made me sad because I think the recent seasons (10 onwards) have been really fun, but I personally don't like PoE.
Who knows about OW and HOTS, OW was really fun for the first year, but I haven't been interested since Doomfist's release and even then I had quit before he came out, and did anyone ever play HOTS?
I though Cataclysm was the worst expansion, I might be wrong, but either way BFA has been very controversial.
D3 is dead. PoE is just a deeper, better game. It must hurt for Blizzard that an Indie company has the better game and the most players on a game based on their franchise.
OW has been loosing a lot of track in Korea. It was once the most played and popular game even over League but it dropped below 10% popularity.
On October 05 2018 05:07 Garrl wrote: blizzard probably aren't doing so great right now; BFA has possibly one of the worst receptions in MMO history, HS has been dropping off and now has some serious competition in MTGA/Artifact, SC2 and SCR probably aren't bringing in big money, D3 is as good as dead, and did anyone ever watch OW and HOTS esports in the first place?
I think we can expect at the very least a new franchise announced at blizzcon, and possibly WC4 considering they've been patching WC3 for a few months now, possibly to build some sort of anticipation.
To be fair, WoD is still widely considered the worst expansion of all time. It was definitely the most poorly received.
I think the major problem with BFA is that it regressed in design from Legion, which makes no fucking sense. Same exact thing as Destiny 2, they removed the good systems that were developed later in the last expansion and reverted improved systems to their original, worse iterations.
The only thing hearthstone had going for it was its extremely well developed accessibility. As soon as anything came along with comparable user ease of access hearthstone was going down.
D3 always made me sad because I think the recent seasons (10 onwards) have been really fun, but I personally don't like PoE.
Who knows about OW and HOTS, OW was really fun for the first year, but I haven't been interested since Doomfist's release and even then I had quit before he came out, and did anyone ever play HOTS?
I though Cataclysm was the worst expansion, I might be wrong, but either way BFA has been very controversial.
D3 is dead. PoE is just a deeper, better game. It must hurt for Blizzard that an Indie company has the better game and the most players on a game based on their franchise.
OW has been loosing a lot of track in Korea. It was once the most played and popular game even over League but it dropped below 10% popularity.
We'll see with BFA. There are growing pains with every new expansion. If you looked at how many people thought Leggos were terrible and AP grinding makes the game a "job to play" you'd think Legion was the worst expansion ever, now we're in BFA and people are looking fonding in BFA.
I'm going to wager Diablo 3 breaks that when new content comes out. Path of Exile's popularity is attributed to the content pipeline, which Blizzard obviously hasn't done in forever because they make money off expansion packs and retail releases.
Just out of curiosity, how did he manage to acquire a net worth of nearly two billion dollar? Does that have to do with stocks and the Activision, Blizzard merger?
On October 05 2018 17:24 MrMischelito wrote: didn't they replace the name "Battle.net" for something else? I guess the new name never really stuck with me. and apparently not with mike either...
They changed their plans. Instead of "Blizzard app" or "Battle.net" It's "Blizzard Battle.net".
On October 05 2018 17:39 Grumbels wrote: Just out of curiosity, how did he manage to acquire a net worth of nearly two billion dollar? Does that have to do with stocks and the Activision, Blizzard merger?
Even if I didn't like anything Blizz did in recent years, the guy is still a legend. That said, this is a clear sign that Activision-Blizzard is about to become ACTIVISION-blizzard.
On October 05 2018 19:51 ihatevideogames wrote: Even if I didn't like anything Blizz did in recent years, the guy is still a legend. That said, this is a clear sign that Activision-Blizzard is about to become ACTIVISION-blizzard.
Exactly my thoughts, Blizzard has been on a downward spiral for the almost the last decade now, it's gonna get even worse now. Generic cash grab AAA developer incoming. Best wishes to Mike, though!
On October 05 2018 05:07 Garrl wrote: blizzard probably aren't doing so great right now; BFA has possibly one of the worst receptions in MMO history, HS has been dropping off and now has some serious competition in MTGA/Artifact, SC2 and SCR probably aren't bringing in big money, D3 is as good as dead, and did anyone ever watch OW and HOTS esports in the first place?
I think we can expect at the very least a new franchise announced at blizzcon, and possibly WC4 considering they've been patching WC3 for a few months now, possibly to build some sort of anticipation.
Overwatch League has been doing relatively well. Drew 100k-ish viewers throughout the whole first season
Is that actually good though? The amount of money invested into OWL is on a different magnitude to SC2.
I'm no expert but it's enticing enough to draw in 8 other big investors for the second season. From what I've heard it's doing better than expected for the first season.
They had some seriously low expectations then. If they consider owl a success then I'd be shocked if they don't keep investing in wcs.
He is kinda right, but he uses wrong argument. The problem is maintenance of additional servers, amount of players on each server/spliting community. But that also is only limiting to a certain degree - Lineage 2 is supporting servers for old game versions and they have some popularity.
There is generally nothing wrong with people playing old versions with some features missing. Let people decide what they want, nothing wrong with having more options. Paradox supports playing on old versions of their games and its cartainly being used by players. Same is with NCSoft as i mentioned above.
On October 05 2018 05:07 Garrl wrote: blizzard probably aren't doing so great right now; BFA has possibly one of the worst receptions in MMO history, HS has been dropping off and now has some serious competition in MTGA/Artifact, SC2 and SCR probably aren't bringing in big money, D3 is as good as dead, and did anyone ever watch OW and HOTS esports in the first place?
I think we can expect at the very least a new franchise announced at blizzcon, and possibly WC4 considering they've been patching WC3 for a few months now, possibly to build some sort of anticipation.
Overwatch League has been doing relatively well. Drew 100k-ish viewers throughout the whole first season
Is that actually good though? The amount of money invested into OWL is on a different magnitude to SC2.
I'm no expert but it's enticing enough to draw in 8 other big investors for the second season. From what I've heard it's doing better than expected for the first season.
8 Big investors? who exactly bought the Toronto OW team? who are these guys? a "big investor" would be MLSE or Rogers or Bell.
Had ATVI convinced MLSE to buy a team it would lend much more credibility to the Toronto team. Incidentally, MLSE owns the NBA2K Toronto team.
On October 05 2018 05:07 Garrl wrote: blizzard probably aren't doing so great right now; BFA has possibly one of the worst receptions in MMO history, HS has been dropping off and now has some serious competition in MTGA/Artifact, SC2 and SCR probably aren't bringing in big money, D3 is as good as dead, and did anyone ever watch OW and HOTS esports in the first place?
I think we can expect at the very least a new franchise announced at blizzcon, and possibly WC4 considering they've been patching WC3 for a few months now, possibly to build some sort of anticipation.
Overwatch League has been doing relatively well. Drew 100k-ish viewers throughout the whole first season
Is that actually good though? The amount of money invested into OWL is on a different magnitude to SC2.
I'm no expert but it's enticing enough to draw in 8 other big investors for the second season. From what I've heard it's doing better than expected for the first season.
8 Big investors? who exactly bought the Toronto OW team? who are these guys? a "big investor" would be MLSE or Rogers or Bell.
Had ATVI convinced MLSE to buy a team it would lend much more credibility to the Toronto team. Incidentally, MLSE owns the NBA2K Toronto team.
if this is all ATVI got for a team in the 3rd biggest media market in NA then i'd say OWL ain't goin so great.
Big investors as in someone willing to buy into being one of the team. By all account the amount increased significantly over last year.
Look I’m not saying OWL is a smashing success, but from what I’ve heard from people trying to bid into an OWL team in the SEA region, the league is gaining larger than expected revenue. That’s the figure Blizzard is giving potential investors.
Ever bought tickets for an OWL game? when you buy tickets for a mid-week OWL game they throw in free tickets for Friday and Saturday. They only have 500 seats.. and even in an arena that small the house is papered.
On October 06 2018 00:00 ramask2 wrote: Look I’m not saying OWL is a smashing success, but from what I’ve heard from people trying to bid into an OWL team in the SEA region, the league is gaining larger than expected revenue. That’s the figure Blizzard is giving potential investors.
ATVI is well known for sandbagging in order to achieve "better than expected" results.
On October 06 2018 00:03 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Ever bought tickets for an OWL game? when you buy tickets for a mid-week OWL game they throw in free tickets for Friday and Saturday. They only have 500 seats.. and even in an arena that small the house is papered.
On October 06 2018 00:00 ramask2 wrote: Look I’m not saying OWL is a smashing success, but from what I’ve heard from people trying to bid into an OWL team in the SEA region, the league is gaining larger than expected revenue. That’s the figure Blizzard is giving potential investors.
ATVI is well known for sandbagging in order to achieve "better than expected" results.
Eh I dunno about the live experience for OWL, but I’ll trust your experience.
For what it’s worth the recent world cup in Thailand filled the 3000 seats arena and lots of OWL merchandise are sold out by day 1. They DO have fans around the world.
On October 05 2018 19:51 ihatevideogames wrote: Even if I didn't like anything Blizz did in recent years, the guy is still a legend. That said, this is a clear sign that Activision-Blizzard is about to become ACTIVISION-blizzard.
More activision? What is so activision about blizzard?
On October 05 2018 05:07 Garrl wrote: blizzard probably aren't doing so great right now; BFA has possibly one of the worst receptions in MMO history, HS has been dropping off and now has some serious competition in MTGA/Artifact, SC2 and SCR probably aren't bringing in big money, D3 is as good as dead, and did anyone ever watch OW and HOTS esports in the first place?
I think we can expect at the very least a new franchise announced at blizzcon, and possibly WC4 considering they've been patching WC3 for a few months now, possibly to build some sort of anticipation.
To be fair, WoD is still widely considered the worst expansion of all time. It was definitely the most poorly received.
I think the major problem with BFA is that it regressed in design from Legion, which makes no fucking sense. Same exact thing as Destiny 2, they removed the good systems that were developed later in the last expansion and reverted improved systems to their original, worse iterations.
The only thing hearthstone had going for it was its extremely well developed accessibility. As soon as anything came along with comparable user ease of access hearthstone was going down.
D3 always made me sad because I think the recent seasons (10 onwards) have been really fun, but I personally don't like PoE.
Who knows about OW and HOTS, OW was really fun for the first year, but I haven't been interested since Doomfist's release and even then I had quit before he came out, and did anyone ever play HOTS?
I though Cataclysm was the worst expansion, I might be wrong, but either way BFA has been very controversial.
D3 is dead. PoE is just a deeper, better game. It must hurt for Blizzard that an Indie company has the better game and the most players on a game based on their franchise.
OW has been loosing a lot of track in Korea. It was once the most played and popular game even over League but it dropped below 10% popularity.
We'll see with BFA. There are growing pains with every new expansion. If you looked at how many people thought Leggos were terrible and AP grinding makes the game a "job to play" you'd think Legion was the worst expansion ever, now we're in BFA and people are looking fonding in BFA.
I'm going to wager Diablo 3 breaks that when new content comes out. Path of Exile's popularity is attributed to the content pipeline, which Blizzard obviously hasn't done in forever because they make money off expansion packs and retail releases.
Its almost as if people overblow everything. You never had to grind AP like crazy. You cant ignore how much all this shit contradicts the endless wishing for Classic. Look at this guys buff bar at the end. I count about 10 consumables. 50g respec cost btw. People dont know what they want Path of Exile is losing players. About 20k decided to not return for this season. Probably more when you include their client
Wow, huge news. The guy is a legend, and as others have already said you can tell he has genuine passion for games. Really sad to see him go. He'll be alright though, he has a billion or two in the bank haha
Sad news but I wanna know one thing - This is not the start of SC2 going downhill is it? Because honestly lately SC2 has been rising up in popularity which is super awesome...
Will the replacement guy support SC2 as much as Mike?
On October 04 2018 07:31 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Blizzard has been hemorrhaging MAU's for the last year. OW and Heroes of the Storm being the main culprits.
WoW's had a disastrous expansion launch
Server problems or design problems?
There's lots of problems with this expansion...
Server-wise, the Auction House has been unusable since 8.0's launch. Even opening the tab takes several minutes at peak times because of how laggy it is.
Azerite traits are poorly designed because they add an additional layer of RNG to an already luck dependent drop system. They're also often the be-all-end-all to optimising your gear. If you get an item level 370 gear piece that has suboptimal azerite traits for instance, it performs much worse than an item level 340 drop with the optimal traits.
Then there's Warfronts, which rotate between Alliance and Horde every two weeks, but this was not communicated to the player base at all. Imagine everyone's shock and horror when Horde players got access to a free and easy item level 370 item right as Mythic Uldir was about to open. Progression raiding has already been dominated by Horde guilds because of historic balance issues with racial abilities, but this tier only got screwed even more.
On October 04 2018 07:47 Psychonian wrote: So... How much is known about the new guy and and if funding is likely to decrease?
I don't like him either. He's one of the current WoW team figureheads that represents the rockstar style arrogance of modern Blizzard, alongside people like Watcher, Celestalon, Lore, Holinka, etc.
Tell that to the players who flocked en masse to Nostalrius and propped up its registration numbers to almost a million before Blizzard shut it down - not because it was a free pirate server but because they were sick and fed up of WoD.
As somebody who didn't start playing WoW until early TBC who spent some time on Nost, it really isn't the rose-tinted goggles effect that every modern WoW apologist claims it is. The game was just objectively better back then, even despite class balance being in a terrible spot.
Old school WoW didn't force you to wade through loads of boring, repetitive, immersion-breaking and overly scripted quests that tried to build you up as this final hope for Azeroth like the last few expansions have. Instead, you were an unknown adventurer and the game world felt far more organic and far less contrived. The best part is that you often had the freedom to grind mobs, run dungeons and explore the game world rather than ride the conveyor belt to the next quest hub like you did from Cataclysm onwards. This is because there weren't that many quests around and they actually weren't the most efficient levelling method in the game.
Old school WoW didn't have resource nodes like herbs and ores that would randomly despawn from the game world because you wandered into a different phase of a certain subzone - one of my major complaints with modern WoW that Blizzard still can't be bothered to fix.
Old school WoW had complex stat sheets where almost every primary and secondary stat did something beneficial for your class. Primary stats also had a lot of varied uses unlike in modern WoW where they're an overglorified "make your attacks hit harder" stat. How successful do you think Dungeons & Dragons would have been as a tabletop RPG if your stat sheet looked like this? The answer is 'not very' because tabletop gamers don't want to play Fisher Price™ My First Tabletop RPG.
The issue is that Blizzard have dumbed down the game for the lowest common denominator and alienated the core audience that fell in love with the original version of the game, and I think part of that can be connected to Activision's acquisition of Blizzard back in 2008. Ghostcrawler made a very interesting quote about his time at Blizzard after he joined Riot, where he stated that it was refreshing to work on a game where he didn't have to worry about whether his grandmother could play it.
if WoW shuts down tomorrow... 14 years is an amazing run with 10 of those years under ATVI. The WoW team has been ok since 2008, 10 years is a long time... very long.
Long term engagement is objective proof of quality.
Tell that to the players who flocked en masse to Nostalrius and propped up its registration numbers to almost a million before Blizzard shut it down - not because it was a free pirate server but because they were sick and fed up of WoD.
As somebody who didn't start playing WoW until early TBC who spent some time on Nost, it really isn't the rose-tinted goggles effect that every modern WoW apologist claims it is. The game was just objectively better back then, even despite class balance being in a terrible spot.
Old school WoW didn't force you to wade through loads of boring, repetitive, immersion-breaking and overly scripted quests that tried to build you up as this final hope for Azeroth like the last few expansions have. Instead, you were an unknown adventurer and the game world felt far more organic and far less contrived. The best part is that you often had the freedom to grind mobs, run dungeons and explore the game world rather than ride the conveyor belt to the next quest hub like you did from Cataclysm onwards. This is because there weren't that many quests around and they actually weren't the most efficient levelling method in the game.
Old school WoW didn't have resource nodes like herbs and ores that would randomly despawn from the game world because you wandered into a different phase of a certain subzone - one of my major complaints with modern WoW that Blizzard still can't be bothered to fix.
Old school WoW had complex stat sheets where almost every primary and secondary stat did something beneficial for your class. Primary stats also had a lot of varied uses unlike in modern WoW where they're an overglorified "make your attacks hit harder" stat. How successful do you think Dungeons & Dragons would have been as a tabletop RPG if your stat sheet looked like this? The answer is 'not very' because tabletop gamers don't want to play Fisher Price™ My First Tabletop RPG.
The issue is that Blizzard have dumbed down the game for the lowest common denominator and alienated the core audience that fell in love with the original version of the game, and I think part of that can be connected to Activision's acquisition of Blizzard back in 2008. Ghostcrawler made a very interesting quote about his time at Blizzard after he joined Riot, where he stated that it was refreshing to work on a game where he didn't have to worry about whether his grandmother could play it.
Remember when you played that new game you havent played before and everything was new? Remember when people were using Alakhazam for those deep immersive quests? Remember when people were spamming AOE/INV PLS(That was socializing. You are probably gonna post a pic of people lining up) for 30 minutes when about 100 people were trying to tag that one elite for that deep immersive quest? Remember when people were stuck looting for 5 minutes? Remember having to wait 4 hour for an BG just to meet the only BG farm group? Remember waiting in front of/on top of AH because there was nothing to do? Remember the ninjalooting? Remember 50 gold respec cost?
Remember when stats werent important because you would wear the newest gear anyway because you just got it? Remember 8-9 pieces of Set that wouldnt give you room for other gear? Remember not being able to catch up in gear besides having to form a new 40 man raid? Remember when people were talking trash on molten core because it was just a boring cave? Remember how Onyxia Scale Cloak and Resistance Gear would GATE(!!!!) you out of content? Remember when Legendarys were so game changing yet so luck based? Remember when people were using decursive for automatic targeting and auto decurse? Remember when people were pissed when that was fixed because it made it IMPOSSIBLE to decurse? Remember having to buff 40 man by hand?
Remember when low tier dungeons were so big yet so useless? Remember how people avoided them because they werent worth it? Remember how people got nothing but frustrated in those?
I bet you dont remember all those things. Some reason
Good thing that you remember that you could grind mobs for leveling as a positive thing. Which you can still do. You can also level through grinding Herbs/Ore/Fish. Or through PvP. Hey, its like this game gives you the freedom to do whatever you want
On October 04 2018 07:31 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Blizzard has been hemorrhaging MAU's for the last year. OW and Heroes of the Storm being the main culprits.
On October 04 2018 07:31 JimmyJRaynor wrote: Blizzard has been hemorrhaging MAU's for the last year. OW and Heroes of the Storm being the main culprits.
WoW's had a disastrous expansion launch
Server problems or design problems?
Mostly design, shipped way too early
Not really, people progress just normally. Even WoW twitch isnt dead. Content clear, already 2 month of "WORST EXPANSION EVER!!!" and people are still interested? Why?
Old school WoW didn't force you to wade through loads of boring, repetitive, immersion-breaking and overly scripted quests that tried to build you up as this final hope for Azeroth like the last few expansions have. Instead, you were an unknown adventurer and the game world felt far more organic and far less contrived.
My favourite was the one where you have to slaughter trolls, not because they are a threat in any way, but because the profit-driven Goblin wants to sell their tusks as counterfeit tiger teeth because there aren't enough tigers in Stranglethorn.
Tell that to the players who flocked en masse to Nostalrius and propped up its registration numbers to almost a million before Blizzard shut it down - not because it was a free pirate server but because they were sick and fed up of WoD.
As somebody who didn't start playing WoW until early TBC who spent some time on Nost, it really isn't the rose-tinted goggles effect that every modern WoW apologist claims it is. The game was just objectively better back then, even despite class balance being in a terrible spot.
Old school WoW didn't force you to wade through loads of boring, repetitive, immersion-breaking and overly scripted quests that tried to build you up as this final hope for Azeroth like the last few expansions have. Instead, you were an unknown adventurer and the game world felt far more organic and far less contrived. The best part is that you often had the freedom to grind mobs, run dungeons and explore the game world rather than ride the conveyor belt to the next quest hub like you did from Cataclysm onwards. This is because there weren't that many quests around and they actually weren't the most efficient levelling method in the game.
Old school WoW didn't have resource nodes like herbs and ores that would randomly despawn from the game world because you wandered into a different phase of a certain subzone - one of my major complaints with modern WoW that Blizzard still can't be bothered to fix.
Old school WoW had complex stat sheets where almost every primary and secondary stat did something beneficial for your class. Primary stats also had a lot of varied uses unlike in modern WoW where they're an overglorified "make your attacks hit harder" stat. How successful do you think Dungeons & Dragons would have been as a tabletop RPG if your stat sheet looked like this? The answer is 'not very' because tabletop gamers don't want to play Fisher Price™ My First Tabletop RPG.
The issue is that Blizzard have dumbed down the game for the lowest common denominator and alienated the core audience that fell in love with the original version of the game, and I think part of that can be connected to Activision's acquisition of Blizzard back in 2008. Ghostcrawler made a very interesting quote about his time at Blizzard after he joined Riot, where he stated that it was refreshing to work on a game where he didn't have to worry about whether his grandmother could play it.
Remember when you played that new game you havent played before and everything was new? Remember when people were using Alakhazam for those deep immersive quests? Remember when people were spamming AOE/INV PLS(That was socializing. You are probably gonna post a pic of people lining up) for 30 minutes when about 100 people were trying to tag that one elite for that deep immersive quest? Remember when people were stuck looting for 5 minutes? Remember having to wait 4 hour for an BG just to meet the only BG farm group? Remember waiting in front of/on top of AH because there was nothing to do? Remember the ninjalooting? Remember 50 gold respec cost?
Remember when stats werent important because you would wear the newest gear anyway because you just got it? Remember 8-9 pieces of Set that wouldnt give you room for other gear? Remember not being able to catch up in gear besides having to form a new 40 man raid? Remember when people were talking trash on molten core because it was just a boring cave? Remember how Onyxia Scale Cloak and Resistance Gear would GATE(!!!!) you out of content? Remember when Legendarys were so game changing yet so luck based? Remember when people were using decursive for automatic targeting and auto decurse? Remember when people were pissed when that was fixed because it made it IMPOSSIBLE to decurse? Remember having to buff 40 man by hand?
Remember when low tier dungeons were so big yet so useless? Remember how people avoided them because they werent worth it? Remember how people got nothing but frustrated in those?
I bet you dont remember all those things. Some reason
Good thing that you remember that you could grind mobs for leveling as a positive thing. Which you can still do. You can also level through grinding Herbs/Ore/Fish. Or through PvP. Hey, its like this game gives you the freedom to do whatever you want
Tappo I don't understand your angle in this thread. You're here point at potential, hypothetical reasons why you believe that nostalgia is the driving factor behind people wanting vanilla WoW back. And that's all well and good, and you might not be wrong either.
But here's the problem: it's not a debate on hypotheticals. People clearly do want it. Because they did and still do (on small servers that have escaped the wrath of Blizzard) play it. If you had been correct, most of them would have stopped after a few days, but this is very obviously not the case. If you had been correct, Nostalrius would never have become large enough to warrant legal action from Blizzard, but this is very obviously not the case.
So I really don't get what you're trying to accomplish here. Like yeah it wasn't perfect but clearly enough people are okay with those imperfections.
Tell that to the players who flocked en masse to Nostalrius and propped up its registration numbers to almost a million before Blizzard shut it down - not because it was a free pirate server but because they were sick and fed up of WoD.
As somebody who didn't start playing WoW until early TBC who spent some time on Nost, it really isn't the rose-tinted goggles effect that every modern WoW apologist claims it is. The game was just objectively better back then, even despite class balance being in a terrible spot.
Old school WoW didn't force you to wade through loads of boring, repetitive, immersion-breaking and overly scripted quests that tried to build you up as this final hope for Azeroth like the last few expansions have. Instead, you were an unknown adventurer and the game world felt far more organic and far less contrived. The best part is that you often had the freedom to grind mobs, run dungeons and explore the game world rather than ride the conveyor belt to the next quest hub like you did from Cataclysm onwards. This is because there weren't that many quests around and they actually weren't the most efficient levelling method in the game.
Old school WoW didn't have resource nodes like herbs and ores that would randomly despawn from the game world because you wandered into a different phase of a certain subzone - one of my major complaints with modern WoW that Blizzard still can't be bothered to fix.
Old school WoW had complex stat sheets where almost every primary and secondary stat did something beneficial for your class. Primary stats also had a lot of varied uses unlike in modern WoW where they're an overglorified "make your attacks hit harder" stat. How successful do you think Dungeons & Dragons would have been as a tabletop RPG if your stat sheet looked like this? The answer is 'not very' because tabletop gamers don't want to play Fisher Price™ My First Tabletop RPG.
The issue is that Blizzard have dumbed down the game for the lowest common denominator and alienated the core audience that fell in love with the original version of the game, and I think part of that can be connected to Activision's acquisition of Blizzard back in 2008. Ghostcrawler made a very interesting quote about his time at Blizzard after he joined Riot, where he stated that it was refreshing to work on a game where he didn't have to worry about whether his grandmother could play it.
Remember when you played that new game you havent played before and everything was new? Remember when people were using Alakhazam for those deep immersive quests? Remember when people were spamming AOE/INV PLS(That was socializing. You are probably gonna post a pic of people lining up) for 30 minutes when about 100 people were trying to tag that one elite for that deep immersive quest? Remember when people were stuck looting for 5 minutes? Remember having to wait 4 hour for an BG just to meet the only BG farm group? Remember waiting in front of/on top of AH because there was nothing to do? Remember the ninjalooting? Remember 50 gold respec cost?
Remember when stats werent important because you would wear the newest gear anyway because you just got it? Remember 8-9 pieces of Set that wouldnt give you room for other gear? Remember not being able to catch up in gear besides having to form a new 40 man raid? Remember when people were talking trash on molten core because it was just a boring cave? Remember how Onyxia Scale Cloak and Resistance Gear would GATE(!!!!) you out of content? Remember when Legendarys were so game changing yet so luck based? Remember when people were using decursive for automatic targeting and auto decurse? Remember when people were pissed when that was fixed because it made it IMPOSSIBLE to decurse? Remember having to buff 40 man by hand?
Remember when low tier dungeons were so big yet so useless? Remember how people avoided them because they werent worth it? Remember how people got nothing but frustrated in those?
I bet you dont remember all those things. Some reason
Good thing that you remember that you could grind mobs for leveling as a positive thing. Which you can still do. You can also level through grinding Herbs/Ore/Fish. Or through PvP. Hey, its like this game gives you the freedom to do whatever you want
Tappo I don't understand your angle in this thread. You're here point at potential, hypothetical reasons why you believe that nostalgia is the driving factor behind people wanting vanilla WoW back. And that's all well and good, and you might not be wrong either.
But here's the problem: it's not a debate on hypotheticals. People clearly do want it. Because they did and still do (on small servers that have escaped the wrath of Blizzard) play it. If you had been correct, most of them would have stopped after a few days, but this is very obviously not the case. If you had been correct, Nostalrius would never have become large enough to warrant legal action from Blizzard, but this is very obviously not the case.
So I really don't get what you're trying to accomplish here. Like yeah it wasn't perfect but clearly enough people are okay with those imperfections.
Wait, so the guy i quoted posted clear FACTS and i posted "potential, hypothetical" reasons that did NOT clearly existed? And people obviously did not complain about them. People are crying for Classic because its cool being Oldschool. And those classic server are free to play. "People are clearly alright with imperfections" of course they are....Hahhahahaha. They are cool with something they havent played or payed for in ages.
On October 08 2018 02:25 Tappo wrote: By the way: WoW was formed by player feedback
WoW was formed by a company willing to fund much longer development cycles than had ever been attempted in the past. One can claim every game ever made was formed by "player feedback" because the game designers at some time in their lives spoke to people who played games.
On October 08 2018 02:25 Tappo wrote:Hahhahahaha. They are cool with something they havent played or payed for in ages.
I mean this is just factually wrong. I don't understand why you're choosing to ignore the thousands (tens of thousands?) of people who are playing on vanilla private servers literally right now.
Again. People play it. People are playing it. So many people played on Nostalrius that Blizzard felt it was in their best interest to take legal action. Why are you making all the hypothetical arguments for why people wouldn't or shouldn't play it when it is a simple observable fact that they do play it?
On October 08 2018 02:25 Tappo wrote:Hahhahahaha. They are cool with something they havent played or payed for in ages.
I mean this is just factually wrong. I don't understand why you're choosing to ignore the thousands (tens of thousands?) of people who are playing on vanilla private servers literally right now.
Again. People play it. People are playing it. So many people played on Nostalrius that Blizzard felt it was in their best interest to take legal action. Why are you making all the hypothetical arguments for why people wouldn't or shouldn't play it when it is a simple observable fact that they do play it?
Tens of THOUSANDS who are playing for FREE. Odd that you would ignore this fact. But understandable. I should have typed and/or, right? God damnit, they always find a loophole!
On October 08 2018 02:25 Tappo wrote:Hahhahahaha. They are cool with something they havent played or payed for in ages.
I mean this is just factually wrong. I don't understand why you're choosing to ignore the thousands (tens of thousands?) of people who are playing on vanilla private servers literally right now.
Again. People play it. People are playing it. So many people played on Nostalrius that Blizzard felt it was in their best interest to take legal action. Why are you making all the hypothetical arguments for why people wouldn't or shouldn't play it when it is a simple observable fact that they do play it?
Tens of THOUSANDS who are playing for FREE. Odd that you would ignore this fact. But understandable. I should have typed and/or, right? God damnit, they always find a loophole!
It seems like you are a bit lost, this isn't MMOChamp.
Playing for free or not is irrelevant since there is no option for a paid version, therefore we can't conclude shit about it. If blizzard is doing classic (whatever it ends up being) it is obviously because they see an opportunity in the market, not for altruistic means, so maybe you could just shut up and wait until you actually have the information needed to enlighten us with something more rational than your current ramblings.
On October 08 2018 02:25 Tappo wrote:Hahhahahaha. They are cool with something they havent played or payed for in ages.
I mean this is just factually wrong. I don't understand why you're choosing to ignore the thousands (tens of thousands?) of people who are playing on vanilla private servers literally right now.
Again. People play it. People are playing it. So many people played on Nostalrius that Blizzard felt it was in their best interest to take legal action. Why are you making all the hypothetical arguments for why people wouldn't or shouldn't play it when it is a simple observable fact that they do play it?
Tens of THOUSANDS who are playing for FREE. Odd that you would ignore this fact. But understandable. I should have typed and/or, right? God damnit, they always find a loophole!
It seems like you are a bit lost, this isn't MMOChamp.
Playing for free or not is irrelevant since there is no option for a paid version, therefore we can't conclude shit about it. If blizzard is doing classic (whatever it ends up being) it is obviously because they see an opportunity in the market, not for altruistic means, so maybe you could just shut up and wait until you actually have the information needed to enlighten us with something more rational than your current ramblings.
Please, go back to MMO-Champion. You could just copy/paste that post and they are going to make you their spokesman. You just said that player numbers on those private server have nothing to do with the fact that its free. Which is hilarious. And the fact that they accept the fact that nothing new is happening for the game when they have to pay nothing. I bet people are just going to accept "nothing" when they have to pay 15 bucks a month. Do you want me to prove that free server attract people?
There is a simple rule: Everything bad in Classic = Good. Everything bad in retail = Bad. Its the same as in "Starcraft 1 vs Starcraft 2"
On October 09 2018 02:16 Godwrath wrote: Best of lucks to Mike Morhaime.
On October 09 2018 00:24 Tappo wrote:
On October 08 2018 17:29 207aicila wrote:
On October 08 2018 02:25 Tappo wrote:Hahhahahaha. They are cool with something they havent played or payed for in ages.
I mean this is just factually wrong. I don't understand why you're choosing to ignore the thousands (tens of thousands?) of people who are playing on vanilla private servers literally right now.
Again. People play it. People are playing it. So many people played on Nostalrius that Blizzard felt it was in their best interest to take legal action. Why are you making all the hypothetical arguments for why people wouldn't or shouldn't play it when it is a simple observable fact that they do play it?
Tens of THOUSANDS who are playing for FREE. Odd that you would ignore this fact. But understandable. I should have typed and/or, right? God damnit, they always find a loophole!
It seems like you are a bit lost, this isn't MMOChamp.
Playing for free or not is irrelevant since there is no option for a paid version, therefore we can't conclude shit about it. If blizzard is doing classic (whatever it ends up being) it is obviously because they see an opportunity in the market, not for altruistic means, so maybe you could just shut up and wait until you actually have the information needed to enlighten us with something more rational than your current ramblings.
You just said that player numbers on those private server have nothing to do with the fact that its free.
No, that's not what I said. Re-read what I wrote and if your faulty reading comprehension can't figure it out, then you can be my guest and continue with your strawman.
On October 09 2018 03:47 Tappo wrote: There is a simple rule: Everything bad in Classic = Good. Everything bad in retail = Bad. Its the same as in "Starcraft 1 vs Starcraft 2"
Yeah it's called personal preference and people being an ass about it. Then you grow up and stop caring about what other people say about your entertainment choices. Like does it fucking matter that Willy thinks that classic is best and Billy disagrees?
ATVI was $83 just before they announced a new Blizzard prez. Now its $76.50. I wonder if the street views this change as weakness? % of ATVI revenues from WoW alone used to be 33%. Last year 31% of all revenue came from PC gaming.. Now its 27%.... that is predominantly a decline due to Blizzard. ATVI has also acknowledged Blizzard's decline of 9 million users comes mainly from Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm.
Rather than increased policing of Overwatch users I think what Blizzard needs to do is add more to the game in order to attract new players.
On October 09 2018 02:16 Godwrath wrote: Best of lucks to Mike Morhaime.
On October 09 2018 00:24 Tappo wrote:
On October 08 2018 17:29 207aicila wrote:
On October 08 2018 02:25 Tappo wrote:Hahhahahaha. They are cool with something they havent played or payed for in ages.
I mean this is just factually wrong. I don't understand why you're choosing to ignore the thousands (tens of thousands?) of people who are playing on vanilla private servers literally right now.
Again. People play it. People are playing it. So many people played on Nostalrius that Blizzard felt it was in their best interest to take legal action. Why are you making all the hypothetical arguments for why people wouldn't or shouldn't play it when it is a simple observable fact that they do play it?
Tens of THOUSANDS who are playing for FREE. Odd that you would ignore this fact. But understandable. I should have typed and/or, right? God damnit, they always find a loophole!
It seems like you are a bit lost, this isn't MMOChamp.
Playing for free or not is irrelevant since there is no option for a paid version, therefore we can't conclude shit about it. If blizzard is doing classic (whatever it ends up being) it is obviously because they see an opportunity in the market, not for altruistic means, so maybe you could just shut up and wait until you actually have the information needed to enlighten us with something more rational than your current ramblings.
You just said that player numbers on those private server have nothing to do with the fact that its free.
No, that's not what I said. Re-read what I wrote and if your faulty reading comprehension can't figure it out, then you can be my guest and continue with your strawman.
On October 09 2018 03:47 Tappo wrote: There is a simple rule: Everything bad in Classic = Good. Everything bad in retail = Bad. Its the same as in "Starcraft 1 vs Starcraft 2"
Yeah it's called personal preference and people being an ass about it. Then you grow up and stop caring about what other people say about your entertainment choices. Like does it fucking matter that Willy thinks that classic is best and Billy disagrees?
Yes, Free server have nothing to do with Population. Its ok, you can believe that. I bet those server wouldnt deserted at all if they have to pay a monthly fee. Just look at Wildstar. No development, full server! And people always say how great of a game that was. Personal preference? So why am i the only one pointed out here? This cibull guy posted his half a screen post of clear facts (I think?) how current wow is complete trash and classic is pretty much flawless no matter what. And everyone playing retail has to be the dumbest person ever. "DONT YOU SEE HOW DUMBED DOWN IT IS!". Does that mean i have to accept that modern WoW has to be shaped the way he wants it?
I dont see people jumping his throat. Why do you think that is? Doesnt he "Strawman"? Especially because he romantice everything bad as good (You can GRIND!)
On October 09 2018 05:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote: ATVI was $83 just before they announced a new Blizzard prez. Now its $76.50. I wonder if the street views this change as weakness?
Probably not, at least not based on that drop alone; that drop is consistent with the cycling that ATVI has been doing over the past year.
On October 09 2018 05:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote: ATVI was $83 just before they announced a new Blizzard prez. Now its $76.50. I wonder if the street views this change as weakness?
Probably not, at least not based on that drop alone; that drop is consistent with the cycling that ATVI has been doing over the past year.
the implied volatility of the stock suggests this 2 day drop is not due to cycling.
On October 09 2018 05:06 JimmyJRaynor wrote: ATVI was $83 just before they announced a new Blizzard prez. Now its $76.50. I wonder if the street views this change as weakness?
Probably not, at least not based on that drop alone; that drop is consistent with the cycling that ATVI has been doing over the past year.
the implied volatility of the stock suggests this 2 day drop is not due to cycling.
It's been dropping over the past week, several days before that announcement.
no. it hovered around $83 for a week. closing #s were $82.87, $83.19, $83.28, $83.39, $83.02. throughout that 7 day period the stock changed by less than 2%
then it went from $83.02 to $77.63 after ATVI announced a new prez. however, it is erratic with an implied volatility of 70.
right now at $77.63 it is borderline as to whether this is a regular take back or if some current event is impacting the stock price
a $75 put went for $0.94 on October 2 and a $70 put went for $0.41 also on October 2
so, if the stock falls below $75 tomorrow then something is up beyond just regular cycling or a standard take back. it might be ATVI announcing a new blizz prez.. it might be something else.
in a February 2016 interview with VentureBeat Morhaime says some really cool stuff about making high quality games. I respect Allen Adham's ruthless honesty.
The very first time we were faced with an issue like that was with Lost Vikings. We’d been working on the game and the team felt like we were pretty much done. We’d completed all the levels and finished everything.
Brian Fargo, at the time, played everything Interplay put out. He took the game home and played through all the levels and had a bunch of notes and feedback for us. He thought the levels were too difficult. He thought the Vikings looked too similar. They were all drawn from the same palette on the Super Nintendo. He wanted us to redraw them, do an art pass. We didn’t really have the resources to do that, so he offered some Interplay resources to do it.
As a developer, you’re so attached to what you’ve created. My first reaction was, “What? It’s fine the way it is! It’s not too hard. We’ve been playing it. It’s not too hard.” But Allen had a very different attitude. He said, “Brian’s right. He’s right about all of this stuff.” We took the time and addressed his issues. We made the levels easier, so it wasn’t as frustrating. We let one of their artists come in to redo the Viking art. We wound up with a much, much better game.
Going through that process and seeing where the game was before and how much better it became as a result of that additional effort was a huge lesson to us. We carried that forward, always. Getting that feedback from people who weren’t inside the development team, but knew how to make games, was incredibly valuable. Addressing that feedback and going through an iterative process, especially toward the end of development, could really move the meter in terms of quality. We’ve done that on every game since.
During the 25th anniversary celebrations Mike said in a few different interviews he has been at it 25 years and it is just the beginning he feels like he is just getting started and he is ready for another 25 years. The more I look at the #s and what Mike said a year ago the more evident it is that Mike got fired. Its sad
On October 09 2018 08:44 JimmyJRaynor wrote: no. it hovered around $83 for a week. closing #s were $82.87, $83.19, $83.28, $83.39, $83.02. throughout that 7 day period the stock changed by less than 2%
then it went from $83.02 to $77.63 after ATVI announced a new prez. however, it is erratic with an implied volatility of 70.
right now at $77.63 it is borderline as to whether this is a regular take back or if some current event is impacting the stock price
a $75 put went for $0.94 on October 2 and a $70 put went for $0.41 also on October 2
so, if the stock falls below $75 tomorrow then something is up beyond just regular cycling or a standard take back. it might be ATVI announcing a new blizz prez.. it might be something else.
There's also the part where the entire market, particularly growth stocks, had a massive pullback last week/Monday, completely independent of any company-specific news.
Also the part where ATVI reached all time highs a couple weeks ago (on reception to Call of Duty beta). In fact ATVI is up a few points (low-$70s, to $78 right now) since the start of September.
On October 09 2018 08:44 JimmyJRaynor wrote: no. it hovered around $83 for a week. closing #s were $82.87, $83.19, $83.28, $83.39, $83.02. throughout that 7 day period the stock changed by less than 2%
then it went from $83.02 to $77.63 after ATVI announced a new prez. however, it is erratic with an implied volatility of 70.
right now at $77.63 it is borderline as to whether this is a regular take back or if some current event is impacting the stock price
a $75 put went for $0.94 on October 2 and a $70 put went for $0.41 also on October 2
so, if the stock falls below $75 tomorrow then something is up beyond just regular cycling or a standard take back. it might be ATVI announcing a new blizz prez.. it might be something else.
There's also the part where the entire market, particularly growth stocks, had a massive pullback last week/Monday, completely independent of any company-specific news.
Also the part where ATVI reached all time highs a couple weeks ago (on reception to Call of Duty beta). In fact ATVI is up a few points (low-$70s, to $78 right now) since the start of September.
This has nothing to do with Morhaime.
true, stuff that happened in September has nothing to do with Morhaime because his removal as prez was not common knowledge.
Tell that to the players who flocked en masse to Nostalrius and propped up its registration numbers to almost a million before Blizzard shut it down - not because it was a free pirate server but because they were sick and fed up of WoD.
Might be a free server, might be nostalgia.
On October 07 2018 21:42 Clbull wrote: As somebody who didn't start playing WoW until early TBC who spent some time on Nost, it really isn't the rose-tinted goggles effect that every modern WoW apologist claims it is. The game was just objectively better back then, even despite class balance being in a terrible spot.
Okay, let's take a look.
On October 07 2018 21:42 Clbull wrote:Old school WoW didn't force you to wade through loads of boring, repetitive, immersion-breaking and overly scripted quests
I got bad news for you.
On October 07 2018 21:42 Clbull wrote:Old school WoW didn't have resource nodes like herbs and ores that would randomly despawn from the game world
I got real bad news for you.
On October 07 2018 21:42 Clbull wrote:Old school WoW had complex stat sheets where almost every primary and secondary stat did something beneficial for your class. Primary stats also had a lot of varied uses unlike in modern WoW where they're an overglorified "make your attacks hit harder" stat.
Man, I got even more bad news for you.
On October 07 2018 21:42 Clbull wrote:The issue is that Blizzard have dumbed down the game for the lowest common denominator and alienated the core audience that fell in love with the original version of the game, and I think part of that can be connected to Activision's acquisition of Blizzard back in 2008. Ghostcrawler made a very interesting quote about his time at Blizzard after he joined Riot, where he stated that it was refreshing to work on a game where he didn't have to worry about whether his grandmother could play it.
"Blizzard dumbing down the game" has been a complaint from WoW players since roughly... I'd say 2005.
Here's some stuff that modern WoW does better than old school WoW (with the caveat that I haven't tried BfA):
Which leaves us with, uhhhhh, I guess your Excel sheets of old were a tad more complex in deciding best builds and items, and talents were different. You could say that this makes the game objectively better, which you did, but there are probably other MMOs on the market that will help scratch your nostalgia itch.
On October 09 2018 08:44 JimmyJRaynor wrote: no. it hovered around $83 for a week. closing #s were $82.87, $83.19, $83.28, $83.39, $83.02. throughout that 7 day period the stock changed by less than 2%
then it went from $83.02 to $77.63 after ATVI announced a new prez. however, it is erratic with an implied volatility of 70.
right now at $77.63 it is borderline as to whether this is a regular take back or if some current event is impacting the stock price
a $75 put went for $0.94 on October 2 and a $70 put went for $0.41 also on October 2
so, if the stock falls below $75 tomorrow then something is up beyond just regular cycling or a standard take back. it might be ATVI announcing a new blizz prez.. it might be something else.
There's also the part where the entire market, particularly growth stocks, had a massive pullback last week/Monday, completely independent of any company-specific news.
Also the part where ATVI reached all time highs a couple weeks ago (on reception to Call of Duty beta). In fact ATVI is up a few points (low-$70s, to $78 right now) since the start of September.
This has nothing to do with Morhaime.
true, stuff that happened in September has nothing to do with Morhaime because his removal as prez was not common knowledge.
Similarly, Mike Morhaime had nothing to do with the drop in share prices over the last ~7 sessions.
On October 09 2018 08:44 JimmyJRaynor wrote: no. it hovered around $83 for a week. closing #s were $82.87, $83.19, $83.28, $83.39, $83.02. throughout that 7 day period the stock changed by less than 2%
then it went from $83.02 to $77.63 after ATVI announced a new prez. however, it is erratic with an implied volatility of 70.
right now at $77.63 it is borderline as to whether this is a regular take back or if some current event is impacting the stock price
a $75 put went for $0.94 on October 2 and a $70 put went for $0.41 also on October 2
so, if the stock falls below $75 tomorrow then something is up beyond just regular cycling or a standard take back. it might be ATVI announcing a new blizz prez.. it might be something else.
There's also the part where the entire market, particularly growth stocks, had a massive pullback last week/Monday, completely independent of any company-specific news.
Also the part where ATVI reached all time highs a couple weeks ago (on reception to Call of Duty beta). In fact ATVI is up a few points (low-$70s, to $78 right now) since the start of September.
This has nothing to do with Morhaime.
true, stuff that happened in September has nothing to do with Morhaime because his removal as prez was not common knowledge.
Similarly, Mike Morhaime had nothing to do with the drop in share prices over the last ~7 sessions.
there have not been 7 "sessions" since the announcement. however, none of this matters. i said if it falls below $75 then something is up. however, it won't go below $75 today. so ya.
Tell that to the players who flocked en masse to Nostalrius and propped up its registration numbers to almost a million before Blizzard shut it down - not because it was a free pirate server but because they were sick and fed up of WoD.
Might be a free server, might be nostalgia.
Most of us don't give two shits about the server being free. We don't mind paying a fee, we just object to buying ingame advantages.
And why would nostalgia be an invalid reason to play something? I have a level 60 priest on a 1.12 server with 45 days played over the past three years, I know exactly what I'm getting into. And I couldn't be more exited.
It's this hilarious arrogance that 'you plebs don't know what you want, but I know better! Listen to me shit over something you're exited about!' that makes people like you so unpalatable.
Tell that to the players who flocked en masse to Nostalrius and propped up its registration numbers to almost a million before Blizzard shut it down - not because it was a free pirate server but because they were sick and fed up of WoD.
Might be a free server, might be nostalgia.
Most of us don't give two shits about the server being free. We don't mind paying a fee, we just object to buying ingame advantages.
And why would nostalgia be an invalid reason to play something? I have a level 60 priest on a 1.12 server with 45 days played over the past three years, I know exactly what I'm getting into. And I couldn't be more exited.
It's this hilarious arrogance that 'you plebs don't know what you want, but I know better! Listen to me shit over something you're exited about!' that makes people like you so unpalatable.
Tell that to the players who flocked en masse to Nostalrius and propped up its registration numbers to almost a million before Blizzard shut it down - not because it was a free pirate server but because they were sick and fed up of WoD.
Might be a free server, might be nostalgia.
Not really? I'm pretty sure there used to be pirate servers for current version WoW a while back, I'd be surprised if they don't work anymore. If being free is all you care about and you prefer new WoW to old, there would be no reason to play on Nostalrius. There's also shit tonnes of officially free MMOs, many heavily inspired by WoW in many regards, so even more options there. Coming from a region where both piracy and F2P were and still are huge "markets" (if you can even call the former that), I can tell you no one plays these games just because they're free. At worst they might play something because they're not aware something better exists, but it's never just about price (or lack thereof).
Nostalgia is kind of a copout because it's easy to accuse and very hard to disprove, but in my experience nostalgia is much better at selling people on things than it is on keeping them engaged. I think a lot of people are perfectly capable of realising when they bought an underwhelming sequel, prequel, reboot, remake, remaster whatever (games or otherwise) being sold on nostalgia, even if they might fall prey to various fallacies and refuse to admit they got duped when discussing on forums. Good example here would be Yooka-Laylee, which by most accounts of the people who bought it was a pretty good game whose retro reproduction was so accurate that it included all the problems and idiosyncrasies of actual N64 games from 20 years ago.
So sure, nostalgia might get a lot of people to check it out, but if they don't like it I doubt they'd subject themselves to hundreds of hours of active regular gameplay.
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.
The Blizzard of Morhaime//Metzen//Pardo era is gone.
Pardo moved on to found "Bonfire Studios". If one is hoping for a Blizzard-quality game then a product of Bonfire studios might make it.
So we have
(a) Morhaime gone .. big SC1 and SC2 fan. (b) revenue down (c), MAU's down (d) no new product release in the next 12 months (e) Activision Exec now as the CFO of Blizzard
How much longer before ATVI pulls the plug on the GSL?
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.
The Blizzard of Morhaime//Metzen//Pardo era is gone.
Pardo moved on to found "Bonfire Studios". If one is hoping for a Blizzard-quality game then a product of Bonfire studios might make it.
"Man i cant wait for Warhammer Online, that is going to be sick! GONNA KILL WOW BECAUSE WOW SUCK! Flagship Studios has all the Blizzard North Legends, that is going to be sick! WILDSTAR = OLDSHOOL WOW, EX BLIZZARDS DEVS That is going to be sick!". What else am i missing?
Wasnt Mohaime responsible for the: "We have to make games easy so our grandmother can play them"? Who was responsible for Diablo 3? Who lead the company in the last 15 years? Fan of Starcraft 2? The koreans hate it, or? Why wouldnt they develop a game for the biggest, most dedicated fanbase? Morhaime killed brood war esports. Out of greed, because he wanted that money. I thought morhaime is a starcraft fan.
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?
Why didnt Morhaime have the foresight to sack in DotA?
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.
SC:Remastered never gets discussed during financial reports. This is because it represents so little money @ $20 and now its $10 that its not bringing in enough cash to even talk about. They never stated how many copies the game sold so that means it sold poorly.
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.
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.
SC:Remastered never gets discussed during financial reports. This is because it represents so little money @ $20 and now its $10 that its not bringing in enough cash to even talk about. They never stated how many copies the game sold so that means it sold poorly.
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.
Cant you just post your intern numbers? Or are you afraid that it might blow your cover?
Huh, isn't it funny, one year ago jimmyjraynor was worshipping and adoring Mike Morhaime, going so far as to call him uncle Mike, but now he hates his guts. I wonder what happened.
On November 24 2018 06:26 JimmyJRaynor wrote: welcome to TL!
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.
SC:Remastered never gets discussed during financial reports. This is because it represents so little money @ $20 and now its $10 that its not bringing in enough cash to even talk about. They never stated how many copies the game sold so that means it sold poorly.
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.
Cant you just post your intern numbers? Or are you afraid that it might blow your cover?
just go to the ATVI Investor Calls over the last 18 months. Its publicly available information. MAU's are down from 47 million to 38 million. They remained at 38 million MAU's after the release of the WoW expansion. Blizzard's revenue is down.
Blizzcon revealed no new major releases and Diablo Immortal does not have a release date. The last big Blizzcon reveal was Overwatch. It took 18 months for a release to occur.
I'm predicting a continued decline in Blizzard's MAU's over the next year. Cutbacks are on the way as revenue continues to decline. Standard stuff here.
On November 24 2018 07:40 Dangermousecatdog wrote: Huh, isn't it funny, one year ago jimmyjraynor was worshipping and adoring Mike Morhaime, going so far as to call him uncle Mike, but now he hates his guts. I wonder what happened.
huh? where does it say i hate his guts? where are you reading that? the guy has overseen some of the greatest games ever made. I call him "Uncle Mike" because he is charitably funding the GSL and OWL. The problem is that ATVI is not a charity.
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.
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.
>ESPN is as much gossip<. Thank god for TRUTHTALKER like you
Funny this guy mentions OWL. I noticed all that gear on sale for 75% off during black friday. Just a sign of tons of wasted gear that didn't move as planned.
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.
I think you're cherrypicking, theres substanially more substance than gossip, especially in their esports reporting.
And while they havent provided revenue details (yet), they did say it was on track to being profitable. I don't see how its NOT profitable when they have so many billionaires investing, and I can't imagine where the costs are going. Like I said, looking at their studio and venues, they're not exactly spending like crazy. You could be right, and if you are, I'd chalk it up to Activision's incompetence rather than OWL's lack of success.
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.
MLG had a ton of mismanagement outside of Starcraft.
Its funny you say "they would have rivalled ESL and Dreamhack" because thats exactly why they faltered. They DID NOT want to compete with them. They went out of their way to only run games they have a monopoly on. Hence why they don't do anything without publishers forking over money.
EPT
). Thanks Mike!
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