On January 20 2022 07:25 equin0xx wrote: I think they will add Blizzard games to Game Pass and be happy with that, and potentially make new games with these really popular IPs to bring more people to Game Pass.
They want everyone to subscribe to Game Pass like people sub to Netflix for Disney+. Adding all the SC2 campaigns and SC:R campaigns to Game Pass does have a lot of value. They can, and probably will, promote SC along with AOE. You can sign up for Game Pass and play all of them!
They are probably hurting AOE4 by having those other AOE/AOM remastered games getting active support, but their goal is to get people to buy Game Pass, so having many different games is really the whole point! Netflix doesn't care if one show cannibalized another show. They want to bring in as many people to their ecosystem as possible.
I'm not sure they would shut down SC2. It still adds value to Game Pass. I really doubt they would update the game though, and the biggest issue with trying to do that is that there probably aren't many people left at Blizzard who could even make many changes since people who knew the code base left.
That's my take on it too. Historically the model has been to make one game that appeals to as many people as possible, but Microsoft are trying to make one service that appeals to as many people as possible so they can afford to make and support games that are more niche in their appeal because as long as we all buy Game Pass for something, Microsoft win all the same.
What a strange time to be alive. I grew up with Blizzard games, connecting my first two PCs so my friend and I could play WC1 multiplayer. I remember building two Raiders and sending them across the map while he was playing farm simulator... and that first attack won the game. That was the first multiplayer game I played across two PC's.
Blizzard games were always the best games. Not the best graphically, they didn't push boundaries, but they were well made and just made sense. I've spent more time playing Blizzard games than I have playing all other games combined.
But everything changed. Diablo III, the mess of Reforged, the pandering to China while it commits genocide, ect, ect, ect.... Blizzard is now little more than a corporation looking to sell games, instead of one looking to make good games. And the irony is, if you don't make good games, you won't sell them.
Let's hope Microsoft can fix this... but this really feels like the end.
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
You said it yourself:
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
You said it yourself:
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
Gamepass to reach niches, plus they want to have some kind of monopoly on gaming.
Can you elaborate further? I don't understand the connection between what you wrote and Microsoft making investments into SC2.
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
No, the actual income can exceed the cost. The war chest and the announced cooperative commanders are actually profitable, and their revenue has exceeded the cost. What I'm referring to here is that Blizzard thinks these people can generate more revenue elsewhere than the StarCraft project. As you know, due to various layoffs in operations and the departure of key members of various projects in recent years, Blizzard needs to invest in manpower for many projects. Compared with maintaining the old project, it must be all transferred to the development of the new project. After all, this is the place where the most profit can be obtained. This is why the Warcraft project team also disbanded after StarCraft 2 stopped updating. And outsource the event to the ESL team to invest more people in the development of projects such as Overwatch 2.
At the beginning of the War Chest, there was a provision that a part of the income would be put into the prize pool of the WCS event. In fact, as far as I know, after the War Chest was updated, this goal was completed very quickly, but the prize pool was fixed. It is conceivable that the remaining income is basically Blizzard's profit.
So it is completely unreasonable to say that the StarCraft project has been unable to bring profits or even losses. It's just that Blizzard doesn't think it's bringing in enough profit.
In our local community, there's a saying: Everyone wants StarCraft to live, only Blizzard wants it to die.
Of course, this situation is caused by the bad operational decisions of Blizzard's top management. So when the news that Bobby Kotick might leave after Microsoft's acquisition was completed, most of the reactions from the outside world were applause.
In Blizzard's situation, it is necessary to take a fancy to the revenue of the financial report, so there must be a choice, so it can only continue on the wrong road. For Microsoft, the situation is different, so some people feel that they see hope for the recovery of old projects.
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
You said it yourself:
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
No, the actual income can exceed the cost. The war chest and the announced cooperative commanders are actually profitable, and their revenue has exceeded the cost.
I'm guessing you have access to those figures? Care to share?
What I'm referring to here is that Blizzard thinks these people can generate more revenue elsewhere than the StarCraft project. As you know, due to various layoffs in operations and the departure of key members of various projects in recent years, Blizzard needs to invest in manpower for many projects. Compared with maintaining the old project, it must be all transferred to the development of the new project. After all, this is the place where the most profit can be obtained. This is why the Warcraft project team also disbanded after StarCraft 2 stopped updating. And outsource the event to the ESL team to invest more people in the development of projects such as Overwatch 2.
If SC2 is projected to be less profitable than new ventures, how does that at all make it a "bad operational decision" to invest in those new ventures, as you refer to here:
Of course, this situation is caused by the bad operational decisions of Blizzard's top management. So when the news that Bobby Kotick might leave after Microsoft's acquisition was completed, most of the reactions from the outside world were applause.
In Blizzard's situation, it is necessary to take a fancy to the revenue of the financial report, so there must be a choice, so it can only continue on the wrong road. For Microsoft, the situation is different, so some people feel that they see hope for the recovery of old projects.
Microsoft paid billions in order to... not pursue greater profits? How does the equation change at all in the hands of different profit-seeking executives and shareholders, particularly those that had to just be convinced that paying billions of dollars for this company would be "worth it"? If anything, doesn't it make more sense that Microsoft would be even more profit-oriented than Activision-Blizzard were, in order to justify the purchase cost?
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
You said it yourself:
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
Gamepass to reach niches, plus they want to have some kind of monopoly on gaming.
Can you elaborate further? I don't understand the connection between what you wrote and Microsoft making investments into SC2.
Well keeping Starcraft more alive can bring people to gamepass, especially if they add the possibility to play with a gamepad (they streamed the game with xbox gamepad afaik). As for the monopoly on gaming, they already have AoE4 so if they also boost starcraft they will have a huge part of the RTS market, and can invest in the IP to do future games etc. By keeping the esports scene more alive they will keep the IP relevant until they make a new game out of it.
And if you buy something for 70 billions, you don't need to cut costs like ATVI-Blizzard did with sc2, you can have some things run at loss
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
You said it yourself:
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
No, the actual income can exceed the cost. The war chest and the announced cooperative commanders are actually profitable, and their revenue has exceeded the cost.
I'm guessing you have access to those figures? Care to share?
What I'm referring to here is that Blizzard thinks these people can generate more revenue elsewhere than the StarCraft project. As you know, due to various layoffs in operations and the departure of key members of various projects in recent years, Blizzard needs to invest in manpower for many projects. Compared with maintaining the old project, it must be all transferred to the development of the new project. After all, this is the place where the most profit can be obtained. This is why the Warcraft project team also disbanded after StarCraft 2 stopped updating. And outsource the event to the ESL team to invest more people in the development of projects such as Overwatch 2.
If SC2 is projected to be less profitable than new ventures, how does that at all make it a "bad operational decision" to invest in those new ventures, as you refer to here:
Of course, this situation is caused by the bad operational decisions of Blizzard's top management. So when the news that Bobby Kotick might leave after Microsoft's acquisition was completed, most of the reactions from the outside world were applause.
In Blizzard's situation, it is necessary to take a fancy to the revenue of the financial report, so there must be a choice, so it can only continue on the wrong road. For Microsoft, the situation is different, so some people feel that they see hope for the recovery of old projects.
Microsoft paid billions in order to... not pursue greater profits? How does the equation change at all in the hands of different profit-seeking executives and shareholders, particularly those that had to just be convinced that paying billions of dollars for this company would be "worth it"? If anything, doesn't it make more sense that Microsoft would be even more profit-oriented than Activision-Blizzard were, in order to justify the purchase cost?
Its call "vitality" of the business, meaning not just chasing down the short-term profit but also keep developing for the future of the company through R&D, marketability and other stuff. ActivBlizz completely ignore this approach, because they only care about the end-of-year financial report before selling the company to someone else. SC2 isnt a profitable as other title doesnt mean its NOT profitable if you can monetize it the right way. Even though it may be chump change comparing to other games, but SC2 can still bring millions of dollar into the developer as long as they dont give it up. Also, keeping the game and the scene alive long enough would give you a certain boost when the next game in the franchise coming out. One of the reason, imo, that SC2 sales has been lower than SC1 was simply because it took them too damn long to start developing it (like 10 years). By that time, some of fans of the franchise had already moved to other stuff already and they lost million of dollars just from that.
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
You said it yourself:
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
Gamepass to reach niches, plus they want to have some kind of monopoly on gaming.
Can you elaborate further? I don't understand the connection between what you wrote and Microsoft making investments into SC2.
Well keeping Starcraft more alive can bring people to gamepass, especially if they add the possibility to play with a gamepad (they streamed the game with xbox gamepad afaik). As for the monopoly on gaming, they already have AoE4 so if they also boost starcraft they will have a huge part of the RTS market, and can invest in the IP to do future games etc. By keeping the esports scene more alive they will keep the IP relevant until they make a new game out of it.
And if you buy something for 70 billions, you don't need to cut costs like ATVI-Blizzard did with sc2, you can have some things run at loss
Just wanna remind that when Disney bought Star Wars they had huge plans, so many movies, so many series, so many things. And then the sequels happened and suddenly the plans were... let's say smaller
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
You said it yourself:
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
Gamepass to reach niches, plus they want to have some kind of monopoly on gaming.
Can you elaborate further? I don't understand the connection between what you wrote and Microsoft making investments into SC2.
Well keeping Starcraft more alive can bring people to gamepass, especially if they add the possibility to play with a gamepad (they streamed the game with xbox gamepad afaik). As for the monopoly on gaming, they already have AoE4 so if they also boost starcraft they will have a huge part of the RTS market, and can invest in the IP to do future games etc. By keeping the esports scene more alive they will keep the IP relevant until they make a new game out of it.
And if you buy something for 70 billions, you don't need to cut costs like ATVI-Blizzard did with sc2, you can have some things run at loss
1. The game is already free, and playing RTS on non-keyboard is kind of silly, so I find it hard to believe but I guess it's not impossible.
2. If they already have AoE4 + AoE2HD, wouldn't not supporting SC2 achieve the same effect?
3. Investing in the IP to do future games may make sense, I can see that, though I do find it unlikely at this time.
4. I don't really get this point. Don't they have to justify the acquisition to their investors? Don't they need to make a profit on this deal? Seems like that would be common sense.
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
You said it yourself:
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
Gamepass to reach niches, plus they want to have some kind of monopoly on gaming.
Can you elaborate further? I don't understand the connection between what you wrote and Microsoft making investments into SC2.
Well keeping Starcraft more alive can bring people to gamepass, especially if they add the possibility to play with a gamepad (they streamed the game with xbox gamepad afaik). As for the monopoly on gaming, they already have AoE4 so if they also boost starcraft they will have a huge part of the RTS market, and can invest in the IP to do future games etc. By keeping the esports scene more alive they will keep the IP relevant until they make a new game out of it.
And if you buy something for 70 billions, you don't need to cut costs like ATVI-Blizzard did with sc2, you can have some things run at loss
1. The game is already free, and playing RTS on non-keyboard is kind of silly, so I find it hard to believe but I guess it's not impossible.
2. If they already have AoE4 + AoE2HD, wouldn't not supporting SC2 achieve the same effect?
3. Investing in the IP to do future games may make sense, I can see that, though I do find it unlikely at this time.
4. I don't really get this point. Don't they have to justify the acquisition to their investors? Don't they need to make a profit on this deal? Seems like that would be common sense.
They will make huge profit out of candy crush + CoD and if CoD becomes PC/xbox exclusive that's a huge blow to their competitor Sony. Blizzard is probably worth less than 10 or even 5% of the deal, but they will still fully utilize their IPs
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
You said it yourself:
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
No, the actual income can exceed the cost. The war chest and the announced cooperative commanders are actually profitable, and their revenue has exceeded the cost.
I'm guessing you have access to those figures? Care to share?
What I'm referring to here is that Blizzard thinks these people can generate more revenue elsewhere than the StarCraft project. As you know, due to various layoffs in operations and the departure of key members of various projects in recent years, Blizzard needs to invest in manpower for many projects. Compared with maintaining the old project, it must be all transferred to the development of the new project. After all, this is the place where the most profit can be obtained. This is why the Warcraft project team also disbanded after StarCraft 2 stopped updating. And outsource the event to the ESL team to invest more people in the development of projects such as Overwatch 2.
If SC2 is projected to be less profitable than new ventures, how does that at all make it a "bad operational decision" to invest in those new ventures, as you refer to here:
Of course, this situation is caused by the bad operational decisions of Blizzard's top management. So when the news that Bobby Kotick might leave after Microsoft's acquisition was completed, most of the reactions from the outside world were applause.
In Blizzard's situation, it is necessary to take a fancy to the revenue of the financial report, so there must be a choice, so it can only continue on the wrong road. For Microsoft, the situation is different, so some people feel that they see hope for the recovery of old projects.
Microsoft paid billions in order to... not pursue greater profits? How does the equation change at all in the hands of different profit-seeking executives and shareholders, particularly those that had to just be convinced that paying billions of dollars for this company would be "worth it"? If anything, doesn't it make more sense that Microsoft would be even more profit-oriented than Activision-Blizzard were, in order to justify the purchase cost?
Unfortunately, as the data I know of is internal and has not been made public, I can't give you more details. You can only judge the authenticity of the information by yourself, and I cannot give you an exact answer.
Let's talk about the following question, why it is a bad operational decision. First of all, before this, Blizzard was already in an embarrassing situation because of poor operations. You can imagine that each game has a difference in revenue and profit. If your company is operating normally and is in a hot stage, will you stop updating a certain game because of its low profit? It is obvious that Blizzard is facing a situation of insufficient staff and user expectations are declining year by year. As mentioned before, Blizzard needs to pay attention to the financial report data, and it needs to report these data to shareholders and directors, while the number of active users is decreasing year by year and the game is constantly being postponed. It's all affecting Blizzard's earnings numbers, which is why I call it "bad operations" because it's been pretty bad before that.
I believe you should have a lot of familiarity with Blizzard’s operations in recent years, including but not limited to reviews of Warcraft Remake, Overwatch’s map update and hero update frequency, and the classic accompanying boo at BlizzCon "Do you guys no have phone?" and the selection of Asian Games e-sports items I mentioned before, including the recent popular WTL league, the organizer once hoped that through in-game purchases (similar to war chests or team skins) for each team and events to generate profits, but Blizzard refused, so they had to find sponsors themselves.
Bobby Kotick is a pure businessman, so don't expect him to focus on user experience and make the right decisions, because all he cares about is economics. This point can refer to those employees who founded Blizzard, those who really want to make good game products for users.
Finally, when it comes to what Microsoft values, this is my personal understanding. I personally think it's copyright, as Microsoft's press conference mentioned before that they are planning to deploy the so-called "metaverse" project. Assuming that this project is successful in the end, then you will see "metaverse" projects of various companies, but what content can be played in this "metaverse", copyright is the most important factor. The elements of various games that can appear in the movie "Ready Player One" are the best proof of the copyright advantage. Microsoft's current net worth, are these profits important to it? I personally think that Microsoft's decision and future layout are the most important to it, including improving the competitiveness of the xbox project. Of course, for now, Activision's COD project may be Microsoft's main layout direction. For Sony, it is great threat.
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
You said it yourself:
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
Gamepass to reach niches, plus they want to have some kind of monopoly on gaming.
Can you elaborate further? I don't understand the connection between what you wrote and Microsoft making investments into SC2.
Well keeping Starcraft more alive can bring people to gamepass, especially if they add the possibility to play with a gamepad (they streamed the game with xbox gamepad afaik). As for the monopoly on gaming, they already have AoE4 so if they also boost starcraft they will have a huge part of the RTS market, and can invest in the IP to do future games etc. By keeping the esports scene more alive they will keep the IP relevant until they make a new game out of it.
And if you buy something for 70 billions, you don't need to cut costs like ATVI-Blizzard did with sc2, you can have some things run at loss
1. The game is already free, and playing RTS on non-keyboard is kind of silly, so I find it hard to believe but I guess it's not impossible.
2. If they already have AoE4 + AoE2HD, wouldn't not supporting SC2 achieve the same effect?
3. Investing in the IP to do future games may make sense, I can see that, though I do find it unlikely at this time.
4. I don't really get this point. Don't they have to justify the acquisition to their investors? Don't they need to make a profit on this deal? Seems like that would be common sense.
They will make huge profit out of candy crush + CoD and if CoD becomes PC/xbox exclusive that's a huge blow to their competitor Sony. Blizzard is probably worth less than 10 or even 5% of the deal, but they will still fully utilize their IPs
When Blizzard merged with Activision, it was for a price around 25 billions, in todays money roughly 33 b IIRC. While I don't know how much of the price was kept, I dare to say that it's not a fall to 7 billions(10 %). That's just simply wrong. You somehow forget WoW in the candy crush and CoD insanity.
Edit> Activision Vivendi merge into Activision Blizzard for almost 19 b USD, later some more shares of Blizzard for roughly 6 b USD.
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
You said it yourself:
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
Gamepass to reach niches, plus they want to have some kind of monopoly on gaming.
Can you elaborate further? I don't understand the connection between what you wrote and Microsoft making investments into SC2.
Well keeping Starcraft more alive can bring people to gamepass, especially if they add the possibility to play with a gamepad (they streamed the game with xbox gamepad afaik). As for the monopoly on gaming, they already have AoE4 so if they also boost starcraft they will have a huge part of the RTS market, and can invest in the IP to do future games etc. By keeping the esports scene more alive they will keep the IP relevant until they make a new game out of it.
And if you buy something for 70 billions, you don't need to cut costs like ATVI-Blizzard did with sc2, you can have some things run at loss
Just wanna remind that when Disney bought Star Wars they had huge plans, so many movies, so many series, so many things. And then the sequels happened and suddenly the plans were... let's say smaller
On January 20 2022 03:15 Red_Dragon wrote: Honestly can it get much worse than it already is ?
Microsoft could very reasonably look at how much money is being invested into SC2 and how little is materializing as profits in return and just pull the plug on the life support that Blizzard has been giving SC2 for years now.
In fact, StarCraft 2 can still bring revenue. The last WCS war chest reached its revenue target in a short period of time when it was launched. However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain, so they stopped the update and terminated the development of the cooperative commander "Selendis". And the follow-up Blizzard refused to let StarCraft 2 join the Asian Games project, and insisted on choosing Overwatch, resulting in the failure of both projects. (According to the news, StarCraft 2 is basically a certainty to be elected as the Asian Games project, only needs the consent of Blizzard)
It can bring in revenue, but does that revenue exceed the cost? The answer is likely "no," otherwise it would not have made sense for them to pull devs off of SC2:
Developers and other specialists cost a lot of money. Having them work on a project and just break even is bad business. Working at a loss is worse. Propping up a competitive scene on top of that puts yet another drain on this supposed revenue.
How much does Blizzard profit from SC2 tournaments? Maybe someone here who has access to such information can speak about this, but my impression is that the answer is either zero or very low (if not a loss). WCS prizepools in the hundreds of thousands - where do you think that money comes from?
You said it yourself:
However, officials believed that compared with other projects, the income of StarCraft 2 was not enough to invest these manpower to maintain
If this is what Blizzard believed about its own IP, why would Microsoft view it in any more favorable of a light?
No, the actual income can exceed the cost. The war chest and the announced cooperative commanders are actually profitable, and their revenue has exceeded the cost.
I'm guessing you have access to those figures? Care to share?
What I'm referring to here is that Blizzard thinks these people can generate more revenue elsewhere than the StarCraft project. As you know, due to various layoffs in operations and the departure of key members of various projects in recent years, Blizzard needs to invest in manpower for many projects. Compared with maintaining the old project, it must be all transferred to the development of the new project. After all, this is the place where the most profit can be obtained. This is why the Warcraft project team also disbanded after StarCraft 2 stopped updating. And outsource the event to the ESL team to invest more people in the development of projects such as Overwatch 2.
If SC2 is projected to be less profitable than new ventures, how does that at all make it a "bad operational decision" to invest in those new ventures, as you refer to here:
Of course, this situation is caused by the bad operational decisions of Blizzard's top management. So when the news that Bobby Kotick might leave after Microsoft's acquisition was completed, most of the reactions from the outside world were applause.
In Blizzard's situation, it is necessary to take a fancy to the revenue of the financial report, so there must be a choice, so it can only continue on the wrong road. For Microsoft, the situation is different, so some people feel that they see hope for the recovery of old projects.
Microsoft paid billions in order to... not pursue greater profits? How does the equation change at all in the hands of different profit-seeking executives and shareholders, particularly those that had to just be convinced that paying billions of dollars for this company would be "worth it"? If anything, doesn't it make more sense that Microsoft would be even more profit-oriented than Activision-Blizzard were, in order to justify the purchase cost?
Unfortunately, as the data I know of is internal and has not been made public, I can't give you more details. You can only judge the authenticity of the information by yourself, and I cannot give you an exact answer.
Let's talk about the following question, why it is a bad operational decision. First of all, before this, Blizzard was already in an embarrassing situation because of poor operations. You can imagine that each game has a difference in revenue and profit. If your company is operating normally and is in a hot stage, will you stop updating a certain game because of its low profit? It is obvious that Blizzard is facing a situation of insufficient staff and user expectations are declining year by year. As mentioned before, Blizzard needs to pay attention to the financial report data, and it needs to report these data to shareholders and directors, while the number of active users is decreasing year by year and the game is constantly being postponed. It's all affecting Blizzard's earnings numbers, which is why I call it "bad operations" because it's been pretty bad before that.
I believe you should have a lot of familiarity with Blizzard’s operations in recent years, including but not limited to reviews of Warcraft Remake, Overwatch’s map update and hero update frequency, and the classic accompanying boo at BlizzCon "Do you guys no have phone?" and the selection of Asian Games e-sports items I mentioned before, including the recent popular WTL league, the organizer once hoped that through in-game purchases (similar to war chests or team skins) for each team and events to generate profits, but Blizzard refused, so they had to find sponsors themselves.
Bobby Kotick is a pure businessman, so don't expect him to focus on user experience and make the right decisions, because all he cares about is economics. This point can refer to those employees who founded Blizzard, those who really want to make good game products for users.
Finally, when it comes to what Microsoft values, this is my personal understanding. I personally think it's copyright, as Microsoft's press conference mentioned before that they are planning to deploy the so-called "metaverse" project. Assuming that this project is successful in the end, then you will see "metaverse" projects of various companies, but what content can be played in this "metaverse", copyright is the most important factor. The elements of various games that can appear in the movie "Ready Player One" are the best proof of the copyright advantage. Microsoft's current net worth, are these profits important to it? I personally think that Microsoft's decision and future layout are the most important to it, including improving the competitiveness of the xbox project. Of course, for now, Activision's COD project may be Microsoft's main layout direction. For Sony, it is great threat.
Thank you for clarifying further, I misunderstood what you meant by bad operations.
Tasteless' Opening Line For the GSL Super Tournament: "Welcome, Fellow XBOX GamePass Subscribers" ROFLMAO.
On January 21 2022 00:26 Jealous wrote: 2. If they already have AoE4 + AoE2HD, wouldn't not supporting SC2 achieve the same effect?
3. Investing in the IP to do future games may make sense, I can see that, though I do find it unlikely at this time.
4. I don't really get this point. Don't they have to justify the acquisition to their investors? Don't they need to make a profit on this deal? Seems like that would be common sense.
M$ can build an RTS team that works on various games similar to how Team1 jumped from WC2 to SC1 to WC3 to SC2. Generally speaking, developers like a variety of projects that present a variety of different and new challenges. Thus, the Starcraft franchise would prolly be welcomed by the dev team that worked on the Halo Wars and AoE franchises.
On January 21 2022 01:22 ETisME wrote: the timing of the sexual harassment news and MS acquisition is just perfect imo.
a shit tonne of what Phil says gets "leaked" that lowers ATVI share value and then somehow not a scintilla of info about the purchase of ATVI gets leaked. All the while M$ is battling with shareholders about their own mishandling of work place sexual harassment allegations. Well Played Phil.
On January 21 2022 00:53 ReZero wrote: Bobby Kotick is a pure businessman, so don't expect him to focus on user experience and make the right decisions, because all he cares about is economics. This point can refer to those employees who founded Blizzard, those who really want to make good game products for users.
nah, the guy is a genius. When he acquired Mediagenic for $400,000 it had ZERO game development employees. He rebuilt Activision with nothing. David Crane, Bob Whitehead, and Carol Shaw were long gone by 1991. He had to attract an all new game development team.
I agree with Jim Cramer. This acquisition is a genius move by Kotick and Spencer.
EPT
