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I read "Play Nice: The Rise, Fall and Future of Blizzard Entertainment" by Jason Schreier recently. Honestly, if you're just a big Starcraft fan, there's not a ton in there for you.
You get the basics: That Starcraft 1 and Brood War hit Korea at a perfect time as the country was improving its internet and PC Bangs were on the rise, and Starcraft II struggled because of Blizzard's fight with KeSPA.
Past that, it's really just the big takeaway from the book: When World of Warcraft came out and started making unfathomable amounts of money with that nice monthly subscription model, it became a lot harder for other Blizzard games to get attention -- if you've played a sports game in the last decade and seen the Franchise Mode get ignored for the card-trading multiplayer mode, you know the vibe.
The expectations for HoTS and Legacy were "modest," and while the games exceeded them, "many of the company's leaders [were] regretful that they had committed to releasing three games."
I will say it's a very good book overall, at least if you're interested in inside-baseball stuff about how big video game companies used to work vs. how they work today.
I'd say that it's a bit of a bummer how everything shook out -- it would have been great if SC2 was "perfect" at launch, when the marketing push was the biggest, but I'm not sure if that's a realistic goal for a game with designs of being a deep esport like SC2.
As it is, the game peaked in terms of Campaign story with HoTS, which is probably when the game was at its best in terms of competition with KeSPA teams finally coming over, but the fight with KeSPA kept it from being huge in the WoL days, and matchfixing/all the other things that led to the fall of KeSPA really hurt it before Legacy came out and it really got to its best from a competitive standpoint gameplay wise (although I still do miss the drama of an old-school proxy 2-rax).
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For those interested how much more viable WoW was to Blizzard:
According to Thor, one of the devs on SC2, the very first mount Blizzard released for WoW that you could buy with money, y'know that stupid, unimaginative 0815 mount for 10 (15?) bucks...that one made more money than WoL.
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On November 21 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote:
For those interested how much more viable WoW was to Blizzard:
According to Thor, one of the devs on SC2, the very first mount Blizzard released for WoW that you could buy with money, y'know that stupid, unimaginative 0815 mount for 10 (15?) bucks...that one made more money than WoL.
I hate this fact with every fiber of my being. We as gamers are just the absolute worst - 0 impulse control, 0 rational perception of value. I mean, look at this 80 bucks mount they released for the WarCraft anniversary, I personally know people who were VERY outspoken about how shitty the practice is, but still bought it regardless...
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On November 21 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote:
For those interested how much more viable WoW was to Blizzard:
According to Thor, one of the devs on SC2, the very first mount Blizzard released for WoW that you could buy with money, y'know that stupid, unimaginative 0815 mount for 10 (15?) bucks...that one made more money than WoL.
This is very likely not true though, or a massive oversimplification. At least you have to specify exactly what you mean with "the horse made more money".
For revenue, this is most certainly not true. There is no way they sold 360 Million Dollars worth of that horse.
Profit stil seems unlikely, but if you account for marketing and development costs of SC2 WoL, it could be true.
I will just link 2 reddit threads that I just found for more background.
www.reddit.com
www.reddit.com
One quote from those threads:
Can you clarify what you said? SC2 sold 6 million copies at $60 USD retail price. At its peak WoW had 12 million subscribers and the horse cost $15 USD. My guess is 5%, best case 10% of WoW subscribers bought the horse. I played the game actively and it was a rare sight - no way a large % would have had the horse, so even 5% seems generous to me. Now don't get me wrong, getting 5%*12M= 600k * $15 = $9M USD for a horse skin is still pretty sick but it doesn't even come close to the $360M of SC2. Even if you factor in things like discounts and retail margins and you discount that number by 50%, then $180M is still at least 20x more than the horse skin. So it just seems like you made that up to gain attention and clicks but I am happy for you to clarify what you mean or what part of my calculation is wrong by a factor of 20x
Having played WoW at that time, this Horse was extremely rare. No way 10% of accounts had that horse. I would not even think tha you get to 3%, but this is pure guessing at this point.
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On November 21 2024 23:49 Malinor wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote:
For those interested how much more viable WoW was to Blizzard:
According to Thor, one of the devs on SC2, the very first mount Blizzard released for WoW that you could buy with money, y'know that stupid, unimaginative 0815 mount for 10 (15?) bucks...that one made more money than WoL. This is very likely not true though, or a massive oversimplification. At least you have to specify exactly what you mean with "the horse made more money". For revenue, this is most certainly not true. There is no way they sold 360 Million Dollars worth of that horse. Profit stil seems unlikely, but if you account for marketing and development costs of SC2 WoL, it could be true. I will just link 2 reddit threads that I just found for more background. www.reddit.comwww.reddit.comOne quote from those threads: Show nested quote +Can you clarify what you said? SC2 sold 6 million copies at $60 USD retail price. At its peak WoW had 12 million subscribers and the horse cost $15 USD. My guess is 5%, best case 10% of WoW subscribers bought the horse. I played the game actively and it was a rare sight - no way a large % would have had the horse, so even 5% seems generous to me. Now don't get me wrong, getting 5%*12M= 600k * $15 = $9M USD for a horse skin is still pretty sick but it doesn't even come close to the $360M of SC2. Even if you factor in things like discounts and retail margins and you discount that number by 50%, then $180M is still at least 20x more than the horse skin. So it just seems like you made that up to gain attention and clicks but I am happy for you to clarify what you mean or what part of my calculation is wrong by a factor of 20x Having played WoW at that time, this Horse was extremely rare. No way 10% of accounts had that horse. I would not even think tha you get to 3%, but this is pure guessing at this point.
I mean...I will just leave the short I used as a source here. If you want to believe one of the devs of WoL or not on that is for you to decide.
I will however say that I'm pretty sure the profit margin for WoL was not 50% of retail prize. Considering how long WoL was in developement (and they apparently worked two years straight overtime on it), the entire profit margin for WoL alone was probably a lot lower than 180 million.
Considering that the horse took like three days and a bottle of whiskey to "develop", you can see why it would be much cheaper.
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SC2 still had several amazing years of esports despite all the drama. That was enough for me.
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Sc2 was (is) a successful game, I don't get all this negativity.
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imagine twitch came out ~7 years earlier. sc1 and wc3 would have much much more viewers.
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Northern Ireland26499 Posts
On November 21 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote:
For those interested how much more viable WoW was to Blizzard:
According to Thor, one of the devs on SC2, the very first mount Blizzard released for WoW that you could buy with money, y'know that stupid, unimaginative 0815 mount for 10 (15?) bucks...that one made more money than WoL.
It didn’t. It just didn’t
Its return on investment individually, undoubtedly higher. Equally it’s only possible if you’ve put a substantial amount of development and upkeep costs into WoW itself.
This factoid pisses me off.
SC2 wasn’t a niche game, at the time it dropped it was amongst the fastest selling and highest selling PC games of all time.
It’s nonsense, I see this all the time. Utter bollocks.
No a single mount wasn’t more profitable than the biggest RTS ever made outside of its predecessor.
Absolute horseshit.
You need WoW to be a thing to make further monetisation possible, which means you have to factor in WoW’s overall development costs.
Basically any developer who’s developing just for PC would kill for SC2’s numbers. Or indeed many doing it cross platform
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One thing I was interested by, now that I think about it, is that Blizzard put a LOT into the Overwatch League thinking it would be the next big thing -- they attracted tons of big sponsors, were able to sell a bunch of teams for millions, and really thought they might have "A digital NFL" on their hands, with nobody realizing until it was too late that Overwatch...isn't really all that fun to watch, which shouldn't have been that hard to figure out, considering it was a fast, team-based FPS?
I know Counterstrike's e-sports scene has been thriving for a while, and the fact that Overwatch wasn't dominated by Koreans and there was no KeSPA to deal with might have made it look more attractive, but...Starcraft translates really well to being a spectator sport! I can speak from experience on this, I've been watching the pros for 14 years now and have never really played the multiplayer. Might have been interesting to see what would have happened if Blizzard had thrown more of its muscle into the SC2 eSports, although the fact the best players were halfway around the world on established teams always would have been a pretty big obstacle.
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On November 22 2024 04:39 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote:
For those interested how much more viable WoW was to Blizzard:
According to Thor, one of the devs on SC2, the very first mount Blizzard released for WoW that you could buy with money, y'know that stupid, unimaginative 0815 mount for 10 (15?) bucks...that one made more money than WoL. It didn’t. It just didn’t Its return on investment individually, undoubtedly higher. Equally it’s only possible if you’ve put a substantial amount of development and upkeep costs into WoW itself. This factoid pisses me off. SC2 wasn’t a niche game, at the time it dropped it was amongst the fastest selling and highest selling PC games of all time. It’s nonsense, I see this all the time. Utter bollocks. No a single mount wasn’t more profitable than the biggest RTS ever made outside of its predecessor. Absolute horseshit. You need WoW to be a thing to make further monetisation possible, which means you have to factor in WoW’s overall development costs. Basically any developer who’s developing just for PC would kill for SC2’s numbers. Or indeed many doing it cross platform
I never doubted that SC2 had great numbers. It doubled or tripled the sales of WC3, which if I recall correctly already doubled the sales of BW. Same with D3: Yes, the game was terrible at the start, but it still was the best selling game ever at that time.
But I don't think there is no denying that you can get much higher profits out of microtransactions than you can get through the developement of the game. Though you are ofc correct, you still need a running game for it to make that money.
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Northern Ireland26499 Posts
On November 22 2024 06:23 Balnazza wrote:Show nested quote +On November 22 2024 04:39 WombaT wrote:On November 21 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote:
For those interested how much more viable WoW was to Blizzard:
According to Thor, one of the devs on SC2, the very first mount Blizzard released for WoW that you could buy with money, y'know that stupid, unimaginative 0815 mount for 10 (15?) bucks...that one made more money than WoL. It didn’t. It just didn’t Its return on investment individually, undoubtedly higher. Equally it’s only possible if you’ve put a substantial amount of development and upkeep costs into WoW itself. This factoid pisses me off. SC2 wasn’t a niche game, at the time it dropped it was amongst the fastest selling and highest selling PC games of all time. It’s nonsense, I see this all the time. Utter bollocks. No a single mount wasn’t more profitable than the biggest RTS ever made outside of its predecessor. Absolute horseshit. You need WoW to be a thing to make further monetisation possible, which means you have to factor in WoW’s overall development costs. Basically any developer who’s developing just for PC would kill for SC2’s numbers. Or indeed many doing it cross platform I never doubted that SC2 had great numbers. It doubled or tripled the sales of WC3, which if I recall correctly already doubled the sales of BW. Same with D3: Yes, the game was terrible at the start, but it still was the best selling game ever at that time. But I don't think there is no denying that you can get much higher profits out of microtransactions than you can get through the developement of the game. Though you are ofc correct, you still need a running game for it to make that money.
Oh sure sure, no arguments here.
A game set up for micro transactions is more potentially lucrative, equally it has to suit them, equally it often requires continual development costs.
In my time playing Fortnite with kiddo we’ve had completely new game modes added, many new maps, new items and mechanics added with frequency etc etc. More than any other game I’ve ever played. It feeds a very lucrative model but often you do have to keep adding content too feed it back
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One more thing to add -- when the Activision merger happened and the higher-ups were used to that sweet "pump out a Call Of Duty every year" money, the understanding for a game like Starcraft went down that much more.
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On November 22 2024 06:10 ScrappyRabbit wrote:
One thing I was interested by, now that I think about it, is that Blizzard put a LOT into the Overwatch League thinking it would be the next big thing -- they attracted tons of big sponsors, were able to sell a bunch of teams for millions, and really thought they might have "A digital NFL" on their hands, with nobody realizing until it was too late that Overwatch...isn't really all that fun to watch, which shouldn't have been that hard to figure out, considering it was a fast, team-based FPS?
I know Counterstrike's e-sports scene has been thriving for a while, and the fact that Overwatch wasn't dominated by Koreans and there was no KeSPA to deal with might have made it look more attractive, but...Starcraft translates really well to being a spectator sport! I can speak from experience on this, I've been watching the pros for 14 years now and have never really played the multiplayer. Might have been interesting to see what would have happened if Blizzard had thrown more of its muscle into the SC2 eSports, although the fact the best players were halfway around the world on established teams always would have been a pretty big obstacle.
I'm not sure it would of mattered in Korea. By the time Overwatch came out in May 2016, SC2 Proleague was on it's last legs. Plus I don't reasonably think any Esport was going to de-throne League of Legends by that point.
What we do know is that Blizzard had been in the planning stages for Overwatch League before the game itself even launched. And that probably contributed to Blizzard's lowered interest in SC2 Esports to some extent.
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On November 21 2024 23:02 Creager wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote:
For those interested how much more viable WoW was to Blizzard:
According to Thor, one of the devs on SC2, the very first mount Blizzard released for WoW that you could buy with money, y'know that stupid, unimaginative 0815 mount for 10 (15?) bucks...that one made more money than WoL. I hate this fact with every fiber of my being. We as gamers are just the absolute worst - 0 impulse control, 0 rational perception of value. I mean, look at this 80 bucks mount they released for the WarCraft anniversary, I personally know people who were VERY outspoken about how shitty the practice is, but still bought it regardless...
True, I completely blame the gamers for the micro transaction era we live in.
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On November 21 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote:
For those interested how much more viable WoW was to Blizzard:
According to Thor, one of the devs on SC2, the very first mount Blizzard released for WoW that you could buy with money, y'know that stupid, unimaginative 0815 mount for 10 (15?) bucks...that one made more money than WoL.
Love Thor and his insight about things.
I mean nothing wrong with those micro transaction and stuff seriously.
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Northern Ireland26499 Posts
On December 14 2024 07:53 PurE)Rabbit-SF wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote:
For those interested how much more viable WoW was to Blizzard:
According to Thor, one of the devs on SC2, the very first mount Blizzard released for WoW that you could buy with money, y'know that stupid, unimaginative 0815 mount for 10 (15?) bucks...that one made more money than WoL. Love Thor and his insight about things. I mean nothing wrong with those micro transaction and stuff seriously.
Done well, it’s a great model, but too frequently it isn’t.
Something like Fortnite has a crazy amount of updates and fresh modes, more than any game I’ve ever played. Albeit I mostly just play a little so I can play with kiddo.
Engine updates, editor improvements, frequent new maps and whole new mechanics. New modes. Hell they just added proper first-person support and a CS clone mode with it, that’s actually not too bad
It’s quite difficult to finance all that on a one-off retail purchase.
On the negative side you have a lot of products that are ringfencing content that could be in a launch to make it a micro transaction later, which is a trend I absolutely dislike
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On December 14 2024 07:53 PurE)Rabbit-SF wrote:Show nested quote +On November 21 2024 12:13 Balnazza wrote:
For those interested how much more viable WoW was to Blizzard:
According to Thor, one of the devs on SC2, the very first mount Blizzard released for WoW that you could buy with money, y'know that stupid, unimaginative 0815 mount for 10 (15?) bucks...that one made more money than WoL. Love Thor and his insight about things. I mean nothing wrong with those micro transaction and stuff seriously.
That was actually debunked I'm pretty sure that the one mount made more than SC2.
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EPT
