Blizzards strange Blizzcon reveal

Chaparral · Nov 10, 2018

May Blizzard burn in hell forever.

Backer42 · Nov 10, 2018

Chris Simon said:
The problem is that Activision as a company lost interest in their "loyal audience", I think.

They're going to get a new one.

If you were a company and had a choice between developing an AAA title for 500 million dollars with a proposition of it generating a 1 billion in the first year, or outsourcing and re-skinning a mobile game for 30 million, going to Asian market and generating 500 million revenue every month, what would you do?

We, as a PC and console gamers, are screwed. We are simply not worth it, to the big houses. That's where the game monetization came to.

That's the reason why for console platform owners it's important to have titles exclusive to their platforms. They're necessary for the survival of these platforms.

However PC is already getting ports from mobile. Even by Rockstar, who replaced the (very old) classic GTA PC versions on Steam with the ports of their mobile re-releases. It's the fate of a second-tier platform.

Zieman · Nov 10, 2018

Caramel Clown said:
Wow. Blizzard. What the hell are you doing.

Making money. That's all any company really cares of.

Bunkerkind Anni · Nov 10, 2018

Zieman said:
Making money. That's all any company really cares of.

bit with this PR-Fail , they lost lots of money on the stock market already.
an interesting news i read just a few minutes ago, is something about tencent limiting game time for "children" on some of their mobile games to 1 hour per day, due to some Chinese laws.

so, that lucrative "asian mobile market" is currently facing lots of censorship and anti-gaming laws.

that article was interesting to me for two reasons: mobile market (blizzard/activision) and Tencent = Frontier Shareholder

Robin of Spiritwood · Nov 11, 2018

According to CNBC, the share price decline is attributed to a reported drop in the consumer base: a 10% reduction in subscribers. Not to the PR debacle, which is coincidentally timed.

It seems plausible. Large scale investors or funds won't be interested in the company in the same way as gamers. However it's hard to see more people signing up because of their plans.

The share price remains at $55 down from $67 at this time.

Chris Simon · Nov 11, 2018

Robin of Spiritwood said:
According to CNBC, the share price decline is attributed to a reported drop in the consumer base: a 10% reduction in subscribers. Not to the PR debacle, which is coincidentally timed.

It seems plausible. Large scale investors or funds won't be interested in the company in the same way as gamers. However it's hard to see more people signing up because of their plans.

The share price remains at $55 down from $67 at this time.

So... The stock price that has been pretty stable around $65-$68 for weeks drops more than 10% the same day they announce that they aren't going to announce any new PC/console releases in the near future and instead are working on multiple mobile games for each of their IPs, a statement that allienates their main consumer base. And you're saying that it is... a coincidence. I don't think so.

Buio · Nov 11, 2018

Chris Simon said:
That's actually quite a nice metaphore.
The problem is that Activision as a company lost interest in their "loyal audience", I think. If you were a company and had a choice between developing an AAA title for 500 million dollars with a proposition of it generating a 1 billion in the first year, or outsourcing and re-skinning a mobile game for 30 million, going to Asian market and generating 500 million revenue every month, what would you do?

We, as a PC and console gamers, are screwed. We are simply not worth it, to the big houses. That's where the game monetization came to.

It's not that easy to succeed in the mobile market. The customers don't care about names like Activision or Blizzard. Activision is only successful in the mobile market because they bought one of the largest companies, King. But even having a successful product like King and Candy Crush does not guarantee continued success. Just look at the once popular Angry Birds company Rovio. The mobile market is fickle, while the console and PC gaming not so much.

metatheurgist · Nov 11, 2018

Yeah, it's a strange phenomenon. Every company that goes for the big, juicy, lucrative market imagines they'll be the champ that dominates it and makes all the money. Just ask Bioware how well that worked out for them.

Chris Simon · Nov 11, 2018

[video=youtube;J-RlUHndbyc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-RlUHndbyc[/video]

Mengy · Nov 12, 2018

Cmdr Eagleboy said:
As in example of Diablo, it is perfect one. There won't be Diablo 4. There are just nowhere to go creatively. Blizzard knows this perfectly well. For these players, it is just time to move on.

Are you actually saying that Blizzard isn't working on Diablo 4 right now?

I'll clue you in: they've been working on D4 for many years now. It is already well underway.

Surefoot · Nov 12, 2018

Fishy said:
Commodore and VGA killed the Amiga imho, not EA or anyone else. Had it not become an obsolete platform technologically, it'd have stood a chance, but since Commodore didn't plan ahead, they found themselves lagging behind.

Commodore *actively* killed the Amiga. There are good stories to be heard from David Pleasance on that (all can be found on YT). And yeah at its apogee it was quite ahead of the competition, hell Win95 as a piece of garbage compared to what AmigaOS was able to do 5 years before. So the situation in that case was a bit special and cannot be compared...

metatheurgist said:
Yeah, it's a strange phenomenon. Every company that goes for the big, juicy, lucrative market imagines they'll be the champ that dominates it and makes all the money. Just ask Bioware how well that worked out for them.

So true. How did that mobile card game go for Lord British ? haha. They are entering a shark filled pond, anything can happen. If they crash and burn, we can go "HA HA !" and point at them and laugh.

Fishy · Nov 12, 2018

Surefoot said:
So true. How did that mobile card game go for Lord British ? haha.

Say what?! I must have missed his latest venture. I'd have thought that after Scams of the Avatar he was a proven busted flush and would have the decency to hide in shame...

Surefoot · Nov 12, 2018

Fishy said:
Say what?! I must have missed his latest venture. I'd have thought that after Scams of the Avatar he was a proven busted flush and would have the decency to hide in shame...

I'm not following closely but if i can recall it was before the thing of the avatar scam.

Fishy · Nov 12, 2018

Surefoot said:
I'm not following closely but if i can recall it was before the thing of the avatar scam.

Ah right, older stuff then. Cheers.

Bunkerkind Anni · Nov 12, 2018

Surefoot said:
So true. How did that mobile card game go for Lord British ? haha. They are entering a shark filled pond, anything can happen. If they crash and burn, we can go "HA HA !" and point at them and laugh.

wait? there was another game from Richard Garriot after Tabula Rasa and this visit to the ISS.
totally missed that.

also makes want to check out the status of "Grummz" aka Mark Kern aka "former Blizzard/WoW Developer who seriously failed with Firefall" and his current project...
RIP Firefall bus

Chris Simon · Nov 19, 2018

Things are definitely interesting over at BlizzHQ

[video=youtube;SrKDgDlbsS8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrKDgDlbsS8[/video]

metatheurgist · Nov 20, 2018

Ah Unions. They're evil socialists until you actually need them.

Ian Skippy · Nov 22, 2018

Fishy · Nov 22, 2018

Yeah, with that stunt, Blizzard seem to have reached "sense of pride and accomplishment" levels meme-wise.

metatheurgist · Nov 22, 2018

National Fast Food day? What madness is this?