Sounds like it was lack of understanding the industry they are in, not just profits over people. They are not in the commodities industries, where every piece of product is more or less the same as the next one. Toothpaste cannot really be improved upon, and have done the same thing for decades and will remain so for decades to come. They are in an industry where brands and quality do matter, because what they actually sell is experience, not a product, not a "revenue stream". Once they started measuring it (probably) with metrics like play time and dollars, they were destined to run the company into the ground. That statement was like saying "we want to create a Tarantino movie that we can exploit across all platforms all the time". Yet, I bet they were all paid handsomely for their ignorance and incompetence.
No people no company. If the company is toxic to the people it'll die a slow and sometimes a quick death. It's the classic passionate people start a company, have success and more great things come from it until it reaches a counter point at which it generates so much money vultures start taking notice and before you know it, it's rotten all the way through and it'll live off it's former glory until it dies, splits up, stuff is sold off etc.
Bobby game in and sucked off others work. Just like other corporate leaders. Blizzard had the talent and was changing to greed long before Bobby showed up. How do we know? Easy, Blizzard North was disassembled while they were working on Diablo 3 RTS MMO. It's all sucks but what are you going to do.
@@dingostar2620 yep, that's why it's important to know the names and read the credits. If a notorious project lead is on your new favorite IP don't fall for companies cashing in on good will and label confidence. It's like going to a favorite food spot and having a bad meal because good employees are off that day. Maybe that location has poor management, the label is only as good as the names behind it.
Welcome to modern gaming and acquisitions. If it wasn't bobby it would have been someone else, Microsoft is doing the same thing they just have a better PR team to fool people into thinking they are more consumer friendly.
Its also players fault - they keep buying and eating what they are served. They like it. Not only blizzard and bobby ruined the games. Player base also ruined it.
Gaming was so much better when it was a lot of enthusiasts trying to do something fun and engaging before investors saw a business in it. Good thing we still have some good companies making quality games
"Profits over people" is the bane of civilization. It's prevalent in nearly every industry and only serves to stifle progress while increasing consumption. As the concept has only fairly recently touched the games industry due to its previously underrated potential, it's only now begun to create awareness. Wherever there are investors, the mindset exists, and without regulation, this will not change. Paying more for less is nothing new. We've been doing it for generations.
@BionicleJackson No, but it was a bridge to extortion and taking advantage of the lower classes in modern times, especially during Reagan and after in the United States. One can observe the rate of wages vs the cost of living, the amount of taxes multi millionaires and billionaires evade, amount of money going to war over building up and supporting our homeland, and the crumbling infrastructure while luxury apartments are built everywhere. The proof is all around us.
Blizzard games used to be a day 1 buy for me since Warcraft 2/Diablo 2. So when WoW came out I didn't even watch previews or anything, I went and got a copy. When Starcraft 2 came out I went and bought a copy. When D3 came out I was cautious because I had left PC gaming by then and the real money AH sounded bad. Now I won't bother buying an ActiBlizz game unless it's on a 80% sale and I have been assured it's very good.
@@mathlfr That's a bit harsh. Starcraft 2 was maybe not the most innovative but there were plenty of expansions for the other games. Starcraft had expansion, Warcraft 3 had expansion as did diablo 2.
Your view and behavior highlights exactly what this article was all about. Old blizz cared about making the highest quality games and having that standard which meant its audience would never hesitate to support. It was the better philosophy for longevity. Act/blizz only cares about quarterly profits and have failed to realize the long term damage they have done by pushing sub par content at a faster rate. They seek to make the minimum viable product and monetize the hell out of games knowing the ip will bring people back. It sucks
We were told as kids monopolies were bad. Yet when blizzard got bought out by activision everyone was like “maybe they’ll fix it!” No. That’s not how monopolies work. Then when Microsoft bought activision/blizzard everyone was like “maybe this will fix it!” No. Further monopolizing is the problem, never the solution.
Genuine question, do you think Sonys monopolisastion is bad? I agree with your points but I can't tell whether your only bringing up Microsoft and blizzard because that's what the video is about or if your just against Microsoft
@ashleybarnes9343 sonys monopoly? You obviously don't know what the word means. Not to mention the company he's talking about is the one mentioned in the video...very weird to mention sony at all.
As someome that worked in corporate for over 23 years, I still dont understand why these CFOs come in trying to min max in creative endeavors. They think they can seamlessly apply the same fundaments of capital making in creative companies than in companies that manufacture duct tape and toothpaste, its so boneheaded. They are so deatached from the real world that they cannot grasp that buying general appliances and first need items isnt the same as buying what effectively is a luxury item, an entertainment product. Gamer satisfaction is built on trust and trust is built through hard, passionate work that has to be maintained througbout the years and decades. I said this before in an Asmongold video and I stay by my words, Kotick is a great moneymaker for himself and himself alone. He is an opportunist that doesnt have an atom of creativeness in his soul and jumped into the gaming sphere by mere coincidence. Whats incredible for me is Morhaime's lack of forsight to see that bringing in a man that had a long record of cannibalizing studios wouldnt do the exact same thing with Blizzard. This is why young talented developers need to understand the risks of going public and not keeping track of where your stock lies or soon you'll have the same type of predators, min maxing and stifling your creative process and forcibly hijacking governance capacity away from you
This is what scares me about stocks. Once you go public, unless you dump a large portion of your profits into buying your own stock you will no longer be the owner of your company. If the people buying your stock are not the people invested in your product you will get entities such as Kotik slurping up the stocks and taking over. Now that I'm writing it out... I feel like we should actually encourage people to look for stock of their favorite companies and buy it. Not because it's the best financial advice, but because it provides them a chance to keep the company relative to the customers and founders rather than vultures and sharks. Some of the stock is relatively cheap.
@@ferinzz there are ways to retain governance and avoid having an outside board of directors formed in the first place but those options usually scare investors away because they feel like they'd have no say in governance and the company would be operating under a taxing handicap for a while, but its definitely doable. And it also boils down to what the client wants out of their company, do they want a family business, a passion thing? Or do they wanna make money fast without a care in the world? Because you cant have both and the ones that have both are one in million exceptions.
They say this all the time. It's really boring and unoriginal content. You'd think if it was "over" these people would stop talking about it. It's just easy money. Meanwhile the game has more subs than ever between its various skews. I think it sucks for blizzard employees, but they've unionized for the WoW team. Hopefully something comes of it. The game (wow at least) is pretty fun.
Gandalf.... FOOLS! You all keep running back to this. I stopped, ARPG, I will invest time and money into POE2. Blizzard and I divorced. This is not a game company and Ferguson has destroyed Diablo Franchise.
Microsoft is more of the same. Profit first. Blizzard will continue to follow this failed idea but it will take years for them to realize the reality that it ruins a company. Then the exec's with pockets of cash will take the money and run while everyone else suffers and takes the blame.
Profit isn't the problem, profit is the just reward for delivering a good product that meets a demand. If you don't put profit first, you end up with Concord.... a product that I'm sure a lot of developers were passionate about, but a product that had no market. The problem is greed. Thinking you can milk whales forever with low effort psychological FOMO tricks and digital slot machines.
To each their own. You're comparing a completely different game to the few years ago (d2 or d3). If d4 will just be the same gameplay to the old ones, they are not evolving
@Nina-ld7wz but tbf those baal runs could always produce some game changing piece of gear or rune. There was always carrots to chase even after you had enigma
@@jonnykillas2935except you had to do it 10000 times, the same crap over and over, and people complained about how repetitive nmds were lol, Pd2 mod is much much better
@@Nina-ld7wzpeople don't bother actually comparing, i still remember how some broken d2 affixes didn't work for like 10 years and now ppl cry about how the test realm designed to find bugs... have bugs...and get mostly fixed too..
Blizzard was GOATed once upon a time. That name meant something. Today? Ugh... ultimately the suits took over and pushed money over quality. No surprise there.
I remember seeing a company picture of the Blizzard team from the late 90’s/early 2000’s and they all looked like a bunch of total gamer nerds…nowadays I bet u it would be a bunch of suits
Just refunded mine brother after following gameplay rune words are boring I'm out man. Just can't support this anymore. Was hopeful the expansion would save game but it won't
@@zalin2000 sadly I wanted to like the game but the expansion looks like another cash in and boring uninteresting mechanics. When they mentioned rune words got so excited but it's just +/- skills etc boredom
this. I played open beta and caught myself thinking that I don't like what I see in terms of the feel of the game. And I cannot perceive Diablo 4 as a story-oriented game, because any other genre other than arpg would be better suited for this. As a result, I did not buy it and I am very happy about it. After all, as a result, I saw a frustratingly boring endgame on the streams.
Far too many companies are being run and managed by people who, at best, have never used the products the company produces, and at worst, looks down on those who do.
This is, down to the details, what many of us said would happen the moment the merger with Activision was announced. We were called all kinds of things but we already felt proven right when Diablo III was released. That's 12 years ago and it kept spiraling. The original Overwatch was a massive success for a few years but keep in mind that was them salvaging what was meant to be something much greater in Project Titan. I sometimes wonder if Titan would have seen the light of day had Blizzard remained free of Activision's influence and what their legacy would have looked like today.
Oh, how I miss the time when you played a game because it was made by Blizzard! Bought every game since the first Warcraft. "Don't you guys have phones?"
Imagine poe2 isnt so Great u all wish? I‘m a Poe Player since beta 2014 and im Not sure what poe2 will be at the end. Lots of improvments but also Lots of changes. We have to wait and see what Happens… for me it is to much hype
Diablo 4 was the last straw for me, adding mtx store and battle pass into diablo should've been all the warning I needed but no I let me fool myself but I have learned, dropped it before season 1 landed and prompted me to give poe a second chance and this time it just clicked with me. So I suppose I should be greatful to blizzard for that at least
I honestly cant understand the rage against battle pass and mtx... I mean, just dont buy it (?) The amount of updates and reworking diablo 4 is getting show the company is willing to improve. I agree that after overwatch, blizzard went downhill, with bad decisions and a market posture that led us to the iconic diablo immortal meme. But in recent years its clear that they changed the strategy (maybe after microsoft bought it, things got more serious). I mean... look at Valve. They both have similiarity on their game styles, companies that create new disruptive game trends. Valve killed every single game they made in recent years, its like the reverse midas. And what are they doing know? Addressing the issues with cheaters in CS2? Working on another sequence of Portal, L4D, Half-Life? Nope, they are working on another shitty moba as dota 2 died, hoping it trends to grind money with skins and tournaments. They tried dota underlords, wich failed, tried again with artifact, failed. I think what its happening to them its similar to what happened to Blizzard in 2017-2022 and shows the difference between a company who is willing to improve and one who dont give a shit.
@@rodrigoribeiro377 I kind of agree with the "don't buy it argument" to a certain extent.. The issue I see with it though, is in a lot of games, especially something like an RPG, ei Wow or even action RPGs like Diablo, is that its not just character power progression, but there is also a visual progression. It used to be that if you saw someone walk by you, just by looking at them, you'd know that they had really good gear. Now thats no longer a thing, because companies are now incentivized to put all the most badass looking things in the shop, and keep all the more basic looking stuff in the base game. I can excuse that practice in free to play games, or if its from an indie or smaller developer, or a half priced game. But Diablo 4 is a full priced game, with an in-game shop, paid expansions and a battlepass, the only way they're not monetizing the game is a subscription. So in some situations I agree with your argument (free to play or half priced games), but if its already a full priced game I think its a bit much.
The hardest Blizzard has every fallen to me, is when they announced a Diablo 4 dlc with methispto, a jungle, Akarat and the Zakarum! Then proceeded to say that the Paladin class doesn't fit with the theme of the dlc in question that largely has to do with corruption! Yeah these fcking devs don't know Diablo lore! The moment they said the Paladin class would not be in this DLC I uninstalled Diablo 4! Bye Bye Blizzard! I can't even trust them to do the Paladin Justice! So no more buying any games from them for me. You guys can go ahead but I warn you! Disappointment is all that awaits you at the end of the Road! Save your Money for Games devs that do care!
And gave us an "innovative" new class that looks just as boring as the current ones. You can tell the devs checked out and management is trying their damndest to keep people playing. The new skills look lame asf, this game is for people who have like three hours of free time a week. They could easily have said let Warframe handle that crowd., but no. We get slop and for some god unknown reason people are still paying into an objectively shitty game.
When video games started to make good profit and became an industry it attracted a lot of corporate profit driven mofos. That ruins every product / company in the long run in any sector.
Yeah but people are stupid as fuck and keep lapping up any dogshit that blizzard poop out whilst saying 'its not that bad now!! It's gonna get really good soon. Don't know why you're hating'. Blizzard pumping out McDonald's quality food whilst charging gourmet prices.
Not when it comes to his own bank balance when he makes videos about it. If that's not one essence of hypocrisy I don't know what is. Just like the rest of these 'content creators', they all, essentially, 'piss in the same pot'.
So they are so bad bad bad and make millions , billions of cash ? I mean there are over 10 000 000 games out in the market and nobody is even touching them ? Yes yes "" The Fall Of Blizzard Entertainment is Brutal "". Sure haha.
I’m a fan of the Diablo universe, but what they’re doing now... I won’t buy DLC (and new d4 dlc)and their games anymore, it’s not blizzard for a long time. I had hopes, but alas, they went down the path of mass consumption, which will destroy them because they the universes rested on the fans.
As a WoW player since vanilla and played for jeez… 11 years? Blizzard really failed miserably. I literally played with my guild the entire 11 years. Some of them even have kids now and some got married. They’re missing the point of nerdy peeps that we build community and our loyalty goes a long way. Then they became greedy…
@@thruntroll2983 Not really. AFAIK, it's some guy who worked on Starcraft 2 LotV campaign and a guy who worked on WC3:TFT campaign. They made a mess of a game called Stormgate, which is basically a Starcraft 2 clone with some wacky mechanics.
D4 was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I have no interest in the expansion or anything else they do anymore and it's sad. D1 and D2 are still 2 of my all time favorite games but I have to recognize that Blizzard exists in name only now... It's not the studio that converted me to a full time PC Gamer anymore.
Hey, as a 90s kid, Blizzard PC games like Diablo 2, WarCraft 3, and StarCraft is what made us kids stop buying Magic the Gathering cards and instead start building our own PCs and create forums to talk about our builds and strategies. Whats worse is Blizzard acts like none of those previous devs, like Blizzard North, ever existed and refuse to acknowledge or communicate with them in collaboration for sequel games. They milk the nostalgia but get it all wrong. Meanwhile, GGG who made Path of Exile, who are also 90s kids, picked up the torch for us and collaborate and invite the D2 devs to Exilecon to properly pay the respect they deserve. As a fan of Blizzard, you likely play a new title for nostalgia or casual fun, but its never going to be the same Blizzard when the inspirational people we loved left the building
I started feeling exploited years ago, so I stopped giving them money. If everyone did this, we might have been able to course correct, but the blood is in the water now - even stepping all over the community and IP they are still raking in dough with the MTX slop they shoved in our beloved franchises. For the love of our hobby, please people STOP GIVING THEM MONEY.
My issue with video games today is that its always a lose lose situation for both customer and company. You very rarely get games anymore where people just enjoy them for what they are and companies focused on making a good product to sell better instead of microtransactions that end up making 5x the normal amount because gamers are dumb and egotistical and will do anything to look cool or have an advantage. If you look at a game like Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time it had plenty of game breaking bugs and glitches that players use to this day for speedrunning the game but its still one of the best story based games with extremely simple mechanics. If it was released today, people would say its boring, stale, and has too many issues. Thats why Breath of the Wild was so dramatically different from previous Zelda games. Gamers today aren't happy with anything because they feel cheated and robbed by companies while companies have expectations based on other games on how profitable they need to be to be considered a success. Until microtransactions are banned all together from gaming, its only going to continue like this. Also, why would video game companies keep a project in development hell when they can release periodic updates now. Idk I feel like gamers complain way too much for people that still pay for the shit they are complaining about.
Been playing their games since Warcraft 1, i remember how amazing their customer service back then, i actually had their manager call me once about my D2 character that got hacked and they fixed it immediately. At this point i will never give this company another dollar. Diablo Immortal customer service is the biggest joke, you spend a ton of money and they don't listen to their customers. They don't fix BG , the match making is trash, you ask for help you get automated crap responses. I could go on but there is no point, not only will i never give them another dollar i am not wasting my time or energy on this trash company anymore. Stay way, stay far away. They are NOT the same company anymore.
It's not just blizzard its the entire entertainment industry. These idiots got the idea that they are too big to fail when they really aren't. If disney disappeared tomorrow what would be lost? Jack and shit. They forget that all the money they get comes from the consumer. Entertainment companies are just death spiraling thinking that the solution is to spend more making games and movies no one wants meanwhile indy devs are doing just fine. Think maybe they need to budget money better
It all started to go downhill when Activision started it's hostile takeover. It was no longer about quality, dreams and passion for making something great and beloved by all, but just marketing a product for profit.
D4 was released at least a year too early - i am sure pressure from the higher-ups to release the game was intense & the playtesters weren't allowed to delay the release
I dunno blizzard died for me with Warcraft III Reforged. I love hack n slash games so i come back with D4. The game is so medicore. 10 Years in development and so medicore. Im not gonna play the Addon just skip it and wait for Path of Exile 2 Early Access.
Expecting this to change now and Blizzard going back to the "players first" will never happen under Microsoft. Why? Because the current head of Blizzard is NOT the old guard but those that have been changing the company into "Profit only". Lets be real... Blizzard games have lost all innovation and is just milking smaller and smaller player base. The company is pretty much now down to just 2 notable games and one of them (Diablo 4) is not even talking about more than 2 expansions for the title. WOW is the main milking cow with all other games pretty much in maintenance mode. It is pretty obvious that Microsoft will continue to make their profits by reducing the workforce and closing down new projects (and some old) at the company. Cause there is ZERO vision left at Blizzard to take their current games forward - or make new titles based on the Blizzard universe.
I agree but I think Diablo 4 will be getting more than 1 expansionbut only because the game has done so well financially not because they planed to make more than one.
@@adrios7943 I could see them launching more than 1 expansion as well. At some point they have to get it right. Also, they have a FPS that they are working on but I do not think much information has been released to the public about it. Is it going to be Blackthorne? Is it going to be a StarCraft spin off? Will it be something completely new? Or, maybe it is Titan??
@@PlantsAndInsects I think a Startcraft spin off is unlikely, but I'd love to be proved wrong. If I remember correctly, they tried that a while back and scrapped it early in development because they realized it was bad. Especialy with their current will to bank on their biggest IPs (being WoW and Diablo as we speak), I'm starting to think Overwatch was their last new IP. Again, I'd love to be proven wrong. They've been improving D4 for the last 2 seasons and the next expansion (which I'm not planning to buy fyi) looks promising. If they keep heading in that direction and do the same with their other games, then there's hope. Time will tell, and my wallet will remain tightly closed until then :)
even with Microsoft owning them now it still hasn't changed anything. everyone saying the rune system sucks. the system was announced 3-4 years ago before the initial release. the devs creativity. sub par products is what you get from blizzard anymore along with cash shops. like diablo4 should have innovation but it really doesn't have any, its mediocre seasonal bs. everyone hyped the unreal wow re creation. does blizzard capitalize on it? nope. heroes of the storm is basic as hell, tried to sue valve for making a better game. kinda feel ashamed I pre purchased vessel of hatred, specially after the ptr shit came out. Hard to have faith when they keep releasing sub par products
It's because there are more Activision people working on Blizzard games then Blizzard employees, as there has been way too many who have left the company over the past 2 decades... That is why Diablo franchise has gone to crap, cuz the people who made it and understood the fanbase are no longer making it.
@@PlantsAndInsects For more specific details about Diablo. The studio that made D1 and D2 was shut down while they were working on D3. Since then you've never had anyone working on Diablo who was a long time dev or even a fan of the genre. What genre? Well... Roguelikes is what diablo is at its roots. Don't feel bad about not knowing. They like to bury this history.
Mike was an amazing person. Dude was rich and would come to work in a regular car and geek shirts. He was just a super down to earth passionate gamer. We had a system where anybody at the company could "email mike" directly, if they had any problem, which is something I've never seen anywhere. I knew blizzard would never be the same when he left, he was the last glue holding things together.
My understanding of Blizzard's history, which may or may not be true, is that no one ever believed in Blizzard, since day 1. They were always trying to find profit... so during Warcraft 1 they made some money to stay afloat, then they made Warcraft 2, which made enough to split the studios between Blizzard "south" and Blizzard North. Then, Warcraft 3 happened and that was a huge success relative to what they received so far. But in the background they were trying to find a way to make money or stay profitable. Blizzard North got fucked the hardest and was dissolved. And then they made WoW, which was extremely positively received, but behind the scenes they were transfering ownership from Blizzrd to Vivendi to Blizzard to Activision.... something doesn't add up here. The ultimate thread is that regardless of how artistic the games were, they weren't making any or enough money and they had to sell. Bottom line: oh shit, it's the players' fault somehow. Honestly, if businesses are not making money off of your art, yeah they're going to figure a way out. Is it true that they aren't? Well, I don't know. Blizzard has made some money off so-called 'best selling games of all time' but what does that mean exactly. If history means anything, people haven't actually cared about them ever.
I have dumped literal thousands in fees into the company over the years, I grew up with their games, I thought they were essentially putting out spun gold as games. Over the years the fanaticism waned and has now turned into apathy. A mate put it quite succinctly, he had a hankering for D2 again, but didn't want to give ActiBlizz his money, so he just downloaded PoE instead (and disappeared from the face of the earth for 3 weeks).
Blizzard was dead to me when Activision got involved. The shit they have done the last couple years only made me glad I didn't waste time playing their trash.
Pretty crazy to go from one of the most loved gaming companies to one of the most hated gaming companies, if your reputation is on pair with EA then you know that you fucked up.
I put the blame squarely on Wizard of the Coast and MTG. Before MTG all gaming was niche market. People sat up and took notice at the money in gaming and suddenly you had the profit driven model creep in from CCG to the Digital realms. Sad really .. we are in a board game golden age right now again but computer gaming is in serious decline from AAA game profit driven models. MST3K did an invention exchange skit about Johnny Longtorso the man who comes in pieces, and was very tongue in cheek with Gypsy screaming EVIL! You’re EVIL! Way back in 1980’s and once again someone took a cautionary tale and turned it into a business model. Sigh..akin to cable TV wars in 1980’s people will have to pick and choose which games to play because no one can afford to play them all.. the money just isn’t there any more. We have been bled dry.
Brutal indeed. I also used to love their games, bought them without question. That's more than 10 years ago. Now, I wouldn't even play their crap of they paid me to. There's simply better games out there, even on the F2P spectrum.
They've forgotten, you have to spend money to make money. Or at least, you have to spend money on the right things. Budgets are bloated as it is, buy it's not going to the right places.
I uninstalled all Blizzard games last month. Enough is enough, I gave them so many chances, but they just kept ignoring the customers and producing trash games. Also all the lies are just disgusting, for example the stashtab thing in Diablo.
He made the shareholders money. That's what he was there to do. Was it good for the company? Probably not. Shit was going downhill since 2009. Lets not split hairs here. modern WOW and Diablo III were just precursors to things to come. I have always believed that D4 was released prior to it being ready. That many items were whiteboard and are NOW in the game. Think about itemization. Its clearly a placeholder from a earlier version of the game. Why wasn't it fixed? They didn't have time. My conspiracy theory was they had planned to release in December but were pressured to release early. Its endemic of poor communication between departments and a lack of understanding expectations. A lack of strong team leads and directors causes this. I've seen it.
This isn't Blizzard, Activision, or Microsoft: it's Capitalism. This is how it works (it's not a bug): consolidate (gobble up other companies), reduce costs, increase prices, keep churning low-quality products/services. Exploit the workers and customers since they have nowhere else to go.
D4 was Blizzard's last chance with me and they failed. D3 sucked and had an overpriced expansion (which I only bought after waiting years for a deep discount). Then came immortal which I didn't even bother trying (yes I do have a phone). D4 I got with my 4070 so felt like a good deal, but seeing the cash shop and the season pass, I'm certainly not paying for an overpriced expansion (like D3) to participate in that. Looks like its going to be PoE2 and/or go back to D2. Lately I've been playing a lot of 7d2d since 1.0 came out and its so refreshing playing a game thats fun without microtransactions.
As someone working in the industry i might have to clarify some points here. people working in high executive positions on the "business parts" of a gaming company are usually hired to do exactly that, run the busines side. A question like "hey we run this multimillion dollar fan convention every year - why exactly? are not uncommen. If you take this thought processes and overlay them with EVERY other business they are totally logical and yet for some reason its a huge uproar if its done in the gaming industry. We are not talking about a small company here - we are talking about thousands of employees whose paychecks are gambeled on a speculation IF a future product (that has no intrinsic value for society but is only there for fun) will be successfull and those people try to minimize costs and optimize revenue because thats how businesses work - If you ignore stuff like that you might stay afloat as long as you can produce one big hit after the other - but as soon as something fails its literally game over. Of course in the lower ranks of the companies where the actual games are made there is usually only one sentiment - make the best game (and people are hired to do exactly that in these types of jobs) - They will not and should not care what it needs to make the best game (we need 5 more years, 200 more employees, and we can make this and that happen and it would be much better than it currently is) the romantic view from gamers of course will always be -- YES they should do that, no matter the costs, give us the best possible game (and its also clear that they WANT this, because they should want this of course) BUT we are not talking about premium items here where the price will rise proportional to the work invested - a swatch costs only a small percentage of a rolex because there is more quality and time needed to build one (and of course brand marketing and other stuff) - So the logical conclusion would be to say - hey we increased our investment by 50% to make a better game, so players will also pay 50% more for this game right?..... But the fact is, they dont. Prices for box title games are more or less fix and through the rise of console gaming and distribution platforms like steam the actual developers also earn less because 20% of the revenue is straight up gone just to release your game in the stores. So what approach is right? Should the people that lead a business do a bad job by risking more money, meaning if the gamble does not work dev Joe working there cannot feed his family anymore maybe because the company goes bankrupt? Should the Developers themself try to force delays even though there additional time invested might not lead to more revenue? Should gamers pay more for games because there was also more money invested in them like into a game 20 years ago like D2 for example? What we end up with is a middle ground - we get the best possible game, without delaying too much but also what gets delayed or invested more is not forced on the player but there are optional payments like microtransaction to at least get a bit more money than just the box title - Its a discussion between 3 partys that all have different goals and nobody is really "wrong" here EDIT: oh and many players pick raisins by pointing at examples of a few super successfull games where the risk payed of in the end - yes they exist, there are quite a few, but do you know how many games fail? And how many studios close because of the gamble? Almost all Studios first game is a make or break situation where people will invest everything they got - some stories will be a blizzard story where some dudes in a garage found a company that stays lucrative for many many years - most companies though will never leave that garage
Still playing D4 since release and before played D3 since release. Loved every season and preordered Vessel of Hatred. Can’t wait for its release. Diablo is fun and no dei woke crap. This is how vidgames should be, fun entertaining and good for casual gameplay.
Good review, and I'm sure the book will have a lot of juicy details. But as an uplifting counter-point, I'd HIGHLY recommend reading "Stay Awhile and Listen" by David Craddock, which is an incredibly endearing look back at the early Blizzard and Diablo days about the development of the original game. I'm a sucker for nostalgia, so I may be biased, but I really enjoyed reading it and getting insight into the behind the scenes early days of Blizzard.
Diablo Immortal was typical Activision. Hawking cosmetics is something quite different. You talk about profits first and not players. How about players wanting more content, wanting seasonal play and enhancements. And players want all that for free forever. POE has a ton of microtransactions and no just cosmetic. Not pay to win to be sure, but something more important thsn cosmetics like stash space and specialized stash space. Now imagine yourself as a developer at Blizzard. You have a family to support with food, clothing, housing and all that. You aren't working for free and if no revenue is coming in you won't be working ar all. I had a talk with a hacker who told me he hacked software because it should all be free. His father owned a catering company so I asked him if all that food should be free. He told me thst was stupid. The business would go bust. I ssid "exactly."
lifelong diablo player here. I promised myself that once D2R came out I would never give AB another dollar of my money, and I have stuck to that. speak with your wallets people.
No one is sad about blizzard. No one cares. So many other worthwhile games to make all of their stuff not.matter and it's not even close. No one is excited for diablo...what other games do they do? Nothing.
Once upon a time, I remember being in the longest queue ever in Oxford Street London. It was 1am and it was for picking up a special edition wraith of the lich king. Store's stayed open later than normal just so people can get a copy of the game to play when the servers went live around 10am UK time 😊 2016 - after a disappointing warlords of draenor, and the free windows 10 update, that killed my windows 7 PC, i gave up PC gaming forever 😢 Ive never seen such madness for a game since.
Thank you for your noble sacrifice of 2 American dollars and your time, of course. Also, I've been telling people for years to stop hating Blizzard and the game dev teams. Blizzard was never the problem. It was always Kotick and Activision. I'm glad there's finally official word from someone internally that backs me up on this.
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Sounds like it was lack of understanding the industry they are in, not just profits over people.
They are not in the commodities industries, where every piece of product is more or less the same as the next one. Toothpaste cannot really be improved upon, and have done the same thing for decades and will remain so for decades to come.
They are in an industry where brands and quality do matter, because what they actually sell is experience, not a product, not a "revenue stream". Once they started measuring it (probably) with metrics like play time and dollars, they were destined to run the company into the ground.
That statement was like saying "we want to create a Tarantino movie that we can exploit across all platforms all the time". Yet, I bet they were all paid handsomely for their ignorance and incompetence.
UnSuccessful gets fired
Successful still gets fired
Yeah then you grow up and everyone becomes the enemy. These corporate scams are a good excuse for everyone to sit down, reflect, and be better.
No people no company. If the company is toxic to the people it'll die a slow and sometimes a quick death.
It's the classic passionate people start a company, have success and more great things come from it until it reaches a counter point at which it generates so much money vultures start taking notice and before you know it, it's rotten all the way through and it'll live off it's former glory until it dies, splits up, stuff is sold off etc.
"It'll be ready when it's done" is the specific expression Blizzard was using all the time back then
As far as Bobby goes bro won. Dude made his bag and burned the rest of us in process by turning our favorite IPs into corpo slop.
Bobby game in and sucked off others work. Just like other corporate leaders. Blizzard had the talent and was changing to greed long before Bobby showed up. How do we know? Easy, Blizzard North was disassembled while they were working on Diablo 3 RTS MMO. It's all sucks but what are you going to do.
He's a typical small hat. They're parasites.
@@Tarsarian Ez, don't support them.
@@dingostar2620 yep, that's why it's important to know the names and read the credits. If a notorious project lead is on your new favorite IP don't fall for companies cashing in on good will and label confidence. It's like going to a favorite food spot and having a bad meal because good employees are off that day. Maybe that location has poor management, the label is only as good as the names behind it.
Welcome to modern gaming and acquisitions. If it wasn't bobby it would have been someone else, Microsoft is doing the same thing they just have a better PR team to fool people into thinking they are more consumer friendly.
Is it me or is he sayin "raidy" instead of "ready"
Yea, I hear it too….
First time watching?
@@Hollywooddecember No, but never heard it before. Is it on purpose or some kind of accent ?
@@joelm2858 I think you might need another geography lesson
Clever af
Activision Blizzard = Disney Star Wars
Parading the corpses of beloved IPs
Dagger in my heart bro. It's the truth. But it sucks.
Its blizzardsoft now, get up to date lmao
Corporate passion
@@Karami42 Actiblizzardsoft. In fact, among Activision Blizzard King, Blizz was the *smallest* in terms of contributions to the bottom line.
It's everywhere in media/streaming. Amazon butchered Lawd dem Rangs and Wheel of Time. Netflix butchers everything.
similar happened to ubi. Chase money first. put customer last
Its also players fault - they keep buying and eating what they are served. They like it. Not only blizzard and bobby ruined the games. Player base also ruined it.
No self control for morons constantly buying wow tokens
This!
If Diablo stands on it, i buy it !
@@marcelbrosius841what like how diablo isn't even in diablo 4?
Let me just finish pre ordering this 75 dollar game and I'll come back to answer your acusation.
Gaming was so much better when it was a lot of enthusiasts trying to do something fun and engaging before investors saw a business in it. Good thing we still have some good companies making quality games
"Profits over people" is the bane of civilization. It's prevalent in nearly every industry and only serves to stifle progress while increasing consumption. As the concept has only fairly recently touched the games industry due to its previously underrated potential, it's only now begun to create awareness. Wherever there are investors, the mindset exists, and without regulation, this will not change. Paying more for less is nothing new. We've been doing it for generations.
It's called capitalism
@thruntroll2983 Indeed. People only started existing for the sole purpose of extorting others when capitalism became a thing 🤣 👌
@BionicleJackson No, but it was a bridge to extortion and taking advantage of the lower classes in modern times, especially during Reagan and after in the United States. One can observe the rate of wages vs the cost of living, the amount of taxes multi millionaires and billionaires evade, amount of money going to war over building up and supporting our homeland, and the crumbling infrastructure while luxury apartments are built everywhere. The proof is all around us.
As someone who has been in the tech industry for over 15 years, I have dreaded this day. It was only a matter of time man and it fucking blows.
And in the end it will all boil down to scaffolds, cries of "I did nothing wrong, I was just making money"and falling blades.
Blizzard games used to be a day 1 buy for me since Warcraft 2/Diablo 2. So when WoW came out I didn't even watch previews or anything, I went and got a copy. When Starcraft 2 came out I went and bought a copy. When D3 came out I was cautious because I had left PC gaming by then and the real money AH sounded bad. Now I won't bother buying an ActiBlizz game unless it's on a 80% sale and I have been assured it's very good.
Many say Diablo 3 was the beginning of the end but I'd say Starcraft 2 was. They made 3 games out of what used to be included in a single game.
@@mathlfr Diablo 2 did the same thing?
@@mathlfr That's a bit harsh. Starcraft 2 was maybe not the most innovative but there were plenty of expansions for the other games. Starcraft had expansion, Warcraft 3 had expansion as did diablo 2.
Your view and behavior highlights exactly what this article was all about. Old blizz cared about making the highest quality games and having that standard which meant its audience would never hesitate to support. It was the better philosophy for longevity. Act/blizz only cares about quarterly profits and have failed to realize the long term damage they have done by pushing sub par content at a faster rate. They seek to make the minimum viable product and monetize the hell out of games knowing the ip will bring people back. It sucks
@@matthewmay8572they do what slum lords do only its video games. The required minimum , if that , and nothing else.
There are so many good games now so we don't need blizzard anymore. It's 2024 not 2004.
You have a point there
We were told as kids monopolies were bad. Yet when blizzard got bought out by activision everyone was like “maybe they’ll fix it!” No. That’s not how monopolies work. Then when Microsoft bought activision/blizzard everyone was like “maybe this will fix it!”
No. Further monopolizing is the problem, never the solution.
Genuine question, do you think Sonys monopolisastion is bad? I agree with your points but I can't tell whether your only bringing up Microsoft and blizzard because that's what the video is about or if your just against Microsoft
@ashleybarnes9343 sonys monopoly? You obviously don't know what the word means. Not to mention the company he's talking about is the one mentioned in the video...very weird to mention sony at all.
@@ashleybarnes9343 concord says hello 🔥🔥
The regulators are part of the corruption
@phase_1471 obviously do, if anything Sony has a bigger monopoly over the gaming space then Microsoft does
I decided to refund the d4 expansion. I was really hoping the expansion would save the game but the runes seem boring
As someome that worked in corporate for over 23 years, I still dont understand why these CFOs come in trying to min max in creative endeavors.
They think they can seamlessly apply the same fundaments of capital making in creative companies than in companies that manufacture duct tape and toothpaste, its so boneheaded.
They are so deatached from the real world that they cannot grasp that buying general appliances and first need items isnt the same as buying what effectively is a luxury item, an entertainment product. Gamer satisfaction is built on trust and trust is built through hard, passionate work that has to be maintained througbout the years and decades.
I said this before in an Asmongold video and I stay by my words, Kotick is a great moneymaker for himself and himself alone. He is an opportunist that doesnt have an atom of creativeness in his soul and jumped into the gaming sphere by mere coincidence. Whats incredible for me is Morhaime's lack of forsight to see that bringing in a man that had a long record of cannibalizing studios wouldnt do the exact same thing with Blizzard.
This is why young talented developers need to understand the risks of going public and not keeping track of where your stock lies or soon you'll have the same type of predators, min maxing and stifling your creative process and forcibly hijacking governance capacity away from you
Very well said.
This is what scares me about stocks. Once you go public, unless you dump a large portion of your profits into buying your own stock you will no longer be the owner of your company.
If the people buying your stock are not the people invested in your product you will get entities such as Kotik slurping up the stocks and taking over.
Now that I'm writing it out... I feel like we should actually encourage people to look for stock of their favorite companies and buy it. Not because it's the best financial advice, but because it provides them a chance to keep the company relative to the customers and founders rather than vultures and sharks. Some of the stock is relatively cheap.
@@ferinzz there are ways to retain governance and avoid having an outside board of directors formed in the first place but those options usually scare investors away because they feel like they'd have no say in governance and the company would be operating under a taxing handicap for a while, but its definitely doable.
And it also boils down to what the client wants out of their company, do they want a family business, a passion thing? Or do they wanna make money fast without a care in the world? Because you cant have both and the ones that have both are one in million exceptions.
Bobby is creative at making money and extracting more revenue
ITS SO OVER FOR BLIZZARD (3rd time this year)
For me it definitely is.
@@johannesnagengast7643 after d4 release i'm never ever going back to anything blizzard makes.
They say this all the time. It's really boring and unoriginal content. You'd think if it was "over" these people would stop talking about it. It's just easy money. Meanwhile the game has more subs than ever between its various skews. I think it sucks for blizzard employees, but they've unionized for the WoW team. Hopefully something comes of it. The game (wow at least) is pretty fun.
Gandalf.... FOOLS! You all keep running back to this. I stopped, ARPG, I will invest time and money into POE2. Blizzard and I divorced. This is not a game company and Ferguson has destroyed Diablo Franchise.
Same. As should everyone else
Yeah dude Poe 2 is looking amazing
Go check out Last Epoch. Game has a bright future ahead.
Don't care
@@CollectiveDefenceit's boring
The moment Blizzard announced their merger with Activision I said this is the beginning of the end of Blizzard Entertainment. I was right.
Old blizz = 90’s McDonald’s colorful, ball pit, slides etc.
New Blizz = new McDonald’s lock step government gray building colors soulless
Microsoft is more of the same. Profit first. Blizzard will continue to follow this failed idea but it will take years for them to realize the reality that it ruins a company. Then the exec's with pockets of cash will take the money and run while everyone else suffers and takes the blame.
Profit isn't the problem, profit is the just reward for delivering a good product that meets a demand.
If you don't put profit first, you end up with Concord.... a product that I'm sure a lot of developers were passionate about, but a product that had no market.
The problem is greed. Thinking you can milk whales forever with low effort psychological FOMO tricks and digital slot machines.
People seem to forget now many game companies shut down shortly after MS acquires them.
vessel of mehtred... hard pass for me, a longtime diablo fanboy from the first game... blizzard now isnt even close to blizzard even a few years ago
To each their own. You're comparing a completely different game to the few years ago (d2 or d3). If d4 will just be the same gameplay to the old ones, they are not evolving
@@LoneDragon99 Grognards will pretend like Baal farming on the same mindless Hammerdin build each ladder was pinnacle game design every damn time.
@Nina-ld7wz but tbf those baal runs could always produce some game changing piece of gear or rune. There was always carrots to chase even after you had enigma
@@jonnykillas2935except you had to do it 10000 times, the same crap over and over, and people complained about how repetitive nmds were lol, Pd2 mod is much much better
@@Nina-ld7wzpeople don't bother actually comparing, i still remember how some broken d2 affixes didn't work for like 10 years and now ppl cry about how the test realm designed to find bugs... have bugs...and get mostly fixed too..
Blizzard was GOATed once upon a time. That name meant something. Today? Ugh... ultimately the suits took over and pushed money over quality. No surprise there.
Yeah suits ruined AAA gaming
They should of released paladin and spiritborn at the same time. Instead it'll prob come out in another annual expansion to milk.
Yes they should have but you know what they were thinking,why give them the paladin now when we can hit them for another $60 to $100 to get it later
It will be RAIDY when its RAIDY?? My new fav saying.
He said that as I was reading this. 🤣🤣
At this point its best to go back to checkers or chess... no expansion / game pass comming there for the next 1000 years
I remember seeing a company picture of the Blizzard team from the late 90’s/early 2000’s and they all looked like a bunch of total gamer nerds…nowadays I bet u it would be a bunch of suits
Or a bunch of DEI hires, with Chris Metzen at the back
@@malcovich_games Chris Metzen Duct Taped in the Basement just there to get paid.
No, it would be a bunch of diverse “gamers” who only play games on their iPhone
@@malcovich_gamescomplaining about DEI while drawing degenerate loli and furry bullshit.
All of Blizzards products recently have been soulless garbage. I will not be buying the D4 expansion.
Agreed, brother.
No one gives a shit
Just refunded mine brother after following gameplay rune words are boring I'm out man. Just can't support this anymore. Was hopeful the expansion would save game but it won't
@@nickk3403 I wish I refunded D4 when I had the chance.
@@zalin2000 sadly I wanted to like the game but the expansion looks like another cash in and boring uninteresting mechanics. When they mentioned rune words got so excited but it's just +/- skills etc boredom
DIABLO 4 has been extremely disappointing!
this. I played open beta and caught myself thinking that I don't like what I see in terms of the feel of the game. And I cannot perceive Diablo 4 as a story-oriented game, because any other genre other than arpg would be better suited for this. As a result, I did not buy it and I am very happy about it. After all, as a result, I saw a frustratingly boring endgame on the streams.
It's Bobby's world and we're just living in it.
Far too many companies are being run and managed by people who, at best, have never used the products the company produces, and at worst, looks down on those who do.
far too many gamers who never ran a company try to argue about how a company is run =)
@@dennisvogel5982 wanting to get rid of blizzcon is flat out nuts
This is, down to the details, what many of us said would happen the moment the merger with Activision was announced. We were called all kinds of things but we already felt proven right when Diablo III was released. That's 12 years ago and it kept spiraling. The original Overwatch was a massive success for a few years but keep in mind that was them salvaging what was meant to be something much greater in Project Titan. I sometimes wonder if Titan would have seen the light of day had Blizzard remained free of Activision's influence and what their legacy would have looked like today.
Oh, how I miss the time when you played a game because it was made by Blizzard!
Bought every game since the first Warcraft.
"Don't you guys have phones?"
0:55 I thought for sure this was going to be an ad read for a VPN or something to dodge that paywall. Then he just paid the $2 and moved on lol.
Now imagine when POE 2 is out.
Imagine poe2 isnt so Great u all wish?
I‘m a Poe Player since beta 2014 and im Not sure what poe2 will be at the end.
Lots of improvments but also Lots of changes.
We have to wait and see what Happens… for me it is to much hype
Why imagine, is it no longer coming out? 😂
@@DooM1981x Of course it's hype, but that's how life is, expectations and reality normally are not the same...
Diablo 4 was the last straw for me, adding mtx store and battle pass into diablo should've been all the warning I needed but no I let me fool myself but I have learned, dropped it before season 1 landed and prompted me to give poe a second chance and this time it just clicked with me. So I suppose I should be greatful to blizzard for that at least
Give Last Epoch a chance too.
Yeah but almost every game has a battle pass and crap like this now
@@shawn4387 Nothing to do with arpg genre, battle passes apply to mostly fps games. Poe, last epoch and grim dawn doesnt have it and never needed.
I honestly cant understand the rage against battle pass and mtx... I mean, just dont buy it (?)
The amount of updates and reworking diablo 4 is getting show the company is willing to improve. I agree that after overwatch, blizzard went downhill, with bad decisions and a market posture that led us to the iconic diablo immortal meme. But in recent years its clear that they changed the strategy (maybe after microsoft bought it, things got more serious). I mean... look at Valve. They both have similiarity on their game styles, companies that create new disruptive game trends. Valve killed every single game they made in recent years, its like the reverse midas. And what are they doing know? Addressing the issues with cheaters in CS2? Working on another sequence of Portal, L4D, Half-Life? Nope, they are working on another shitty moba as dota 2 died, hoping it trends to grind money with skins and tournaments. They tried dota underlords, wich failed, tried again with artifact, failed. I think what its happening to them its similar to what happened to Blizzard in 2017-2022 and shows the difference between a company who is willing to improve and one who dont give a shit.
@@rodrigoribeiro377 I kind of agree with the "don't buy it argument" to a certain extent.. The issue I see with it though, is in a lot of games, especially something like an RPG, ei Wow or even action RPGs like Diablo, is that its not just character power progression, but there is also a visual progression. It used to be that if you saw someone walk by you, just by looking at them, you'd know that they had really good gear.
Now thats no longer a thing, because companies are now incentivized to put all the most badass looking things in the shop, and keep all the more basic looking stuff in the base game. I can excuse that practice in free to play games, or if its from an indie or smaller developer, or a half priced game. But Diablo 4 is a full priced game, with an in-game shop, paid expansions and a battlepass, the only way they're not monetizing the game is a subscription.
So in some situations I agree with your argument (free to play or half priced games), but if its already a full priced game I think its a bit much.
The hardest Blizzard has every fallen to me, is when they announced a Diablo 4 dlc with methispto, a jungle, Akarat and the Zakarum! Then proceeded to say that the Paladin class doesn't fit with the theme of the dlc in question that largely has to do with corruption! Yeah these fcking devs don't know Diablo lore! The moment they said the Paladin class would not be in this DLC I uninstalled Diablo 4! Bye Bye Blizzard! I can't even trust them to do the Paladin Justice! So no more buying any games from them for me. You guys can go ahead but I warn you! Disappointment is all that awaits you at the end of the Road! Save your Money for Games devs that do care!
And gave us an "innovative" new class that looks just as boring as the current ones. You can tell the devs checked out and management is trying their damndest to keep people playing. The new skills look lame asf, this game is for people who have like three hours of free time a week. They could easily have said let Warframe handle that crowd., but no. We get slop and for some god unknown reason people are still paying into an objectively shitty game.
Be open for new things Little kid…
@@marcelbrosius841 Says the blind little kid eating sht!
I think I am going to buy his book.
Why would you spend money on a book when you could get the early access for d4 expansion
@@3nfybecause the book would be infinitely more value and probably have considerably more replayability than D4.
Just someone voicing their opinion and cashing in at the same time. No different from the very thing he's criticizing.
When video games started to make good profit and became an industry it attracted a lot of corporate profit driven mofos.
That ruins every product / company in the long run in any sector.
When you focus on profit over product you end up with neither
Yeah but people are stupid as fuck and keep lapping up any dogshit that blizzard poop out whilst saying 'its not that bad now!! It's gonna get really good soon. Don't know why you're hating'. Blizzard pumping out McDonald's quality food whilst charging gourmet prices.
DM finally saying "D4 Bad" ?
Not when it comes to his own bank balance when he makes videos about it. If that's not one essence of hypocrisy I don't know what is. Just like the rest of these 'content creators', they all, essentially, 'piss in the same pot'.
So they are so bad bad bad and make millions , billions of cash ? I mean there are over 10 000 000 games out in the market and nobody is even touching them ? Yes yes "" The Fall Of Blizzard Entertainment is Brutal "". Sure haha.
We knew all of this. This is why the pictures that Bobby hates are some of the most used by fans of the original company.
I’m a fan of the Diablo universe, but what they’re doing now... I won’t buy DLC (and new d4 dlc)and their games anymore, it’s not blizzard for a long time. I had hopes, but alas, they went down the path of mass consumption, which will destroy them because they the universes rested on the fans.
Its the Activision that made Blizzard bad
Man. It’s Ready not raidy. And Rune Scape sucks. Play that before wow and never looked back. Even though it was “first”.
Ah, the monthly "blizzards last chance / the downfall of blizzard" content right on schedule.
That part
Stay tuned for the regularly scheduled "diablo 4 is cooking" segment tomorrow!
@@TriHard7 you can skip those, the only thing diablo 4 cooks is your wallet
Exactly im like what are these nerds even talking about and who really cares🤣🤣
@@StopTellin and yet here you are, watching these videos about nerd topics. youre just as much as a nerd as everyone else involved kid
As a WoW player since vanilla and played for jeez… 11 years? Blizzard really failed miserably. I literally played with my guild the entire 11 years. Some of them even have kids now and some got married. They’re missing the point of nerdy peeps that we build community and our loyalty goes a long way. Then they became greedy…
How low the mighty have fallen.
I wish a good Game Studio could buy back the franchise and make Starcraft 3.
wait for valve to buy them out.. but only after half life 3!
Valve cant even make half life 3! 😂😂@@YakultLitro
Weren't those who left Blizzard making a new one under Frost Giant Games?
@@thruntroll2983 Never heard about it, but if its true then I'm all for it!
@@thruntroll2983 Not really. AFAIK, it's some guy who worked on Starcraft 2 LotV campaign and a guy who worked on WC3:TFT campaign. They made a mess of a game called Stormgate, which is basically a Starcraft 2 clone with some wacky mechanics.
D4 was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I have no interest in the expansion or anything else they do anymore and it's sad. D1 and D2 are still 2 of my all time favorite games but I have to recognize that Blizzard exists in name only now... It's not the studio that converted me to a full time PC Gamer anymore.
Blizzard is wiping the tears with our bills 😂
Yep. To quote Carlin: Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
That sums up the D4 playerbase
Hey, as a 90s kid, Blizzard PC games like Diablo 2, WarCraft 3, and StarCraft is what made us kids stop buying Magic the Gathering cards and instead start building our own PCs and create forums to talk about our builds and strategies.
Whats worse is Blizzard acts like none of those previous devs, like Blizzard North, ever existed and refuse to acknowledge or communicate with them in collaboration for sequel games. They milk the nostalgia but get it all wrong.
Meanwhile, GGG who made Path of Exile, who are also 90s kids, picked up the torch for us and collaborate and invite the D2 devs to Exilecon to properly pay the respect they deserve.
As a fan of Blizzard, you likely play a new title for nostalgia or casual fun, but its never going to be the same Blizzard when the inspirational people we loved left the building
I started feeling exploited years ago, so I stopped giving them money. If everyone did this, we might have been able to course correct, but the blood is in the water now - even stepping all over the community and IP they are still raking in dough with the MTX slop they shoved in our beloved franchises. For the love of our hobby, please people STOP GIVING THEM MONEY.
Same. I stopped playing and paying Blizzard when they intodruced the wow token
Yeah fuck this company. I'm playing deadlock and POE/LE. No longer need their trash games.
My issue with video games today is that its always a lose lose situation for both customer and company. You very rarely get games anymore where people just enjoy them for what they are and companies focused on making a good product to sell better instead of microtransactions that end up making 5x the normal amount because gamers are dumb and egotistical and will do anything to look cool or have an advantage. If you look at a game like Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time it had plenty of game breaking bugs and glitches that players use to this day for speedrunning the game but its still one of the best story based games with extremely simple mechanics. If it was released today, people would say its boring, stale, and has too many issues. Thats why Breath of the Wild was so dramatically different from previous Zelda games. Gamers today aren't happy with anything because they feel cheated and robbed by companies while companies have expectations based on other games on how profitable they need to be to be considered a success. Until microtransactions are banned all together from gaming, its only going to continue like this. Also, why would video game companies keep a project in development hell when they can release periodic updates now. Idk I feel like gamers complain way too much for people that still pay for the shit they are complaining about.
Been playing their games since Warcraft 1, i remember how amazing their customer service back then, i actually had their manager call me once about my D2 character that got hacked and they fixed it immediately. At this point i will never give this company another dollar. Diablo Immortal customer service is the biggest joke, you spend a ton of money and they don't listen to their customers. They don't fix BG , the match making is trash, you ask for help you get automated crap responses. I could go on but there is no point, not only will i never give them another dollar i am not wasting my time or energy on this trash company anymore. Stay way, stay far away. They are NOT the same company anymore.
It's not just blizzard its the entire entertainment industry. These idiots got the idea that they are too big to fail when they really aren't. If disney disappeared tomorrow what would be lost? Jack and shit. They forget that all the money they get comes from the consumer. Entertainment companies are just death spiraling thinking that the solution is to spend more making games and movies no one wants meanwhile indy devs are doing just fine. Think maybe they need to budget money better
It all started to go downhill when Activision started it's hostile takeover. It was no longer about quality, dreams and passion for making something great and beloved by all, but just marketing a product for profit.
Good cover of that article DM. I enjoy your insights and appreciate your bringing this to light.
I was born raidy
Underrated comment
D4 was released at least a year too early - i am sure pressure from the higher-ups to release the game was intense & the playtesters weren't allowed to delay the release
I’ve had way more fun with the five dollar game death must die over D4 any day D4 is just a soulless grind so boring
I honestly hope it does shut down…they have not made a good game in years. The suits ruined that company.
Since Warcraft 2, Diablo, and Starcraft this has been my favorite game company, it's sad to see them fall so hard.
I dunno blizzard died for me with Warcraft III Reforged. I love hack n slash games so i come back with D4. The game is so medicore. 10 Years in development and so medicore. Im not gonna play the Addon just skip it and wait for Path of Exile 2 Early Access.
Hell yea can't wait for poe2
The Lesson Here?!: DO NOT GO PUBLIC WITH A COMPANY YOU CARE ABOUT
Liberal company goes woke be surprised if it's fall
Expecting this to change now and Blizzard going back to the "players first" will never happen under Microsoft. Why? Because the current head of Blizzard is NOT the old guard but those that have been changing the company into "Profit only". Lets be real... Blizzard games have lost all innovation and is just milking smaller and smaller player base. The company is pretty much now down to just 2 notable games and one of them (Diablo 4) is not even talking about more than 2 expansions for the title. WOW is the main milking cow with all other games pretty much in maintenance mode. It is pretty obvious that Microsoft will continue to make their profits by reducing the workforce and closing down new projects (and some old) at the company. Cause there is ZERO vision left at Blizzard to take their current games forward - or make new titles based on the Blizzard universe.
I agree but I think Diablo 4 will be getting more than 1 expansionbut only because the game has done so well financially not because they planed to make more than one.
@@adrios7943 I could see them launching more than 1 expansion as well. At some point they have to get it right.
Also, they have a FPS that they are working on but I do not think much information has been released to the public about it. Is it going to be Blackthorne? Is it going to be a StarCraft spin off? Will it be something completely new? Or, maybe it is Titan??
@@PlantsAndInsects I think a Startcraft spin off is unlikely, but I'd love to be proved wrong. If I remember correctly, they tried that a while back and scrapped it early in development because they realized it was bad. Especialy with their current will to bank on their biggest IPs (being WoW and Diablo as we speak), I'm starting to think Overwatch was their last new IP.
Again, I'd love to be proven wrong. They've been improving D4 for the last 2 seasons and the next expansion (which I'm not planning to buy fyi) looks promising. If they keep heading in that direction and do the same with their other games, then there's hope. Time will tell, and my wallet will remain tightly closed until then :)
@thesunryze4658 I am also not planning to buy it :) the only way is if they made massive changes since the ptr, and I doubt they will
even with Microsoft owning them now it still hasn't changed anything. everyone saying the rune system sucks. the system was announced 3-4 years ago before the initial release. the devs creativity. sub par products is what you get from blizzard anymore along with cash shops. like diablo4 should have innovation but it really doesn't have any, its mediocre seasonal bs. everyone hyped the unreal wow re creation. does blizzard capitalize on it? nope. heroes of the storm is basic as hell, tried to sue valve for making a better game. kinda feel ashamed I pre purchased vessel of hatred, specially after the ptr shit came out. Hard to have faith when they keep releasing sub par products
It's because there are more Activision people working on Blizzard games then Blizzard employees, as there has been way too many who have left the company over the past 2 decades... That is why Diablo franchise has gone to crap, cuz the people who made it and understood the fanbase are no longer making it.
@@PlantsAndInsects For more specific details about Diablo. The studio that made D1 and D2 was shut down while they were working on D3. Since then you've never had anyone working on Diablo who was a long time dev or even a fan of the genre.
What genre? Well... Roguelikes is what diablo is at its roots.
Don't feel bad about not knowing. They like to bury this history.
I really hate that they killed it. I used to love Blizzard
They fell off years ago with Shadowlands
nahh way earlier. inbetween cata / mop was where shit went wrong.
2 million warcraft players keep the reanimated corpse alive
its fanbase that is their product with no fanbase there be no product..them penny counters in the gaming industry has to realize this..
I couldnt Care less about corpo murican gaming Industry
Infinite growth economy is not sustainable people
Mike was an amazing person. Dude was rich and would come to work in a regular car and geek shirts. He was just a super down to earth passionate gamer. We had a system where anybody at the company could "email mike" directly, if they had any problem, which is something I've never seen anywhere. I knew blizzard would never be the same when he left, he was the last glue holding things together.
My understanding of Blizzard's history, which may or may not be true, is that no one ever believed in Blizzard, since day 1. They were always trying to find profit... so during Warcraft 1 they made some money to stay afloat, then they made Warcraft 2, which made enough to split the studios between Blizzard "south" and Blizzard North. Then, Warcraft 3 happened and that was a huge success relative to what they received so far. But in the background they were trying to find a way to make money or stay profitable. Blizzard North got fucked the hardest and was dissolved. And then they made WoW, which was extremely positively received, but behind the scenes they were transfering ownership from Blizzrd to Vivendi to Blizzard to Activision.... something doesn't add up here. The ultimate thread is that regardless of how artistic the games were, they weren't making any or enough money and they had to sell. Bottom line: oh shit, it's the players' fault somehow. Honestly, if businesses are not making money off of your art, yeah they're going to figure a way out. Is it true that they aren't? Well, I don't know. Blizzard has made some money off so-called 'best selling games of all time' but what does that mean exactly. If history means anything, people haven't actually cared about them ever.
Who would have thought that a woman, who never even played video games in the first place, would lead the company to it's downfall.. lol
I have dumped literal thousands in fees into the company over the years, I grew up with their games, I thought they were essentially putting out spun gold as games. Over the years the fanaticism waned and has now turned into apathy. A mate put it quite succinctly, he had a hankering for D2 again, but didn't want to give ActiBlizz his money, so he just downloaded PoE instead (and disappeared from the face of the earth for 3 weeks).
I wasn't raidy for this video to drop.
History: Blizzard good then - Blizzard Crap now..... no need to read book
Greed has a place in the middle of those ;) heheh
Blizzard was dead to me when Activision got involved. The shit they have done the last couple years only made me glad I didn't waste time playing their trash.
Kotick is the worst parasite this industry has ever seen. Blizzard will need years to recover from his disease :/
Pretty crazy to go from one of the most loved gaming companies to one of the most hated gaming companies, if your reputation is on pair with EA then you know that you fucked up.
Blizzard fell back in 2012 when they released Diablo 3. They’ve been shit every since. You’re 12 years late to the party
I went to every blizzcon and I can say that after the 2011 blizzcon there was a noticeable difference in vibe. Blizzard is a husk of it's former self.
The best about this video, is the ending: 'and that's about it's
sad. Not just for the fate of Blizzard, but where gaming has gone.
I put the blame squarely on Wizard of the Coast and MTG. Before MTG all gaming was niche market. People sat up and took notice at the money in gaming and suddenly you had the profit driven model creep in from CCG to the Digital realms. Sad really .. we are in a board game golden age right now again but computer gaming is in serious decline from AAA game profit driven models. MST3K did an invention exchange skit about Johnny Longtorso the man who comes in pieces, and was very tongue in cheek with Gypsy screaming EVIL! You’re EVIL! Way back in 1980’s and once again someone took a cautionary tale and turned it into a business model. Sigh..akin to cable TV wars in 1980’s people will have to pick and choose which games to play because no one can afford to play them all.. the money just isn’t there any more. We have been bled dry.
Brutal indeed. I also used to love their games, bought them without question. That's more than 10 years ago. Now, I wouldn't even play their crap of they paid me to. There's simply better games out there, even on the F2P spectrum.
They've forgotten, you have to spend money to make money. Or at least, you have to spend money on the right things. Budgets are bloated as it is, buy it's not going to the right places.
I uninstalled all Blizzard games last month. Enough is enough, I gave them so many chances, but they just kept ignoring the customers and producing trash games. Also all the lies are just disgusting, for example the stashtab thing in Diablo.
He made the shareholders money. That's what he was there to do. Was it good for the company? Probably not. Shit was going downhill since 2009. Lets not split hairs here. modern WOW and Diablo III were just precursors to things to come. I have always believed that D4 was released prior to it being ready. That many items were whiteboard and are NOW in the game. Think about itemization. Its clearly a placeholder from a earlier version of the game. Why wasn't it fixed? They didn't have time. My conspiracy theory was they had planned to release in December but were pressured to release early. Its endemic of poor communication between departments and a lack of understanding expectations. A lack of strong team leads and directors causes this. I've seen it.
This isn't Blizzard, Activision, or Microsoft: it's Capitalism. This is how it works (it's not a bug): consolidate (gobble up other companies), reduce costs, increase prices, keep churning low-quality products/services. Exploit the workers and customers since they have nowhere else to go.
D4 was Blizzard's last chance with me and they failed. D3 sucked and had an overpriced expansion (which I only bought after waiting years for a deep discount). Then came immortal which I didn't even bother trying (yes I do have a phone). D4 I got with my 4070 so felt like a good deal, but seeing the cash shop and the season pass, I'm certainly not paying for an overpriced expansion (like D3) to participate in that. Looks like its going to be PoE2 and/or go back to D2. Lately I've been playing a lot of 7d2d since 1.0 came out and its so refreshing playing a game thats fun without microtransactions.
As someone working in the industry i might have to clarify some points here.
people working in high executive positions on the "business parts" of a gaming company are usually hired to do exactly that, run the busines side. A question like "hey we run this multimillion dollar fan convention every year - why exactly? are not uncommen. If you take this thought processes and overlay them with EVERY other business they are totally logical and yet for some reason its a huge uproar if its done in the gaming industry.
We are not talking about a small company here - we are talking about thousands of employees whose paychecks are gambeled on a speculation IF a future product (that has no intrinsic value for society but is only there for fun) will be successfull and those people try to minimize costs and optimize revenue because thats how businesses work - If you ignore stuff like that you might stay afloat as long as you can produce one big hit after the other - but as soon as something fails its literally game over.
Of course in the lower ranks of the companies where the actual games are made there is usually only one sentiment - make the best game (and people are hired to do exactly that in these types of jobs) - They will not and should not care what it needs to make the best game (we need 5 more years, 200 more employees, and we can make this and that happen and it would be much better than it currently is)
the romantic view from gamers of course will always be -- YES they should do that, no matter the costs, give us the best possible game (and its also clear that they WANT this, because they should want this of course)
BUT we are not talking about premium items here where the price will rise proportional to the work invested - a swatch costs only a small percentage of a rolex because there is more quality and time needed to build one (and of course brand marketing and other stuff) - So the logical conclusion would be to say - hey we increased our investment by 50% to make a better game, so players will also pay 50% more for this game right?..... But the fact is, they dont. Prices for box title games are more or less fix and through the rise of console gaming and distribution platforms like steam the actual developers also earn less because 20% of the revenue is straight up gone just to release your game in the stores.
So what approach is right? Should the people that lead a business do a bad job by risking more money, meaning if the gamble does not work dev Joe working there cannot feed his family anymore maybe because the company goes bankrupt? Should the Developers themself try to force delays even though there additional time invested might not lead to more revenue? Should gamers pay more for games because there was also more money invested in them like into a game 20 years ago like D2 for example?
What we end up with is a middle ground - we get the best possible game, without delaying too much but also what gets delayed or invested more is not forced on the player but there are optional payments like microtransaction to at least get a bit more money than just the box title - Its a discussion between 3 partys that all have different goals and nobody is really "wrong" here
EDIT: oh and many players pick raisins by pointing at examples of a few super successfull games where the risk payed of in the end - yes they exist, there are quite a few, but do you know how many games fail? And how many studios close because of the gamble? Almost all Studios first game is a make or break situation where people will invest everything they got - some stories will be a blizzard story where some dudes in a garage found a company that stays lucrative for many many years - most companies though will never leave that garage
Still playing D4 since release and before played D3 since release. Loved every season and preordered Vessel of Hatred. Can’t wait for its release. Diablo is fun and no dei woke crap. This is how vidgames should be, fun entertaining and good for casual gameplay.
Good review, and I'm sure the book will have a lot of juicy details. But as an uplifting counter-point, I'd HIGHLY recommend reading "Stay Awhile and Listen" by David Craddock, which is an incredibly endearing look back at the early Blizzard and Diablo days about the development of the original game. I'm a sucker for nostalgia, so I may be biased, but I really enjoyed reading it and getting insight into the behind the scenes early days of Blizzard.
Diablo Immortal was typical Activision. Hawking cosmetics is something quite different. You talk about profits first and not players. How about players wanting more content, wanting seasonal play and enhancements. And players want all that for free forever. POE has a ton of microtransactions and no just cosmetic. Not pay to win to be sure, but something more important thsn cosmetics like stash space and specialized stash space. Now imagine yourself as a developer at Blizzard. You have a family to support with food, clothing, housing and all that. You aren't working for free and if no revenue is coming in you won't be working ar all. I had a talk with a hacker who told me he hacked software because it should all be free. His father owned a catering company so I asked him if all that food should be free. He told me thst was stupid. The business would go bust. I ssid "exactly."
lifelong diablo player here. I promised myself that once D2R came out I would never give AB another dollar of my money, and I have stuck to that. speak with your wallets people.
No one is sad about blizzard. No one cares. So many other worthwhile games to make all of their stuff not.matter and it's not even close. No one is excited for diablo...what other games do they do? Nothing.
Once upon a time, I remember being in the longest queue ever in Oxford Street London. It was 1am and it was for picking up a special edition wraith of the lich king. Store's stayed open later than normal just so people can get a copy of the game to play when the servers went live around 10am UK time 😊
2016 - after a disappointing warlords of draenor, and the free windows 10 update, that killed my windows 7 PC, i gave up PC gaming forever 😢
Ive never seen such madness for a game since.
Thank you for your noble sacrifice of 2 American dollars and your time, of course.
Also, I've been telling people for years to stop hating Blizzard and the game dev teams. Blizzard was never the problem. It was always Kotick and Activision. I'm glad there's finally official word from someone internally that backs me up on this.