"It's not a complicated chain of inference; whoever is in charge, I'm sure they can see this coming equally well." Homo BigCorpManagerian might beg to differ.

"It's not a complicated chain of inference; whoever is in charge, I'm sure they can see this coming equally well." Homo BigCorpManagerian might beg to differ. I suspect the reason of all this insanity is very simple - decisions are taken by mid/high level managers who don't really "get" gaming or Starcraft and just live in their Excel Spreadsheets and such. The post even refers to this possibility in the initial paragraphs "Fine, tell me it’s wrong to assume an Activision corporate culture would impact its corporate partner. You know, where the President of Blizzard Entertainment answers directly to Thomas Tippl, an executive who answers to Activision C.E.O. Bobby Kotick. The Bobby Kotick who disowned projects that lacked “the potential to be exploited every year on every platform with clear sequel potential”. The Bobby Kotick who stated he wants to “take the fun out of making video games.”