Activision was able to successfully forecast a lot of today's gaming trends. When they merged with Blizzard, they saw a company that was succeeding on all front

Activision was able to successfully forecast a lot of today's gaming trends. When they merged with Blizzard, they saw a company that was succeeding on all fronts - e-sports (with Starcraft), subscriptions and microtransactions (in World of Warcraft), and plenty of other side-benefits (like successful expansion packs, worldwide appeal, recycled game mechanics a la DOTA...) Since then, they have been trying to mix these elements together to make one Long Island Iced Tea of e-sport-microtransaction-lootbox-culturally significant franchise. I think Overwatch was the big bet for that, and even though I love what they did it would be impossible for that game to meet all of Activisions expectations.