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I remember being in middle school when Blizzard mentioned they were being bought by Activision on the Warcraft III strategy website (http://classic.battle.net/w
by SpaceManNabs 8y ago
I remember being in middle school when Blizzard mentioned they were being bought by Activision on the Warcraft III strategy website (http://classic.battle.net/war3/ http://classic.battle.net/war3/). There was some mention of Vivendi, and I had no idea what it meant; I was an idiot and knew no economics, but it was clear from the wording of this announcement that WCIII and other RTS games would not be their focus. Then WoW staganation came, and blizzard pretty much gave up on SCII (see 2012) and on Diablo III (various things).
It has been interesting seeing Blizzard slowly become a shell of its former self.
- NovaS1X 8y agoIt's unfortunate, as Blizzard used to be one of my most respected companies as some of the core attributes to their games was their high degree of polish unseen in many other developers. Now it's increasingly being eaten by micro-transactions and riding popular franchises.
- TheGRS 8y agoLooking back though, they might have made the right choice. So many respected PC gaming shops either closed or were consumed, chewed up and spit out. To name a few off the top of my head: Westwood Studios, Black Isle Studios, Looking Glass Studios, Rare. Making games is just excruciatingly hard and really tough to make into a consistent business model. Blizzard positioned themselves pretty well all things considered, but one can't help thinking the quality of their games might be at another level if they stayed away from Activision. But on the other hand Activision might have kept them alive. Let's not forget Blizzard put a lot of time into some big IPs that never even saw the light of day (Starcraft: Ghost and Titan).