4 ms·
Blizzard died the day it was bought by Activision. It has been descending into mediocrity ever since. Many executives left, and many studios/teams inside Blizza
by jvzr 5y ago
Blizzard died the day it was bought by Activision. It has been descending into mediocrity ever since. Many executives left, and many studios/teams inside Blizzard have been shuffled around and between projects, unlike Blizzard's doctrine of old (tight teams focused on a project until it's great or must be stopped -- Blizzard's infamous "Soon(tm)").
World of Warcraft is still being milked till it dries up (and I'm saying that as someone clocking 560+ days in game). Diablo has been abandonned (see the announcement of a mobile Diablo game last year¹, and its reception by the player base). So has StarCraft. Overwatch is stagnant (no new hero for a year) and Overwatch 2 is probably in development hell (pure speculation on my part I'll admit). Heroes of the Storm is also pretty stagnant (the game went from a hero every month to only two last year, nothing in 2021 so far).
In the meantime, there has been a very heavy push for e-sports with Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm (though I have not followed any of those). These efforts seem, to me, extremely centred on American audience, unlike League of Legends which has multiple leagues around the world. I'm sure a ton of money has been poured into this venture, but I'm unsure it has improved the games...
Anyway, the last time I launched Battle.net was for Destiny 2... and it has migrated to Steam in the middle of 2019!
¹Wow OK, that was in 2018 o_O Time flies, especially with a global pandemic, it seems...
- icegreentea2 5y agoFWIW, they did announce Diablo 4 for PC/Xbox/PS the year after the Diablo Immortal fiasco...
- jvzr 5y agoYou are right. Plus, the Diablo 2 remaster announced at the same time as Diablo 4 (IIRC) Based on past track record, I don't hold much hope, though
- k12sosse 5y agoD2 resurrected looks like it's lining up to be fun. The company that was outsourced to rebuild has said they didn't want to fix d2. They wanted to overhaul it's graphics and give it QoL. Same bugs. Same game.
- midoBB 5y agoDiablo 2 is as good as I remember it when I was younger. As for D4 I have no idea but they seem to flail around and rely on community feedback too much which is a worrying sign for me.
- jayd16 5y agoBlaming Activision is too convenient. Activision is pretty hands off of its studios creatively. The truth is a lot of the good developers left, their new mmo Titan was a massive flop that was rolled into Overwatch, HotS wasn't very compelling, and Diablo 3 never had a compelling endgame to be a "forever game" with constant revenue, Hearthstone was a creative grass roots effort that has since been hit with heavy competition and WOW is an aging workhorse but its not the phenomenon it once was. Activision is the cause of all that?
- koheripbal 5y agoI don't see any new IP development at all. All I see is dev of existing IP.
- jayd16 5y agoActivision Blizzard merged in 2008 while Overwatch was 2016. They were supposedly working on that game for a long time I would say with 8 years it has to count.