4 ms·

Blizzard is done for. Everyone important left. There's no one to work on StarCraft 3 / WarCraft 4 and their reputation is deservably not what what it used to be

Blizzard is done for. Everyone important left. There's no one to work on StarCraft 3 / WarCraft 4 and their reputation is deservably not what what it used to be only a few years ago. Like almost until the "you all have phones, right" moment. Activision ruined the company. Sure, the market changed but Blizzard was doing much better under Vivendi.

TameAntelope 5y ago
What would, "Blizzard is done" look like? Are you suggesting that the IP (Overwatch, Warcraft, Starcraft) would be shut down, all employees laid off or incorporated into Activisions other departments? I could not imagine any business abandoning billions of dollars of IP like that.
- foobarian 5y ago
  Warcraft alone I can't imagine shutting down. There is a certain community of people that more or less lives in that parallel universe and it would be pretty disruptive to abandon it. It's like buying access to a virtual bar for $15/mo where you reliably get together with your warcraft nerd birds of a feather.
  - VRay 5y ago
    They're pulling in ludicrous amounts of money, and it's pretty clear from the quality of content over the last 8 years or so that they're not investing more than a tiny fraction of it back into the game They'll just continue to invest less and less in actual playable desktop games and more and more in toxic mobile dogshit as time goes on
- fxtentacle 5y ago
  They have the IP but they are struggling to hire talent to do something useful with it. So there's a chance that they will milk their IP with smartphone gambling until it dries out. Some people believe that has already happened, which is why we have the Diablo mobile partnership and no new StarCraft 3.
- munk-a 5y ago
  We're almost guaranteed to see a shift to mobile games. HotS on mobile, Warcraft4 as a freemium mobile "strategy game" - ditto with SC3. They may occasionally sink cash into large PC primary titles but I think mobile is going to be the way they milk that cow from here on out.
  - unsigner 5y ago
    But this is the sensible thing to do, talent leaving or not. A universe where Blizzard shifts to mobile because of business reasons is indistinguishable from a universe where Blizzard shifts to mobile because "everyone left", so your hypothesis isn't falsifiable.
    - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
      But I don't think the Blizzard of 2005 would make that shift just because there's a sensible business case for it. It'd be like Paradox shifting to mobile.
- blibble 5y ago
  the parent company gave the Diablo 2 remake to another studio inside Activision (i.e. not the Blizzard studio) so... more of that: fewer and fewer Blizzard IPs developed by "Blizzard"

TameAntelope 5y ago

What would, "Blizzard is done" look like? Are you suggesting that the IP (Overwatch, Warcraft, Starcraft) would be shut down, all employees laid off or incorporated into Activisions other departments? I could not imagine any business abandoning billions of dollars of IP like that.

foobarian 5y ago
Warcraft alone I can't imagine shutting down. There is a certain community of people that more or less lives in that parallel universe and it would be pretty disruptive to abandon it. It's like buying access to a virtual bar for $15/mo where you reliably get together with your warcraft nerd birds of a feather.
- VRay 5y ago
  They're pulling in ludicrous amounts of money, and it's pretty clear from the quality of content over the last 8 years or so that they're not investing more than a tiny fraction of it back into the game They'll just continue to invest less and less in actual playable desktop games and more and more in toxic mobile dogshit as time goes on
fxtentacle 5y ago
They have the IP but they are struggling to hire talent to do something useful with it. So there's a chance that they will milk their IP with smartphone gambling until it dries out. Some people believe that has already happened, which is why we have the Diablo mobile partnership and no new StarCraft 3.
munk-a 5y ago
We're almost guaranteed to see a shift to mobile games. HotS on mobile, Warcraft4 as a freemium mobile "strategy game" - ditto with SC3. They may occasionally sink cash into large PC primary titles but I think mobile is going to be the way they milk that cow from here on out.
- unsigner 5y ago
  But this is the sensible thing to do, talent leaving or not. A universe where Blizzard shifts to mobile because of business reasons is indistinguishable from a universe where Blizzard shifts to mobile because "everyone left", so your hypothesis isn't falsifiable.
  - SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
    But I don't think the Blizzard of 2005 would make that shift just because there's a sensible business case for it. It'd be like Paradox shifting to mobile.
blibble 5y ago
the parent company gave the Diablo 2 remake to another studio inside Activision (i.e. not the Blizzard studio) so... more of that: fewer and fewer Blizzard IPs developed by "Blizzard"