6 ms·

Why not just buy it then? It reminds me of Valve’s treatment of Black Mesa, which made the community love the company even more. It’d be hilariously easy for Bl

Why not just buy it then? It reminds me of Valve’s treatment of Black Mesa, which made the community love the company even more. It’d be hilariously easy for Blizzard to spend some money on the thing and just buy the devs out, fans love you for it and it builds good will with a fanbase. Corporations can’t see past the legal aspect of things I guess.

Thaxll 6mo ago
You understand that the people playing Turtle don't pay for it, they don't use the official game because they don't want to pay.
- thaumasiotes 6mo ago
  That seems to conflict with the idea that Turtle's problem was that they charged money for services related to the game.
- littlestymaar 6mo ago
  They will could have shut down the free service but brought the new gameplay to retail.
- deminature 6mo ago
  People played Turtle because it was a superior experience to the paid official classic offering. It had properly balanced classes, tons of new, high-quality content, real support staff instead of bots with sub-5 minute wait time for service, policing bots properly instead of ignoring them. Blizzard could offer this quality of service but chooses not to.
littlestymaar 6mo ago
I don't think we needed any more proofs that blizzard is ran by actual assholes, but here be are.
breakfastduck 6mo ago
Valve aren't owned by private equity and other giant corporations so they make good decisions and do things fans like. A lot of their entire platform is built on mods they've bought and turned into proper 1st class games (cs, dota, Garys mod etc)
- idiotsecant 6mo ago
  I feel like every large public corporation inevitably turns into a rent seeking parasite. How do we build a system that has more calves and fewer blizzards? How do we incentivize that?
  - deaux 6mo ago
    No more billionaires.
    - nozzlegear 6mo ago
      Gabe Newell is literally a billionaire.
      - deaux 6mo ago
        And Buzz Aldrin was an alcoholic, doesn't mean preventing alcoholism is bad for society. This whole thread is pointing out Valve is the _exception_.
    - idiotsecant 6mo ago
      I am ok with billionaires that provide some multiple of billions of dollars worth of value to society. I use steam all the time, it's pretty consumer friendly, and it gives me a lot of relaxation. I'm good with him having a lot of money.
  - card_zero 6mo ago
    If this is rent-seeking, it presumably makes them less money than being thoughtful and well-liked would.
petterroea 6mo ago
I can imagine naked licensing being a factor.
ikr678 6mo ago
In blizzards case, mmo's are a huge time sink and not many have people have time to commit to multiple titles. Acquiring a competitior and maintaining it would see subscribers leave their main offering (which has been optimised for microtransactions and engagement) and splitting the player base.
- Dusseldorf 6mo ago
  They used that argument for years to avoid doing WoW Classic, and then it was wildly successful when they finally did. Seems to me like the inability to consider how they could work this into their ecosystem is yet another indicator of how far they've fallen since the golden era.
  - mjamesaustin 6mo ago
    They still hate Classic and can't stand that players prefer it, because it is less profitable per user. This is why they've done almost nothing with Classic+ despite players clamoring for it very loudly.
marcus_holmes 6mo ago
Because they're arrogant, and have critical stakeholders. The fact that someone else took their assets and made a better game runs counter to the story that they're the best in the business.
- hsuduebc2 6mo ago
  Arrogant yes but don't forget greedy. Call of Duty is absolutely destroyed brand. Unplayable solely by ridiculous amount of battle passes and stupid fantasy skins.
  - saghm 6mo ago
    Also don't forget that around a decade ago they also acquired King, the makers of Candy Crush Saga. They've been all-in on the "get players to pay for extra stuff" for a while now
lenerdenator 6mo ago
Valve is run by one guy (so far as I know) and he's only accountable to himself. Since he's got pretty much everything he wants from the arrangement, he has no problem with spending money on what most companies would consider cost centers and turning them into something bigger. Activision Blizzard is run as a publicly-traded company. 86% of it is held by institutional investors [0] who are never satisfied. Most are managing portfolios of assets which are, in turn, often backing retirement accounts held by individuals. There is no ceiling because of factors like inflation, "executive incentives" that the board proposes, and the ever-increasing demands of retirees. If they can get another nickel out of the business, they'll absolutely go for it. So really, it's about the mindset of the people making the decisions. [0] https://www.investopedia.com/activision-blizzard-top-shareholders-5094540 https://www.investopedia.com/activision-blizzard-top-shareho...
- zythyx 6mo ago
  That article on Investopedia is from 2021, before the Microsoft acquisition. Activision-Blizzard is no longer a publicly-traded company and instead a subsidiary of Microsoft. Whatever Microsoft wants under this arrangement is what they'll get from now on.
  - cylemons 6mo ago
    Microsoft itself is 73% owned by institutional investors, so more of the same really. see: https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/msft/institutional-holdings https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/msft/instituti...
  - lenerdenator 6mo ago
    I forgot about that. Fair point. Though the ownership of most large publicly traded companies more-or-less follows the same pattern. You have: * the people who got in on the ground floor (typically executives) who are given stock options as their compensation, who have a plurality of the shares. Maybe majority holders, maybe not. * institutional investors who typically use shares to back retirement accounts, whether they be acting for individuals or larger clients like pension funds * retail bag holde... I mean... retail investors. This also holds for Microsoft.
nextlevelwizard 6mo ago
I really think it is ego. Blizzard is the king of MMO makers, they can’t do anything wrong in their own eyes. They have the data that shows that people want to just play alone and care about the story above everything while completely refusing to acknowledge that the game never was about either of those and that game play style only rose up later as the MMO part got lost. If Blizzard was to hire the turtle team and add all their content into a real classic plus experience that would be admitting that Blizzard is incapable of doing that faithfully and if it got popular then that raises even more questions about Blizzard and their C suites decisions
Ekaros 6mo ago
Also with Valve. Pretty much everyone who was going to buy the game already had it. So allowing something new really didn't impact their revenue in any significant way. With subscription games this is really not true.

Thaxll 6mo ago

You understand that the people playing Turtle don't pay for it, they don't use the official game because they don't want to pay.

thaumasiotes 6mo ago
That seems to conflict with the idea that Turtle's problem was that they charged money for services related to the game.
littlestymaar 6mo ago
They will could have shut down the free service but brought the new gameplay to retail.
deminature 6mo ago
People played Turtle because it was a superior experience to the paid official classic offering. It had properly balanced classes, tons of new, high-quality content, real support staff instead of bots with sub-5 minute wait time for service, policing bots properly instead of ignoring them. Blizzard could offer this quality of service but chooses not to.

littlestymaar 6mo ago

I don't think we needed any more proofs that blizzard is ran by actual assholes, but here be are.

breakfastduck 6mo ago

Valve aren't owned by private equity and other giant corporations so they make good decisions and do things fans like. A lot of their entire platform is built on mods they've bought and turned into proper 1st class games (cs, dota, Garys mod etc)

idiotsecant 6mo ago
I feel like every large public corporation inevitably turns into a rent seeking parasite. How do we build a system that has more calves and fewer blizzards? How do we incentivize that?
- deaux 6mo ago
  No more billionaires.
  - nozzlegear 6mo ago
    Gabe Newell is literally a billionaire.
    - deaux 6mo ago
      And Buzz Aldrin was an alcoholic, doesn't mean preventing alcoholism is bad for society. This whole thread is pointing out Valve is the _exception_.
  - idiotsecant 6mo ago
    I am ok with billionaires that provide some multiple of billions of dollars worth of value to society. I use steam all the time, it's pretty consumer friendly, and it gives me a lot of relaxation. I'm good with him having a lot of money.
- card_zero 6mo ago
  If this is rent-seeking, it presumably makes them less money than being thoughtful and well-liked would.

petterroea 6mo ago

I can imagine naked licensing being a factor.

ikr678 6mo ago

In blizzards case, mmo's are a huge time sink and not many have people have time to commit to multiple titles. Acquiring a competitior and maintaining it would see subscribers leave their main offering (which has been optimised for microtransactions and engagement) and splitting the player base.

Dusseldorf 6mo ago
They used that argument for years to avoid doing WoW Classic, and then it was wildly successful when they finally did. Seems to me like the inability to consider how they could work this into their ecosystem is yet another indicator of how far they've fallen since the golden era.
- mjamesaustin 6mo ago
  They still hate Classic and can't stand that players prefer it, because it is less profitable per user. This is why they've done almost nothing with Classic+ despite players clamoring for it very loudly.

marcus_holmes 6mo ago

Because they're arrogant, and have critical stakeholders. The fact that someone else took their assets and made a better game runs counter to the story that they're the best in the business.

hsuduebc2 6mo ago
Arrogant yes but don't forget greedy. Call of Duty is absolutely destroyed brand. Unplayable solely by ridiculous amount of battle passes and stupid fantasy skins.
- saghm 6mo ago
  Also don't forget that around a decade ago they also acquired King, the makers of Candy Crush Saga. They've been all-in on the "get players to pay for extra stuff" for a while now

lenerdenator 6mo ago

Valve is run by one guy (so far as I know) and he's only accountable to himself. Since he's got pretty much everything he wants from the arrangement, he has no problem with spending money on what most companies would consider cost centers and turning them into something bigger. Activision Blizzard is run as a publicly-traded company. 86% of it is held by institutional investors [0] who are never satisfied. Most are managing portfolios of assets which are, in turn, often backing retirement accounts held by individuals. There is no ceiling because of factors like inflation, "executive incentives" that the board proposes, and the ever-increasing demands of retirees. If they can get another nickel out of the business, they'll absolutely go for it. So really, it's about the mindset of the people making the decisions. [0] https://www.investopedia.com/activision-blizzard-top-shareholders-5094540 https://www.investopedia.com/activision-blizzard-top-shareho...

zythyx 6mo ago
That article on Investopedia is from 2021, before the Microsoft acquisition. Activision-Blizzard is no longer a publicly-traded company and instead a subsidiary of Microsoft. Whatever Microsoft wants under this arrangement is what they'll get from now on.
- cylemons 6mo ago
  Microsoft itself is 73% owned by institutional investors, so more of the same really. see: https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/msft/institutional-holdings https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/msft/instituti...
- lenerdenator 6mo ago
  I forgot about that. Fair point. Though the ownership of most large publicly traded companies more-or-less follows the same pattern. You have: * the people who got in on the ground floor (typically executives) who are given stock options as their compensation, who have a plurality of the shares. Maybe majority holders, maybe not. * institutional investors who typically use shares to back retirement accounts, whether they be acting for individuals or larger clients like pension funds * retail bag holde... I mean... retail investors. This also holds for Microsoft.

nextlevelwizard 6mo ago

I really think it is ego. Blizzard is the king of MMO makers, they can’t do anything wrong in their own eyes. They have the data that shows that people want to just play alone and care about the story above everything while completely refusing to acknowledge that the game never was about either of those and that game play style only rose up later as the MMO part got lost. If Blizzard was to hire the turtle team and add all their content into a real classic plus experience that would be admitting that Blizzard is incapable of doing that faithfully and if it got popular then that raises even more questions about Blizzard and their C suites decisions

Ekaros 6mo ago

Also with Valve. Pretty much everyone who was going to buy the game already had it. So allowing something new really didn't impact their revenue in any significant way. With subscription games this is really not true.