Activision Blizzard stock is tanking. (WSJ)
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Not everything has to be created to suit your specific tastes. There is an audience for Diablo Immortal, and games like that already have a audience that enjoys them. The existence of Diablo Immortal in no way hurts the creation of other games you make like in the future, and may possibly create a revenue streams to fund games you may enjoy down the line. Your anger is misplaced
Well, for years, Activisions whole model has been to annualize successful franchises in order to wring every last dollar they can out of them. In the process, franchises like Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk became dried husks. They were also one of the first companies on the toys-to-life train, but Skylanders has died out with the fad.
Blizzard's business model, for many years, was to spend years on individual games and iterate, and cancel when necessary. It helped them immensely that WoW was super-popular and raking in money, which allowed them to offset not having a new game release every year. Except WoW isn't doing WoW numbers anymore, Overwatch's popularity has fallen, and Diablo IV is still a long ways off.
So in all honesty, the Activision Blizzard is not in their best position at the moment. They have Call of Duty, WoW, Overwatch, and bizarrely, the revived Crash and Spyro franchises (but who knows how long those will last).
Blizzard's business model, for many years, was to spend years on individual games and iterate, and cancel when necessary. It helped them immensely that WoW was super-popular and raking in money, which allowed them to offset not having a new game release every year. Except WoW isn't doing WoW numbers anymore, Overwatch's popularity has fallen, and Diablo IV is still a long ways off.
So in all honesty, the Activision Blizzard is not in their best position at the moment. They have Call of Duty, WoW, Overwatch, and bizarrely, the revived Crash and Spyro franchises (but who knows how long those will last).
Expected. Blizzard's output and attitude lately has been abysmal compared to recent years. I don't play Activision games so I can't comment on them.
Battle for Azeroth is probably the worst expansion in WoW's lifespan. It has tons of shit to do but it's all so boring and tedious. The leadership/team on that game is so out of touch with their players its not even funny. The only last hope for WoW is Classic WoW because it'll actually be fun and not boring shit like BfA.
Diablo Immortal looks like hot garbage. It's a re-skin of a shitty Chinese Diablo clone because Blizzard wants to cash in on the Chinese market.
I don't hope Blizzard to fail, but I do hope they get wounded enough to wake up. They're going in such a shitty direction either from their ego or due to Activision.
Battle for Azeroth is probably the worst expansion in WoW's lifespan. It has tons of shit to do but it's all so boring and tedious. The leadership/team on that game is so out of touch with their players its not even funny. The only last hope for WoW is Classic WoW because it'll actually be fun and not boring shit like BfA.
Diablo Immortal looks like hot garbage. It's a re-skin of a shitty Chinese Diablo clone because Blizzard wants to cash in on the Chinese market.
I don't hope Blizzard to fail, but I do hope they get wounded enough to wake up. They're going in such a shitty direction either from their ego or due to Activision.
The market is all going down. The next big economic crisis is upon us. China will dive in 2 years. The importance here is value, not price.
EA is in amazing position because they almost have monopoly with sports game. Activision has warcraft, diablo and call of duty.
They need to improve their genre variety however.
EA is in amazing position because they almost have monopoly with sports game. Activision has warcraft, diablo and call of duty.
They need to improve their genre variety however.
No, Call of Duty fans gobble up the microtransactions like crazy.
Day 1 of the season multiple people per game were already using the Battlepass tier 100 assault rifle(1 tier is 1$ and it was originally like an hour for 1 tier. less now though).
Also every match is 90% people running around in the $8(real currency only) uniforms.
Map packs might not be huge financially but the loot boxes, uniform sets and battlepass tiers certainly are.
Also unlike Fortnite in Blackout once you complete the battlepass the tiers start giving lootboxes.
last season there were at least 300+ lootbox tiers after the battlepass ended.
Day 1 of the season multiple people per game were already using the Battlepass tier 100 assault rifle(1 tier is 1$ and it was originally like an hour for 1 tier. less now though).
Also every match is 90% people running around in the $8(real currency only) uniforms.
Map packs might not be huge financially but the loot boxes, uniform sets and battlepass tiers certainly are.
Also unlike Fortnite in Blackout once you complete the battlepass the tiers start giving lootboxes.
last season there were at least 300+ lootbox tiers after the battlepass ended.
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To be honest, a drop like this isn't necessarily indicative of long-term catastrophe.
With the way that the stock market works, even healthy stocks will have their points where they drop sharply for one reason or another. There are successful companies that have been around for decades that, if you were to judge their prospects based on a single time snapshot like the one being eyed in this thread, you'd think they were sunk, too. But this sort of thing can just be a blip, and Activision could be back at or near its stock price high in the next year.
Or not.
The point is, this sucks for stockholders, and particularly Activision employees awarded stock grants as bonuses and such. But this doesn't mean that the company is on the verge of collapse by a long shot.
With the way that the stock market works, even healthy stocks will have their points where they drop sharply for one reason or another. There are successful companies that have been around for decades that, if you were to judge their prospects based on a single time snapshot like the one being eyed in this thread, you'd think they were sunk, too. But this sort of thing can just be a blip, and Activision could be back at or near its stock price high in the next year.
Or not.
The point is, this sucks for stockholders, and particularly Activision employees awarded stock grants as bonuses and such. But this doesn't mean that the company is on the verge of collapse by a long shot.
Poor leadership from Activision and Blizzard already screwed over the Diablo team and now there are going to unfortunately be massive layoffs at both Blizzard and Activision. Disbanding/cancelling the Diablo team before the first D3 expansion came out (to massive success) was a huge mistake, could have had a second expansion out in 2016 to have kept Diablo 3 more relevant and the same team could have then switched over to Diablo 4. Now, we get another D4 reboot in 2018/2019 to start over and turn it into a microtransaction/GAAS hellhole along with tons of employees being fired while Activision Blizzard CEO and CFOs get massive bonuses for cutting costs.
bungie ran while they could
I am also in the industry and while I don't like that layoffs and closures could, might, will happen ... it's this kind of stuff that has to happen unfortunately to initiate any kind of change in how things are ran. ...
whether or not that change is good or not is yet to be seen
I am also in the industry and while I don't like that layoffs and closures could, might, will happen ... it's this kind of stuff that has to happen unfortunately to initiate any kind of change in how things are ran. ...
whether or not that change is good or not is yet to be seen
Activision is not a company I would put any money or faith into right now. What do they have going for them besides King?
They don't have Destiny anymore, and it's not like Destiny 2 was a real success anyway. The reception of the game was not good, and the expansion pack clearly failed to meet expectations because the base product was not a good experience.
Call of Duty is past its prime, they didn't manage to outpace last year's game even with a Battle Royale mode that launched when Pubg's reputation had soured and people were looking for a different game.
What else does Activision going for them? Almost nothing. Crash and Spyro aren't franchises worth anything in 2019.
Blizzard is in complete freefall, all of their franchises are suffering. BFA is WoW's lowest point ever. Hearthstone has long since passed its prime. HotS is dead. Overwatch is clearly suffering massively from the popularity of games like Fortnite, Pubg, and now Apex, and is passed its prime anyway. Starcraft is dead. Diablo had one of the worst public reactions to a game announcement ever. The only hope at Blizzard right now seems to be their "incubation" team working on other new mobile games, but Diablo Immortal is not a good first impression of that. Classic WoW could be big, but its running on a Frankenstein of 1.12 imported onto the 7.3 legion client, they could easily fail to match the original experience and sour the playerbase instantly.
They don't have Destiny anymore, and it's not like Destiny 2 was a real success anyway. The reception of the game was not good, and the expansion pack clearly failed to meet expectations because the base product was not a good experience.
Call of Duty is past its prime, they didn't manage to outpace last year's game even with a Battle Royale mode that launched when Pubg's reputation had soured and people were looking for a different game.
What else does Activision going for them? Almost nothing. Crash and Spyro aren't franchises worth anything in 2019.
Blizzard is in complete freefall, all of their franchises are suffering. BFA is WoW's lowest point ever. Hearthstone has long since passed its prime. HotS is dead. Overwatch is clearly suffering massively from the popularity of games like Fortnite, Pubg, and now Apex, and is passed its prime anyway. Starcraft is dead. Diablo had one of the worst public reactions to a game announcement ever. The only hope at Blizzard right now seems to be their "incubation" team working on other new mobile games, but Diablo Immortal is not a good first impression of that. Classic WoW could be big, but its running on a Frankenstein of 1.12 imported onto the 7.3 legion client, they could easily fail to match the original experience and sour the playerbase instantly.
I'm glad I was never a fan of their games. I did eventually think Diablo 3 was better than it was at launch. Then it became mindless boredom again with the little variance between their seasons. The base design of Diablo 3 ruined any future potential for the game and it's loot system. All because of the darn real money Auction House and the need to make that extra money.
It probably sucks for the old fans of Blizzard who eventually got a chance to be hired by them though.
It probably sucks for the old fans of Blizzard who eventually got a chance to be hired by them though.
When investors demand unsustainable growth, this is what happens. No developer/publisher can meet the ravenous hunger of greedy investors. Jim Sterling already pointed this out earlier today. I feel bad for the people who will lose their jobs over this, but this was coming no matter what. The gaming market expansion that took place last generation isn't sustainable - there are a finite number of people who play games, a finite number of people on planet earth with disposable income.
Activision and others have made the value proposition of their products worse and worse - at some point people won't be interested in half games, $60 games with F2P economies, etc. I haven't bought a CoD since IW (which was a great value) and the last Activision related product I bought was Destiny 2 - which I've dropped.
Activision and others have made the value proposition of their products worse and worse - at some point people won't be interested in half games, $60 games with F2P economies, etc. I haven't bought a CoD since IW (which was a great value) and the last Activision related product I bought was Destiny 2 - which I've dropped.
I don't really like this line of argument, even if I see why people make it and agree we need to support the people who actually make the games.
But Monsanto, Koch Industries, and Wal Mart employ thousands too. No one is out here defending the actions, corporate structure or corporate leadership of these companies (remember this is a topic about share holders).
But Monsanto, Koch Industries, and Wal Mart employ thousands too. No one is out here defending the actions, corporate structure or corporate leadership of these companies (remember this is a topic about share holders).
Why? Do you think he's happy about people losing their jobs? It seems to me that the schadenfreude that people are expressing is more targeted towards the leadership at Activision/Blizzard. If you were working there, how could you not be upset with the leadership?
People complaining about Diablo Immortal on the Internet aren't the reason why Blizzard is laying off so many employees.
People complaining about Diablo Immortal on the Internet aren't the reason why Blizzard is laying off so many employees.
Agreed. It sucks that people may lose their jobs and the people at the top will keep getting bonuses, but if a company wants to release shit products filled with MTX and lootboxes I'm not going to shed a tear when they do poorly. Should I want them to succeed so that stuff infects games even more? Should I be buying Call of Duty and purchasing every lootbox I can just so someone doesn't lose their job no matter how it affects the industry?
Because these things rarely, if ever, effect the leadership of the companies. They always effect the people lower on the ladder.
Laying people off - less people working on a game - more crunch - more stress.
Then if that game sells/performs badly? Bye! It wasn't what the fanbase wanted, but because it didn't do very well the entire franchise is now shelved. A mobile Diablo game is not the end of the world, as some act (IV, Pt.II).
Laying people off - less people working on a game - more crunch - more stress.
Then if that game sells/performs badly? Bye! It wasn't what the fanbase wanted, but because it didn't do very well the entire franchise is now shelved. A mobile Diablo game is not the end of the world, as some act (IV, Pt.II).
Contrary to what seems to be the common insight around here, I have considered Blizzard in decline for a long time. The behemoth success that was World of Warcraft completely changed that company.
Their golden years was always before that, peaking with WoW's release. Despite pouring tons of resources into their new games, they have rarely managed to hold the same esteem as the old. They went balls deep into E-Sports, with only modest success.
HotS never registered a blimp on the gaming consciousness - but they stubbornly refused to admit that for years.
Mike Morhaime left for a reason, it seems to me. Too long had they tried to elicit gaming as "services", "sports" and "events". They forgot that their bread and butter was making good games.
There is hope on the horizon though, Allen Adham who was the principal founder - and lead designer of all their best games - is back from his retirement in 2004. Lets hope he steers the ship right.
Their golden years was always before that, peaking with WoW's release. Despite pouring tons of resources into their new games, they have rarely managed to hold the same esteem as the old. They went balls deep into E-Sports, with only modest success.
HotS never registered a blimp on the gaming consciousness - but they stubbornly refused to admit that for years.
Mike Morhaime left for a reason, it seems to me. Too long had they tried to elicit gaming as "services", "sports" and "events". They forgot that their bread and butter was making good games.
There is hope on the horizon though, Allen Adham who was the principal founder - and lead designer of all their best games - is back from his retirement in 2004. Lets hope he steers the ship right.
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