ZOMG - Blizzard Entertainment is toast!

redrumloa

redrumloa

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I've never been a Diablo fan, can't say I've ever played any of them. That said, I cannot believe how badly a company could kill itself. This is a fully predictable end result.


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Blizzard faces hellish backlash after BlizzCon Diablo mobile reveal

The short version? Blizzard finally announces a new Diablo game at BlizzCon. The game will be a cell phone only game, and that game is not even original. It is a re-skinning of a cheapo Chinese "free to play" game. Blizzard also said they have no PC games in the pipeline. They got savaged at their own Con.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1058462421956780032

The launch video has an astounding ratioing, currently sitting at a 97% downvote! The comment section is brutal!


Of course, a certain crowd has decided to make this political.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1058446033724694528

So stupid. Anyhow, it is amazing how poorly run a company as big as Blizzard has become. It's toast.
 
I don't think I'd worry about Blizzard too much. They still print money from World of Warcraft. Believe it, or not, they still have over 5 million (paid) subscribers to that. They also have arguably the largest RTS franchise (StarCraft). And they top it off with their own distribution and in-game sales and transactions network in Battle.net. What I can't understand is why they'd tarnish their Diablo name worse in trying to cash in on the mobile player market. Unless they think the Diablo brand is already worth less than any new name that features a "By Blizzard" byline. Which, I suppose it could be. Diablo is probably their lowest grossing franchise by a pretty large margin.

Oh hell, and I forgot about Hearthstone. And Overwatch. Jeez.

Yeah, I mean they dropped a turd on their fans, but seriously, I doubt the bottom line will notice much.
 
ilwrath said:
I don't think I'd worry about Blizzard too much. They still print money from World of Warcraft. Believe it, or not, they still have over 5 million (paid) subscribers to that. They also have arguably the largest RTS franchise (StarCraft). And they top it off with their own distribution and in-game sales and transactions network in Battle.net. What I can't understand is why they'd tarnish their Diablo name worse in trying to cash in on the mobile player market. Unless they think the Diablo brand is already worth less than any new name that features a "By Blizzard" byline. Which, I suppose it could be. Diablo is probably their lowest grossing franchise by a pretty large margin.

Oh hell, and I forgot about Hearthstone. And Overwatch. Jeez.

Yeah, I mean they dropped a turd on their fans, but seriously, I doubt the bottom line will notice much.
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You make some good points, but I wouldn't discount the possibility of this being the beginning of the end. At one time most people thought AOL's total domination of the internet space made them invincible, and today they barely exist at all.

If Blizzard are going to morph into the type of company that could care less what their customers want, only wanting to chase "the easy money", they probably won't end with bastardizing Diabo. World Of Warcraft could be next.

What I'm guessing is they see their current fanbase as mostly middle age, mostly men, and they want to push this demographic out to make way for a younger "target" demo. Middle aged men who grew up with stand alone buy-once games aren't as receptive to the whole micro transaction concept. I'll never play a game that requires micro transactions to win. I'll never pay a cent in micro transactions myself. I'm guessing they think targeting younger millennials means raking in the cash in micro transactions. I think this is flawed and that crowd will be extremely fickle.

Speaking just for myself, I haven't bought a full priced PC game in 10 years. You don't own games any more, you just rent them at the whim of the publisher. If I can't install and play a game without the need for an internet connection, I don't really own that game. If I can't box a game up and resell it on eBay to another user, I don't really own that game. I do use Steam, but only buy games when they are really cheap. $20 is my usual max for a PC game these days.

Their loss, the retro market's gain. I buy several deluxe C64 games a year, minimum. These are usually full price $50+ games. I get a lot of pleasure out of new 64 games. The quality of them are amazing. Plus, these are games I actually own!

-Edit #2-
Earlier this year I got my deluxe copy of Sam's Journey. The technical achievements in this game is amazing. Last I heard, they sold over 1,500 copies of this game. Not bad for a computer introduced in 1982. The retro market is growing too. C64 games could become an actual viable market again.
 
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ilwrath said:
Yeah, I mean they dropped a turd on their fans, but seriously, I doubt the bottom line will notice much.
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I think it was nuts of them to do this. You have a conference for the kind of fans who spend the kind of money that gets them to events like this and then tell them that you are going to market your stuff to some other kind of player now, on a lowest common denominator platform. Thank you all for coming and f*** you!
This is the sort of thing that they could just have announced in the press, instead of in front of a crowd of people who were not the intended audience for the product. What a bunch of bone heads.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
I think it was nuts of them to do this. You have a conference for the kind of fans who spend the kind of money that gets them to events like this and then tell them that you are going to market your stuff to some other kind of player now, on a lowest common denominator platform. Thank you all for coming and f*** you!
This is the sort of thing that they could just have announced in the press, instead of in front of a crowd of people who were not the intended audience for the product. What a bunch of bone heads.
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Rumor has it they were supposed to have announced a "real" PC product, but then chickened out at the last minute, and ran this reel instead of cancelling the entire announcement ceremony. There is no doubt it all was a boneheaded move, whatever. It seems like someone should have considered that hyping a real announcement and then delivering a trailer for a mobile cash-in was going to annoy the hardcore people who spent the time and money to come to this show. But Blizzard could probably absorb 5 or 10 more bonehead moves of that scope before they're in any kind of real financial impact, let alone "toast."

Personally, I start to wonder when they'll cross the Valve threshold and not actually have to even make games to still make money hand-over-fist. I'd guess that with Battle.net they're fairly close. They sell not only the software, but also the subscriptions, the in-game items, the advertising, and skim off the player-to-player transactions. And control all of it directly with no middle men. Now they're talking about signing and distributing non-Blizzard titles, as well. Probably not really hoping to draw the attention of Steam quite yet, but surely putting Origin squarely in their sights. And that is all despite the fact that their keystone, World of Warcraft, was released for sale to the public almost 14 years ago.

Of course, they also could be further away from the Valve threshold if they do continue making bonehead moves. But so far, I'd be willing to disregard the odd one here and there.
 
redrumloa said:
If Blizzard are going to morph into the type of company that could care less what their customers want, only wanting to chase "the easy money", they probably won't end with bastardizing Diabo. World Of Warcraft could be next.

What I'm guessing is they see their current fanbase as mostly middle age, mostly men, and they want to push this demographic out to make way for a younger "target" demo.
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Apparently there is more video out there of additional Q&A which seems to confirm my suspicions. Here's a video today that includes more Q&A footage and commentary on it. Blizzard is focusing all of their efforts on mobile, not just for Diablo. They state they are seeking a different audience than who paid big bucks to go to BlizzCon.

 
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redrumloa said:
The stock is apparently down another 10% since this post.
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Down another stonking 30% since that post!

redrumloa said:
So stupid. Anyhow, it is amazing how poorly run a company as big as Blizzard has become. It's toast.
redrumloa,Nov 3, 2018
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That makes their stock down 43% since my original declaration.

Blizzard aren't alone though. The Facebook Alien page just announced a follow up to Alien Isolation. And guess what? SURPRISE! It's a mobile only game! They are being savaged in the comments. Last check there was exactly one positive reply, with literally hundreds of angry/trolling replies.
 
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