Square Poaches Activation-Blizzard's Other CFO

AlphaAtlas

AlphaAtlas

[H]ard|Gawd
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Just a few days after Activision lost their CFO to Netflix, gamesindustry.biz reports that Square Inc. poached Amrita Ahuja from Blizzard Entertainment. Amrita reportedly worked at Blizzard for 8 years, and Square's CEO gave some typical corporate praise to their new CFO, calling Ahuja an "amazing, multidimensional business leader," among other things. I'm not sure if the timing between these two losses is a coincidence, but Eurogamer recently wrote an interesting piece on how Activision and Blizzard are starting to rub off on each other. I also don't know how many CFOs Activision-Blizzard actually has, but there are five different operating units listed on the corporation's website.

Blizzard has for years operated as if it were a separate company to Activision, despite the 2007 merger between the Bobby Kotick-run company and Vivendi's video game business. Blizzard, which is famous for its development mantra, "It'll be ready when it's ready," has a reputation for releasing superb, highly-polished video games that aren't beholden to an annualised release schedule. Activision, on the other hand, releases a new Call of Duty each year. In recent times, however, Blizzard and Activision have worked closer together. Activision games such as Destiny 2 and Call of Duty Black Ops 4 are now available on Battle.net, and Bungie popped up at BlizzCon to announce Destiny 2 would be free to download for a limited period.
 
AB on that losing streak. Destiny 2, Battle for Azeroth, Diablo, it's not looking good.
 
Unfortunately this isn't going to end well for Blizzard......their days are numbered....Activision is going to consume them and the Blizzard of past will cease to exist.
Another great company (the blizzard before the joining with Activision) is tore apart by a terrible publisher.
 
If Blizzard had the same motivation, thirst and innovation - it would be a Blizzard title in place of Fortnite as the most popular game of all time. What did we get instead? Overwatch.
 
kohl said:
If Blizzard had the same motivation, thirst and innovation - it would be a Blizzard title in place of Fortnite as the most popular game of all time. What did we get instead? Overwatch.
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To be fair, Overwatch was one of the most popular and most played games for a time. Fortnite Battle Royale came out a year after Overwatch.
 
kohl said:
If Blizzard had the same motivation, thirst and innovation - it would be a Blizzard title in place of Fortnite as the most popular game of all time. What did we get instead? Overwatch.
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I enjoy OW but yes a Blizzard Battle Royale would've been great and I am REALLY surprised they haven't announced one. At this point I think it would be too late unless they had a release lined up around the corner.
 
SomeoneElse said:
Unfortunately this isn't going to end well for Blizzard......their days are numbered....Activision is going to consume them and the Blizzard of past will cease to exist.
Another great company (the blizzard before the joining with Activision) is tore apart by a terrible publisher.
Click to expand...
The blizzard of the past ceased to exist years ago, and the WoW money printing machine has slowed drastically over the past 10 years. Fact is if you look at Blizzard's releases over the last 15 years...
Overwatch - 2016 hit
Heroes of the storm - 2015 flop
Hearthstone - 2014 meh, cheap enough to continue running?
Diablo 3 - 2012 flop
SC2 - 2010 initially a success, but taking till 2015 to release the two expansions, it basically died off
WoW - 2004 Massive success, has been bleeding subscribers since cata in 2010

So since WoW and the first couple of expansions, they've had ONE title they can actually call a real success. Then factor in cancelling SC Ghost in 2005, cancelling titan in 2014 and managing to salvage it into Overwatch, and then cancelling a supposed Diablo project named "fenris" in 2016 with nothing to show for you, and you've got a company that hasn't really done a hell of a lot other than spend money since WoW.
 
Activision and Blizzard are one company now. On paper its two. IMO I think they're working as one now. Decisions being made for blizzard are coming from activision. You could see this when activision games started appearing on battle.net. And really early signs when blizzard started having release dates. Its only going to get worse. My guess is some people in blizzard don't like where things are going and jumping ship.
 
I just google this person. Anyone thinks this is about poaching, I have swamp land to sell you. Somebody forgot to lock the office door.
 
Merc1138 said:
The blizzard of the past ceased to exist years ago, and the WoW money printing machine has slowed drastically over the past 10 years. Fact is if you look at Blizzard's releases over the last 15 years...
Overwatch - 2016 hit
Heroes of the storm - 2015 flop
Hearthstone - 2014 meh, cheap enough to continue running?
Diablo 3 - 2012 flop
SC2 - 2010 initially a success, but taking till 2015 to release the two expansions, it basically died off
WoW - 2004 Massive success, has been bleeding subscribers since cata in 2010

So since WoW and the first couple of expansions, they've had ONE title they can actually call a real success. Then factor in cancelling SC Ghost in 2005, cancelling titan in 2014 and managing to salvage it into Overwatch, and then cancelling a supposed Diablo project named "fenris" in 2016 with nothing to show for you, and you've got a company that hasn't really done a hell of a lot other than spend money since WoW.
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Right, Ever since Activision took over the company hasn't been the same. This is the old blizzard that was worth looking at what they were releasing.
Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diabo were their best series. D3 was alright. Wow was their masterpiece.

Activision came in and ruined what they had going for themselves. Now its being completely dismantled.
 
Merc1138 said:
The blizzard of the past ceased to exist years ago, and the WoW money printing machine has slowed drastically over the past 10 years. Fact is if you look at Blizzard's releases over the last 15 years...
Overwatch - 2016 hit
Heroes of the storm - 2015 flop
Hearthstone - 2014 meh, cheap enough to continue running?
Diablo 3 - 2012 flop
SC2 - 2010 initially a success, but taking till 2015 to release the two expansions, it basically died off
WoW - 2004 Massive success, has been bleeding subscribers since cata in 2010

So since WoW and the first couple of expansions, they've had ONE title they can actually call a real success. Then factor in cancelling SC Ghost in 2005, cancelling titan in 2014 and managing to salvage it into Overwatch, and then cancelling a supposed Diablo project named "fenris" in 2016 with nothing to show for you, and you've got a company that hasn't really done a hell of a lot other than spend money since WoW.
Click to expand...




FLOP as in stale quickly for sure. I love heros of the storm but players a dbags. Diablo 3 made bigillions of money, even though many of us have parts that we do not like about it ... it made crap tons of money so its not a flop (even if we dont like all of it).
 
What massive regret Davidson and Associates must have for selling Blizzard for what... 7mil? Obviously hindsight is 20/20, but imagine if Blizzard had remained private. The huge amount of money coming in from WoW would have let them continue to be a truly independent studio. Now, despite what PR nonsense Activision might state about Blizzard's independence, the fact of the matter is that once you are a public company you are now influenced by and beholden to a whole host of outside influence such as bean counters and corporate suits who aren't gamers, who don't understand gaming, who don't understand *making* games and are focused on the bottom line. This leads to short sighted decisions and changes to the company culture which eventually poisons the well.
 
oROEchimaru said:
FLOP as in stale quickly for sure. I love heros of the storm but players a dbags. Diablo 3 made bigillions of money, even though many of us have parts that we do not like about it ... it made crap tons of money so its not a flop (even if we dont like all of it).
Click to expand...

Diablo 3 was a financial success for Blizzard I am sure, but from the standpoint of quality - which is what Blizzard has always prided themselves on, it was a huge disaster and black eye. Torchlight II was a better Diablo 3 than Diablo 3, IMHO. There was a lot more innovation and replayability in TL2. Yes, Reaper righted many of the wrongs but it should never have been released in the state it was. RMAH... what the hell was Blizzard thinking.
 
I played alpha or beta of d3 and it was gorgeous. then i got the release and they dumbed down the graphics so badly some stuff you couldn't even make out any more (zombies are blurry). it was nuts what they did to get it to run on china computers. then when chinese bots started ruining their auction house instead of making the game more fun they nerfed drops. you could break 100000 barrels and receive nothing, it became so stupid to play.

then new devs took over and just increased legendary drop rates 1000% and called it a day. its nuts
 
oROEchimaru said:
FLOP as in stale quickly for sure. I love heros of the storm but players a dbags. Diablo 3 made bigillions of money, even though many of us have parts that we do not like about it ... it made crap tons of money so its not a flop (even if we dont like all of it).
Click to expand...
Diablo 3 was damn near dead within 6 months and even after reaper of souls never recovered. The diablo franchise has had absolutely tiny booths at blizzcon for years, at one point there was a set of bathrooms that were larger. It may have made a bunch of money up front from sales, and the RMAH, but it certainly wasn't what they were expecting and had no staying power at all. It was definitely a failure.
 
Merc1138 said:
The blizzard of the past ceased to exist years ago, and the WoW money printing machine has slowed drastically over the past 10 years. Fact is if you look at Blizzard's releases over the last 15 years...
Overwatch - 2016 hit
Heroes of the storm - 2015 flop
Hearthstone - 2014 meh, cheap enough to continue running?
Diablo 3 - 2012 flop
SC2 - 2010 initially a success, but taking till 2015 to release the two expansions, it basically died off
WoW - 2004 Massive success, has been bleeding subscribers since cata in 2010

So since WoW and the first couple of expansions, they've had ONE title they can actually call a real success. Then factor in cancelling SC Ghost in 2005, cancelling titan in 2014 and managing to salvage it into Overwatch, and then cancelling a supposed Diablo project named "fenris" in 2016 with nothing to show for you, and you've got a company that hasn't really done a hell of a lot other than spend money since WoW.
Click to expand...
WoW was a desperate fluke and Blizzard was about to fold when it came out, Blizzard was almost bankrupted from their involvement in the failed Warhammer MMO, Death and Return of Superman and Justice League Task Force. WoW was made from the scraps of the Warhammer game they were building and luckily it worked out, I enjoyed that game for many years. Starcraft 2's initial sales were driven by nostalgia and once that died off so did the player base hence the slow release of the expansions, Diablo 3 was their first attempt to dig into the Chinese market and we all know how that went. Overwatch while a solid game was built from the scraps of Titan which was supposed to be the WoW replacement, Blizzards best work has been born from desperation something they haven't had for a long while.
 
SomeoneElse said:
Unfortunately this isn't going to end well for Blizzard......their days are numbered....Activision is going to consume them and the Blizzard of past will cease to exist.
Another great company (the blizzard before the joining with Activision) is tore apart by a terrible publisher.
Click to expand...

I think that happened ages ago, with the closure of Blizzard North and Chris Metzen gaining too much influence in Blizzard game design (which I think is what's responsible for Blizzard games becoming overly pretentious fairy-farts). Chris Metzen should have been kept on artwork, which is where he shined.

Blizzard has already died once. A second death would be the death of Blizzard 2, which wasn't a very impressive Blizzard anyway. A Blizzard 3 without Chris Metzen and Jay Wilson could be a very positive change for the company, if ActiVision wasn't lurking behind the curtain.
 
Somehow ironic, winter just barely started and blizzard looks like its ending.
 
Overwatch isn't a bad game

It just came in at a time when MOBA shooters were stagnating as a genre (you can probably blame CoD for it)
 
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