Well, Kotick is the very definition of corporate scum.
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When i loved wow the most, Activision was not involved.
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It’s just the basics of American business structure, the CEO on top and all the sycophants in general management, only cares about their own goal and their own money. They run the company as a personal check-book with the only goal to manage the company so it continues printing money for them. They don’t care about the people they employ and they don’t care about the lives they destroy.
ActivisionBlizzard will never sell Blizzard, which is the only way for Blizzard to rid itself of that cancerous deal. Someone needs to put forth money and loads of it, to entice the board at ActivisionBlizzard to sell. Which is never going to happen. Bungie got lucky that they managed to make a deal with Microsoft. Blizzard will never be that lucky.
Np, Wow became a playground for casuals like you so enjoy it as long as it lasts.
I love pet battles too,and I doubt anyone calling me a casual has any argument to stand on
Let him have his superior feelings. If he feels better this way, I don’t mind
Not sure why people are concerned about Blizzard and Activision´s business activities unless they actually, themselves, own stock and trade on the market.
This this part has been explained pretty well in this thread already but to save you from reading it trough here is some examples:
Empathy for the laid off people who we know by name and who have been working with us all these years. Worry of getting low quality content in future because Blizzard will be less alluring place for big talents to work in. Worry about people working in Blizzard having to work in fear for their jobs and not being able to focus on making fun stuff. Wanting to voice concern of ethics of the company we pay money for etc.
Can someone give me a tl;dr why Activision is affecting Blizzard this much now! I mean, Activision bought Blizzard at the end of Wrath of the Lich King, I remember the doomsayers were very active when it was announced back then, but why we are seeing the effects now instead?
Yes, expansions quality and subscription counts have gone downhill since Wrath (IMHO), but has something happened behind the scenes because we are seeing the effects now more clearly than back then?
They been affecting ever since they came in, now it is just more visible because they fired people when they were making big profits and that made lot of people angry or worried of the future. Maybe you could say he went too far this time.
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At least pet battles don’t spill over into other content and create dog mechanics… best to leave it be tbh, we didn’t get our classes pruned because of pet battles.
Can people who still defend such business because “it’s normal” have a good hard look at this?
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OK cracked up irl on first 2 seconds. ![:rofl:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/rofl.png?v=6" ":rofl:")
Boogie2988 has made a video talking about loot boses added to call of duty and i noticed a comment that he liked says this:
“Bobby Kotick isn’t the problem necessarily, someone just as bad, if not worse will get hired in his place. The problem is people buying their products, playing their games, paying for their predatory microtransactions. Hitting them in the CEO will do nothing. Hitting their wallet though? That’s how you enact change in a company like Activision.”
I’ll see you your Jimquisition and raise you a Taliesin and Evitel:
Seriously though, I think Taliesin is right on this one. This cannot be changed at the company level. The problem isn’t Blizzard, although they are part of the problem. The problem is how the system works. What is needed is a counterpoint to the executive power, which to me is unions. Supporting the right of workers to unionize is the best way to fight this.
Firing a man will just result in someone equal being assigned to his place. Quitting the game isn’t specific enough. It doesn’t translate to higher ups as “they don’t like our corporate practices”. It can be interpreted in any way. So supporting unions, and political forces that fight for workers rights, seems the more practical solution.
Granted is not immediate. Which I think is part of the appeal of the idea of firing someone. Get rid of the bad guy, the day is saved, and we can continue with our lives as usual. Instead real solutions for problems are long run, require continuous engagement with the political life and are far less cathartic.
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While i agree with what you say in your post i would like to suggest it might be plausable that if CEO gets fired after huge …uhmmm… kittenstorm… caused by his actions, next one might think twice before doing the same thing. Not saying the new one wouldn’t come up with this own special stupidities though.
Unions really are the answer. Without them the workers will always be exploited. And this is speaking from experience.
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Bobby Kotick: “My aim is to remove fun from making videogames”
Oh boy how he succeeded! So many IPs killed, the employees work with fear for losing their job on a moments notice and even managed to make most games under Activision-Blizzard unenjoyable. Don’t play for a few days in the past? Oh god wanna log in, now I can barely log in for weeks and never feel the itch anymore.
The employees (devs) all need to unionze and get rights on how to design a game back. All the sharehodlers ask is “How much monetization can you put in without allowing a too large portion to ragequit?” also known as just wanting whales, where most devs are passionate and just wanna design a fun and good game first. Devs: Game > how can I make money from it. Stock-/Shareholders: Money > game. See the new CoD, only lasts 1 year but is full price, with battlepass, pre-order pass for DLC and still manage to find room to put in microtransactions. CoD’s reputation in the last 10 years went from “Amazing!” to well we all know how it’s known. In BfA we now had 2 store mounts, anathor behind a 6 months sub. The latest update to CoD proved it, they wanna earn money only. Don’t wanna create good games just monetize them.
If only every game company was like CD Project Red… good quality games, for fair prices and only real DLC not some skins or store items. Right now Acivision-Blizzard under Kotick is going for short term profits. Hopefully it will be soon that lootboxes will be banned in almost every country and the devs can go back to making games and not having to design games around lootboxes.
The shareholders are right why focus on us who just pay their monthly sub when whales will spend hudnreds if not thousands a month. Even if they play the game for just 3 months it’s a win-win. But its predatory, you’re going after gaming addict, gambling addicts or young kids who don’t know better who think games were always like this. Cheat codes are now in the store and skins are now microtransactions you used to get these for free or for challenges being done in the game. I know for sure the passionate devs don’t like what they have to work on nowadays and how unhappy the core gamers are, but hey sharehodlers wanna see money and only money screw a quality product!
Unfortunately, participation in labor unions in the United States is extremely low.
I’m just quoting you, but I see a lot of people say this.
It’s actually wrong, because you have to start somewhere to make a change. And it will send a message to companies, believe me. Maybe not so much at first, but when it keeps happening CEOs will have to step up their game (pun intended) or they’ll get fired. And when change occured over a long period of time, they’ll also get a bad reputation for extremely greedy behaviour as we see happening here. Don’t expect this in the first decade or two, though.
Just shrugging and going “ah well, it won’t ever change” certainly won’t change anything.
And who knows, you might get another beelzebobby, but you may also get an Iwata. (Hm, a japanese name with nothing behind it feels kind of rude).
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