Blizzard Ought to License Their IP at This Point

Community General Discussion
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A friend of mine threw this idea out recently, after the Event of no specific name occured. Which got me thinking, mostly this line of thought:

Blizzard don’t make games anymore. Either because they are not capable of making a game, or they are unwilling. Most likely incapable given their current track record and their recent project cancellation of that one survivalcrafter they were working on (That we know about, anyway). And I think if we didn’t at least like the worlds Blizzard made, we wouldn’t be so hard on them in the first place.

So, the solution is simple. License the IP out.
What I mean is fairly simple: Blizzard allowing a studio or developer to make a game using the Warcraft/Starcraft IP (For this scenario let’s stick just to Warcraft). They would make a game, it heing whatever it is that they envisioned or wanted to explore, and then it is sold on the Battlenet store. A winning formula for everyone.

Who does this benefit, and how?
It benefits everyone involved.
Us, the gamers; We get to get more games to play, set in the world a lot of us presumably grew up with.
And Blizzard; They get to sit back and have no need to lift a finger in order to make a game, all the while getting good publicity and money.

Any potential downsides? None that I can think of immediately. I suppose you could argue that it would “Lead to bad games being made”, but that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.
The only real downside I can think of is Blizzard demanding too much creative control, or that the developer would have to work around Microsoft’s creative demands, which would lead to a lack of creative freedom from being able to truly make something good.
Plus, it might also make Blizzard really spiteful if someone made more likable characters than the ones they’re trying to force us to like.

What kind of games to expect?
Seeing as Azeroth is rich with lore, and Warcraft itself goes into the stars beyond, I can think of a good handful of ideas.

  • A combat racing game in the style of Jak X Combat Racing. The Mirage Raceway goes global as Goblins and Gnomes decide to hold the ultimate competition on which is the superior inventive mind.
  • An action game in where you are an Orc fresh through the Dark Portal, and move on to fight the Alliance armies.
  • A horror game taking place in Karazhan. You are a Kirin Tor apprentice who is the sole survivor of an expedition gone wrong and need to find a way to escape. One section featuring a maze while being hunted by Moroes.
  • Four player co-op taking place during the Scourge plague. A footsoldier, a paladin, an elven sorceress and a dwarf rifleman go about trying to survive while assisting the peasants in need, all the while slaying hordes of zombies and skeletons.
    Yes, this is a Vermintide styled game, but since that is a good game, it is worth copying.

Any thoughts that you would like to share?

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I am pretty sure their games are now owned by Microsoft along with their ip .so it is not up to blizzard but Microsoft. And if anything microsoft at most might allow another of their own studio to use that ip instead of outsourcing it outside of xbox Microsoft studios

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Ah, right. I didn’t think about Microsoft that deeply.

Then Warcraft and Starcraft are truly doomed franchises, unless somehow Microsoft collapses completely and we end up having the two IPs become public domain.
A gal can dream…

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This is technically already happening, as Blizzard are “partnering” with King to make new games in some new subdivision that Microsoft and Activision have put together at Blizzard and blah blah blah.

It all sounds like Microsoft doesn’t have any real interest in Blizzard beyond them operating their existing games, and then slowly winding the company down as those games fade into obscurity.

What’s left of value is Blizzard’s IPs that other companies can then get to work on, like King. Maybe with a little bit of consultancy from Blizzard since they have all the expertise about their own fantasy worlds. But it essentially feels like the Blizzard and NetEase “partnership” to make Diablo Immortal that ultimately seemed to be a NetEase title with a Blizzard IP and some Blizzard development oversight and game direction.

So yeah, it feels like that’s the way the cookie is crumbling. Microsoft don’t really need the thousands of developers that Blizzard have – they got plenty of developers at all their other studios already. What Blizzard has of value is their IPs, so they’ll probably just end up as distributors of those to other game studios.

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I don’t believe Blizzard has a history of branching out to other developers to make their products. The closest they came was Diablo Immortal , which was initially being developed by a Chinese company (NetEase) before Blizzard stepped in to partner on it. You can tell this was a departure from their norm because prior to that, they had no announced plans for a mobile game. The audience’s reaction at the announcement famously confirmed that this type of product wasn’t what their core fans expected.

In fact, if you look back through internet history, you can find evidence of Diablo Immortal being developed under a different name long before Blizzard officially announced it.

Regarding licensing their IP now, it’s less about Blizzard’s unwillingness and more about Microsoft’s control. Microsoft owns Blizzard, and despite any corporate talk about autonomy, the legal groundwork means Microsoft ultimately controls what Blizzard can and cannot do. They’ve already canceled projects Blizzard was working on, and I imagine they’ll continue to steer the ship.

It’s also important to remember that many of Blizzard’s iconic games were created by accident. Overwatch is the prime example—it was built from the ashes of the massively ambitious but failed Project Titan . If not for that expensive failure, we wouldn’t have Overwatch , which itself sparked a huge wave of hero shooters. Today, that genre is dominated by titles like Marvel Rivals .

The core issue is that the creative talent and innovative spirit that made Blizzard great have largely left. Those developers are now at other companies or have started their own studios. The Blizzard of today is not the same company.

Now, regarding your ideas: you mentioned a combat racing game starring goblins and gnomes. My first question is: are you proposing a separate, standalone game? If so, building it upon the Warcraft IP defeats the purpose. The goal should be to branch away from World of Warcraft to attract new customers and players.

Look at their track record: Hearthstone was a success, but Heroes of the Storm arrived too late to the MOBA genre and flopped, despite Blizzard literally creating the genre with the Defense of the Ancients mod from Warcraft 3 . Their failure to capitalize on that earlier was a massive strategic error.

If you keep making games based on the same franchise, you’ll end up scraping the bottom of the barrel. Your other ideas—a Dark Portal action game or a horror game—also sound like standalone Warcraft titles, which I believe would struggle.

Instead of flooding the market with more Warcraft spin-offs, the focus should be on new, fresh, and exciting IP. If you want goblin racing or a horror-themed experience, those should be added as mini-games or content within World of Warcraft itself, much like how Lost Ark integrates a variety of activities into its MMO framework.

In short, to succeed, Blizzard needs to start new IPs, not just keep mining old ones.

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Dota and LoL was from Warcraft 3 modding.

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Lol u really think these devs are incompentend to create a new game? Hahaha good one

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Like Jito said it is out of Blizzards hands its all Microsoft now Ion and Chris are just faces for familiarity sakes nothing more.

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Well… Yeah. That’s what “Licensing an IP” means. To make a game based on the IP.

Your comment against it is the same as if one would say “It’s bad that so many Warhammer games are out there, they should distance themselves away from making games around that in order to attract new players”.

It didn’t “Flop”. At least, not in the traditional sense.

Sure it may not have been the biggest, but the fault in the game wasn’t that there was not enough attention given to it, but rather that an Esports scene was trying to be bruteforced into it, which in the end made it unsustainable and now it’s in maintenance mode.
Otherwise, it was a great game. Certainly far better than LoL or Dota2 that’s for sure.

Yeah. Except the thread is talking about licensing the IP. Which is something that would be a good idea as it’d give more Warcraft to an audience that wants Warcraft.

If we want a new fresh exciting IP, I would sooner trust a goldfish to make one than Blizzard.

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The thing is, I’m not against the concept. I’m against the fact that we need new, fresh, and exciting creativity in the gaming industry. We don’t need to keep reaching into existing franchises to say, “You know what? We could use this IP to make this type of genre again.” It’s all about moderation. If you try too hard to force it, the game is going to be terrible.

Take your example using Warhammer. Warhammer itself really only has two successful connected franchises: the RTS and the FPS games. That’s it. You can’t really do much else—though personally, I would love an MMORPG set in the Warhammer universe because that would be amazing. It has so much lore and content to build upon. But then again, it’s Games Workshop, and they’ve been doing some really shady stuff over the last several years in how they represent themselves in the industry.

Regarding Heroes of the Storm: it flopped. Not in the traditional sense, as you said, but because the people behind its creation and maintenance didn’t know what they were doing. They never really focused on getting the game to a bigger audience and put way too much emphasis on esports from the get-go. The focus should have been, “We’re going to make this game better than League of Legends or Dota 2.” Unfortunately, the game suffered miserably due to the development team’s decisions and is now in maintenance mode, hardly played. I wouldn’t say it’s better than either—in my opinion, Dota 2 is miles above League of Legends, and Heroes of the Storm is just my personal preference.

As I mentioned, Blizzard has never really licensed their IP out, and I don’t think it was under their jurisdiction to do so. Now, with Microsoft owning Blizzard, it’s Microsoft’s decision whether to license out these properties. Microsoft does a lot of weird stuff, so who knows? It could happen.

I really don’t know how it would work, or if it even will. I just know that Blizzard was never known for providing their IP to other developers because they historically had very high quality standards. Letting another developer use their IP could have tarnished that reputation. But Blizzard is no longer the company it once was, so… who knows?

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So what’s the problem then?

Indie games.

Thank you for repeating what I said, just in a more long-winded way.

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You know, I feel that’s being a bit condescending, and that’s not what I’m trying to get out of this conversation.

Put on your mature and respectful hat, and then we can continue.

I’m giving you my point of view in a well thought-out, detailed response. It’s not meant to be long-winded—I’m just providing you with my honest perspective.

I don’t like using very short sentences or a single paragraphs because, for me, they often don’t fully convey what I’m trying to say. I’d rather express myself in a way that feels true to how my brain works, even if it takes a few more words.

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They should just do what Graal Online does with Playerworlds.

Have official servers (Regular Retail) and give access to official assets/editing tools to modify a game world together with other people and let them host these instances for free.

Let servers up to let’s say WOLTK be free-to-play for EVERYONE even without owning a copy of World of Warcraft and any servers that use world states beyond that require either a copy of the game or an active subscription. Allow these server owners to add their own in-game shops and have a percentage of the sales go to Blizzard.

Still a bit conflicted on how they would do it like:
A: Just have a server browser thing where people can just create whatever they want and there will be hundreds of them, which will obviously mean that there will be a boatload of trash servers that aren’t worth your time.

B: Only allow a select few servers based on a selection process, that made their own distinctive version of the World of Warcraft world.

This would almost completely kill off prvate servers, would likely fulfill the needs of what people can only currently find in prvate servers in the first place and it would increase Blizzard’s reputation significantly.

Developers would also not have to hide in the shadows, they can use official editing tools making their lives far easier and they can use all the QoL features Blizzard introduced in the past years such as Colorblind mode.

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Now what would give you that impression?

No. You’re giving an unnecessarily long-winded response, half of it coming across as wordsalad. Which is quite consistent with a lot of the posts I’ve read from you.
And then when you have someone give you a bit of pushback against it, you start to moan about it.

Then, quite frankly and I do mean this as politely as I can be, you are a failure when it comes to communication.
Most normal people are able to convey their thoughts quite well without having to resort to making paragraph upon paragraph to tell something that could have been said in two sentences.

Like, look at Frieran’s post. It’s fairly easy to read and each point is conveyed within its paragraph, as opposed to you making one too many paragraphs than are actually needed.

Hey, so do I! Only I also have the uncanny ability to get somewhere with my posts, and reserve it for people who I respect.

That doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all. But truth be told, it’s giving a bit too much benefit of the doubt to Blizzard, thinking that they won’t try to put it behind a subscription and monetize it to who knows where.

Even though this thread isn’t really directly related to the places not to be mentioned (though certainly inspired by), I can get behind this idea fully.

I guess B would be the most curated answer, but I could go with A if you also allow for rankings and filters.

That way you can go and search for a server that will be most right for you, and see how it goes.

It’d certainly be a shame for the very high quality servers that’d be caught with this end result, but at the very least I can see them being able to port everything into the more official pipeline without too much hassle.
Actually, yeah, I can dig it.

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I’d rather play the genuine article rather than some rip off.

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Right off the bat, you’re emphasizing that you’re unable to have a full conversation with someone you either find smarter or intimidating, which leads you to be condescending and ultimately destroys any chance of a productive discussion. We could have had an intelligent, in-depth exchange of opinions, but unfortunately, from your initial sentence, I can only decipher that you’re someone who can’t handle a differing viewpoint.

I also get the feeling you don’t like it when someone uses a broad vocabulary. Perhaps you’ve seen me use words you’re unfamiliar with, which you find intimidating. What is it about someone using more than two sentences or a single paragraph to express a detailed point that you find so threatening? I can tell you’re someone who doesn’t like to read anything longer than a few words. Is it because you lack the attention span to process consistent information?

My posts consistently provide valid feedback. If someone disagrees, we can discuss why and potentially find common ground. However, you seem incapable of such a conversation, as I mentioned in my first paragraph. I have a feeling you won’t even read past the first few sentences of this post.

And please, show me where I’m “moaning.” I would love to see it. This, again, shows that you simply cannot handle a difference of opinion. You’re saying Blizzard should do one thing; I’m saying they shouldn’t. It’s my opinion versus yours. Because they don’t align, you instantly resort to an aggressive and immature mindset, which speaks volumes about your character—not your in-game character, but your real-life personality.

If you believe I’m a failure at communicating my thoughts on this forum, then by all means, believe that. But as I’ve stated multiple times now, you are someone who pushes back aggressively against anyone who doesn’t share your views. I can only imagine what you’re like on other, non-gaming forms of social media; I’m getting that specific vibe from you right now.

To save us both the hassle—to save you from reading my content and to save myself the brain cells I’d lose reading your replies—I’m going to block you on the forums. This will save us both the aggravation.

Maybe one day you’ll grow up. Maybe. Actually, you probably won’t. You’ll likely stay exactly like this until the day you leave this earth. But one can always hope.

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Don’t flatter yourself.

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They’ve already started. Archon Studios, who are very competent at making board- and tabletop games, have been allowed to make a StarCraft based minis game, kindda like Warhammer, and a board game, which I plan on getting.

My previous experience with them was Heroes 3 The Board Game and it’s absolutely fantastic. 10 factions, all units from the game and then some, beautiful minis (for real, search them up on Google), town board, configurable overworld hexes, 2½ hour games, simultaneous turns, 60+ different locations to visit, combat just like from the video game basically, and the whole thing is super intuitive to understand. Like there are so many rules where you just go like “well duh, obviously it works like that.”

I have high hopes that the StarCraft board game is gonna be good, but I guess we’ll see!

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Diablo: Hellfire was developed by Synergistic Software and published by Sierra On-Line. So that was basically the first foray into licensing an IP for Blizzard.
StarCraft Ghost – whilst never finished – was developed by Swingin’ Ape Studios.
And more recently Diablo II Resurrected was a joint project between Blizzard and Vicarious Visions.
And then of course there’s Diablo Immortal that was largely developed by NetEase alongside Blizzard.

So it’s not like Blizzard don’t a history of this. They do. It’s just overshadowed by the fact that their big juggernaut games have always been their own, and it’s those we associate Blizzard with.

Is there more to come? Yes.
We already know that because there was a bidding for StarCraft and Overwatch IP rights last year that the company Nexon won. So they’ll be making games for those IPs.
For reference:
https://www.vg247.com/new-korean-starcraft-rights-ip-nc-soft

And then we know Microsoft and Activision have formed a development studio within Blizzard to work on games in existing IPs (including Warcraft):
https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/microsoft-and-activision-have-formed-a-new-team-within-blizzard-to-work-on-smaller-aa-games-based-on-existing-ip
And what we know of that is that it’s primarily King employees it consists of, and that Microsoft have mandated that they use AI in their daily work:
https://mobilegamer.biz/inside-king-layoff-lawsuits-toxic-leaders-toothless-ethics-teams-low-morale-and-mandatory-ai-use/
So that kind of frames it, I think. Will there come Warcraft games out of this? Maybe? I’d say more likely than not.

Besides licensing, we know Blizzard have ramped up their use of outsourcing art and animation for their games in recent years, including World of Warcraft, using these studios among other (primarily south-east Asian companies):
https://artvostok.com/projects/world-of-warcraft/
https://www.artstation.com/lapalex/albums/5666436
https://gimbalzen.com/project/world-of-warcraft-blizzard/
https://surfside3d.com/portfolio_dragonflight
https://uni-bit.com/

So all in all, if you were to go up in the helicopter and look at all this from a zoomed-out perspective, I think it’s fair to say that Blizzard are slowly being dialed down as a company. They operate and run their existing games – WoW, OW, D4, HS – but otherwise don’t seem to be doing much else. And their IPs seem to be offered away to the highest bidder or handed out to other development companies that Microsoft owns and seem to prioritize for future investments.

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Also Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans was co-developed by Animation Magic, the guys who made the infamous Zelda Philips CD-i games.