Thread by @NotPatrick

So I'm seeing a lot of angry comments and videos about how the evil Activision is ruining Blizzard. I'd like to take a look at the whole thing a bit dispassionately... Fun analysis ahead!
(long thread)

First, what is the actual situation Blizzard is in?
- No releases in the foreseeable future (say 12/18 months).
- Many "classic" game teams.
- Many new game teams (probably mobile).
- Most GaaS games not in their prime (OW, HS, etc).
So in short, LOTS of spend, decreasing income.

Second, what they are doing? Decreasing overhead, by:
- Reducing spend. Not sure on what, but I'm it looks like non essential stuff like events, ad budgets, etc.
- Incentivising departures by... giving money. This again is to be for support staff (less needed with less activity).

Please note that they are apparently not:
- Firing anyone outright. An incentive to leave is the gentlest possible way to reduce headcount when you need/want to.
- Decreasing dev team sizes. They actually seem to be doing the opposite: telling devs to hire as much as they need.

Third, what do you think "Evil Activision" would demand?
- The first thing would probably be to release *something* called Diablo 4 and get a return on 4+ years of dev.
- Maybe aggressive staff reduction, meaning firing people.
- Maybe adding more micro transactions everywhere?

So, what does this leave us in our analysis?
- They are not doing anything we'd associate with the collective fantasy of an evil corporation.
- They are hunkering down to allow developers a *long* development time, needed for maximum polish before release. As they've always done.

I've thought about this a lot, and I honestly don't see how one can look at the facts and deduce what's happening at Blizzard is bad/evil.
I understand people hate WoW atm (as if this was the first bad expansion) and hate the idea of Diablo mobile. Guessing that's the catalyst.

But the facts (or at least the rumours/reports people base their anger on) do not support the idea that "Activision is destroying Blizzard" at all.
That fantasy happening would manifest itself in pretty much the opposite of what we're seeing, not giving 2+ *more* years to dev D4.

Quick note on Heroes:
Yes it sucks the game is being scaled back. But one can't accuse Blizzard of not having tried to make it work. They've been at it for years, they've worked on it a lot... But if they don't see a future for it, they have to (half) pull the plug at some point.

I'll agree the timing sucked for eSport athletes that put their lives into Heroes, but that's a separate issue. Similarly, the handling of DI's announcement was terrible, as has been discussed a million times.

But these issues are *not* issues in the way the company develops games as a whole, and conflating the two is childish at best, fear/anger mongering at worst. I know it generates more views on YouTube, but that doesn't make it real.

And BTW, even if you want to look at things from a money making perspective, Blizzard has been making a lot of money for Activision. Like, a *lot*. Why would they now start messing with the methods of a developer that clearly knows what they're doing? It makes little sense...

So ok, that's the way I'm looking at this whole thing.
I might be wrong of course, and maybe Blizzard is... I don't know, not making games anymore? But I honestly think they simply have a lot of things in the oven, and hopefully a few will be as delicious as ever.
Time will tell.

Last note: most of you know this, but just in case, I did work for Blizzard for a few years, and I love/cover many of their games.
If you think that makes my analysis invalid, I can't blame you (although I'd love to hear how you come to another conclusion based on what we know).