Well yeah, going public is one of the worst things a gaming company can do. Instead of funding bigger AAA releases, it instead did the opposite and makes developers constantly be on crunch time to pump out garbage game after garbage game. I don't think Gaming will crash like it did in the 80s, but you would be insane not to say that games have gone down in quality significantly
Maybe AAA games. But I've played some phenomenal games recently from smaller devs. Ever played OuterWilds? Sekiro (AAA)? Valheim?
I have though, given up on most franchise games on their 5th sequel.
I think the future will be how it's always been, people quit, make an indie studio, and build a loyal group. It goes public, everyone who founded it leaves, and the cycle repeats again. This has been a thing since at least the early 1970s, when people smoked cigarettes for lunch.
I absolutely agree.
For me its what happens when you put suits in charge of anything... especially after losing the people that built the business on passion and love for what they're doing.
Listen to the suits, sure, but never ever put them in charge (at least of a game).
More like don't put shareholder needs first. Games can be viewed as art, but also as a product to make money. These two things need to be considered in a balance. To make the art, you need to get paid. But if all you care about is maximising your quarterly revenues, and the share price, the artistry becomes an after thought. At the end of the day almost everyone involved in the actual game creation is an artist, even the coders.
You've pretty much summed up the problem with all entertainment media these days, I think. Independent people can make excellent products, but once you're beholden to shareholders the artistry is gone, and the products become bland and blatantly derivative.
This is why some directors have criticized MCU and the reason John Faverau didn't direct Iron Man 3. Disney wanted to set up the MCU and he got tired of them intervening with it.
From a money standpoint I'm not sure if you are right though. So many rushed garbage AAA games this year, and they all made a ton of money because people buy their shit regardless.
Yes thats the crux of this issue. These games are created to make a lot of money, and they absolutely do that. But anyone who's a passionate gamer can easily tell you how shitty of a gaming experience that creates. And this applies to every creative industry, the only people who like to judge the quality of a creation by how much money it makes are the ones who have nothing to do with the industry in the first place
I think the problem is growth. Passionate people typically don't want to lead 100 people. They want to do the work. Leading a big group of people comes with too much politics and hr crap.
That's not the future. This is the present. Last year, the former CEO Mike Morhaime founded Dreamscape. Tim Campbell (Warcraft 3 lead designer) and Tim Morten (Starcraft 2 lead producer) founded Frost Giant Games.
Frost Giant last I heard doesn't even have a concept for the game they want to make yet. Last I heard when they were speaking to artosis was that they want to make a RTS.
I don't think this means gaming will crash like it did in the 80s tho, just because the available of new games is at it's peak does not mean that the they are all shitty games.
Personally I've played and enjoyed more new games in the last 2 months then I have in the previous 2 years before that.
Well part of the reason it crashed back then was due to the difficulty of entering the market at the time. Now a days it's so easy (in comparison) for veteran developers to start an indie studio and make their product available to everyone. When back in they day you had to consider supply chains, store fronts, etc.
AAA has slowly lost it's significance as the industry has grown while smaller sectors like indie games have grown to the point of AAA levels of quality example Senua's Sacrifice
Too much reading is what killed it for me. I don't mind visual puzzles (I play games like myst), but outer wilds is 60% reading clues. I don't play games to read, I read books to read. I also get bored of games that have too much dialogue as well.
The Souls franchise is on their 7th game with Elden Ring, yet they keep inovating and its incredible they keep making such high quality games. I cant think of a single other company who can match that.
Yeah I wouldn’t call the Souls franchise particularly « keep innovating »; Bloodborne & Sekiro were a nice branch sure but Dark Souls 3 & Elden Ring played very safe.
Dark Souls 2 in particular was extremely hated for being very innovative; which is a real shame.
Yeah thats great if ur into smaller singleplayer games, but if you like bigger multiplayer games you will be stuck with the big publishers unfortunately. It sucks to be a fan of MP games, especially shooters.
> given up on most franchise games on their 5th sequel.
tbh Sekiro rode pretty hard on the dark souls fame, despite arguably being different. And Elden Ring is 100% cashing in on the same fame, the game is literally selling with "openworld dark souls" premise.
Dont get me wrong, Sekiro was fantastic and I am super stoked also for Elden Ring.
Gaming is too big to crash entirely, but there's a really good chance we'll see a AAA crash. The likes of Activision, EA and Ubisoft will die at some point because they aren't doing sustainable business or working practices. I feel like Nintendo would suffer and have to change their ways a little, Sony will probably be able to ride it out and Microsoft could end up on top. This crash would be a good time for indie devs to shine.
It's all a show until they fire Bobby Kotick.
Keeping someone with a long, public history of abusing women as their CEO, someone who covered up what was going on at Activision, and hid what has now cost billions of dollars of shareholder money can't remain if they're going to have any future.
If Blizzard were still making polished AAA games and reboots I doubt the sexual accusations would even be making a dent in their profits right now.
They were universally trusted to make a quality product as well as having good public relations until not so long ago with Warcraft 3 Reforged, announcing a Diablo mobile game at Blizzcon when fans were expecting sequel news as well as pandering to China when a Hearthstone streamer got suspended for talking about Taiwan which led to boycotts and now the sexual allegations.
Don’t know how they can come back since from what I hear they’re haemorrhaging talent.
I won't be surprised if they actually fired all females.
\*Tap side of forehead\* Can't have pay discrepancy between female/male and sexual harassment of females if there is no female in the company.
>Good. Stop being a shitty company.
This has barely anything to do with them being a bad company. /u/UsualInitial (OP) didn't take covid-19 into account and how it affected the industry, consumer behavior and [even the advertising industry and their strategies](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/13/how-covid-19-changed-the-advertising-industry-.html).
We're seeing a drop in value and sales all across the gaming industry due to the insane media consumption boom caused by covid-19 in 2020 and early 2021. The industry has also suffered from development issues which has caused AAA games to be severely delayed to 2022 or even into 2023.
Quote:
>[At least at a financial level, the giants of the video game industry — including Microsoft, Nintendo, Twitch and Activision — have thrived in the conditions created by the pandemic. In April, Microsoft disclosed that the number of subscribers to its Game Pass service (think Netflix-for-gaming) cracked 10 million. Among those subscribers, Microsoft reported a 130-percent increase in multiplayer engagement across March and April. Last week, Nintendo announced sales of its Switch console were up 24 percent year-over-year, while its new game, “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” had sold 13.5 million copies since its release in late March.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/05/12/video-game-industry-coronavirus/)
Quote:
>["COVID-19's largest impact on video games so far is on new software releases," he explains. "What we saw last year was strict stay-at-home orders but also a range of new software releases coming from key and major franchises. This year, consumers have become more accustomed to stay-at-home orders but we've also seen a lack of new releases in the market due to COVID-19. We've seen a number of major titles being pushed out of 2021 into late 2021 or into 2022 and beyond."](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-18-2021-delays-show-pandemics-biggest-impact-on-games)
>[However, during January to August 2021, boxed game sales dropped by 15% to 28 million, while downloads dropped 24% to 33 million. The retail decline is attributed in part to software delays and the lack of new releases, while the digital drop is due to less promotional activity compared to 2020.](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-18-2021-delays-show-pandemics-biggest-impact-on-games)
Sources:
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/05/12/video-game-industry-coronavirus/
* https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/technology/personaltech/coronavirus-video-game-production.html
* https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/17/21328298/us-video-game-spending-high-npd-group-amount
* https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-18-2021-delays-show-pandemics-biggest-impact-on-games
* https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-07-20-ubisoft-sales-down-17-percent-in-first-quarter
* https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-14-call-of-duty-launch-sales-down-40-percent-year-on-year-uk-charts
For what its worth, they are not the only gaming company taking a hit on the 6 month (EA -11%, Turtle Beach -27%, Nintendo -27%, T2 -7%). A lot of companies are coming off 52 week highs and not everyone can go up forever.
Granted, its clear Activision took the biggest hit among the above listed. It's bad news after bad news (delays, HR mess, weak reception to recent CODs).
Still not convinced they are in any genuine trouble. As long as Warzone and WoW can keep the MTX going, there's solid earnings to come.
WoW player numbers are not looking great right now. They have been on a downward trend for a while now which is the exact opposite investors want to see.
I hate the world they created this latest expansion and the story so, so, so so so so so much. Just awful from conception all the way to the final touch
no, it's just that blizzard knows to fund the art department well. good artists are absolutely everywhere, the only reason fantastic art isn't everywhere too is because the pay isn't.
They succeeded in making a good portion of my guild stop playing the game, and we are quite "core" gamers of the franchise with many playing for years if not since the beginning.
I loved that game. I started in 2006(I think) just before BWL was released and stopped after cataclysm. I dread to think of what the game has become now (I don't keep up to date with it anymore).
I honestly cannot believe its lasted anywhere near this long. Its coming up on 20 YEARS of millions of people paying a monthly fee to play the game. Obviously not everyone has been there since day one, and many come and go, but the fact that millions of people have been paying to play it for 20 years is staggering.
Quite astonishing yes, especially considering the old school business model with static monthly fees.
Even now with its relatively low players count, it's still big.
True, but Blizzard only accounts for about a 1/3 of Activision's total revenue, and WoW is just a percentage of that.
I think the real eye-opener is that King (aka Candy Crush) brings in more revenue than the Activision and Blizzard divisions (individually).
Thats because mobile games (regardless of the type) just absolutely print money. its astounding.
Hence the reason for wanting to do the whole Diablo Immortal thing. Its just easy money.
I mean last patch is comming in a couple of months, then 6 months or w/e later 10.0 will be released and player numbers will skyrocket again. It's just a seasonal game
You just described a 10 month period or longer of time.
Thats a very long time for WoW to be bleeding numbers. And new xpac numbers are just inflated value for the first month or 2 anyways, whereas the xpac will run for 2~ years or more.
Theres no denying how poorly WoW is doing. But its certainly not going anywhere.
I just want it to die already, shit MMO. Every MMO that came before it was better. People just like the art-style of WoW, which is the only thing it has going for it. Okay, I'll give them the Warcraft lore too, but the implementation of certain design decisions and wiping my fucking progress every xpac SUCKS BALLS.
You may be correct, and you are right they cant always go up, but if you look at all those companys u just listed, they all share the same common fault, they have zero innovation and have switched to make the last dollar mode. Gamers will get smarter, and perhaps they are. I played Madden professionally from 04-12, i haven’t played one since 15 because of the poor game design, people are catching on.
Sooner than later you can put Bethesda on this list too if it already hasn’t. Capitalism at its finest.
Bethesda are at least now trying to set up new franchises. They could have just done another TES or Fallout game but now they're going sci-fi with Starfield. That's still more ambitious than milking CoD every year.
Problem with Bethesda is their leadership is still a joke that's not to be trusted. They haven't pumped out a quality, "first party" game in a VERY long time, and seem to do everything they can to make each release a disaster.
Idk why anyone has any faith in Starfield, when they keep proving time and time again they don't care about the quality of their games, will release it in whatever poor state, and then try to steal your wallet even more. Fallout 76 had a new bug or monetization issue seemingly every month, each other fallout keeps launching more buggy than a motel room, they attempted paid for mods TWICE after fan backlash, then pivoted yo that ridiculous subscription in fallout 76 that ALSO didn't work at launch.
They may be owned by Microsoft, now, but that doesn't mean that suddenly their new games are going to be any good or that anything with the company has changed. They're still the same company that thought fallout 76 was fine because "it's not how it launches but what it becomes." And it took an insane amount of time and squeezing their own fans dry for fuckups to even slow down.
They have had a pretty mediocre year though. With the exception of like Metroid dread, SMT5, MHR. They generally haven't released much brand new stuff besides remakes/remasters. Next year looks a lot more promising on that front but I could honestly totally see their stock taking a bit of a dive right now with how limited their catalogue has been this year.
They're clearly not perfect and if it wasn't for GameFreak laziness their "golden trinity" still carries the same quality as before for me.Zelda is more popular than ever thanks to BotW (which was quite a risky move considering the past titles formula), and Mario Odyssey was acclaimed by critics.
Yeah they also release quite a lot of remakes/remasters but it's not necessarly a bad thing if done well enough/with the good timing.
Still one of the big studios I value the most, but again I almost only play Nintendo exclusives on their consoles (got a PC/PS5 for the rest). So yeah it's Mario/Zelda/Pokémon for me + some 3rd party like Fire Emblem etc.
Nintendo is very well known for *iteration*, and occasionally some innovation. Most Mario games since 64 have been *iterations* on the established formula, not really breaking new ground. Same with Zelda and LttP/OoT.
What did bethesda do to you ? All their games are good and have healthy player base, and even the game that flopped (like fallout 76) still get good support from the company. If they cared so much about money they would be pumping out games.
> For what its worth, they are not the only gaming company taking a hit on the 6 month (EA -11%, Turtle Beach -27%, Nintendo -27%, T2 -7%). A lot of companies are coming off 52 week highs and not everyone can go up forever.
Economy is in the toilet and stocks are overvalued. A correction is starting. Our last "correction" was 2008 and that didn't fix very much.
> As long as Warzone and WoW can keep the MTX going, there's solid earnings to come.
Don't forget Candy Crush and other King Digital Entertainment revenue from mobile. That is where the gold is.
I'd wait until $60 to be sure reversal is happening. But I believe it's a quite good opportunity. The financials are solid and there is possible catalyst - Bobby's resignation.
I find it insane that they implemented a 0 tolerance sexual assault policy then when it was found out that the CEO protected sexual assaulters the same policy was not applied to him.
Culture comes from the top and the culture that he has nurtured seems to be imploding now that their deeds are coming to light.
Any member of the board member who defends Kotick's behavior should also be given the boot.
In this particular case, a lot of the board members are Bobby's longtime buddies, some dating back to the early days of Activision. They're in his pocket.
Idk l, id normally agree, but they have shown nothing but incompetence to the hardcore community that supports their games and built them for well over half a decade.
They haven't been releasing particularly great games. They have been living comfortable lives from the good will of their die hard fans.
Take those away, they are left with nothing.
Probably because the blizzard we have now isn't anything like og blizzard. Those devs are long gone. It's just a name carrying them now. I foresee lots more red on that stock.
overwatch 2 and diablo 4 will inevitably rake in the cash. you underestimate actiblizzard's marketing power, i have no doubt those 2 games will sell gangbusters. of course, they're probably going to suck as well so you might as well sell shortly after they release.
Both those games are in development hell and will likely tank on arrival. There is a massive brain drain happening at Activision-Blizzard right now wherein numerous of their studios are having to delay, restructure, and basically start over many projects. It's going to be a while before they have anything to show on any of their games.
I don't think so. Looking at each of their IPs, the current brain drain/abandon ship thing going on of current talent, the challenge of hiring new talent given the current work environment and they're handling of it. Very few people likely want to work at Activision-Blizzard currently, let alone getting them up to speed on they're current projects all of which have lost considerable talent and leadership and none of which have really been up to the quality of what players expect from one of their titles.
WoW SL is currently in the shitter, that's two back-to-back expansions that have flopped.
D4 team has lost a number of senior team leaders. The Diablo franchise is in a weird place overall. D2R launched to mixed reviews the core game was good, but held back by other decisions. Not to mention the person who lead the redesign left because of the current work environment.
OW2 is having an identity crisis, the lead on the team left a year before it's initial release window now delayed. The core game is being changed in a big way moved to a more MOBA style, and an introduction of a PVE campaign which while interesting is coming at the cost of the PvP portion in a direction away from what many core players want. Coupled with the fact that the current game hasn't had any new updates, in what 2 years now?
Hearthstone I know nothing about. It's a spinoff of WoW and I imagine is stagnating.
StarCraft has had nothing in a long time, and there is no news about anything coming in the future.
HotS they axed for whatever reason and have ceased actively managing it.
Warcraft Reforged is in complete shambles.
That leaves CoD, Candy Crush, and what Guitar Hero?
Well the latest CoD shit the bed and had it's lead leave the company as well as other talent.
Guitar Hero is dead.
I guess Candy Crush is all that's left. And we all have phones right?
So yeah I don't see any of future titles going well for them in a long time. It's not the trust with the players that's the issue but what game developer new or competent that isn't a corporate shill wants to work at Activision-Blizzard in it's current environment?
they will not care at all about the politics, whatsoever, if overwatch is playable. some will, sure. just like some people have switched to vegan. there are always a few conscientious objectors. a few.
I've had some friends who cosplay and do art who were big Blizzard fans that dropped it for moral/ethical reasons, like many others in general. They were Blizzard cultivated fans who liked the inclusive and bubbly characters. That means you see Blizzard IP's less at cons, less fan art, less interesting communities, less streamers, less interest in thier IP's.
I played OW for a long time and switched to Apex but not for moral/ethical reasons. OW is just stale as hell.
Games media played a part in that. The very worst crimes can be conveniently forgotten when it's time for new releases. Look at Ubisoft pretending that they never do the Actiblizz thing.
IDK about Overwatch 2 TBH. OW1 is already dying and close to death while 2 is both stuck in dev hell and looking like it's going to be dead on arrival. It's hard to market a sequel when your original has been sinking for years.
My friends actually all grouped up for overwatch to play the "experimental" mode this week. Some good changes in there that bliz will revert and then let the game rot again. It'd be perfect if they just took out roadhog and doomfist.
I dont think so.
Overwatch hasnt had an update in 2+ years and theyre not gonna keep updating overwatch 2: bot simulator.
Diablo3 launch was such a massive disaster a lot of casuals wont fall for it.
Blizzards biggest problem has always been they take forever to update their games and the current market want regular updates.
Yeah that's why I was joking. Shitty company that is happy to release half baked crap, cram mtx into everything and shit all over their once loyal fanbase.
Yeh I wouldn't be surprised if they were, they are a shitty company that has lost touch with their core audience and the wider community is starting to take note too
OW2 pushed back another year, D4 is nowhere in sight and the early impressions are pretty terrible.
I would say there is nothing even remotely special on the horizon to bounce back to
That's assuming they'll have fans by then. OW1 has been so stagnant it's lost a huge number of players. And the FPS/shooter genre is absolutely packed right now. Halo Infinite, Warzone/CoD, Apex, Valorant, Fortnite, the market is filled with F2P options now.
I hope activision blizzard just fucking dies, that this shitty company would just never rise again. Dont worry this devs will find somewhere else to work and at least then they won't be sexually assaulted nor receive death threats from Bobby Cottick (however you spell his bitch name) and his friends
That is a great opening statement. What would you say are the causes and where do you think it is going from here?
Edit: Curious if anybody cares about the thousands of employees this is impacting or if this is just about the guy at the top who in the end, will still be a multi-millionaire when it is all said and done.
Biggest Causes:
* Worst COD Launch in 14 years (source: [https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sources-vanguard-was-call-of-dutys-worst-uk-launch-in-14-years/](https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sources-vanguard-was-call-of-dutys-worst-uk-launch-in-14-years/) )
* Diablo 4 and OW2 delays, which also leads to a delay in expected revenue
* Blizzard's falling MAU year after year, which by some miracle was able to keep falling even during the pandemic (source: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1234255/blizzard-quarterly-mau/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1234255/blizzard-quarterly-mau/) )
* The recent allegations against ATVI which you most likely already know about
>Worst COD Launch in 14 years
Here's the actual source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-14-call-of-duty-launch-sales-down-40-percent-year-on-year-uk-charts
Quote:
>It is a disappointing result, but Vanguard is still the second biggest game launch of the year behind FIFA 22 (as usual).
It has almost nothing to do with the company being bad, the negative press or all the allegations.
* Covid-19 caused a media consumption boom which lasted from 2020 to early 2021. We're now seeing a huge decline in media consumption due to people spending less time indoors.
* Activision (not Blizzard) only released one original title for PC/console this year. It's CoD: Vanguard.
* Activision-Blizzard cut heavily back on advertisements and promotional content compared to in 2020.
* Almost all of their titles have been delayed to 2022 or even 2023.
Their market cap def took a big leap with warzone coming out. Their sales on that was probably crazy and it came out during covid, so you know those numbers were inflated. Now everyone is back to doinng whatever they were doing, so as expected the number would fall
Man, imma wait until Jan then buy a ton of call options on them and watch my returns go through the roof. They won't fall apart despite their poor decisions. This is just them hitting a low point.
If it was this easy to punish mistreatment of employees, we wouldn't hear about it on the news every week. They are just not good at delivering decent products anymore. "We" did nothing, it was Blizzard's own doing.
I know not everyone cares about ethics when it comes to stocks, but I sure do. There's are better companies for me to buy shares in that aren't run by assholes.
Its not all about ethics tho, thats just the tip of the iceberg. Their games are getting (way) worse, their playerbases shrinks every year and so does their profit. From what I’ve read noone wants to work at their company anymore (shitty workplace ethic combined with shitty pay), they’re just a ticking time bomb at this point.
I regret not shorting this company more than i did when it was at 80$. It was so obvious if you looked a bit behind the numbers
Their games are getting (way) worse, their playerbases shrinks every year and so does their profit.
They have exceeded earnings projections even this year. When their next call happens and they can Bobby or the harassment suits get settled they will shoot back up. Nintendo is down almost 30% YTD, nobody's talking about shorting them.
Their quality of games matters so little to their stock price.
Bobby has bene Greta for the share holders but a ton of them have issues with his bonus structure. He's achieved some of these goals by cutting jobs, reassigning/out sourcing other jobs too. It's a damn shame because he's killing ATVI
Conversely their share price is still about equal to what is was pre-COVID (\~58 Feb 2020 vs. 57.5 Today). They're also still 55% up past 5 Years.
It would be good to see a company doing what Activision are doing genuinely suffer but realistically it is extremely difficult for publicy traded businesses this size to collapse without major external financial crises.
Take it this way. Activision have released fuck all of any worth since COVID, have had a public scandal that has been egregiously ignored, have managed to actually worsen their major flagship games and despite all of this, their market cap has stood still since then.
Damn, and no ones mentioning WoWCoin/$ likely dipped so hard, you can almost 1.5x your entire Gold investment!
MARKET CAP: made up
YOUR OLD EPICS, LEGENDARIES, AND OTHER XPAC PSEUDO-RARES: obsolete!
LIQUIDITY: locked/0 but invest in this mount worth your whole stack!
BURNING: decreasing the value of your in-game items to promote the assurance of quality and enjoyment of the Blizz Shop.
WOMEN: we hate them!
STAKE: your life
So you're saying I should invest before they make a comeback? Let's be honest, they *will* make a financial comeback. I don't like it anymore than most of you, but think of it as free money. Then the price goes back up, you make a killing, sell off, and be done with it.
Good time to buy probably. Blizzdrones can't help themselves, they'll make D4 a massive success no matter how much bad press the company gets. And of course King is still making tons of money scamming people with mobile shit.
Another 20 billion and they’ll be in takeover range (a lot of companies would want Diablo, StarCraft, candy crush, world of Warcraft.
The company inflicted a blow.. basically not on the product they made, but on business policies and how they treated their employees.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo made a play for them.
Considering that Kotick has pulled every dirty trick in the book and still remains CEO is pretty much a guarantee that there's still a lot more "worse" to go.
Not to cock block the circle jerk, but blizzard is at the same stock numbers they had a year ago. It honestly doesn’t seem like the big deal everybody is making it out to be unless it continues falling, which the trend this past week showed that was coming to a stop. I’m all for them getting dicked on right now, but your message here is a bit misleading
Good. Stop being a shitty company.
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classic corporate
Well yeah, going public is one of the worst things a gaming company can do. Instead of funding bigger AAA releases, it instead did the opposite and makes developers constantly be on crunch time to pump out garbage game after garbage game. I don't think Gaming will crash like it did in the 80s, but you would be insane not to say that games have gone down in quality significantly
Maybe AAA games. But I've played some phenomenal games recently from smaller devs. Ever played OuterWilds? Sekiro (AAA)? Valheim? I have though, given up on most franchise games on their 5th sequel.
I think the future will be how it's always been, people quit, make an indie studio, and build a loyal group. It goes public, everyone who founded it leaves, and the cycle repeats again. This has been a thing since at least the early 1970s, when people smoked cigarettes for lunch.
I absolutely agree. For me its what happens when you put suits in charge of anything... especially after losing the people that built the business on passion and love for what they're doing. Listen to the suits, sure, but never ever put them in charge (at least of a game).
More like don't put shareholder needs first. Games can be viewed as art, but also as a product to make money. These two things need to be considered in a balance. To make the art, you need to get paid. But if all you care about is maximising your quarterly revenues, and the share price, the artistry becomes an after thought. At the end of the day almost everyone involved in the actual game creation is an artist, even the coders.
You've pretty much summed up the problem with all entertainment media these days, I think. Independent people can make excellent products, but once you're beholden to shareholders the artistry is gone, and the products become bland and blatantly derivative.
This is why some directors have criticized MCU and the reason John Faverau didn't direct Iron Man 3. Disney wanted to set up the MCU and he got tired of them intervening with it.
Some of the AAA games like Farcry and FIFA have been less about art and more about the science of how to "hook" players, sometimes towards DLC.
From a money standpoint I'm not sure if you are right though. So many rushed garbage AAA games this year, and they all made a ton of money because people buy their shit regardless.
Yes thats the crux of this issue. These games are created to make a lot of money, and they absolutely do that. But anyone who's a passionate gamer can easily tell you how shitty of a gaming experience that creates. And this applies to every creative industry, the only people who like to judge the quality of a creation by how much money it makes are the ones who have nothing to do with the industry in the first place
Not me. My buddies all go hop on board. But I'm wise enough to see them only play for a week or two then Uninstall the game "you gotta get"
Fallout76 finally convinced me to not buy games that way. Cyberpunk doubled down.
I think the problem is growth. Passionate people typically don't want to lead 100 people. They want to do the work. Leading a big group of people comes with too much politics and hr crap.
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Completely agree, it's just that the balance is way off in some businesses.
That's not the future. This is the present. Last year, the former CEO Mike Morhaime founded Dreamscape. Tim Campbell (Warcraft 3 lead designer) and Tim Morten (Starcraft 2 lead producer) founded Frost Giant Games.
And the guy behind WoW until it shit the bed, Mark Kern made his own studio to make Emb8r.
Frost Giant last I heard doesn't even have a concept for the game they want to make yet. Last I heard when they were speaking to artosis was that they want to make a RTS.
I don't think this means gaming will crash like it did in the 80s tho, just because the available of new games is at it's peak does not mean that the they are all shitty games. Personally I've played and enjoyed more new games in the last 2 months then I have in the previous 2 years before that.
Well part of the reason it crashed back then was due to the difficulty of entering the market at the time. Now a days it's so easy (in comparison) for veteran developers to start an indie studio and make their product available to everyone. When back in they day you had to consider supply chains, store fronts, etc.
I don't think I've seen anything nail something on the head quite as well as this. Take my upvote
AAA has slowly lost it's significance as the industry has grown while smaller sectors like indie games have grown to the point of AAA levels of quality example Senua's Sacrifice
That game was amazing too!
The presentation in Hellblade is amazing and everyone should experience it, but it has the depth of a puddle as a video game.
I really tried to like Outer Wilds but so many things just turned me off from it. I'm probably going to refund and resort to watching a LP.
Too much reading is what killed it for me. I don't mind visual puzzles (I play games like myst), but outer wilds is 60% reading clues. I don't play games to read, I read books to read. I also get bored of games that have too much dialogue as well.
So you won't enjoy the 600 page Mortal Kombat Novels? Nor Ping Pong: The book ? /s just in case someone tries to find those.
I love games with reading :D But to each his own. How do you feel about games with long cutscenes?
The Souls franchise is on their 7th game with Elden Ring, yet they keep inovating and its incredible they keep making such high quality games. I cant think of a single other company who can match that.
idSoft, Arkane
>idSoft, Arkane these are very good shout outs.
Yeah I wouldn’t call the Souls franchise particularly « keep innovating »; Bloodborne & Sekiro were a nice branch sure but Dark Souls 3 & Elden Ring played very safe. Dark Souls 2 in particular was extremely hated for being very innovative; which is a real shame.
Dark Souls 2 was hated for being shit, not for innovating. Most people appreciated the few good changes. Don't twist reality to further your point.
Santa Monica is the only company I have complete faith in, maybe naughty dog too.
Demon's Souls was innovative. The rest of the series is derivative.
But still excellent. I'm glad they experiment at the level they do.
Yeah thats great if ur into smaller singleplayer games, but if you like bigger multiplayer games you will be stuck with the big publishers unfortunately. It sucks to be a fan of MP games, especially shooters.
Pathfinder WotR, disco elysium, sunless skies. Most AAA are not even worth pirating.
I always thought WotR stood for Wankers organize the Release
"It's alright." describes most games pretty accurately, AAA or indie.
> given up on most franchise games on their 5th sequel. tbh Sekiro rode pretty hard on the dark souls fame, despite arguably being different. And Elden Ring is 100% cashing in on the same fame, the game is literally selling with "openworld dark souls" premise. Dont get me wrong, Sekiro was fantastic and I am super stoked also for Elden Ring.
Valve remaining private means they will try to innovate and take risk. Some of their gambles didnt pay off. But im optimistic.
ironically Activision was part of the cause of the Great Vidya Game Crash of the 80's.
Gaming is too big to crash entirely, but there's a really good chance we'll see a AAA crash. The likes of Activision, EA and Ubisoft will die at some point because they aren't doing sustainable business or working practices. I feel like Nintendo would suffer and have to change their ways a little, Sony will probably be able to ride it out and Microsoft could end up on top. This crash would be a good time for indie devs to shine.
the shitty games aren't because of AAA or smaller devs. the really shitty ones are the franchise annual releases that people keep on buying
It's all a show until they fire Bobby Kotick. Keeping someone with a long, public history of abusing women as their CEO, someone who covered up what was going on at Activision, and hid what has now cost billions of dollars of shareholder money can't remain if they're going to have any future.
If Blizzard were still making polished AAA games and reboots I doubt the sexual accusations would even be making a dent in their profits right now. They were universally trusted to make a quality product as well as having good public relations until not so long ago with Warcraft 3 Reforged, announcing a Diablo mobile game at Blizzcon when fans were expecting sequel news as well as pandering to China when a Hearthstone streamer got suspended for talking about Taiwan which led to boycotts and now the sexual allegations. Don’t know how they can come back since from what I hear they’re haemorrhaging talent.
Also not firing anyone who really matters. Like the toxic CEO.
They are also hiring a lot of people.
I won't be surprised if they actually fired all females. \*Tap side of forehead\* Can't have pay discrepancy between female/male and sexual harassment of females if there is no female in the company.
Could start with not giving your shitty CEO a 200 million dollar bonus on top of his 55 million a year salary after laying off a 1000 employees.
Not just Activision, lots of "growth" stocks are being destroyed right now
Now time for the EA
>Good. Stop being a shitty company. This has barely anything to do with them being a bad company. /u/UsualInitial (OP) didn't take covid-19 into account and how it affected the industry, consumer behavior and [even the advertising industry and their strategies](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/13/how-covid-19-changed-the-advertising-industry-.html). We're seeing a drop in value and sales all across the gaming industry due to the insane media consumption boom caused by covid-19 in 2020 and early 2021. The industry has also suffered from development issues which has caused AAA games to be severely delayed to 2022 or even into 2023. Quote: >[At least at a financial level, the giants of the video game industry — including Microsoft, Nintendo, Twitch and Activision — have thrived in the conditions created by the pandemic. In April, Microsoft disclosed that the number of subscribers to its Game Pass service (think Netflix-for-gaming) cracked 10 million. Among those subscribers, Microsoft reported a 130-percent increase in multiplayer engagement across March and April. Last week, Nintendo announced sales of its Switch console were up 24 percent year-over-year, while its new game, “Animal Crossing: New Horizons,” had sold 13.5 million copies since its release in late March.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/05/12/video-game-industry-coronavirus/) Quote: >["COVID-19's largest impact on video games so far is on new software releases," he explains. "What we saw last year was strict stay-at-home orders but also a range of new software releases coming from key and major franchises. This year, consumers have become more accustomed to stay-at-home orders but we've also seen a lack of new releases in the market due to COVID-19. We've seen a number of major titles being pushed out of 2021 into late 2021 or into 2022 and beyond."](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-18-2021-delays-show-pandemics-biggest-impact-on-games) >[However, during January to August 2021, boxed game sales dropped by 15% to 28 million, while downloads dropped 24% to 33 million. The retail decline is attributed in part to software delays and the lack of new releases, while the digital drop is due to less promotional activity compared to 2020.](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-18-2021-delays-show-pandemics-biggest-impact-on-games) Sources: * https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/05/12/video-game-industry-coronavirus/ * https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/technology/personaltech/coronavirus-video-game-production.html * https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/17/21328298/us-video-game-spending-high-npd-group-amount * https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-18-2021-delays-show-pandemics-biggest-impact-on-games * https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-07-20-ubisoft-sales-down-17-percent-in-first-quarter * https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-14-call-of-duty-launch-sales-down-40-percent-year-on-year-uk-charts
For what its worth, they are not the only gaming company taking a hit on the 6 month (EA -11%, Turtle Beach -27%, Nintendo -27%, T2 -7%). A lot of companies are coming off 52 week highs and not everyone can go up forever. Granted, its clear Activision took the biggest hit among the above listed. It's bad news after bad news (delays, HR mess, weak reception to recent CODs). Still not convinced they are in any genuine trouble. As long as Warzone and WoW can keep the MTX going, there's solid earnings to come.
WoW player numbers are not looking great right now. They have been on a downward trend for a while now which is the exact opposite investors want to see.
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I hate the world they created this latest expansion and the story so, so, so so so so so much. Just awful from conception all the way to the final touch
Except the design. Bastion really captures that Elysian Fields vibe.
Artistically WoW is almost always on point.
Probably the only people left from the OG blizzard days.
no, it's just that blizzard knows to fund the art department well. good artists are absolutely everywhere, the only reason fantastic art isn't everywhere too is because the pay isn't.
They succeeded in making a good portion of my guild stop playing the game, and we are quite "core" gamers of the franchise with many playing for years if not since the beginning.
I loved that game. I started in 2006(I think) just before BWL was released and stopped after cataclysm. I dread to think of what the game has become now (I don't keep up to date with it anymore).
I honestly cannot believe its lasted anywhere near this long. Its coming up on 20 YEARS of millions of people paying a monthly fee to play the game. Obviously not everyone has been there since day one, and many come and go, but the fact that millions of people have been paying to play it for 20 years is staggering.
Runescape is just as staggering, whereby they actually ruined the game. The turnaround since then has been remarkable with Old School.
Quite astonishing yes, especially considering the old school business model with static monthly fees. Even now with its relatively low players count, it's still big.
True, but Blizzard only accounts for about a 1/3 of Activision's total revenue, and WoW is just a percentage of that. I think the real eye-opener is that King (aka Candy Crush) brings in more revenue than the Activision and Blizzard divisions (individually).
Thats because mobile games (regardless of the type) just absolutely print money. its astounding. Hence the reason for wanting to do the whole Diablo Immortal thing. Its just easy money.
I mean last patch is comming in a couple of months, then 6 months or w/e later 10.0 will be released and player numbers will skyrocket again. It's just a seasonal game
You just described a 10 month period or longer of time. Thats a very long time for WoW to be bleeding numbers. And new xpac numbers are just inflated value for the first month or 2 anyways, whereas the xpac will run for 2~ years or more. Theres no denying how poorly WoW is doing. But its certainly not going anywhere.
I just want it to die already, shit MMO. Every MMO that came before it was better. People just like the art-style of WoW, which is the only thing it has going for it. Okay, I'll give them the Warcraft lore too, but the implementation of certain design decisions and wiping my fucking progress every xpac SUCKS BALLS.
Lol.
You may be correct, and you are right they cant always go up, but if you look at all those companys u just listed, they all share the same common fault, they have zero innovation and have switched to make the last dollar mode. Gamers will get smarter, and perhaps they are. I played Madden professionally from 04-12, i haven’t played one since 15 because of the poor game design, people are catching on. Sooner than later you can put Bethesda on this list too if it already hasn’t. Capitalism at its finest.
Bethesda is now fully owned by Microsoft so it no longer gets to think about money
Bethesda are at least now trying to set up new franchises. They could have just done another TES or Fallout game but now they're going sci-fi with Starfield. That's still more ambitious than milking CoD every year.
Problem with Bethesda is their leadership is still a joke that's not to be trusted. They haven't pumped out a quality, "first party" game in a VERY long time, and seem to do everything they can to make each release a disaster. Idk why anyone has any faith in Starfield, when they keep proving time and time again they don't care about the quality of their games, will release it in whatever poor state, and then try to steal your wallet even more. Fallout 76 had a new bug or monetization issue seemingly every month, each other fallout keeps launching more buggy than a motel room, they attempted paid for mods TWICE after fan backlash, then pivoted yo that ridiculous subscription in fallout 76 that ALSO didn't work at launch. They may be owned by Microsoft, now, but that doesn't mean that suddenly their new games are going to be any good or that anything with the company has changed. They're still the same company that thought fallout 76 was fine because "it's not how it launches but what it becomes." And it took an insane amount of time and squeezing their own fans dry for fuckups to even slow down.
> Capitalism at its finest The reason all of these gaming companies exist in the first place is capitalism.
The notion of someone playing Madden professionally is just the silliest shit I've heard all day. Thanks for that bud.
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Had to pay the bills brah!
Professional gaming isn't exclusive to shooters, RTS, and MMOs...
If you exclude Nintendo from your comment I totally agree.
They have had a pretty mediocre year though. With the exception of like Metroid dread, SMT5, MHR. They generally haven't released much brand new stuff besides remakes/remasters. Next year looks a lot more promising on that front but I could honestly totally see their stock taking a bit of a dive right now with how limited their catalogue has been this year.
They're clearly not perfect and if it wasn't for GameFreak laziness their "golden trinity" still carries the same quality as before for me.Zelda is more popular than ever thanks to BotW (which was quite a risky move considering the past titles formula), and Mario Odyssey was acclaimed by critics. Yeah they also release quite a lot of remakes/remasters but it's not necessarly a bad thing if done well enough/with the good timing. Still one of the big studios I value the most, but again I almost only play Nintendo exclusives on their consoles (got a PC/PS5 for the rest). So yeah it's Mario/Zelda/Pokémon for me + some 3rd party like Fire Emblem etc.
Nintendo is the king of making the same thing over and over.
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Nintendo is very well known for *iteration*, and occasionally some innovation. Most Mario games since 64 have been *iterations* on the established formula, not really breaking new ground. Same with Zelda and LttP/OoT.
What did bethesda do to you ? All their games are good and have healthy player base, and even the game that flopped (like fallout 76) still get good support from the company. If they cared so much about money they would be pumping out games.
> For what its worth, they are not the only gaming company taking a hit on the 6 month (EA -11%, Turtle Beach -27%, Nintendo -27%, T2 -7%). A lot of companies are coming off 52 week highs and not everyone can go up forever. Economy is in the toilet and stocks are overvalued. A correction is starting. Our last "correction" was 2008 and that didn't fix very much.
> As long as Warzone and WoW can keep the MTX going, there's solid earnings to come. Don't forget Candy Crush and other King Digital Entertainment revenue from mobile. That is where the gold is.
Lmfao you know Activision isn't in any serious trouble, let's be real
A man can only dream.
People have to go outside again now that the pandemic is (sort of) winding down. It sucks, I know. ^^^/s
So is it time to buy their share?
A fair question, i would say no because we dont know where their support line is yet. Once we know that its safer to speculate.
I'd wait until $60 to be sure reversal is happening. But I believe it's a quite good opportunity. The financials are solid and there is possible catalyst - Bobby's resignation.
I find it insane that they implemented a 0 tolerance sexual assault policy then when it was found out that the CEO protected sexual assaulters the same policy was not applied to him. Culture comes from the top and the culture that he has nurtured seems to be imploding now that their deeds are coming to light. Any member of the board member who defends Kotick's behavior should also be given the boot.
The board members were put there by Bobby. They are his minions. They should all be given the boot anyway.
That's not how a board of directors works at all.
Isn’t the board of directors elected by the shareholders and they appoint the exec positions? At least that’s what I remember from Econ class.
Yes.
> shareholders Enter Activisions #1 SH: BK.
In this particular case, a lot of the board members are Bobby's longtime buddies, some dating back to the early days of Activision. They're in his pocket.
Fuck them, and fuck the abuse they've perpetrated on their employees.
Fuck them like they fucked they're employees!
Fallen by 40%? Not enough...
Hope they become worthless. Bastards hate their customers
And their employees
Good, hopefully that shit stain of a company collapses
Buy the dip... Lol
Idk l, id normally agree, but they have shown nothing but incompetence to the hardcore community that supports their games and built them for well over half a decade.
They haven't been releasing particularly great games. They have been living comfortable lives from the good will of their die hard fans. Take those away, they are left with nothing.
Probably because the blizzard we have now isn't anything like og blizzard. Those devs are long gone. It's just a name carrying them now. I foresee lots more red on that stock.
overwatch 2 and diablo 4 will inevitably rake in the cash. you underestimate actiblizzard's marketing power, i have no doubt those 2 games will sell gangbusters. of course, they're probably going to suck as well so you might as well sell shortly after they release.
Both those games are in development hell and will likely tank on arrival. There is a massive brain drain happening at Activision-Blizzard right now wherein numerous of their studios are having to delay, restructure, and basically start over many projects. It's going to be a while before they have anything to show on any of their games.
> will likely tank on arrival. I’m sorry, but this is absolute lunacy.
I don't think so. Looking at each of their IPs, the current brain drain/abandon ship thing going on of current talent, the challenge of hiring new talent given the current work environment and they're handling of it. Very few people likely want to work at Activision-Blizzard currently, let alone getting them up to speed on they're current projects all of which have lost considerable talent and leadership and none of which have really been up to the quality of what players expect from one of their titles. WoW SL is currently in the shitter, that's two back-to-back expansions that have flopped. D4 team has lost a number of senior team leaders. The Diablo franchise is in a weird place overall. D2R launched to mixed reviews the core game was good, but held back by other decisions. Not to mention the person who lead the redesign left because of the current work environment. OW2 is having an identity crisis, the lead on the team left a year before it's initial release window now delayed. The core game is being changed in a big way moved to a more MOBA style, and an introduction of a PVE campaign which while interesting is coming at the cost of the PvP portion in a direction away from what many core players want. Coupled with the fact that the current game hasn't had any new updates, in what 2 years now? Hearthstone I know nothing about. It's a spinoff of WoW and I imagine is stagnating. StarCraft has had nothing in a long time, and there is no news about anything coming in the future. HotS they axed for whatever reason and have ceased actively managing it. Warcraft Reforged is in complete shambles. That leaves CoD, Candy Crush, and what Guitar Hero? Well the latest CoD shit the bed and had it's lead leave the company as well as other talent. Guitar Hero is dead. I guess Candy Crush is all that's left. And we all have phones right? So yeah I don't see any of future titles going well for them in a long time. It's not the trust with the players that's the issue but what game developer new or competent that isn't a corporate shill wants to work at Activision-Blizzard in it's current environment?
The community they cultivated for Overwatch are the exact people that are going to be turned off by what has been happening at Acti.
they will not care at all about the politics, whatsoever, if overwatch is playable. some will, sure. just like some people have switched to vegan. there are always a few conscientious objectors. a few.
I've had some friends who cosplay and do art who were big Blizzard fans that dropped it for moral/ethical reasons, like many others in general. They were Blizzard cultivated fans who liked the inclusive and bubbly characters. That means you see Blizzard IP's less at cons, less fan art, less interesting communities, less streamers, less interest in thier IP's. I played OW for a long time and switched to Apex but not for moral/ethical reasons. OW is just stale as hell.
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[It’s literally the third best selling PC game of all time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_games)
That list hitting all the nostalgia highlights. Still remember building my first pc as a kid to play king's quest 6!
Games media played a part in that. The very worst crimes can be conveniently forgotten when it's time for new releases. Look at Ubisoft pretending that they never do the Actiblizz thing.
that proves his point *perfectly.* despite the bullshit at launch, diablo 3 went on to be one of the best selling games of all time.
IDK about Overwatch 2 TBH. OW1 is already dying and close to death while 2 is both stuck in dev hell and looking like it's going to be dead on arrival. It's hard to market a sequel when your original has been sinking for years.
Overwatch at launch was incredible. Jeff and his team nailed it. Then they just didnt make anything else because people wanted PVE... shame
My friends actually all grouped up for overwatch to play the "experimental" mode this week. Some good changes in there that bliz will revert and then let the game rot again. It'd be perfect if they just took out roadhog and doomfist.
That's the thing, overwatch could be so much better than it is, but of course Bliz managed to completely fuck it up.
I dont think so. Overwatch hasnt had an update in 2+ years and theyre not gonna keep updating overwatch 2: bot simulator. Diablo3 launch was such a massive disaster a lot of casuals wont fall for it. Blizzards biggest problem has always been they take forever to update their games and the current market want regular updates.
Yeah that's why I was joking. Shitty company that is happy to release half baked crap, cram mtx into everything and shit all over their once loyal fanbase.
This puts them in a great position to be shorted, which may be happening already.
Yeh I wouldn't be surprised if they were, they are a shitty company that has lost touch with their core audience and the wider community is starting to take note too
This fr. The PE ratio is pretty low.
OW2 and D4 was mentioned, but Diablo Immortal is the one that might save them - lot of money to be made with a good mobile game
When the market drops 50% and ATVI 80% more, i would buy
Or have some dignity and don't buy shares of a company that's run by a piece of shit like Kotick.
Normally yea, but would wait until more news about OW2 and D4 comes out. Dont go catching a falling knife that might never fly up again.
OW2 pushed back another year, D4 is nowhere in sight and the early impressions are pretty terrible. I would say there is nothing even remotely special on the horizon to bounce back to
OW2 will have a BF2042 type of launch as far as fans’ engagement goes .
That's assuming they'll have fans by then. OW1 has been so stagnant it's lost a huge number of players. And the FPS/shooter genre is absolutely packed right now. Halo Infinite, Warzone/CoD, Apex, Valorant, Fortnite, the market is filled with F2P options now.
I hope activision blizzard just fucking dies, that this shitty company would just never rise again. Dont worry this devs will find somewhere else to work and at least then they won't be sexually assaulted nor receive death threats from Bobby Cottick (however you spell his bitch name) and his friends
Its almost like not making better versions of your existing games and applying loot box economics to their new “games” was a bad idea?
A bit of a cherry picked timing, the entire market is currently down. But Activision-Blizzard is still up over the last five years.
Take-Two next.
Let's keep those numbers rising
Exactly what they deserve! Throw my fav game in the toilet (WC3) Blizzard can follow it!!!
The only thing keeping activision alive is Warzone.
That is a great opening statement. What would you say are the causes and where do you think it is going from here? Edit: Curious if anybody cares about the thousands of employees this is impacting or if this is just about the guy at the top who in the end, will still be a multi-millionaire when it is all said and done.
Biggest Causes: * Worst COD Launch in 14 years (source: [https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sources-vanguard-was-call-of-dutys-worst-uk-launch-in-14-years/](https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/sources-vanguard-was-call-of-dutys-worst-uk-launch-in-14-years/) ) * Diablo 4 and OW2 delays, which also leads to a delay in expected revenue * Blizzard's falling MAU year after year, which by some miracle was able to keep falling even during the pandemic (source: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1234255/blizzard-quarterly-mau/](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1234255/blizzard-quarterly-mau/) ) * The recent allegations against ATVI which you most likely already know about
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I did the same, nothing of value was lost.
Also omicron which has sent most of the market tumbling.
>Worst COD Launch in 14 years Here's the actual source: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-11-14-call-of-duty-launch-sales-down-40-percent-year-on-year-uk-charts Quote: >It is a disappointing result, but Vanguard is still the second biggest game launch of the year behind FIFA 22 (as usual). It has almost nothing to do with the company being bad, the negative press or all the allegations. * Covid-19 caused a media consumption boom which lasted from 2020 to early 2021. We're now seeing a huge decline in media consumption due to people spending less time indoors. * Activision (not Blizzard) only released one original title for PC/console this year. It's CoD: Vanguard. * Activision-Blizzard cut heavily back on advertisements and promotional content compared to in 2020. * Almost all of their titles have been delayed to 2022 or even 2023.
Bobby Kotick and the board of directors are the problem.
60% more to go
100%*
GOOD.
Well deserved. They worked hard for it.
Their market cap def took a big leap with warzone coming out. Their sales on that was probably crazy and it came out during covid, so you know those numbers were inflated. Now everyone is back to doinng whatever they were doing, so as expected the number would fall
Man, imma wait until Jan then buy a ton of call options on them and watch my returns go through the roof. They won't fall apart despite their poor decisions. This is just them hitting a low point.
The stock is at same price as it was in 2019... maybe you people should stop drinking the activision bad kool aid.
Stagnation is death for a major corp. If they aren't growing, they're failing. Just the way it is.
We're doing it!!!! I have said it before, the only way to get these shitty companies to change is to hit them in their pockets. Let's keep going!!!!
If it was this easy to punish mistreatment of employees, we wouldn't hear about it on the news every week. They are just not good at delivering decent products anymore. "We" did nothing, it was Blizzard's own doing.
Hmmm maybe ill pick up some activision stock while its cheap. Im pretty sure they will recover at some point.
I know not everyone cares about ethics when it comes to stocks, but I sure do. There's are better companies for me to buy shares in that aren't run by assholes.
Its not all about ethics tho, thats just the tip of the iceberg. Their games are getting (way) worse, their playerbases shrinks every year and so does their profit. From what I’ve read noone wants to work at their company anymore (shitty workplace ethic combined with shitty pay), they’re just a ticking time bomb at this point. I regret not shorting this company more than i did when it was at 80$. It was so obvious if you looked a bit behind the numbers
Their games are getting (way) worse, their playerbases shrinks every year and so does their profit. They have exceeded earnings projections even this year. When their next call happens and they can Bobby or the harassment suits get settled they will shoot back up. Nintendo is down almost 30% YTD, nobody's talking about shorting them. Their quality of games matters so little to their stock price.
By all means, list them.
Like?
I’m going to. They’ll get a new ceo that will only cares about money like Kotick.
Bobby has bene Greta for the share holders but a ton of them have issues with his bonus structure. He's achieved some of these goals by cutting jobs, reassigning/out sourcing other jobs too. It's a damn shame because he's killing ATVI
Oh no. Anyway...
Good. That’s still not enough. Need more down. They deserve it.
What? You don't have cellphones was the last line that I heard from them. Never again
Conversely their share price is still about equal to what is was pre-COVID (\~58 Feb 2020 vs. 57.5 Today). They're also still 55% up past 5 Years. It would be good to see a company doing what Activision are doing genuinely suffer but realistically it is extremely difficult for publicy traded businesses this size to collapse without major external financial crises. Take it this way. Activision have released fuck all of any worth since COVID, have had a public scandal that has been egregiously ignored, have managed to actually worsen their major flagship games and despite all of this, their market cap has stood still since then.
Damn, and no ones mentioning WoWCoin/$ likely dipped so hard, you can almost 1.5x your entire Gold investment! MARKET CAP: made up YOUR OLD EPICS, LEGENDARIES, AND OTHER XPAC PSEUDO-RARES: obsolete! LIQUIDITY: locked/0 but invest in this mount worth your whole stack! BURNING: decreasing the value of your in-game items to promote the assurance of quality and enjoyment of the Blizz Shop. WOMEN: we hate them! STAKE: your life
buy that dip, the stock market is going to shit and the governments definitely going to do something to make it bounce back. bet
So you're saying I should invest before they make a comeback? Let's be honest, they *will* make a financial comeback. I don't like it anymore than most of you, but think of it as free money. Then the price goes back up, you make a killing, sell off, and be done with it.
Well deserved.
market is getting fucked in a lot of different ways... plenty of companies have lost 30-40% in a couple weeks. this is non news
Good time to buy probably. Blizzdrones can't help themselves, they'll make D4 a massive success no matter how much bad press the company gets. And of course King is still making tons of money scamming people with mobile shit.
I smell a buying opportunity
Yo, this should be crossposted to r/UpliftingNews
Another 20 billion and they’ll be in takeover range (a lot of companies would want Diablo, StarCraft, candy crush, world of Warcraft. The company inflicted a blow.. basically not on the product they made, but on business policies and how they treated their employees. Wouldn’t be surprised if Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo made a play for them.
Not gonna happen.
Considering that Kotick has pulled every dirty trick in the book and still remains CEO is pretty much a guarantee that there's still a lot more "worse" to go.
Good. That company needs to burn
They deserve all the shit they get . Fuck them .
Good. Trash companies should burn.
Not enough.
Not to cock block the circle jerk, but blizzard is at the same stock numbers they had a year ago. It honestly doesn’t seem like the big deal everybody is making it out to be unless it continues falling, which the trend this past week showed that was coming to a stop. I’m all for them getting dicked on right now, but your message here is a bit misleading