Blizzard dies and Bobby rides

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OU Ariakas

OU Ariakas

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Chris said:
But what has he personally done?

Given what happened at Blizzard, corporate oversight, fund allocation or media management clearly isn't a strong point of his. Blizzard run right would be making MUCH more money.

I think most people parachuted into the top of a corporation could exploit the goodwill and talents of others to make a short term profit.
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Fucking Christ man, you just don't get it.

MICROSOFT run right would be making MUCH more money.
FACEBOOK run right would be making MUCH more money.
CHEVY run right would be making MUCH more money.

These companies operate on a different level from what you can even imagine. Entities as big as Activision are not agile. R&D used to be about identifying a gap in the market and building a new part of the company to exploit it; but now that has turned into identifying that gap and then buying a small company that is capable of exploiting it because the downside cost of being wrong is tens to thousands of times greater than the cost of integrating the new company. This is because the executive is so far removed from the front line talent that they cannot adequately monitor their talent pool and direct it to the most profitable endeavor. This is further hindered by the fact that red tape in each department slows every project down to a crawl that makes the cost of failure exponentially higher than the benefits of success.

I am going to repeat this again because you seem to be missing the point. Blizzard (and other companies that have hit the 'national/multinational corporation' level) would choose the certainty of making 1% more margin next year ONE THOUSAND TIMES OUT OF ONE THOUSAND over a 50/50 chance at either making 30% more margin or 10% less next year.
 
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Chris

Chris

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OU Ariakas said:
Fucking Christ man, you just don't get it.

MICROSOFT run right would be making MUCH more money.
FACEBOOK run right would be making MUCH more money.
CHEVY run right would be making MUCH more money.

These companies operate on a different level from what you can even imagine. Entities as big as Activision are not agile. R&D used to be about identifying a gap in the market and building a new part of the company to exploit it; but now that has turned into identifying that gap and then buying a small company that is capable of exploiting it because the downside cost of being wrong is tens to thousands of times greater than the cost of integrating the new company. This is because the executive is so far removed from the front line talent that they cannot adequately monitor their talent pool and direct it to the most profitable endeavor. This is further hindered by the fact that red tape in each department slows every project down to a crawl that makes the cost of failure exponentially higher than the benefits of success.

I am going to repeat this again because you seem to be missing the point. Blizzard (and other companies that have hit the 'national/multinational corporation' level) would choose the certainty of making 1% more margin next year ONE THOUSAND TIMES OUT OF ONE THOUSAND over a 50/50 chance at either making 30% more margin or 10% less next year.
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...which leads to mediocre or shit product and long term profit damage

If Bobby was worth the money he would be making the correct 50/50 choice each time and getting 30% more margin each time.

Anyone can make the safe 1% margin choice. You just need to be a rich Jew to get your foot in the door.

When they circumsize their slave class, it's to make you feel a kinship with them and defend them.
 
OU Ariakas

OU Ariakas

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Chris said:
...which leads to mediocre or shit product and long term profit damage

If Bobby was worth the money he would be making the correct 50/50 choice each time and getting 30% more margin each time.

Anyone can make the safe 1% margin choice. You just need to be a rich Jew to get your foot in the door.
Click to expand...

You have literally 0 analytical skills. Do you understand that we need mediocre giants in the market? It is a barometer for if you have the talent to compete or not. It gives stability to a very unstable industry. It gives people that aren't sure if they are cut out for it a place to learn the process. The only reason you are arguing like this is because you grew up loving Blizzard and think that they are still the scrappy company that you loved. They are not. In fact, I bet they are really close to the point where Bobby is thinking it is about time to kill it off as a studio and just keep the name at the top of the company. Also, Bobby is absolutely worth the money because decisions aren't made in a vacuum and Bobby delivering $2 BILLION in net profit (that's almost a 30% profit margin) is something few other executives can claim to be doing.
 
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Daidraco

Daidraco

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Chris said:
...which leads to mediocre or shit product and long term profit damage

If Bobby was worth the money he would be making the correct 50/50 choice each time and getting 30% more margin each time.

Anyone can make the safe 1% margin choice. You just need to be a rich Jew to get your foot in the door.

When they circumsize their slave class, it's to make you feel a kinship with them and defend them.
Click to expand...
Just stop, bro.
 
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Neranja

Neranja

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Chris said:
...which leads to mediocre or shit product and long term profit damage
Click to expand...
You think that Blizzard tries to increase box sales and sub numbers. This is not necessarily true, and if you read the financial reports it becomes more obvious.

Hypothetical options:
  1. With 10 million subscribers for $15 a month (disregarding credit card fees and discounts) you have $150M a month income = $150M
  2. With 5 million subscribers for $15 a month you get $75M/month, but on top of that you get $50M from the shop (mounts, transmogs, services, token sales) = $125M
So why would you go with option number 2 instead of number 1? Blizzard isn't chasing more subscriptions anymore, because:
  • they know they have reached their peak (12.5M or so), have therefore saturated the potential market of subscribers
  • they can't bring back old players that have quit for good (Classic was one last huzzah for them)
  • the younger generation isn't interested in the MMORPG genre, or the subscription business model
  • the operation costs (servers, traffic, GM team) for the second case are much lower than in the first case
Punch line facts from the financial reports:
  • Revenue is up
  • 40% of revenue is from the cash shop and services (and not subscription)
  • Benchmark is 70%
The irony here is that Blizzard thought they could milk their invested playerbase. The so-called "lifers" like Asmongold, that complain all the time, but at the end still buy the box, the pig, the cat, the token. And if it's not Asmongold himself, his fanbase will do it for him.

Blizzard losing a lot of subs and support from their prominent content creators hurt them a lot. This may be the reason for the new "council": they believe they have already lost the bitching part of their players, so they try to make the ones they still have happy. At the same time they can't go free to play, because that would be like admitting defeat.

Activision would like Blizzard to make WoW into a seasonal "battle pass" like game, which fits their content and schedule more. But that would be admitting defeat when FFXIV is going strong with the subscription model.
 
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Pharone

Pharone

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Activision Blizzard Employees Stage A Walkout Calling For CEO Bobby Kotick's Resignation

Update: More than 1300 Activision Blizzard employees have signed a petition demanding that CEO Bobby Kotick resign in the wake of this week's Wall Street Journal report alleging his failure to act on knowledge of misconduct at studios within the company.

At the time of writing, the petition lists 1337 employees from across various Activision Blizzard departments and studios, and carries the following statement:
Click to expand...
We, the undersigned, no longer have confidence in the leadership of Bobby Kotick as the CEO of Activision Blizzard. The information that has come to light about his behaviors and practices in the running of our companies runs counter to the culture and integrity we require of our leadership--and directly conflicts with the initiatives started by our peers. We ask that Bobby Kotick remove himself as CEO of Activision Blizzard, and that shareholders be allowed to select the new CEO without the input of Bobby, who we are aware owns a substantial portion of the voting rights of the shareholders.
Click to expand...

First off, kudos on getting 1337 employees on the petition. That nod to elite is awesome.

Secondly, I have to say that what would be funnier is if we saw a report come out that 1337 employees were let go today by the CEO of said company because of a lack of "doing their fucking job rather than coming up with new ways to fuck off and waste company time." Just saying. I would lol a little. Maybe a lot.
 
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C

Captain Suave

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Chris said:
If Bobby was worth the money he would be making the correct 50/50 choice each time and getting 30% more margin each time
Click to expand...

Humans are more loss averse than they are reward seeking. Risks with large downsides are only rational if you have no maximum loss threshold and infinite time horizons. A 10% down year as a result of speculation would result in leadership being fired immediately.
 
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Mist

Mist

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Chris said:
If Bobby was worth the money he would be making the correct 50/50 choice each time
Click to expand...
lol no. When you're talking very complex decisions, smart people make the best choice like 60-70% of the time on average. This idea that there are people out there with perfect decision making is a complete fantasy.

This is why the key to business success is to get over the natural human tendency towards decision-paralysis. For instance, the key to winning in investment is to make a lot of bets and be right slightly more than average. Knowing when to make a decision quickly even if it's the wrong one is an important skill.
 
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Chris

Chris

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Well I'm convinced. Bobby is clearly the pinnacle of capitalism and we should consume his products to support such stellar corporate desicion making. Sure we are not having fun, but that's just how it works.
 
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Chysamere

Chysamere

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Neranja said:
You think that Blizzard tries to increase box sales and sub numbers. This is not necessarily true, and if you read the financial reports it becomes more obvious.

Hypothetical options:
  1. With 10 million subscribers for $15 a month (disregarding credit card fees and discounts) you have $150M a month income = $150M
  2. With 5 million subscribers for $15 a month you get $75M/month, but on top of that you get $50M from the shop (mounts, transmogs, services, token sales) = $125M
So why would you go with option number 2 instead of number 1? Blizzard isn't chasing more subscriptions anymore, because:
  • they know they have reached their peak (12.5M or so), have therefore saturated the potential market of subscribers
  • they can't bring back old players that have quit for good (Classic was one last huzzah for them)
  • the younger generation isn't interested in the MMORPG genre, or the subscription business model
  • the operation costs (servers, traffic, GM team) for the second case are much lower than in the first case
Punch line facts from the financial reports:
  • Revenue is up
  • 40% of revenue is from the cash shop and services (and not subscription)
  • Benchmark is 70%
The irony here is that Blizzard thought they could milk their invested playerbase. The so-called "lifers" like Asmongold, that complain all the time, but at the end still buy the box, the pig, the cat, the token. And if it's not Asmongold himself, his fanbase will do it for him.

Blizzard losing a lot of subs and support from their prominent content creators hurt them a lot. This may be the reason for the new "council": they believe they have already lost the bitching part of their players, so they try to make the ones they still have happy. At the same time they can't go free to play, because that would be like admitting defeat.

Activision would like Blizzard to make WoW into a seasonal "battle pass" like game, which fits their content and schedule more. But that would be admitting defeat when FFXIV is going strong with the subscription model.
Click to expand...

I doubt WoW has over a million subs at this point.
 
Mist

Mist

REEEEeyore
<Gold Donor>
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Chris said:
Well I'm convinced. Bobby is clearly the pinnacle of capitalism and we should consume his products to support such stellar corporate desicion making. Sure we are not having fun, but that's just how it works.
Click to expand...
Well you could just go do something else instead of making a hobby out of complaining about video games, but then this forum wouldn't exist (which would probably be a good thing.)
 
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S

Secrets

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1637364385774.png


Incubus in 9.2

I can safely say that I do not like this model, and I would not fuck it. Nor would I watch it slap its own ass.
This shit looks like a male version of that terribly designed mob type from Omens of War EQ... the Pyrilens.

1637364587749.png


I didn't think it was possible for me to not like degenerate shit, but Blizzard has surprised me yet again.
 
  • 1Barf
Reactions: 1 user
Janx

Janx

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Secrets said:
View attachment 383425

Incubus in 9.2

I can safely say that I do not like this model, and I would not fuck it. Nor would I watch it slap its own ass.
This shit looks like a male version of that terribly designed mob type from Omens of War EQ... the Pyrilens.

View attachment 383426

I didn't think it was possible for me to not like degenerate shit, but Blizzard has surprised me yet again.
Click to expand...
I thought Blizzard was done objectifying the sexes?
 
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