/biz/ - Business & Finance

>>11622962
>blizzard used to make games for gamers
>then they were bought by activision and only cared about profits

How /v/ do you have to be to believe this? Blizzard ALWAYS was a company that looked for the most profitable sectors and went after it hard. It started with console targeting the small market for games, then they realized the could make more money off hardcore gamers so moved to the PC, then WoW was unexpectedly popular with normies so they moved to casuals.

>Warcraft 1/2 was a blatant business decision to make a clone of an emerging genre/market based of stolen IP with the PC identified as a large growth area since most developers (including Blizzard) were focusing on consoles
>battle.net service was Blizzard's business attempt to control the online space long-term (i.e. their Gamespy/Steam)
>D2/WC3 expanding their IP and battle.net base while milking their existing customer base for more revenue
>WoW was a business plan to get revenue from a subscription base that they expected to be hardcores but to their great fortune was popular with casuals too (they planned WoW to last 10 years)
>SC2 literally a cash grab to solidify their esport penetration
>D3 an actually good game that was designed for constant revenue via in game real money auction house (later abandoned because of gamer autism)
>HS is another obvious business decision by finding a niche ripe for exploitation (selling virtual assets) and copying an existing game to get that market
>HotS is another esports grab
>Overwatch is another virtual goods strategy this time via lotteries for goods

Stop romanticising Blizzard as a company that put games and gamers first before it was taken over by corporate interests. Gamers like their old games because their *market* at the time was gamers. And now it isn't. But they never had any real loyalty or care for gamers beyond them being a source of revenue. Blizzard has ALWAYS been 100% about making assloads of money. They're a great *company*.