Blizzard used to me my absolute favourite game company; its so sad how they have fallen off since they got bought by Activision.

Well, King makes almost twice as much money as Blizzard iirc, so I would say that they're focusing their resources in the right places.

Making $60 desktop games is just a horrible business to be in, the development costs are too high, and the return is too low. Why would you make a AAA title when you can make Candy Crush? It only makes sense to divert resources where the ROI picture is prettier.

maybe this way of thinking is why japenese developers have been doing so well?

I know that everyone is in for the money, but there's an undeniable difference in how they view the result of their work.

sometimes in western companies it feels like everyone is just sprinting towards a buyout / merger to cash out.

I think I parted ways with them when they went to online account required for a single-player game.

Company culture matters

MS could decide to prevent resale of next new game to be release on the PS like they did with Starfield. However, they are still significantly better than Sony, so can’t complain too much. This acquisition is probably a good thing for the game developers tho

Looking forward to revisiting this quote in 5 years.

One thing you learn as you get older is that things can always get worse.

I wonder if a lot of the hostility was the result of cost cutting to prepare the company for sale?

By all accounts the sale agreement came together rapidly in the light of dark revelations about the state of Blizzard's work culture. I think the company has just been authentically bad without that pressure

How the AVB board did not immediately fire Kotick when it came out that he not only knew about the horrific culture of sexual harassment and hazing in his workplace, but that he withheld it from them, is absolutely baffling to me. Maybe that's what spurred this on.

Ironically, in the age of the internet it has brought things like access to the entire planets information for free, connection with everyone in the world for free, almost free same day shipping, etc. Not saying there aren't trade offs (you have to look at ads) but broadly speaking, it's never been better to be a consumer than right now.