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Thoughts
 

I wrote this a month ago and never got around to actually submitting it because my mood shifted and after re-reading it I thought it was actually pretty shit. But hey whatever. Educate yourselves!


I don't often write blogs without substance. Is that even the right way to phrase it? Probably not. I guess I define "substance" as something the reader actually needs, or wants. Not something they'll read for the sake of reading. But by formal definition, that would invalidate most literature. Well, for the sake of clarity, let's call this a "structured rant." Hurray!

So here we go.

We're all fans of Blizzard Entertainment. Say what you will, but that's the reason you're registered on this website. That's the reason you clicked on this blog. Either that or I fooled you into thinking this was some profound and critically important article, in which case - hah! Sucker. But seriously. There are (brb - checking numbers) 9179 users currently registered to this site. Let's just call it an even 9001 since there are a good number of spam bots and banned users taking up precious bytes.


Each of them, at one point or another, decided that they wanted to be part of something. A community of like-minded individuals. Competitive Gamers. Moderators, Administrators, Tournament directors, Artists, Commentators, hell - even just Fans. But the important part is, they made this conscious decision because they're fans of a game. And inherently, fans of the team of people who created this game. That team is known as Blizzard Entertainment.


So now consider this. Somewhere along the way, these fans became misguided. They witnessed an important piece of information which they simply refused to digest. It could have been anything. It could have been a patch note mentioning that the cost of Salvaging a Terran Bunker had been nerfed. It could have been their favourite Zerg player being eliminated by a Protoss in a tournament. It could have been a report that the Diablo 3 servers had been taken down for 15 minutes of maintenance. Perhaps it was even the announcement that on June 22nd, 2012, Vivendi Société Anonyme will be meeting to discuss whether or not they should sell their 64% shares in the holding company Activision Blizzard.

Now if this is news to you, I know you just blinked twice very quickly, and scanned that sentence to ensure you did indeed read it correctly. Your mind is likely being flooded with questions and possible implications. That's natural. Because you're a fan, and you care about what happens to the company that makes those great games you love. But relax.

Firstly, this isn't the first time it has happened. In fact, this will potentially be like the 7th time this has happened.

1994 - Davidson & Associates ($6,750,000)
1996 - CUC International
1997 - HFS Corporation
1998 - Havas
1998 - Vivendi

Now, there's more to add to this list, but I'm gonna stop here and dispel one of the most common misconceptions. In 2008, Vivendi "acquired" (read: merged with) Activision. To avoid confusing everyone, Vivendi changed their name to Activision Blizzard. Both Activision and Blizzard remained entirely independent companies, with independent management. The majority stakeholder remains one and the same. This part is extremely important, because this single event in time is the one that everyone loves to target.

Just to help it sink in a little deeper: the fact of the matter is - Blizzard have been operating independently under the same banner for 14 years. That same banner decided to acquire Activision (for $18,800,000,000) a few years ago. There are a group of individuals (such as René Penisson, Jean-Bernard Lévy, Michael J. Griffith and the infamous Robert Kotick) who oversee the financial administration of the child companies, but do not get involved with the day-to-day operation (read: development, balance, etc).

So before I continue, I want to share something very awesome with you. A few years ago, Blizzard released this video as part of their 20th Anniversary Celebration. Some of you may have seen it. Most of you probably didn't care enough to sit through an hour of what is probably just another "Making of..." circlejerk. But I truly encourage anyone who has a little bit of free time to sit down and enjoy this video. Hopefully it will inspire you in the same way the Day9 Daily #100 did the first time you watched it. It explains the history of the organisation and allows you to get to know some of the key stakeholders so much better. But most of all, it will allow you to empathise with these people - these gamers - and discover that they're just every day fans of video games like the rest of us. Appreciate their passion.


So hopefully it's been approximately 1 hour since you stopped reading my drivel to watch that video. If not, I'm gonna assume you've already seen it. Good for you!

I'm gonna search around and see if I can find another inspirational video. It was Mike Morhaime's Blizzcon 2009 Opening Ceremony speech where he gave the most sweet and sincere "Thank you" to everyone who decided to purchase a limited edition World of WarCraft pet (Pandaren Monk) from the digital store. Not because the money went into his pocket, but because it enabled them to donate a staggering figure ($1,100,000) to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. They then proceeded to donate an additional $800,000 with the Moonkin Hatchling pet in 2010. Honestly, it was heart warming. The guy is like a big kid who never really grew up.

In the meantime, if you've ever watched the Blizzcon Live Stream, then you'll probably recognise this story. Mike Morhaime gives a tour of his office at Blizzard HQ and talks about the framed letter on the wall from his grandparents, who loaned him the money he needed to start the company.


So now that all of that is out of the way, here's the reason I actually wrote the blog. There are some horrible, misguided fans out there, who will take any opportunity to strike at the communities or developers they sink so much of their time into. Yesterday I saw a guy claim that Team Liquid owes Spades an apology because they didn't delete the thread and handle the matter privately, despite the clause that exists at the bottom of every page generated by their site:

"The opinions expressed by our users do not reflect the official position of TeamLiquid.net or its staff."

And today I witnessed these delightful gems all over the internet, in response to the news that Vivendi might be selling (some of) their shares.

Other users replied to this comment, suggesting that "Blizzard North were the key contributors to the success of Blizzard", and that Activision was responsible for firing this portion of the company.

The real story, however is this.

1993 - Independent company "Condor" comes up with a crappy turn-based game called Diablo. They're looking for a publisher.
1996 - Blizzard Entertainment absorbs Condor and renames them to Blizzard North. Together, the companies re-design the structure of the game and the infamous dungeon crawler is released.
2000 - They released Diablo 2. It was a big hit.
2001 - Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction was released. Also a big hit.
2003 - Bill Roper and 7 other employees leave the company due to wanting to work on a new IP (Hellgate) - they take the project and start their own company, Flagship Studios.
2005 - Blizzard North fails to meet the expectations of Vivendi with Diablo 3. The project is canned, and the organisation is dissolved.

As you can see, all of this happened 3 years before Vivendi even absorbed Activision. But people cling to this misconception like you wouldn't believe. I tried explaining this concisely to a rabid fan, however his response was:
This particular user even went on to challenge my involvement in the gaming community and claimed that I was uninformed! When I asked him to elaborate, his responses were:
A quick search of his forum history reveals he has actually contributed nothing of value besides complaints about Diablo 3.
Of course, we don't need to go looking at other community sites to find examples of such behavior. It happens plenty right here. I'm not gonna go ahead and quote it though, because those people will have a giant freaking whinge and I'd have to edit it out of my blog. You see it all over the Battle.net forums. Team Liquid. Reddit. In fact, it's quickly becoming the norm. It's like people are under the impression that it makes you "cool" and "knowledgeable" to go around spurting ridiculous claims about how the operation of Blizzard went to hell since X event or Y date. These same people are victims to their own glorified memories, where they played an MMO/RTS/RPG for the first time in their lives and everything was new and interesting and dynamic. Then a decade later, they find themselves surprised when those same feelings don't come rushing back. They mistake this feeling of "disappointment" as a legitimate flaw in the game, rather than their own flawed expectations.

Without going into too much detail, you see people do this with World of Warcraft all the time. They'll go on and on about how "Vanilla was so much better" when realistically, it was simply your own experiences in a new genre/game/universe that enhanced the enjoyment for you. When an expansion is released, you want to rediscover that sensation. How many people here played Super Mario Galaxy and thought to themselves, "This is freaking sick!" It was innovative and new and exciting. A whole new dimension of possibilities had been unveiled before us. And with excitement, you went out to pick up Mario Galaxy #2. Within 30 minutes of playing, that underwhelming sensation starts creeping in and you feel disappointed because that feeling of wonder and amazement isn't there this time. You're already familiar with the concepts and it's just the same product in a different skin. It's not that the game sucks, it's just that you've already experienced these concepts and dynamics before.

Want more examples? Ocarina of Time. Widely regarded as one of the greatest titles of time. Zelda had finally taken the leap into 3D and it was exceptional. But for many, Majora's Mask was a disappointment. Disregard the actual story elements - it's essentially the same gameplay (as all Zelda games are). What about Final Fantasy 7 and 8? Sure, let's ignore the whole story component and ultimately the only real differences are Materia vs Draw concepts. But unfortunately FF8 suffered brutally at the hands of unrealistic expectations. And although everyone is excited about Heart of the Swarm, don't set yourself up for disappointment yet again. Don't over-sell it to yourself.