Play Nice - A Preview Inside Activision and Blizzard’s Corporate Warcraft

Blizzard Posted 19 days ago by Archimtiros

Play NicePlay NicePlay Nicethis particular sectioncancelation of project Titan

Play Nice, Preview on Bloomberg

The key to Blizzard’s success was a philosophy, instilled since the early days, to value players above profits and to give every game as much time as it needed—a lesson learned in 1996, when the first Diablo missed Christmas but still sold a million copies, which was a big haul at the time. “It’ll be ready when it’s ready,” Blizzard employees liked to say.

In contrast, Kotick believed in games with what he called the “potential to be exploited every year across every platform,” and the floors of his company were littered with the corpses of franchises that had been sucked completely dry. Among them were Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Skylanders, which paired physical toys with a video game in an especially lucrative combination.

Play Nice, Preview on Bloomberg

Suddenly, finance people who’d otherwise been relegated to the background were fixtures in strategy meetings, asking why Hearthstone, a Magic: The Gathering-esque mobile game, wasn’t pushing players to buy card packs more often and why Overwatch, an online shooting game, wasn’t selling maps and heroes to generate extra revenue.

Zerza seemed perplexed why Blizzard was maintaining expensive projects with low profit margins, such as the annual BlizzCon event. Blizzard managers explained that having their own convention engendered loyalty from customers and employees. Zerza suggested they kill it...

Play Nice, Preview on Bloomberg

In April 2018, Johnson organized an off-site event for leaders of all three divisions: Activision Publishing, Blizzard and King. The theme was unification, or “One ABK,” as Johnson called it in the meeting. Kotick and Johnson were putting a corporate slogan behind a dynamic that had been apparent to Morhaime for years: Blizzard was losing its independence.

After the off-site, Morhaime wrote a lengthy email to Kotick, shared with several other executives, declaring that Blizzard had reached a tipping point. “I believe that preserving Blizzard’s culture and magic is a necessity for preserving Activision Blizzard’s advantage of having an organization that can attract and retain the best creative talent in the world and that can consistently produce the highest quality games and experiences,” he wrote. “It has been increasingly hard for me to provide Blizzard leadership and staff confidence that Blizzard has a stable future.”
Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment

Play Nice

For video game fans, the name Blizzard Entertainment was once synonymous with perfection. The renowned company behind classics like Diablo and World of Warcraft was known to celebrate the joy of gaming over all else. What was once two UCLA students' simple mission — to make games they wanted to play — launched an empire with thousands of employees, millions of fans, and billions of dollars.

But when Blizzard cancelled a buzzy project in 2013, it gave Bobby Kotick, the infamous CEO of corporate parent Activision, the excuse he needed to start cracking down on Blizzard's proud autonomy. Activision began invading Blizzard from the inside. Glitchy products, PR disasters, mass layoffs, and a staggering lawsuit marred the company's reputation and led to its ultimate reckoning.

Based on firsthand interviews with more than 300 current and former employees, Play Nice chronicles the creativity, frustration, beauty, and betrayal across the epic 33-year saga of Blizzard Entertainment, showing us what it really means to "bleed Blizzard blue." Full of colorful personalities and dramatic twists, this is the story of what happens when the ruthless pursuit of profit meets artistic idealism.

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Comment by AllikazamLike reading an obituary.Comment by corrupt733Who reads this stuff lolComment by Rainy89And now, without Kotick even being there, Blizzcon has been axed. Nothing has changed.Comment by shmohawkeJason Schreier is an extremely sketchy person.Comment by NkaraIt's not a big surprise and I think it's been obvious which way it's been going the whole time and honestly just getting worse. Sure, more frequent content is nice but not if it's not working. Dragonflight was full of bugs and TWW even more so and the guild bank robbery was the nail in the coffin for me.

It must be so frustrating working at Blizzard to see WoW executed in such a messy and disrespectful manner to the creative powers as well as loyal players.Comment by VegiJason Schreier is an extremely sketchy person.Comment by IsahepIt's not a big surprise and I think it's been obvious which way it's been going the whole time and honestly just getting worse. Sure, more frequent content is nice but not if it's not working. Dragonflight was full of bugs and TWW even more so and the guild bank robbery was the nail in the coffin for me.

It must be so frustrating working at Blizzard to see WoW executed in such a messy and disrespectful manner to the creative powers behind it.Comment by DoodMan555Jason has historically been one of the sleazier and dishonest tabloid style 'journalists', so I don't get why anyone would waste their money on his stuff.Comment by KanariyaThe end-stage result of Capitalism in video games. It will always come down to profit, and will end up being only about profit, no matter what. Certainly not unique to Blizzard, and it won't be the last time we see what was once a well-intentioned high quality studio desecrated for money.Comment by Setsuna665It's not a big surprise and I think it's been obvious which way it's been going the whole time and honestly just getting worse. Sure, more frequent content is nice but not if it's not working. Dragonflight was full of bugs and TWW even more so and the guild bank robbery was the nail in the coffin for me.

It must be so frustrating working at Blizzard to see WoW executed in such a messy and disrespectful manner to the creative powers behind it.Comment by ThaodanLike reading an obituary.Comment by TigerAceRayIt's not a big surprise and I think it's been obvious which way it's been going the whole time and honestly just getting worse. Sure, more frequent content is nice but not if it's not working. Dragonflight was full of bugs and TWW even more so and the guild bank robbery was the nail in the coffin for me.

It must be so frustrating working at Blizzard to see WoW executed in such a messy and disrespectful manner to the creative powers as well as loyal players.Comment by KaptainKrunkFriendly reminder Schreier knew what was going on in ABK for years and sat on the information while publishing juicy expose articles every week about the troubles inside the studio, and is now grifting money off of it with this book.Comment by Setsuna665It's not a big surprise and I think it's been obvious which way it's been going the whole time and honestly just getting worse. Sure, more frequent content is nice but not if it's not working. Dragonflight was full of bugs and TWW even more so and the guild bank robbery was the nail in the coffin for me.

It must be so frustrating working at Blizzard to see WoW executed in such a messy and disrespectful manner to the creative powers as well as loyal players.Comment by TrajerIt's not a big surprise and I think it's been obvious which way it's been going the whole time and honestly just getting worse. Sure, more frequent content is nice but not if it's not working. Dragonflight was full of bugs and TWW even more so and the guild bank robbery was the nail in the coffin for me.

It must be so frustrating working at Blizzard to see WoW executed in such a messy and disrespectful manner to the creative powers as well as loyal players.Comment by BlackDragonAJ89"What do you think was actually going on in the biggest frat house outside of UC Irvine, anyway?"

While Bobby did cause a lot of problems, he wasn't the only thing that caused Blizzard to derail itself and have to rebuild itself to get to the point where it is now... And I'm still wondering if Blizzard can keep going after the world soul saga's done given there's really nothing else for them besides WoW.Comment by immenseIt's not a big surprise and I think it's been obvious which way it's been going the whole time and honestly just getting worse. Sure, more frequent content is nice but not if it's not working. Dragonflight was full of bugs and TWW even more so and the guild bank robbery was the nail in the coffin for me.

It must be so frustrating working at Blizzard to see WoW executed in such a messy and disrespectful manner to the creative powers as well as loyal players.Comment by Clinoclase"What do you think was actually going on in the biggest frat house outside of UC Irvine, anyway?"

While Bobby did cause a lot of problems, he wasn't the only thing that caused Blizzard to derail itself and have to rebuild itself to get to the point where it is now... And I'm still wondering if Blizzard can keep going after the get the world soul saga done given there's really nothing else for them besides WoW.

I think they're too busy doing sex crimes to care.Comment by orryerAnd what bugs? TWW has been pretty flawless.Comment by TigerAceRayIt's not a big surprise and I think it's been obvious which way it's been going the whole time and honestly just getting worse. Sure, more frequent content is nice but not if it's not working. Dragonflight was full of bugs and TWW even more so and the guild bank robbery was the nail in the coffin for me.

It must be so frustrating working at Blizzard to see WoW executed in such a messy and disrespectful manner to the creative powers as well as loyal players.

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