Activision-Blizzard Loses Millions, Tigole Leaves WoW Team
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iTZKooPA on Friday, February 13, 2009 - 23 Comments Tags: Tigole, activision blizzard, cash cow, diablo 3, earnings call, jeff kaplan, merger, money, paul sams, starcraft 2, unannounced mmorpg
iTZKooPA on Friday, February 13, 2009 - 23 Comments Tags: Tigole, activision blizzard, cash cow, diablo 3, earnings call, jeff kaplan, merger, money, paul sams, starcraft 2, unannounced mmorpg 
A few massive announcements came out of Activision-Blizzard yesterday. The first few came during their business-laden earnings call with investors. Turns out that one of the industry's premiere publishers did not have a great end to 2008, posting a loss of over $72 million. Since Blizzard contributed over $1 billion (with a b) in revenue to the company, imagine how much money they would have lost if they hadn't merged with Vivendi Games. Granted, Vivendi probably brought their own baggage to the merger, but I would hazard to guess that their cash cow would have covered their losses.
We have plenty more from the earnings call, though. Blizzard's CEO Paul Sams announced that the company would release a "frontline" title every year. When I heard that, I immediately got pissed off at the merger. I figured it was the end of an era. The shareholders had finally "won," forcing the company to release titles against their mantra. While Kotick may spout that Activision would not mess with Blizzard's culture, such a decision must have been brought on by external forces.
Then I calmed down, sobered up and thought about Blizzard's future rationally.
Blizzard is currently working on StarCraft II - which is being separated into three different SKUs - Diablo III, a third unannounced WoW expansion (we assume), and a new unnamed MMORPG. That is four distinct projects, spanning six separate releases. Conceivably, they could stretch those titles out for the next few years, driving StarCraft fans nuts in the process. In reality, Blizzard actually has plenty of projects, in different stages of development, to cover their game-a-year strategy without damaging their reputation.
For those StarCraft junkies out there, Sams confirmed that the company would make non-WoW revenue this year. This puts the good money on StarCraft II's Wings of Liberty chapter seeing a 2009 release.
The biggest bomb of them all did not come from the earnings call, but from Tigole. The EQ2 guild master turned game designer has stepped down from his position on WoW's development team to move to the unannounced MMORPG. To me, the move puts the game at the earlier stages of development. Why would they want such an experienced MMOG designer to come in at the end of the project? Polish? Unlikely. I believe he moved to the new team because Blizzard is finishing up the early design document stages and about to get into the nitty-gritty details. Thanks for all the hard work Tigole!
There is one thing I would love to see from Blizzard, a revival of their old console properties. New titles for the Nintendo DS from The Lost Vikings, Blackthorne and Rock 'N Roll Racing franchises would be awesome. It could even give Blizzard a chance to branch out into new IP without too much of a risk, while enabling them to put more titles into the market - something ActiBlizz's shareholders would love on the balance sheets.
What do you guys think? Is Activision influencing Blizzard like I originally feared, or are Blizzard's ducks just lining up in a yearly fashion? Would you like to see Blizzard return to their console past? How will WoW fair without Tigole?
Reader Comments (23)
i dont think that Diablo 3 will be this new MMORPG.
World of Starcraft or World of Guitar Hero mb. xD
It will be interesting to see what this new MMORPG will be. i would like to know what its story line/ theme will be.
Warcraft 4 please.
Rock n' Roll Racing! Now that game brings me back to my childhood, I loved that game like no other. Hopefully the Starcraft games will come out sooner than later. That franchise used to be the only computer game that I really was into (normally I'm a console fan). If they can offer what they've promised in those games, they should turn out pretty well.
Tigole /tear
I'd be surprised if they came out with another MMO on the PC, the only thing it will do is compete with WoW. I don't know many people that would pay another monthly fee long term for another game. So they would just be competing with themselves like every failed MMO that has come out since 2003.
As for console games, I would love to see Blackthorne rereased - even if its just updated graphics for the xbox arcade.
To be fair, they probably lost some subscribers too who saw WoW as more of a luxury than a necessity in this global economic crisis. That probably accounted for a slight dip from Blizzard's side.
And Activision are the new EA, as EA bring out new titles (Mirror's Edge, Dead Space etc), Activision just works on rehashes.
But yeah, the future is brighter.
To the third comment down, technicly, WoW is W4, picking up where W3 left off upon Arthas claiming the frozen throne over illidan, so instead of making W4, a good RTS version of WoW, where tanks,healers,and dps will be wanted/needed, and instead of heros you can pick a weak *hero* type character in the beginning, and level him and gear him as the RTS continues.
As an Activision-Blizzard shareholder, I was very disappointed with the news yesterday, but remain confident about the future. I'm shocked that Blizzard isn't having more of an impact on the shares since, as you said, it's a cash cow. That's the exact reason I bought the stock! If Activision knows what's good for them they'll let Blizzard do it's thing that keep's us all flocking to their games.
Let's hope the big-wigs there are as smart as the rest of us.
Well I can see starcraft 2 releasing this year. I can also see the next wow expansion hitting spring of 2010. Add diablo 3 late 2010 or early 2011. Blizzards new mmo hitting 2012. By this time the economy will be turned around, next gen consoles will be out and activision will be giving blizzard free reign. just sayin'
/cry....why? Over 11 million subscribers at $15/month...who's loosing money? Cry me a river. Say only half of that 11 mil pay every month, that's $74,950,000 /month. I'm sorry but that $72 million aint shit...thats not even one month of subscriptions worth. What they need to do is put more money into the raid content/lack there of. Naxx is a good new KZ, but it's not new/unique, no thought went into it for Wotlk. So for raid content, the only new things we got were 2 dragons....thanks? Now we got to wait a few more months for new content. As for achievements, you shouldn't have to do an achiv to make a boss fight difficult, they should already be that hard. That's just my opinion on the matter, flame on!
Mark, I'm not here to flame you or anything, but do you know how much it costs for Blizzard to even keep the WoW servers up? I mean there are over a THOUSAND servers holding our realms up, and then there's employees keeping them up to date, employees who keep developing more content. Shortly, there is ALOT of stuff that blizzard needs to pay for with all that money, and I do not think they are earning as much as we think.
I mean just look at the report? They LOST 72 million dollars last year. That means that they ARE using their money, they are even using a bit more than they can afford.
WOS FTW! Starcraft being a big hit like warcraft, i would not doubt if that s the next MMORPG! and i admit, that would be awesome! running around like in WoW but in space!?!
If anybody was at blizzcon or watched it on tv they already announced at the pannels that startcraft and diablo weren't going to be the next MMOs they are branching into something completly new that will be the 4th branch of their buisness since they older games dont sell anymore such as rock n roll racer. Diablo Starcraft and Warcraft being the first 3 branches that actually put Blizzard on the map. Starcraft and Warcraft started as RTS games so its not very suprising that this one is going to start out in more of a MMO style like Diablo did. But thats just my 2 cents.
i must agree with mark blizz is making a ton of money not just off subscriptions but also off of things like paid name changes and the new character re-customization feature they should be doing fine right now
I can definitely see the new wow expansion coming out late 20010 because since original wow came out there was a 2 year difference between either expansions
So about he new un-announced MMO... well a blizzard rep in a recent interview said they know wow will be taken down by some MMO that is to be released, they just hope that it is their own creation. So they basically are gunna do that with their new MMO. I think that a starcraft MMO is most likely. diablo III is supposed to have a multilayer mode to it so that would make no sense competing in that fashion. but starcraft has a much more unique universe that can be expanded and would be very distinct from wow. diablo would be too similar to wow... and i would so quite wow to play diablo mmo though.
dont forget this when you talk about a new MMORPG competing with WoW that wow only stand for about 1% of the worlds populationg in registered players and not all of those players are still playing.
personally i think activision is gonna screw with blizzard majorly. Without Tigole i think wow wont necessarily change too much but I'm sure it will feel different and we will all miss him but I'm supper exited about this new MMORPG, can't wait to hear more details on that.
although i did hear tales about a Starcraft MMORPG quite a while ago, rumors on independent forums and stuff, that would be one to look out for.
You're worrying about a GM leaving WOW? Weird.
I don't really care about any of this. I will pay to play Blizzards games until they suck, as many other people I am sure. Then when they see the loss in profits they will either fix their problems, or they will go down in glorious flames of death. Either could happen lol
Diablo is not a MMO last time I played it, is it classified as that now adays? Either way I'm not as excited as everyone else about this game. StarCraft II is where it's all going to be at.
I really hope that Activision isn't influencing Blizzard, and I really do not believe that could be the case considering what Blizzard brings to the table. It's got power ... enough that if they wanted to they could quite simply say, "No, we're not going to be forced into this, we have the biggest franchise out there and not because of boneheaded decisions"
it would be awesome with another wow expension :) and if the would make warcraft 4