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by Daniel Whitcomb 
Jan 27th 2009 at 11:00AM
So with all the hubbub about 3.0.8's problems, a lot of people are wondering who to blame. Activision seems to be a popular target, with people blaming them for nerfing Blizzard's famed "it's-ready-when-it's-ready" game design cycle and rushing things out the door while they're still buggy and imbalanced.
Popular MMORPG blogger Tobold is in that camp himself. In one of his latest blog posts, he theorizes that Blizzard has been cutting spending for some time now, be it because of falling stock prices or the need to move WoW team members to Diablo 3 or Starcraft 2 or simply because of the economic downturn in general.
As proof, he offers the wildly imbalanced classes, crowded, laggy servers with no signs of relief, and the lack of a new original multi-boss raid instance in Wrath. All of this, he says, are signs of a reduced staff or other cost cutting measures that are preventing Blizzard from fixing the problems that have plagued the game.
Like Mike Schramm, I shy away from simply heaping all the blame on Activision, but Tobold is a pretty respected old school member of the MMORPGing community, so it's tough to dismiss him out of hand. Certainly, in this economy, very few companies can avoid tightening their belts to some degree, and as Tobold has pointed out, Activision Blizzard's overall stock price has dropped significantly.
However, it's probably worth pointing out is that Blizzard is responding to the problems to some degree. They've been transferring characters between servers pretty regularly, and have even opened a few new servers, and we're getting some bug fixes today. It may seem like things are slowing down at Blizzard, but isn't that what we've always expected from them? They take things nice and slow. Usually that ends up being to their advantage. It's just lately that that's become somewhat of a liability.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Economy, Rumors
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 7)
Siorra Jan 27th 2009 9:31PM
People compalined to no end that we looked far too mix 'n' match whilst leveling in TBC, they tried to rectify this with Wrath leveling gear and people complain that nothing looks different.
You just can't win with the WoW audience, can you? :)
Hoggersbud Jan 27th 2009 11:51AM
Sure, maybe Blizzard is cutting costs...
Or maybe there's another explanation or two, such as that bad things sometimes happen. None of the various problems WOW has had lately strike me as ones where lack of money is necessarily to blame.
Unfortunately, we have a lack of information, so we really can't know what's going on. Even some of the complaints that run rampant through the forums....may have different causes even when they sound similar.
Ahoni Jan 27th 2009 11:58AM
"As proof, he offers wild conjecture and anecdotal evidence."
There, fixed that for ya.
Deatheragenator Jan 27th 2009 12:00PM
ITS A PATCH PEOPLE! Why would Activision care if blizzard got a patch out by a certain time.
There have been buggy patches before. I think that the reason is because not a lot of people tested it... and there always seems to be problems that don't appear on the PTR. I beleive that if Activision was rushing blizzard, we would have Starcraft 2.
bub Jan 27th 2009 12:02PM
The activision merger is slowly killing wow.
Gone is the idea of gamers making a game for other gamers.
Now it is indeed about keeping the Activision cash cow afloat.
There are currently two versions of wotlk, there is the amazing, fun level 70 - 80 pve game that I assume was finished before this disastrous merger went ahead, and then there is the post level 80 soiled Band-Aid of a game that has Activision's name all over it.
MechChef Jan 27th 2009 12:04PM
Now that Blizzard is publicly held, of course there's going to be pressure from management to push new products faster.
Welcome to the corporate world.
Above all else, I'm sure corporate pressure was on to meet planned ship dates. And since this isn't a safety critical item, it doesn't matter if it was kind of buggy. The money generated could be quickly dumped back into the company to bring on new employees to keep working on Wrath and to also increase the manpower to meet Starcraft and Diablo deliverables.
comradesean Jan 27th 2009 12:04PM
This guy's proof isn't proof. It's him talking out of his asshole. Blizzard is actually expanding and hiring more members and that's the truth.
You should check out their now hiring section sometime.
comradesean Jan 27th 2009 12:44PM
I do. I do. I dooo oooo.
Kryphon Jan 27th 2009 12:07PM
I've learned 2 things from this post:
1: I'm glad I'm still a casual player.
2: Bloodchills is a self-obsessed douchebag.
Kryphon Jan 27th 2009 12:24PM
Awww, isn't he cute?
EricBarbaric Jan 27th 2009 12:31PM
I'll second that motion.
Mattimus Jan 27th 2009 1:47PM
Bloodchills isn't anything but a troll. He's still a douchebag, but not for the reasons he says. He just wants people to get riled up at him and give him attention. He's responded to over half of these comments with things like "DIAF" for no particular reason, rather than rationally defending his stance on any particular issue. Obviously a troll, just stop feeding him and he'll go away.
Bossy Jan 27th 2009 12:11PM
Another post from a ZERO weblog about a zero meaning inidivual.
And again taking up to spit on Blizzard.
Good job guys : keep it up.
You will certainly continue doing it now that EA bougth the website.
Still not conviced now guys ?????
wordsofivory Jan 27th 2009 12:28PM
"So with all the hubbub about 3.0.8's problems, a lot of people are wondering who to blame. "
The only people blaming anyone for anything are WoW Insider, the WoW forum trolls, and a bunch of bloggers stroking each others e-peen.
The rest of us just waited out the problems.
The patch launched about a week ago. There was some major bugs. A week later, they're pretty much all fixed.
That's not a sign of "cutting costs". They simply didn't forsee the bugs. Most other developers would have just sat on their asses and let those bugs consume their games until they fell apart from the inside out. Blizzard on the other hand, did everything they could as fast as they could to fix the problems.
I totally expect this post to be largely ignored because it doesn't go out of its way to be confrontational or demanding, but hey, that's how the internet works.
...I love WoW Insider for its insight into the game, for its look at the people and culture surround the title, and its honest passion for WoW... but the mass hysteria that the site has been making over this patch's problem has been frankly nauseating.
Amianduri Jan 27th 2009 12:32PM
I like Tobold. I read his blog every day. But as usual when he makes this kind of post, he has no actual data to back up his claim. He's basically just making stuff up.
Houston Jan 27th 2009 12:37PM
I've been playing wow off and on since it went live and I've never seen BWL, Ragnaros, BT, Sunwell P, any 25 man raids, etc... Call me what you will but I want to be able to play the game, not be restricted to 24 other players that I may or may not get along with. Granted since WOTLK I'm only level 76 but I started a month after release. I'm anxious to try the new 10 man versions as Kara was a blast in BC.
As far as Blizz reusing models and stuff, yeah, it makes sense. I think they just released a buggier than usual patch, not that they're cutting costs. OTOH they may just be doing the bare minimum because they can get away with it.
Arcaria Jan 27th 2009 12:54PM
@bloodchills I searched through all of your old posts looking for something that wasn't negative. I found this little ironic gem on the thread about mage ports.
" I love your comment about common sense. I have to agree. Sometimes common courtesy feels like a trip to Rome on a Concord, first class. Strangely... considering that common courtesy doesn't cost anything, why is it so rare?"
Then I read the rest of your comments and LOL'd.
Superthrust Jan 27th 2009 1:02PM
The downfall of World of Warcraft is upon us...and it's name is Activision.
Seriously...next, they will try to put out a "Patch that will Revolutionize the way you play!" that will kill the game as we know it now.
CU-Star Wars Galaxies anyone? The game was the same...Glorious in its up time with its old school players, who now play wow. But, when SoE - Sony Online Entertainment (Dubbed by classic SwG players as the "Slayers of Entertainment"...oh ho! see what i did thar?) came in, the tables turned, SoE applied their Combat Update to enhance gaming...and it died...in 1 week, over 2/3's of the population of all servers dropped. Then, SoE took over FFXI...applied a few patches, and changed that game immensly too...
Activision is the new SoE...
shane Jan 27th 2009 1:19PM
Man, you guys should have played Star Wars Galaxies when it first came out. This is nothing compared to the bugs in that game. It was like playing beta through the entire life cycle of the game.
Micro Jan 27th 2009 1:41PM
This is bs they get 15 bucks a month for over 11 million people, plus alll the money form ex pack40, plus name changes 10, recustoms 25, and transfers 25, and they put gold farmer cough i mean ads on all their sites, so they need to just stop