2024 should mark a new day for Activision Blizzard, as they look to rebuild from previous disasters – but nothing seems to be going as planned.
A few years ago, Activision Blizzard began a downward spiral, as employees, fans, and the community all began to see a different side of the company – a deep, seedy underbelly, filled with undeniable problems and outrageous acts from those within the corporation. Over the last couple of years, the company has been working on regaining its position amongst the best in the industry, but the road has been a long and arduous one, filled with speed bumps and problems.
It's him, hi, he’s the problem, it’s Bobby
Leaving aside the fairly obvious problems that faced Blizzard in the last few years, one of the major downfalls that many saw in the company was the Activision CEO, Bobby Kotick. All the way back in 2006, he began to contemplate the merger, before putting it into effect by 2008 – and thus we began to see the major downfall of a company that was once ahead of the game at all times within the industry. While his time did build the company in the Asian market, he also had multiple lawsuits filed against him and Activision Blizzard, including the most recent in 2021.
According to most employee reports that we have seen over the past few years, Bobby’s leadership actively decreased the quality of the games being pushed out from the company – be it via more strict deadlines or simply making games that did not appeal to the greater community. Warcraft III Reforged springs to mind as an example of something that ruined a franchise overnight, and it’s fair to say that the finger was pointed towards Bobby for this. But I digress, because as of December 29th, 2023, Kotick is no longer the CEO, and the community is welcoming a “new” chapter for Blizzard.
Blizzard steps out of a shadow(lands)
As mentioned previously, for a period the games of Blizzard suffered, with World of Warcraft, Overwatch 2, and Diablo 4 all beginning to show serious signs of an ending lifespan. All three of these titles have worked extremely hard to remain in the spotlight, but in recent times, they have all seen some kind of momentum – albeit definitely not outright wins across the board. While Dragonflight has been quite a success as far as recent WoW expansions go, it has come with its own problems too.
Across all three titles, one thing stands out as a major problem – that being the incredibly disgusting prices for micro-transactions. This has been something not enjoyed by the community for some time, and seeing these added to the games in huge amounts has been disliked even more. The sour taste left in the mouths of players when cosmetic items are in excess of 50 Dollars at times is one aspect that we will continuously hate… almost as much as the purchasing of player power items in Diablo Immortal.
All of that said, Blizzcon 2023 gave us some hope for an amazing future as Chris Metzen made a triumphant return to the company, bringing his amazing talents back to World of Warcraft. The heavens opened and returned one of the greats to us, as he took to the stage to teach us about the next expansions and the future of the game – and on the surface, it seemed as though everything would be great again, but disaster is not far behind when Blizzard is involved.
A (Micro)soft landing
Having seen the gigantic Microsoft deal go through as they put Activision-Blizzard under their wing, many thought that the move would strengthen the company moving forward. But as January 2024 came to an end, another shock occurred in the company, with a spate of lay-offs rocking the gaming world. While other companies also saw some lay-offs, the ones from Microsoft within Acti-Blizz were extremely disappointing to see, especially with the possibility of a bright future now being dulled again. With these layoffs also came more shocks, as the president of WoW, Mike Ybarra, decided to step down to show solidarity with those within the company who lost their jobs. It was almost as though an old wound was reopened and the bleeding began once again.
Fast forward a few weeks and we see Johanna Faries taking over the spot of presidency within Blizzard Entertainment. And we seem to be back to square one again regarding the games. With a huge spate of games actually doing well in the early parts of 2024 – PalWorld, Enshrouded, and HellDivers 2, to name but a few, Blizzard seems to have missed the mark. Games like OW2 and WoW seem to be in the clear to some degree, with the Season of Discovery entering its second phase in Classic and a new season in OW which revamped the competitive scene. However, Diablo seems to be the game that has caused controversy again.
Microtransactions that cost even more than the game itself have been released, shocking the community even more than ever before. Just before, it was a microtransaction that cost more than some of the aforementioned games but now things could end up on a downward spiral. The hope of everyone will be that absolutely nobody buys into this, which would hopefully lead them to never making anything so appalling again.
A conclusion that will never end
If we want to summarise the future of Activision Blizzard, we have to, unfortunately, wait to see how things pan out under the Microsoft banner. Right now, although a few titles may be promising, the factors mentioned above definitely do not give anyone any sense of hope for anything but their games becoming a cesspit of microtransactions. With the recent news that Steve Danuser also skipped out on the company quietly at the end of last year, nothing is going right. For now, we await things such as the next WoW expansion, Blizzcon, and any changes in the way Diablo is run – but considering that it has just been confirmed to be coming to the Microsoft Gamepass, the future is uncertain.
Read more: Diablo 4 becomes first Activision Blizzard game to hit Xbox Game Pass
