Blizzard's Future in Question?

[noel]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/b ... ard02.html

It seems Vivendi is having financial problems, and looking to shed themselves of their entire game division, including Blizzard. While I have no doubt that Blizzard will get picked up by someone, one can only wonder what affect this will have on the highly anticipated Worlds of Warcraft.

Some interesting quotes from the article:

Blizzard is a key piece of Vivendi's video and computer games business, which had sales last year of $750 million, about 11 percent of Vivendi's 2002 revenue. Although Blizzard has released just one new title this year — an expansion to "Warcraft III" — it accounts for 25 percent of Vivendi Universal Games' worldwide revenue.

Early on, Vivendi hoped to sell the entire games unit for $2 billion, but analysts said the price has fallen to about $800 million. Even so, there haven't been any offers, despite flirtations with game publisher Electronic Arts and Microsoft.

Senior game-industry executives described Blizzard as Vivendi's juiciest games asset. Several publishers have explored purchasing the studio separately. But Vivendi, in need of cash to pay off debts, wants to shed the games unit in its entirety, industry executives said.

[Tegellan]

I just hope Blizzard finds a good home, they are easily one of the best studios in the last, well, may years. Ever since the original warcraft they have had a big place in my heart so to speak.

[Sionistic]

you know what i would like to see? Rockstar and blizard get together! rockstar has the consoles, blizard has the pc and online set ups, they could really do some great things

[Keverian FireCry]

Blizzard is a highly decorated gaming company. They will find a fine home, it will be much like being a first round draft pick for a proffesional sports team.

[Marbus]

Yea but it scares me that Viv is trying to pawn the other crap off with them... been in too many corporate deals like that. It's a nightmare, that is why many it seems are just walking away.

Too bad Blizzard couldn't just give it a go on their own...

Marb

[Pilsburry]

I'll come back with another post about Blizzard in a sec.....there is some other news I read in a magazine that Gamestop sends me...either this month or last month's issue, I just have to go upstairs and find it.

It mentions like 3 key people leaving.

[noel]

http://www.gamespy.com/interviews/july03/billroper/

Recently, gamers were startled by the news that Bill Roper, Blizzard North's vice president and longtime public "voice" of the company, was departing along with three other co-founders. Roper and the other three, David Brevik and Erich and Max Schaefer, all held key management positions within the organization and together worked on some of Blizzard's biggest hits including several Warcraft and StarCraft games. The team's primary claim to fame, though, was the Diablo franchise, a hack-and-slash RPG that has sold millions of copies worldwide.

Recently, however, there have been problems at Blizzard -- mostly stemming from the financial issues of its corporate parent, Vivendi Universal. VU is currently trying to find a buyer for its games division. Blizzard, as Vivendi Universal Games' crown jewel, is considered by many analysts to provide the bulk of the division's value and many fear that the departure of key personnel may in fact hurt sales prospects. GameSpy recently had an opportunity to sit down with Bill to discuss this, along with his career at Blizzard, what prompted his team's walkout, and where they're going from here.

[Pilsburry]

Ok found it...sorry for any typo's (I hand typed this quote, but I did not paraphrase or any of that BS)

Blizzard Loses Diablo Team
Accourding to a statement from Blizzard Entertainment, Blizzard North Co-founders Erich Scheafer and Max Shaefer, along with David Brevik and Blizzard Vice President Bill Roper, have left the company. The Sheafers and Brevik were the force behind the Diablo series. Thier Success caused the creation of subsidiary Blizzard North. The four are plannign to start up thier own game studio in the near future.

This development follows the January Departure of the Millar Brothers (Starcraft/Warcraft) from Blizzard to work with Jaleco on Goblin Commander (see our preview on page 92). The Speculation is that publisher Vivendi may have been the trigger for this recent exodus.

Blizzar Entertainment remains upbeat regarding this bump in the road. Says Mike Morhaime, president and co-founder, "we want to convey that Blizzards success has never been attributable to any one person or small group of individuals, and I am confident that we have the teams in place to continue creating some of the best games int he world." Accourdingly, Rick Seis, head programmer on the Diablo series, will take over as the development lead for Blizzard North.

So they lost 4 key people for Diablo, and I guess 2 for Starcraft/Warcraft. My guess is the hit to Diablo will possibly remove one more person from another project to fill the gap...maybe from WoW.

And I never considered them the best publisher to begin with....now I have even more serious doubts about their ability to churn out a high quality, large scale game in a field they have little experience with under all this turmoil they are facing internally.

Also on a side note I have been following EQ2's information pretty hard...they aren't going to meet thier deadline either, latest word is in the first few months of 2004. When someone said "like january or feburary 2004" to another poster, the Verant rep quickly corrected him and said that was an assumption he made and that while Jan/Feb are the 2 first months, he said the first FEW months. I take that to mean that Jan/Feb is an optimistic goal they might acheive, but they definately don't want to commit to.

Here is a quote of the quotes hehe

When he says winter 2004, he means somewhere around January and February. And hes said that a few times among the threads.

Please don't tell people I said something I didn't.

I have *never* said January or February. I said "early months." While those are certainly the two earliest months, they are not the only months in the early part of the year.

When I can tell you an exact release date, I will. Until then you can speculate, but please don't attribute things to me unless you have exact quotes to back it up. I realize when you're excited about something you tend to hear what you want to hear, but in this case I simply didn't say that.

Moorguar being formerly from Mobhunter and current SOE rep on Everquest-2.com. Here is the thread link http://www.everquest-2.com/phpbb/viewto ... sc&start=0

[Pilsburry]

OK, so you have the same info I got except the blurb about the Millar Brothers. I'm not sure of thier exact titles...so I don't know how important they were, but they have to be fairly important to be commented on.

[noel]

No worries.

Thanks for the great info on EQ2 slippage. I'd been waiting until I saw something firm before I posted anything. If you wouldn't mind, feel free to throw up a new thread when you have something like that, so we can keep stuff on topic. I'lll start a new thread with the info you provided so we can discuss it.

[Pilsburry]

The Millars have extensive experience developing Real Time Strategy titles for the PC platform. Chris was most recently the producer of StarCraft: Ghostä at Blizzard Entertainment®. He also worked on such hits Warcraft III Reign of Chaos® and Diablo II Lord of Destructionä. At Jaleco Entertainment, Chris rejoins his brother, Ron, who has been with Jaleco Entertainment since March 2002. While at Blizzard, Ron lead the design of Warcraft I® and Warcraft II®, was the original designer of StarCraft®, and contributed significantly to Diablo®. It was 1996 when they last worked together.

http://www.ladydragon.com/a-300103jaleco.html

OK, If Chris Millar worked on WC3 and SC:Ghost then he left fairly recently (the article was January 2003, so probably it was recent news). But Ron left March 2002 or earlier...so he was already long gone. But it does appear they had fairly large roles in Blizzard.

[Xouqoa]

Blizzard not being sold, according to this:

http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/436/436489 ... ?fromint=1