Blizzard - Titan MMO Cancelled & A $50 Million Loss

That's actually wrong. Many of the people around from the Warcraft 2 days still work at Blizzard. In fact, if you compare the staff listings of Starcraft 2 and Starcraft 1, it's astonishing how much overlap there is, especially at the higher levels. Blizzard probably has more continuity with its early days than, say, Obsidian has with Black Isle.

The main exception to this is Diablo. Diablo was made by Blizzard North, which was a separate studio. Blizzard North died about a decade ago, and almost nobody who worked on Diablo worked on Diablo 3. But Blizzard main has a lot of continuity.

Personally, I don't get the hatred Blizzard gets. Diablo 3 on release had issues, but it wasn't half the disaster people made it out to be. And, nowadays, Diablo 3 is much improved. Starcraft 2, while having a terrible story, still had a great single player campaign, great multiplayer, and one of the best supported/most flexible map editors in gaming. Its multiplayer is, IMO, the best "classic RTS" multiplayer in gaming, even if you can rightfully criticize it for being too conservative. Hearthstone is fantastic (I'm borderline obsessed with it), and I've heard great things about HotS.

People just like to beat up on Blizzard because they're huge and popular. There's also a little bit of misplaced expectations because of nostalgia. People find themselves not being as impressed at 30 as they were at 12, and they blame it all on the developer. Starcraft 2 is a great game by any metric, even if it didn't steal my life like the original.

There's a difference between hating and simply pointing out the obvious.
 
Feel free to expand on why you disagree.

Why I disagree that people hate Blizzard when they point out they're in decline?

That's because hatred is a very powerful emotion that can't be equated with rational observation.
 
They might not have impressed me all that much with their most recent releases, at least not compared to what they used to, but I still have faith in Blizzard. They deliver extremely solid games, in terms of production values, complexity and balance.

I understand what DArtagnan means though - he's not saying they haven't got skilled people. They do. They have some of the best. However, they're not being very creative right now. They've become quite conservative, always playing it safe. There was always an element to that in their games - WoW took elements from many games, as did Waracraft 3. Just check out a game called Battle Realms, released one year before WC3. However, there was also a spark of innovation present, something that went beyond what their competitors could conjure up. That seems to be missing, and has been for years. Diablo 3, SC2, WoW: MoP and so on are all very good games, but I'm not blown away by any of them.
 
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It might have been the smart move given the circumstances, but I can't give them credit for wasting so much time, so much talent (because their craftsmen are EXTREMELY talented), and so much money - and come up with essentially nothing. The world didn't create those circumstances, that's 100% on Blizzard.

They're the ONE developer in the entire world who's essentially free to do exactly what they want. They have all the power anyone could ever want in terms of creative freedom and opportunity.

How people can turn that around to something positive, I don't understand. It's a gigantic fiasco, from where I'm sitting.

I think the main problem is that the thing took too long. Blizzard is famous/notorious for taking their time in releasing games. Unfortunately, during that 7 year span of production, a lot changed. MMOs started declining in popularity, competition became fierce (enough so that even a big name like Star Wars or Elder Scrolls doesn't guarantee success), Free to Play became the new business model and other MMOFPS games like Destiny have been released.

In the end, I would bet that someone realized that they were spending a boatload of money on a game that would never reach the sales projections they started with. In addition, it would probably cannibalize some of WoWs player base.

Throw in the fact that Heartstone has been a success at a fraction of the cost, and I bet the powers that be sent the hachet down on the project.
 
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I think the main problem is that the thing took too long. Blizzard is famous/notorious for taking their time in releasing games. Unfortunately, during that 7 year span of production, a lot changed. MMOs started declining in popularity, competition became fierce (enough so that even a big name like Star Wars or Elder Scrolls doesn't guarantee success), Free to Play became the new business model and other MMOFPS games like Destiny have been released.

In the end, I would bet that someone realized that they were spending a boatload of money on a game that would never reach the sales projections they started with. In addition, it would probably cannibalize some of WoWs player base.

Throw in the fact that Heartstone has been a success at a fraction of the cost, and I bet the powers that be sent the hachet down on the project.

One good thing about Blizzard, is that it's never really been about the money as the ultimate goal for them. It has always been about releasing a game they could be proud of.

Given the massive success of WoW, I don't think Titan being cancelled has much to do with not being able to sell. I think it's because it just wasn't good enough, which has been the reason they've cancelled the other games some years back.

Now, the problem with the MMO industry is that it's been almost exclusively bankrupt in a creative sense. That's because the budget for a mainstream MMO is absolutely HUGE - especially considering the long-term nature of keeping them up and running.

As such, we haven't seen many chances being taken - and that's the irony of these games. Because unless someone is willing to take a BIG and REAL chance - there's never going to be another WoW-level success.

Now, a lot of people don't think that success can be repeated, but I call complete bullshit on that.

If anything, the market is more ripe for it now than ever - and the audience is MUCH larger, which could potentially create an avalanche.

But you can't excite people by doing everything in such a familiar way. You have to awaken a sense of mystery - and you have to do something that goes WAY beyond what we've seen so far. Otherwise, you're never going to lure people away from their mediocre F2P time-waster of choice.

You have to destroy the opposition much like WoW utterly destroyed EQ and the other competitors, by being so accessible and full of pure and polished high quality content.

Exactly the kind of thing Titan could have done, if they'd been bold and had true vision.

But they've been anything but bold - and if you look at everything they've done since WoW vanilla, it's nothing but totally derivative games or expansions with almost no true creative spark to it.

The only part of the old Blizzard that seems to be left are all the craftsmen - and the level of quality to the assets and production values. I'm not seeing any of the old tricks - the smart twists on established existing content, which makes for surprisingly effective innovation.
 
The game premise sounded pretty terrible.

I must have totally missed something. The last I'd heard, they kept the whole thing a really tight, hushed secret. Did they eventually release details?
 
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They could have spun off another studio, did ten low budget games, then taken the biggest hit and given it a big budget sequel instead.
 
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I must have totally missed something. The last I'd heard, they kept the whole thing a really tight, hushed secret. Did they eventually release details?

There has been some info, yes:
- MMO set in the future on Earth after an alien invasion with a very large world
- Three factions trying to control the planet.
- Do less interesting professions during the day while secretly fighting alongside your faction if you choose to do so.
- Team Fortress, Starcraft II, and The Incredibles all named in comparisons.
- Player run businesses and shops, families, relationships with NPCs, advanced AI that made it feel more like a living world.

I think it sounds a bit interesting, but I guess they couldn't make it work.
 
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From amongst the corporate bullshit that spewed from Morhaime's mouth one sentence stands out for me, where he says they couldn't find the passion in themselves to create the game. I think that lost passion (and the creativity which goes hand in hand with it) is what characterizes them the most. Dart says they have become iterative (or always have been), I would go further and say they have become too sterile because of the huge corporate machine on top of them.

Most of their latest products are not so much a creative product put together with loving hands, but a product of a very detail-oriented laboratory, iterated to death and all covered up in a very beautiful packaging. I felt this with Hearthstone, WoW Pandaland, Diablo 3, and Starcraft 2 (with SC2 - for me - being the best gameplay-wise, but sharing the same creative soullessness).

Now just compare that to how, for example, the developers at CDProject approach their games. I may be biased, because I know some of them, but they are literally crazy with passion and want to prove they can make a fantastic game. They aren't afraid to make mistakes and to follow a vision.

I don't know if it's possible to come back from the current state of Blizzard after growing so huge, as I've never seen an example of a studio succeeding in doing so.
 
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From amongst the corporate bullshit that spewed from Morhaime's mouth one sentence stands out for me, where he says they couldn't find the passion in themselves to create the game. I think that lost passion (and the creativity which goes hand in hand with it) is what characterizes them the most. Dart says they have become iterative (or always have been), I would go further and say they have become too sterile because of the huge corporate machine on top of them.

Most of their latest products are not so much a creative product put together with loving hands, but a product of a very detail-oriented laboratory, iterated to death and all covered up in a very beautiful packaging. I felt this with Hearthstone, WoW Pandaland, Diablo 3, and Starcraft 2 (with SC2 - for me - being the best gameplay-wise, but sharing the same creative soullessness).

Now just compare that to how, for example, the developers at CDProject approach their games. I may be biased, because I know some of them, but they are literally crazy with passion and want to prove they can make a fantastic game. They aren't afraid to make mistakes and to follow a vision.

I don't know if it's possible to come back from the current state of Blizzard after growing so huge, as I've never seen an example of a studio succeeding in doing so.

Yes, we agree. What I'm saying is that they've become EXCLUSIVELY iterative, without the creative spark or vision which would make the iterative process something that could produce greatness.

Now, all they can do is produce quality games with excessively derivative designs - which is enough to please the masses - but not to move the industry in an exciting way.
 
Exactly, you are putting it extremely well.

And I can fully understand the fury when you consider all this, together with the fact how many fantastic games that wasted money could have produced. Sad, really.
 
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From amongst the corporate bullshit that spewed from Morhaime's mouth one sentence stands out for me, where he says they couldn't find the passion in themselves to create the game. I think that lost passion (and the creativity which goes hand in hand with it) is what characterizes them the most. Dart says they have become iterative (or always have been), I would go further and say they have become too sterile because of the huge corporate machine on top of them.

If you ever worked in a corporate so-called profeshunal environment, everything usually winds up being done by committee and it's almost impossible to just take charge and do stuff. Not to mention it tends to be easy for people who have 'people skills' to dominate everything or to simply hide their lack of usefulness in the crowd.
 
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I don't see that blizzard ever had much creativeness to them...

Warcraft was just one more strategy game at the time as far as I understand it.

All they did was polish it better than the others.

Same for most of their games.

Maybe I'm wrong but I feel very little of what they've done has been original.
 
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The region lock, maybe?
The North American scene does not grow enough because the public cant stand for Korean players. They want other good looking faces.

The region lock is an innovative way to fix that issue and prevent Korean players from flooding the scene.

As a developper wrote, the gamer culture looks for talent first and those Korean players lack a basic talent.

Once the region lock kicks in, the SC2 will be settled, business will grow and the $50 million dollars loss will be history.
 
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Bizzard did very little that was creative or innovative, as far as mmo's go. They took the premise of great games such as Everquest, Ultima, Asheron's Call, and dumbed theirs down to the level of simplicity. Then they wrapped it up in a pretty bow and turned it into a cartoon, so the 5 year olds would pester their parents to buy it for them.
 
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Bizzard did very little that was creative or innovative, as far as mmo's go. They took the premise of great games such as Everquest, Ultima, Asheron's Call, and dumbed theirs down to the level of simplicity. Then they wrapped it up in a pretty bow and turned it into a cartoon, so the 5 year olds would pester their parents to buy it for them.

Agreed. And the cartoony graphics serve another purpose, namely enabling the game to run on a wide variety of systems all the way down to the very low end.
Also agree with what Pladio said. Blizzard have never been creative leaders. They have always been creative refiners.
 
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Their "fun games" aren't "fun" anymore ever since bill roper left the house.
sc2? boring, unaddicitng. diablo3? another mmo in disguise.
they have the best artists in the business but not the best "fun" engineers it seems.
 
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Innovation is a funny concept, and people can't seem to agree what it means.

Think about Avatar - the movie. Most people would call it innovative, because it did something new with 3D and it was certainly a ridiculously big hit because of this new kind of spectacle.

But, to me, it was just about the most derivative movie I'd ever seen - and I mean that literally.

I've mentioned this before, but I've never seen a movie where I could - again literally - predict EXACT lines coming out of characters on so many occasions.

It was such a tremendously sad movie when you consider it was made by the same guy who did Terminator and Aliens.

But, to the rest of the world, it was something entirely new and fantastic.

Go figure.

As for Blizzard, no, they're not necessarily big on innovation. But, they're still responsible for changing entire genres. They used to take established concepts and perfect them, and that includes major innovations - if you look at it in a certain way.

As an example, let's take Diablo.

Ok, at its core - it's just a Rogue-like. It's Nethack, Angband or Moria with action combat, multiplayer and amazing visuals.

So, in some ways - it's super derivative.

But actually implementing cooperative multiplayer and changing from turn-based movement to action based gameplay was something entirely new. You could argue Gauntlet did something similar, but Gauntlet is really another kind of game entirely.

You could argue that they took Gauntlet and Rogue-likes and slapped them together.

So, is that innovation? I don't know and I don't care.

All I know is that they changed everything by doing so.

The exact same can be said about WoW.

Even StarCraft, which I consider to be an evolution of Dune 2 - managed to change everything when it comes to competitive gaming.

But Hearthstone, SC2 and Diablo 3?

Not really.

Ironically, the major game changing potential of Diablo 3 was lost when they decided to kill the RMAH.

That was the ONE great thing about D3, because it could have paved the way to making gaming a legitimate business. The actual act of playing a game could have become a way to earn money.

Now, I know most people jumped on it and saw nothing but greed - but that's not what I saw at all.

I'm still waiting for the day when people realise that spending so many hours of your life playing a game, actually makes the experience meaningful in some way. Why shouldn't a Legendary weapon mean something? Why not give it tangible value when it's obviously got value regardless.
 
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