Mike Morhaime Press Conference at WCS Finals - Page 4

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On November 19 2012 20:41 paralleluniverse wrote:
Yet both mods and posters here seem completely oblivious to this fact. Whenever you make a suggestion or a criticism about the game here, you get hounded by posters and locked by mods who demand that you move it to the B.net forums, because that's apparently where Blizzard reads.

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On November 19 2012 21:25 Hider wrote:
"Well our focus right now is really on the content in Heart of the Swarm, not around what other things we can add necessarily in terms of micro-transactions or business. I think that it's much more important that we focus on making a great expansion and I think the current model is a viable model."

This is completely wrong, unfortunately. It's not really a viable profit-maximiation business model, and if shareholders/analysts paid as much attention Activision Blizzard as they do with Apple and everyone of their products, they would have demanded Mike Morhaimme to be fired immediately.

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On November 19 2012 21:59 Lysenko wrote:


Nobody's saying they don't read TL. The reason posts here that are directly aimed at Blizzard aren't welcome is that it lowers the quality of discussion. Anyone could post their crazy idea for a unit or how they'd like to see the game changed, but none of those ideas are backed up by testing and most of the ideas are just bad. Besides which, they do have their own forums which they systematically monitor for things like bug reports that might be of real value.

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On November 19 2012 22:29 Jiddra wrote:


But please,

Sound like you think HotS is Blizzards only game in dev!

It's very viable model for HotS in relation to all other products being developed within Blizzard. They will sell plenty enough of the game to make it a profitable affair,

It's not like they panic over night and say "Ohhh all the plans we have for releases and business dev the coming 5-6 years must be scrapped, we MUST make HotS micro transaction!!!"

MM is probably the guy sitting safest on his post within ActivisionBlizzard. He doesn't even need to answer economy questions at the conference calls, they know that isn't his strong side. They look to him to make the great games within Blizzard that then can be monetized by ActivisionBlizzard.

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On November 19 2012 22:59 Hider wrote:


Your first point is completely wrong. As someone who have spend considerable amount of time analyzing the financial statement of ATVI (probably more so than most analysts), I know what they are spending their ressources on (Titan), and unfortunately that's the problem. With the current business model ATVI has little incentive to make a esports-supportive game (as they don't make money out of it). Also Sc2 doesn't appear that much to casuals. Right now Sc2 (and HOTS) is an inbetweener and doesn't do anything particularly well.

Regarding MM. Your right, he is sitting safely and that's my entire point. Analysts/investors do not spend enough time analyzing the business model of Sc2/Wow/d3 (unfortunately). Compare this to the work they do on Apple, and you realize they analyze every single competitor. Every single product in detail etc. With ATVI, unfortunately, they are just kinda lazy/priortizes larger companies.

Eh. It's quite normal that the CFO answers "number" question. But regards to the CEO of Blizzard he should be asked questions regarding business model of each game and how they plan to respond to it. I read probably the most recent 4-5 earnings conferences call. Analysts are not asking the right questions (not just related to sc2). They ask the easy question so they can put a few numbers into their model and then go home early.

Even though Sc2 is just a veyr small part of ATVI, a rework of the sc2 business model could still increase shareholder v alue. Why is it that no single analyst yet has asked that question (which a journalist made yesterday regarding a change in the business model of Sc2).

And this is the problem. Mike Morhaimme is better as a PR guy than the business guy. Blizzard would improve shareholder value by hiring a few MBA'ers, and as a player the experience would probably be improved as well (even though I would have to pay a bit more though).

If analysts/investors spend more time studying/analyzing the company, Mike Morhaimme would be under a lot more pressure.

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On November 19 2012 23:11 Trumpstyle wrote:
Hider you got any source that free 2 play makes more money than box sales?

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On November 19 2012 23:11 paralleluniverse wrote:

Milking money out of a game is good for the players and good for the game? No, it's good for shareholder's profit though.

There could be nothing worse for the game than for it to be turned into the standard free to play microtransaction model that makes DotA 2 heroes look like April's fool jokes, and locks LoL heroes behind a paywall. Or where they basically sell items that add power such as in CoD or in virtually every single MMO, under the excuse that it adds so little power that it's somehow OK.

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On November 19 2012 23:11 Trumpstyle wrote:
Hider you got any source that free 2 play makes more money than box sales?

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On November 19 2012 23:26 Hider wrote:


Depends on how they do it. If ATVI just charges a higher price and doesn't offer anything besides that, your right. Bad for customers. But what I suggest is that ATVI needs to monetize esports. In return they give devote more ressources to updating the game etc. Hire progamers as developers. RIght now (despite their constant PR), Blizzard don't have an incentive to do that as they barely make any money out of esports.

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