Vivendi and Blizzard debate

Lack of WoW updates recently, so i guess this will fit in. It all started with a slight EA bashing from the LYN AnimeShrine forum, or more specifically, the spamthread – late night thread. Before we all know it, it turned into a short but rather informational debate regarding vivendi, EA, and of course, blizzard.

Be warned, as the following will be an insanely huge TLDR;Wall O’ text as i will be pasting the entire debate entirely with some very minor editing to improve readability (such as spacing/paragraphs/grammars/translations etc). Dont worry though, i will be doing my best to post up a TLDR summarization for those that couldnt be bothered or just simply dont have the time to go through a huge Wall O text.

It is basically a debate between me and forum user – Dark Steno, i will be having his replies in quote while mine in italics to easily differenciate between replies. So shall we begin?

Click HERE to SKIP TEH WALL

actually while ea being monopoly and always making dull, decent games but i can see lately that they’re rather trying to make better games. it is surprising that they canceled some of the games just because they’re not wroth to play. for example, look at C&C Tiberium, an FPS game for C&C3. By right, if they released it now even if its buggy, people will still buy it due to “Commander and Conquer” franchise. Yet, they halted it to make way for better games.

to me, the damage has been done, and i have better alternatives. so too late for them

yeah really. ubisoft and activision are just like ea too. activision threw away vivendi just for that merger with blizzard. while there were many good games published by activision, what they did to vivendi made many games lost their support. currently activision blizzard merger has made lots of damages. pity towards world in conflict.

eh bro, they merge with vivendi, blizzard is UNDER vivendi. they only used blizzard’s NAME for the merger. /facepalm

blizzard under vivendi? then why vivendi personnel losing jobs? lol that’s not about blizzard working under vivendi. more like they make it to look that way but the real vivendi workers gone with the wind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivendi
http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/activision-faq.html?rhtml=y
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_entertainment

of course, you’re free to have your conspiracy theory on whats happening and why vivendi staffs are being cut, but thats what it is on the surface. (like everyone’s free to play the good ole american conspiracy games like the president/area51/aliens etc etc)

TLDR: blizzard is under vivendi. vivendi merged with activation to match some penises with EA, blizzard still operates on its own since 1996 despite numerous change of “parent company”/publisher even until this very day of activision blizzard.

From what I read in kotaku, the merger made most of vivendi workers lost their positions. Of course, the accounts taken from ex-workers of vivendi rather than official stuffs on the site. Since blizzard is so resourceful, Activision Blizzard focus more manpower on Blizzard games like WoW. So other divisions in vivendi that undergoing the development other games that Activision Blizzard think them as less fruitful than from Blizzard studio were cut off. Not that I hate the merger or something else but previously people thought that the merger will produce more quality games yet things going to favor blizzard studio games. you might feel ok since they focus on WoW. If i am a fan of WoW, I don’t mind as well. But to see them letting go World In Conflict, Brutal Legend and others made some people angry (and they went wtf by keeping Ice Age games lol).

http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2008/10/viv…ase-2.html#more

In my point of view, Blizzard is evil too but good evil, if you catch what i mean.

based from that link, its pretty much a short b**** rant from a disgruntled QA staff. now, just for a standard “reality check”, whos word youd think the majority would side with? of course, im not denying that said guy’s credibility, but behind the games cutting etc etc for example, does it even come to mind that the game may not be on par? may not be worthy of a release and so forth? EA done it, hell, even blizzard was rather infamous for their SC:Ghost cutting.

you have to understand ONE clear thing: vivendi is a PUBLISHER. they are NOT a game developer studio. Of course, you can say the same bout EA, but you see, vivendi dont put a leash on their assets/studios on their games, to the point most people (like you) dont even know blizzard is UNDER vivendi (eg: no “vivendi logo” in any of their games, hell, you ever seen a vivendi logo in any games? i cant remember/name any, but i think theres a few out there)

AFAIK, or as far as the majority knows, studios under vivendi work freely (at least blizzard is), while EA, not so much.
obviously, WoW is blizzard’s current, and most obvious cashcow. but im sure you realize they are working on sc2/D3 and just recently announced, warcraft4 (hahahaha, who the f*** is left for lore as almost every villian is dead in WoW) right?
blizzard had an almost perfect trackrecord, almost all their games (especially the recent ones) turned into cash flowing e-sport, featured on national television in united states, europe, and especially korea. any other game came close to that? well, CS, and… they WERE under vivendi until valve outgrew themselves and they left vivendi for greater ventures… now look at them… they are doing good, but no where near “phenomenon” as they were back in half life 1 days. (even funnier when gabe newell is playing WoW himself, the fatty should be working more on hl2 lulz 😛

of course, if you wanna be a nittpicker, you can pick at old school blizzard console games, where they werent so successful with (refer to the wiki link i posted)
see, money suckers or not, what make blizzard being, blizzard still stands till this day: that extra blizzard polish. they will tune the damn thing to the slightest details, some of them werent even noticeble by most players (footstep sound, ambience sound, -1 dmg from a unit just to balance it even for a little bit more), thats how they seperated themselves from the rest, thats what made WoW a 11-12 million player game and the world’s highest valued e-sport (75k USD prize money, nothing comes close to that in gaming history AFAIK)

and yea i sorta catch what you mean, something along the line of being “the lesser evil” amongst the rest, right?
in regards to that, i suppose ur right. WoW for example, is no doubt a monopolization and being malaysians, we know very damn well on what monopoly does. (tmnut anyone?) of course, unlike our infamous isps, other mmo makers can pull a shot a blizzard (warhammer online lol!) but as we all know it, its just too damn tough for a new uprising game/company etc to fight against the collosus which is blizzard.

Shout out to: Hitman66
“Dude,suck all this into your blog.That would be your article of a day”
So if anyone’s gonna hate this Wall o’ text, please direct all hate mails and death threat to him thank you very much.
Now lets continue on with the program~

TL;but i read lol.

Heck I know Vivendi is a publisher. Of course they’re not developer. But without money given by publisher (depends on agreements/contracts), developer won’t be able to go far. I came to acknowledged vivendi after their relationship with Sierra. well, like you said, studios under vivendi did work freely but actually that depended on contracts. by comparing both vivendi and ea, you can see how differ both of them in term of sale. marketing is the major advantage for ea. throughout these years, ea is well known for sports games. my first ea games was fifa 95/96. the integration of games with pop culture is one of ea’s strategies to make their games sold well (those hollywood actors and also hip hop techno whacamalit songs etc).

blizzard started slow but well. being independent blizzard entertainment and then opening up blizzard north studio, and so on. tho i disliked their styles of having multiple expansions which only adds few additions like units or maps (like warcraft 2 and also star craft). in those days, sc was so popular for being an rts that had 3 factions that works differently (those days also were days that we can install any games on cyber cafes). as we know, by taking good examples from other games, slowly we can create a better product rather than rushing it out yearly.

in this matter, vivendi is doing the same job as ea for marketing the products but what they did was not on par with ea. studios work freely but too much time wasted. hl2 was taking too much time as gabe newell being kind of perfectionist. i bet if hl2 wasn’t succesful, vivendi would be a goner already. that’s a bad thing for vivendi which led up to current ruckus. even i don’t like vivendi’s packaging. hl2 packaging was like shit (only a box, several discs inside and a guidesheet). while ea’s ‘i am the boss demit’ attitude led to a monopoly of gaming industry which involve in every genre. the most evil, aye? as much as people grieving over westwood lost to ea, they’re actually formed up to a studio named ea los angeles. i believed the loss might because westwood couldnt produced their products at given time. command and conquer generals was the idea from former westwood staffs themselves but enraged fans considered it as something not to be included in c&c universe. remnants of loyalist workers of westwood established petroglyph studio but they couldnt go anywhere with their products since most of their talented people were taken away to eala.

well, we can see who was the first gaming consortium that have facilities similar to microsoft? i am not a supporter of ea. by now, i believe blizzard’s estates might be something similar with google offices. being a casual gamer, i play almost all kinds of games. i dont care if the creator of the games are fascists or nazis as long as the games are good enough for me to play it. as much as ea being culprit of making same games every year, alot of other people following this direction. people praised konami for having a great football games but it’s still the same shit every year. same like square enix with their fukkenlol rpg games (and i dont understand japanese tards who kept playing the same thing over 20 years). it is not true that i hate WoW or blizzard as these are also my gaming materials. i do like wow very much compared to other mmorpg (for sure tested lol) just that i couldnt cope my time with it.

yeah, it is too damn tough for a company to challenge ea or blizzard but time will tell.

you have to also understand that not all studios are dependant on their publishers. before blizzard had any relation with vivendi, they’ve already got the capabilities to even consume other studios (conrad studios, aka blizzard north, diablo anyone?) and that alone should speak more than itself that blizzard didnt really needed vivendi. true, marketing has always been EA strong points, but to more hardcore/enthusiastic/old school gamers like me for example, its actually a major turn off as what comes out of EA’s mouth is all $$$ and doesnt seem to give a flying f*** about their gamers/community.

umm, again, you probably need to read up some more wiki/google. when half life 2 was being developed, valve and vivendi’s relation was OVER
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation
so if half life 2 failed, it never would’ve made ANY difference to vivendi or whatsoever as both companies are sue’ing each others asses, so hl2 being successful, never contributed anything towards vivendi’s success, at all. HL2 packaging… put it this way, they no longer had a publisher, they are doing something that they’ve never done. since you didnt realize that, i guess it cant be helped. bottom line? not vivendi’s problem.

back in the old days im am pretty much a general both hardcore + casual gamer, ive played warcraft3 mainly, but ive played many other games as well. nowdays, too little games are able to produce that blizzard polish that i demanded, and since then ive stuck on WoW/warcraft3 (even occassional diablo2) mainly. When you’ve gotten to a point where the rest are just not able to put up the standards, you’re no longer turning back anymore. again, we know that its not easy for new comers to match up with the big players, but if they arent doing it, new generations of gamers are pretty much stuck with what the big players are able to offer. my only solace? blizzard is still staying true to their goals and basic principals they’ve used since the early old school pre-year 2000 days with starcraft/warcraft2.

EA does give a flying f*** about the community. But instead of giving new patches, they gave you new games! lolol but the only studio that gives a flying f*** about community in ea is that EALA. anyway the recent development of games, at most a new game can hold is 6 months to one year. this caters for most of the games out there. why? there are too many games coming out every month. so developers must know how to give support on their games to sustain longer. but then, after they’re getting more silver and gold from the sales, they used that for developing new things.

The problem with RA2 was, it’s developed by Westwood. Back then, EA was only a publisher. I know how crap RA2 was. The only thing that make RA franchise was successful due to real world smilarity stuff. You see, people always crapping over EA making dull games and such. But by comparing newer versions of C&C games by EA. they’re more balanced than old Westwood games. Actually some hardcore C&C fans but also EA haters are nonsense gamers. They wanted those old whatever units but actually those were imba units. So, in my opinion, Westwood games aren’t that well balanced and I don’t understand why those people keep whining over every single matters. For example, just by having Prism tanks plus Rocketeers spam, you win. Also look at other games like Supreme Commander. Massive wars and what other shits people might say. But the truth is, it is the same as WC2 as you said. Mirror units and such with little improvements.

can you tell how suck C&C renegade was? i was dissappointed by the game because the C&C era was started around 1995 but suddenly they went far ahead into future (previously it is said that renegade was subsequently following the first C&C game).

Despite the wiki there saying relation was over, the publisher of HL2 was still Vivendi. I can show you my packaging if you want to see.

The only reason I played wc3 before was due to i like to know the stories. Yeah, I’ve been playing since wc1 (but dont ask me how the stories going as i kinda cannot remember them all). wc3 was challenging but has never been favored due to my personal preferences. Dota thing also was good as I also have been playing starcraft and its maps all along (i just dont like those dotards, kthx). its just like i prefer those magical elf and orks thingy for rpg games rather than rts. just a personal preference. but when these things turned futuristic like warhammer40k games, that’s one of the best rtses out there (but most decent gamers dont really fancy it. maybe too much micro).

definately i will buy sc2 and d3. but i am not into mmorpg like wow or even that warhammer online (however if you managed to convert me that ways, i dont mind as i’ve never been playing a good rpg for sometime).

japanese rpg games can go die. i tell you WoW, diablo or even that oblivion are far more better games than those japanese shits. the existance of final fantasy and other japanese games are for giving mangaka some inputs for their hentai doujins materials which is the only thing i like.

and thats the thing i hate about EA. patch? nope. we give you yet another NEW BUGGY UNPOLISHED game woohoo! not so exciting, really. like NFS underground, i had fun with my logitech momo. NFS prostreet, a supposedly newer and more technological advanced game, cannot support my logitech momo. (the car keeps steering right side…. fun!) i was like… woah! we just gone back in tech! one of the simple comparison based on what you said, 6months to a year is generally what new games/EA games can sustain. well, lets look at blizzard’s game, or even halflife/counterstrike. it speaks for itself

japanese rpg, there are good ones, and bad ones. generally i get your idea, as i somewhat share the same resentment. they just focus too damn much on eye candy, and lack creativity towards game play. (**final** fantasy 294872947239 anyone?)

my point for that 6 months age also applies to other games. not entirely ea

well decent and new gamers are not really fancy with warcraft3 (except for that dota shit). it’s a good game but not all into microing all army. i am not comparing which is more micro between those two. i do play wc3 la. i know how bizzare the micro can be. i am just telling that some people dont like warhammer40k or warcraft3 due to extensive micro. for example my brother who prefer typical rts like age of empires 3. i think he also prefer supreme commander where you just sending troops and so on to win the game.

i didnt specifically shoot EA

im gonna assume you meant “recent” and not “decent”
and with that, thats almost logic. i mean come on, how long was war3? look at the graphic. back when war3 was released having “cartoonish” graphics, people b****ed. now, when so many other games are having FAR superior graphics, you think “newfags” would care about war3? dont think so lol

And thats it for the direct copy-pasta. Lets move on for my summarization –
TLDR Summary:

Reference links used:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivendi
http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/activision-faq.html?rhtml=y
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_entertainment
http://www.kotaku.com.au/games/2008/10/vivendi_games_end_me_end_me_please-2.html#more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation

Ok, since it is a ~3600 word article summarization, i am absolutely lost on where to begin, so ill just do a bulleted summary, which i believe, not only present the best TLDR summary, it’ll also be short and straight to the point for people who just dont have the time for this.

EA

• evil
• monopoly of game franchise, that suck balls
• some people in EA maybe not evil
• supposedly dropped some random C&C game

Vivendi (and activision/activision blizzard)

• maybe evil
• Frenchies
• behind the scenes mastermind
• got in bed with activision, leeching blizzard name, and GATTAI
• supposedly owned some workers, and now they are QQ’in. Hopefully they dont develop any serious grudges.

Blizzard

• good evil
• bigger boss than its boss
• has World of warcraft
• dropped starcraft: ghost (fuck you blizz, i want my nova!)
• serious business, e-sports

Valve

• fatty evil
• bailed wintrain aka vivendi, kicked outta kewl kids club
• plays World of Warcraft
• Supposedly being perfectionist, refer to 3rd summary before this.
• No money to give kewl game boxes, starts Steam revolution.

PHEW! scrolling through 3.6-3.7k text to make a summary out of it is TOUGH YO! I guess ill go frag more noobs in WoW to release some rage! (╬ ಠ益ಠ)

Below are some results of my *previous* raging:

(full resolution available on picture click)

Note: Dont forget to click pictures for full resolution.