Electronic Blizzard

Blizzard: The word brings to mind, in most people, a snow storm. In another slightly less social and well groomed group however, it brings up thought of what is one of the biggest gaming juggernauts. It created a Starcraft, a game played professionally around the world for thousands of dollars on the line. It created Warcraft, a RTS masterpiece that created the world that is known today simply as WOW. World Of Warcraft.

Yet for all of this Blizzard seems to be losing its touch. Starcraft has been filled with issues with the company, arguments over LAN play, and balance changes. Diablo 3 will have the ability to sell and buy in game items with real money, a fact that already has would be fans in conniptions. WOW has lost over 800,000 subscribers since 2010. Stock is down 5%.

The real question is: Why? Why is a company that is loved by it's fans doing so badly? Heres a hint: it may have something to do with a second company, the one that merged with Blizzard in 2008: Activision.

Activision is best known as the publisher for the Call of Duty series. Yet, the company seems to have little desire to really do much. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, despite being billed as the most anticipated game of all time, is already drawing criticism. The games crash screen shows "Modern Warfare 2" has crashed. The website had a variety of grammar and spelling errors. This was not a blog post, this was a multi-million marketing campaign, and yet someone spelled "which" "witch". The servers have crashed. Fans have noticed that building in the previous game were directly reused!

The modern public game company is under pressure to churn out games every single year, with only 1 year for design, bug testing, and other issues. The make these games both for top of the line computers, and 7 year old consoles. But such a schedule leaves no room for innovation, or interesting gameplay. Is it any wonder BF3 and MW3, both are almost the same game?

All points aside, the few WOW players I talked to who quit, were angry about the change in the difficulty. Monsters got easier, players got stronger, and suddenly anyone could get all the items, and gold, and acheivements. When everyone is special, no one is.

Blizzard has not marketed to the casual gamer. Starcraft? 1 misclick can lose you the game. Diablo? Don't die, you can kiss some EXP goodbye. Warcraft DOTA? I have never heard so much profanity about mistakes.

The point is, game companies seem to be looking out and thinking that casual gaming is the next big thing. Well, Zynga beat them to it. Will Blizzard become the epic giant it once was?

The next WOW expansion will allow you to play as a panda monk. (Think Kung Fu Panda) You will be able to collect and battle pets. (Think Pokemon)

I'll let you decide.