Monetization of Battlenet (article inside)

[Gifted]

Warning: Wall of Text detected.

Replying to hyde

"Activision Management are businessmen, pure businessmen."

I'll politely state that I've met many of the management at Activision and have to say I've only known passion. There is upper management that has to ensure that a game is profitable, and two of the "bosses" that are below Bobby are just as passionate about games as you or I, in fact, probably moreso. The issue is that no matter what, a game has to be a product that's profitable. Right now, I feel that your response after this is mostly speculation from a person who feels they have inside information but only is basing it off poor publicity that Bobby Kotick has brought upon himself. In short, please don't immediately assume you know the company... by your statement it's proven you don't know the full extent of what you falsely accuse. (In case you didn't know, I've been there multiple times as my brother works there as an associate producer, I openly provide information on projects and am respected quite well there.)

"It would seem that their reach has extended to Blizzard.
25$ Character race changes on WoW? That's almost 2 months of subscription...
No LAN on SC2....it doesn't make sense...but it does...
they said they want Battle.net to be the "Central hub", the "To go place" to play.

sounds pretty familiar to the same bullshit they said for IWnet
"This is really a step up for PC players."

This is not an issue with Activision but the video game industry as a whole. When you hear articles relating to "Is PC gaming dying?" this is a testament to that fact. The issue is that the industry has evolved where customers demand higher technologies and does not have efficient means to counter the cost for large companies. Think about how much the cost of a game has evolved lately? I remember paying 40 dollars for Final Fantasy on the NES. I also see myself paying 40-50 dollars for games these days so the cost has been rather the same.

The issue that I see with arguments like the one you present is that people want to use the past as a basis (It was free then, anyone who doesn't offer it free is turning corporate and evil) but they don't look at the full picture. Let's face it, the costs to create a game has skyrocketed. Final Fantasy on the Nintendo cost about 90k to make, Warcraft 2 cost about 750k, Diablo was 3 million, Modern Warfare 2 cost about 250 million dollars to create. What all these games have in common is that they cost nearly the same at release with pennies/dollars as variance. For this reason, the INDUSTRY is changing to find ways to improve their profit to allow them to move forward and make more games. I would rather see them provide optional content for a cost instead of the alternatives. First would be hiking prices higher (which will not work as the fragile nature of this industry and the passion it's customers put into it. It would do more harm than good) or to simply see another great company die out. It's not like they're FORCING us to purchase the optional content... they're optional for a reason.

Yes, they used to be free, games also used to be 8 bit. Things cost more now for them, why shouldn't it cost more for us? Do I WANT to pay more.. no! But that doesn't make me view a company in a poorer light if they try to make more money from a product. Much of that profit is typically injected into budgets for the future projects of the company.

"All to group the sheep in one place for the slaughter . Without any possibility of LAN/Privavate/Dedicated servers, custom user made content is impossible."

To be fair... Blizzard holds all rights to shut these pirate servers servers down (such as ICCUP) and has had the rights since the day StarCraft and their other properties have come out. They have only made a conscious decision not to exercise the right which they rightfully have. They merely decided that if they wanted to exist for SC2, there would be a way to do so but it would have to be under Blizzard's rules from then on. There is nothing wrong with this, in fact, Kudos to Blizzard for not going Nazi on them and recognizing their value.

And I'd argue the point that "user made content is created with the StarCraft Editor" but you mention that later in your comments.

"But then again..SC2 has the level editor..I suppose the 2 expansions is the alternative to gouging as much $$ from us they can. "

[From later in his comments]

"The fact that they have split the game into 3 expansions is a suretell sign of what is to come."

Let's take this question to you then. Let's say that you are faced with the problem of producing a game that has 90 missions based on the scope created by your team. Would you have felt there is a better way to provide a quality expirience? Do you think the old "10/10/10" format would provide a quality expirience by today's standards? Do you think that you could make a better call based on the information provided about the decision?

The core of this is that they're trying to create a solid gameplay experience that lives up to the qualities standards that they've held for over 10 years. This quality standard has provided games that has influenced every genre they've touched. (Including The Lost Vikings and Rock 'n Roll Racing) Do you think they've made this call because it would earn them more money? It's confirmed in many of their decisions (Even after the Activision merger) that the fiscal year doesn't judge their actions. Might I remind you that they did a last minute 4 week delay to shove WoW: TBC from Prime Christmas release to Mid January? Let's quote Mr. Pardo on that reasoning:

Rob Pardo: We're definitely not fiscal calendar-driven. And we know that our fanbase is not going to hold us to a fiscal calendar. With Burning Crusade, we missed Christmas by about three weeks. We could've shoved it out the door, but we decided we didn't need to get it into stores for Christmas. We just needed it to be great and our playerbase is going to buy it whenever it hits the shelves.

And let's not even touch StarCraft: Ghost or WarCraft Adventures...

It's also a joke to say you can't make 3 campaigns and a simple RTS engine in 5 years."

Do you realize that in 10 years, I wouldn't be surprised if that 5 year figure turns to 7 years. I know in the 80s, it was a joke to not get a game out in "10 months" for some companies. But let's examine what's truly happened over the last 5 years, shall we? They got the engine created quite a while ago. I also seem to realize that despite balance concerns, the game has been playable for quite some time. I bet they're still nailing out bugs as the code for this game is obviously significantly larger than many of it's competitors at this time. And then there is their focus on Battle.net which changed scope mid-project requiring them to essentially think about it from scratch when the time came to examine what truly needed to be done further.

In short, they're creating a platform that is fully integrable with their games. The ability to do this securely instead of create a hook setup (such as Steam or Xbox live) is significantly different. This is also a project they have to ensure is done correctly for the scope of coming years. Let's face it, Steam rushed out the door, and for it's first year or two, it was proclaimed as the virus of the industry due to it's original intrusive nature. Now it's considered one of the best platforms out there. I would rather see Battle.net succeed day 1 out of the door. And I know Blizzard would like the same.

"If they can make WoW(note, that was from scratch mind you) in 5 years...they can make a sequel in 5 years. (you guys should also know most of the free patches and most of Burning Crusade were found in the WoW beta client, using sandbox to explore - thus it was mostly all done even before retail launch. They just cut it from Classic to have stuff to patch out and content for an expansion.)"

To say that their plan was to cut it out to allow for patch content is incorrect. When developing an MMO, it's good to understand the scope potential for it's entire existence. I don't disagree that much of TBC and other patch content WAS existent in Alpha/Beta... I just disagree with your speculation of why it was cut. I'm sure much of that content was being tested as part of the original scope. Let's not go into the differences of Alpha 3 level/3 layer Ironforge versus today's 1 level/2 layer Ironforge. That's part of development, you try things, if they don't make it, you see if they fit later.

Might I remind you of the RIP wall in the SC2 development room from the BC09 live feed? There are quite a few units that were cut and could come back. It's not because "They want to bring them back later" it's because "They just don't fit now". Final point, there is no such thing as a "Free WoW patch"... you pay for a service and that's included in it.

I've gone into serious arguments with people on Blizzforums on this too, but they won't consider possible alternatives and maybe even the slightteessst and remote notion that... <GASP> Activision Blizzard </GASP> is a publically traded company, and their #1 voice they adhere to is upper management and shareholders ; thus their bottom line.
And they know you guys WILL buy into it.

There's no need to argue that Blizzard is a company. They will make a game if it's profitable for them now and in the future. Reputation in this industry is a powerful utility and not always directed at the consumer. For this reason, Bobby Kotick, plays a reputation to the shareholders while the games (Such as the Guitar Hero Series) play the reputation to the consumer.

Blizzard does well to hold their reputation in their games. They create high quality games. They are a publically traded company, but they have proven that they will only release a game if it's ready. I believe the problem that people have is that they can't separate two different ideals.

"High quality game"
"Free Content"

Many people view a high quality game as having free content and not trying to gouge them of money. They are merely two parts of a giant whole. If Blizzard is releasing DLC later that could cost money, it doesn't change if the game itself is a fantastically high quality game. Fallout 3 is still one of the best games I know with DLC. Does that make Fallout evil or any less quality? No. Some people would argue "It would be better quality if those were released for free" but I still feel that people got incredible value if they chose to pay for those content improvements.

EDIT: In rereading this section, I think it's important to make a point that the NUMBER 1 VOICE is not the shareholders in Activision Blizzard. To help elaborate this point, I advise you to read this article: http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/?p=3481#e15bf You might find the book it sources: "The Battle for Azeroth" enlightening.

Final point or the TL;DR version

In short, I think that your view of "Activision corrupting Blizzard" complete speculation with no true point. The people you slander against you don't know. The things you speak knowledge of you have no facts behind.

I do think you know SOMETHING has changed and you're just trying to find out what. It's the industry as a whole, the expectations and costs and the needs for companies to find fiscal models that make it feasible to produce the games we all want to play.

[DemolitionSquid]

Great oogly moogly

[Nicol Bolas]

And let's not even touch StarCraft: Ghost or WarCraft Adventures...

To be fair, that really has more to do with Blizzard not knowing how to make those kinds of games. Though again, they realized this and killed the projects, rather than putting crap out there like a lot of developers would have.

Do you realize that in 10 years, I wouldn't be surprised if that 5 year figure turns to 7 years. I know in the 80s, it was a joke to not get a game out in "10 months" for some companies. But let's examine what's truly happened over the last 5 years, shall we? They got the engine created quite a while ago. I also seem to realize that despite balance concerns, the game has been playable for quite some time. I bet they're still nailing out bugs as the code for this game is obviously significantly larger than many of it's competitors at this time. And then there is their focus on Battle.net which changed scope mid-project requiring them to essentially think about it from scratch when the time came to examine what truly needed to be done further.

I'd like to add to this.

Cranking out a game is easy. Programming one isn't very difficult; it just requires some proficiency in C/C++ and a myriad of APIs (graphics, networking, input, etc). No big deal, right? Just get a few programmers together and out comes a game.

Making a game that is good is hard. You see, a game is ultimately a program. A compiled executable. These are made, not unsurprisingly, by programmers.

Programmers aren't artists. They're not very good at it. Which means that now, the programmers can't take the short route to making a game. Since you want art that actually looks decent, you have to have artists. Those artists need tools to create this art. Therefore you need programmers who can either write those tools or write an asset conditioning pipeline that transforms the art assets these artists create into a form that the game can read. Oh, and they need to do it in a way that the time between an artist being finished with making their asset and seeing that asset functioning in the game is as short as possible.

And you're going to need programmers to make all those neat graphical effects. Oh wait, you're also going to need programmers to make sure that the artist's tools can display those graphical effects, so they can preview them. And you'll need a way for them to modify the effects, because artists be damned if they're going to leave the rendering methods purely in programmer hands. So you need a toolchain for that.

Programmers aren't game designers. And more specifically, game designers aren't C/C++ programmers. If they want to change a Hydralisk's Hp or something, they don't want to have to crack open a .cpp file and figure out where. They want a simple text file; at most, they'll settle for a garbage-collected scripting language environment. So now you have to build and maintain one of those. Oh, and designers also want to have fast turnaround, so when they make a change to a script file, they will see that change in the game ASAP.

Put all this stuff in there, and you're at the point where you have 10x the complexity of the original "I just want to make a game" area. Asset conditioning, game designer scripting engines, etc. All of this stuff makes a game that much harder to build.

This doesn't even touch on other factors. Like programmers screwing things up, design changes that come mid-stream that cause work to be redone, or the level editor so powerful that it can make game types that are completely foreign to StarCraft. The last one alone hurts my brain.

[newcomplex]

I just don't think Blizzard is going to charge for content, first off there's enough content out there on the online marketplace with so many custom maps. Secondly they're already charging us for a full game and two expansions. How much more can they charge for?

See this is what bothers me. Honestly, the things they are charging for are perfectly reasonable. If blizzard releases a couple free monthly maps, maybe one or two blizz made Pay 2 Play maps, sells us some good fan made maps (of course, they should be taking a cut, that makes sense), and giving us two quality expansions, I'd be the happiest darn gamer in the world.

The issue is...how much more can they charge for.

[DemolitionSquid]

The issue is...how much more can they charge for.

I think the existence bottled water might help in realizing how extreme it could theoretically get.

[Gifted]

Great oogly moogly

I gotta keep my reputation, you guys haven't seen a wall of text from me in a while. Imagine when I write an editorial

To be fair, that really has more to do with Blizzard not knowing how to make those kinds of games. Though again, they realized this and killed the projects, rather than putting crap out there like a lot of developers would have.

Exactly. Same page

I'd like to add to this.

Cranking out a game is easy. Programming one isn't very difficult; it just requires some proficiency in C/C++ and a myriad of APIs (graphics, networking, input, etc). No big deal, right? Just get a few programmers together and out comes a game.

Making a game that is good is hard. You see, a game is ultimately a program. A compiled executable. These are made, not unsurprisingly, by programmers.

Programmers aren't artists. They're not very good at it. Which means that now, the programmers can't take the short route to making a game. Since you want art that actually looks decent, you have to have artists. Those artists need tools to create this art. Therefore you need programmers who can either write those tools or write an asset conditioning pipeline that transforms the art assets these artists create into a form that the game can read. Oh, and they need to do it in a way that the time between an artist being finished with making their asset and seeing that asset functioning in the game is as short as possible.

And you're going to need programmers to make all those neat graphical effects. Oh wait, you're also going to need programmers to make sure that the artist's tools can display those graphical effects, so they can preview them. And you'll need a way for them to modify the effects, because artists be damned if they're going to leave the rendering methods purely in programmer hands. So you need a toolchain for that.

Programmers aren't game designers. And more specifically, game designers aren't C/C++ programmers. If they want to change a Hydralisk's Hp or something, they don't want to have to crack open a .cpp file and figure out where. They want a simple text file; at most, they'll settle for a garbage-collected scripting language environment. So now you have to build and maintain one of those. Oh, and designers also want to have fast turnaround, so when they make a change to a script file, they will see that change in the game ASAP.

Put all this stuff in there, and you're at the point where you have 10x the complexity of the original "I just want to make a game" area. Asset conditioning, game designer scripting engines, etc. All of this stuff makes a game that much harder to build.

This doesn't even touch on other factors. Like programmers screwing things up, design changes that come mid-stream that cause work to be redone, or the level editor so powerful that it can make game types that are completely foreign to StarCraft. The last one alone hurts my brain.

Nicol, I believe this is the first post you replied to mine that was 100% agreeing with me. Though surprising, I'm also warm and fuzzy inside sir.

[newcomplex]

@ gifted.

I'd have to agree with most of the points in your post. However, I would disagree that DLC is always justified in making a game. For instance, in MW2, the game had made back its development costs within 4 hours of its release. Thats not to say that they are criminal for wanting more money to support the studio, but just saying, its far from necessary in most games releases.

But I have to ask you, what is your perspective on why IW-ward decided to drop dedicated server support for the PC platform? Personally, I am completely baffled by the decision. It doesn't even stop piracy, in fact, it effects pirates the least, because you can use cracked versions of the game to play dedicated servers. Perhaps you can offer a more informed opinion, you seem very connected in the game industry.

[Nicol Bolas]

For instance, in MW2, the game had made back its development costs within 4 hours of its release. Thats not to say that they are criminal for wanting more money to support the studio, but just saying, its far from necessary in most games releases.

This logic only works if the goal of a development project is to make its development costs back. And that it costs nothing to make DLC content. By that logic, once a game (or anything else, for that matter) has broken even, it should immediately become free. Should my Intel chips receive a massive discount because the billion dollar development costs have been recouped?

[newcomplex]

This logic only works if the goal of a development project is to make its development costs back. And that it costs nothing to make DLC content. By that logic, once a game (or anything else, for that matter) has broken even, it should immediately become free. Should my Intel chips receive a massive discount because the billion dollar development costs have been recouped?

I am aware of that, thats why I said theirs nothing wrong with trying to make money.

I'm just saying that even without DLC, IW-ward and activision will be reaping back 10x what they put into the game in profit. DLC are not required for modern games to make a profit, not even close. Nothing wrong with DLC either, they can be utilized very well to benefit both the developers and the gamer. But they're still far from necessary.

[Gifted]

@ gifted.

I'd have to agree with most of the points in your post. However, I would disagree that DLC is always justified in making a game. For instance, in MW2, the game had made back its development costs within 4 hours of its release. Thats not to say that they are criminal for wanting more money to support the studio, but just saying, its far from necessary in most games releases.

But I have to ask you, what is your perspective on why IW-ward decided to drop dedicated server support for the PC platform? Personally, I am completely baffled by the decision. It doesn't even stop piracy, in fact, it effects pirates the least, because you can use cracked versions of the game to play dedicated servers.

Regarding DLC Justification:

This is a lot easier if you take a perspective in a larger scope than this game. If you break even with this game, then what money can you fund the budget of the next game with? The next game could cost 300 or 400 million. For this reason, making enough money to cover them is essential. Now let's take into perspective that one of those games goes overbudget. Having as much money as possible to cover any unforseen costs such as a rebooking of an entire symphony to redo a song that has changed are quite large dings to the budget. Many times it's budgeted for, but not all projects are so easy.

The company has to keep their eyes to the future... the costs of the games will get higher still. If they don't find ways to maximize the profit of the products they make now... and continually... then the future games they produce will suffer... And any game that suffers could change company reputation. Reputation has the potential of effecting future sales of unrelated games. It's easier to see reasons when you stop thinking about such a small scope and bring it to a global perspective. In terms of understanding how Blizzard fits with this, I highly suggest going to the link in my wall of text above, It's a VERY interesting, and for some reassuring, read. The book is fantastic as well.

In short, you may say "they are not neccessary" right now... but as the industry evolves over time I think this mentality will be required for companies to stay afloat to the ever increasing costs.

Regarding the dedicated server subject:

Well, that's something I'm not 100% qualified to speak on as I'm slightly unarmed with the full situation. I'll find it out on my own to get details.

I will state the following general knowledge in the industry:

Piracy is not something that companies feel they can "remove" or "stop" contrary to uneducated beliefs. Typically it's judged as "mitigation". The reason that companies make anti-piracy measures is to simply make good people think twice about it before they pirate it. A common thought is, if you make it 100% easy to pirate to the point that the line is blurred (think copying casette tapes in the 80s) then good people will pirate and not know they're doing anything wrong. I think it's generally thought of as "good practice" in the industry now to prevent that level of "clueless piracy" but that's about as far as prevention goes. Any attempt to go further (example: Spore) backfires quite well.

I wish I could provide impressions, but quite simply, it was a decision that was made within the scope of their project. While the immediate concern of the population could be "it's to make money" sometimes it's simply a design decision that takes form in a later product. I wish I could say more on the subject.