Activision Further Dismantles Blizzard

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Blizzard Entertainment. I was first introduced to them when I was playing a demo of Warcraft, and even convinced my sister to go 50/50 with me to pay for the game, however we ended up getting Warcraft II (1995) instead, but that’s still in the Warcraft family. Over the years I’ve jumped in on almost all of their titles, but once the merger with Activision occurred, in 2008, I feared for their souls. Activision, to me, has always been one of those companies that is all about pumping out sequels as fast as possible with very little improvement, or change between them. Yes, I know that there are going to be those people out there who will fight me tooth and nail over the “major” differences between each Call of Duty, and they are entitled to their opinions. I also feel that they are one of those studios who truly believe in the “we’ll fix it with patches later” mentality. Yes, I know that there are going to be those people out there who will fight me tooth and nail over the “major” differences between each Call of Duty, and they are entitled to their opinions. I was fearful that the approach to releases of Blizzard products would be pushed to mirror Activision’s. Before the merger, as painful as it was from time to time, Blizzard didn’t release their games until they ironed out the majority of the issues.

I might be in the minority, but I don’t think that Blizzard has ever been the same, and now there was the official news that Vicarious Visions, an internal studio to Activision, has taken the place of the Blizzard internal group known as “Team 1”. I viewed “Team 1” as that last beacon of hope, they still had that “we want to make sure it’s polished” mentality, but they have been completely dismantled. Some of the members found places on other Activision developers, and some went to indie studios, such as Frost Giant Studios Inc, and DreamHaven Inc. DreamHaven Inc. is a very interesting company simply because it was founded by Blizzard’s co-founder Mike Morhaime, who left when it became abundantly obvious that Activision was truly taking over back in 2018.

At this point I do want to say that I have nothing against Vicarious Visions, they have been around since 1990, they have a huge list of games, some of which I have played. The thing is, when you look over their game library, a pattern starts to emerge. They have become the developers who take over specific platform versions of other franchises, basically what they are set to do with a chunk of the Blizzard franchises. They are the developers responsible for developing ports of many of the Guitar Hero games to the Wii and DS. They are also responsible for many of the ports of the early Skylander games to the DS, iOS, and Android devices. They did eventually become the lead developer for that series, starting with Skylanders: Swap Force. So you can see that they have definitely put in time on established franchises, and I’m sure that at some point the pieces of the Blizzard library they are now in charge of will be solid games, but their first title is going to be one hell of a task, Diablo II: Resurrected.

I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m now sadly waiting for the day when Activision just strikes the name Blizzard off their company name. The Blizzard I grew up with has been dying, and I fear that with this move the last gasping breaths are now happening. Here’s hoping that studios such as DreamHaven Inc. can become spiritual successors to Blizzard Entertainment of yesteryear. Maybe I’m wrong about Activision, I seriously doubt it, but there is still a part of me that hopes Activision can allow what’s left of the old Blizzard to create some amazing things.