Blizzard - What's the secret behind their success?

[Kaotik]

It's definately no surprise to anyone that Blizzard's games are huge successes and get thanks and awards from left and right.

At the moment Blizzard holds at least the Top-4 of fastest selling PC Games, leading with Diablo 3 followed by WoW: Cataclysm, WotLK and TBC, and original WoW & StarCraft 2 probably aren't that far behind either (might be even 5th, don't know really)

Blizzard has reached at least million sold copies with 13 titles (including expansions) so far, Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness, Warcraft 3, Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne, World of Warcraft, WoW: The Burning Crusade, WoW: Wrath of the Lich King, WoW: Cataclysm, Diablo, Diablo 2, Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction, Diablo 3, Starcraft and Starcraft 2.

Blizzard's history started under the name Silicon & Synapse, under which they developed RPM Racing, The Lost Vikings, Rock'n'Roll Racing ja Shanghai 2: Dragon's Eye, as well as ports from Battle Chess, Battle Chess 2, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings vol 1, Castles, MicroLeague Baseball, Lexi-Cross ja Dvorak on Typing.

Under the name Blizzard they've done Blackthorne, The Death and Return of Superman, Justice League Task Force, The Lost Vikings 2 and of course all the Warcrafts, Starcrafts and Diablos. They're also at the moment working on MMO under the codename "Titan".

They're now part of Activision Blizzard, Blizzards previous owner, Vivendi, hold the majority of Activision Blizzards shares.

Their success really started from Warcraft 2 in 1995, though of course original Warcraft was a great game too, and Blackthorne and Lost Vikings weren't that bad either - but this was the breaking point, first game from Blizz to sell over 1 million copies.

But what's the secret behind their success? What makes Blizzard games so succesfull and well selling as they are?

Of course the polish is relevant and one big point, Blizz games have tendency to be highly polished especially on the gameplay part, even though there's always few bugs to be found and things to patch out - but is this the one thing separating Blizzard games from others?

 

[Bludd]

The secret is their failure to disappoint the large gameplaying masses with new iterations of a few franchises they managed to successfully establish in the past.

They haven't done anything actually new for 17 years.

 

[swaaye]

I suppose it's similar to the successes of various sports games and other franchises such as CoD. For a large group of people, the formula just never gets old.

 

[Sigfried1977]

Same as Nintendo basically.

 

[Grall]

Rock 'n' Roll Racing was awesome. A few aspects were a little dodgy, and the jerky scrolling wasn't particularly impressive on a technical level, but it was one hell of a game on the whole. Had LOADS of fun playing it way back when.

Their secret isn't really a secret I guess. Self-funding and heavy polish, attention to detail, strong visual aesthetics in everything they do depending on the respective franchise, keeping a focus on the whole experience and guiding beginners are some factors. I'm sure a crapload more could be added.

 

[Rodéric]

The secret is their failure to disappoint the large gameplaying masses with new iterations of a few franchises they managed to successfully establish in the past.

They haven't done anything actually new for 17 years.

Agreed.

 

[Grall]

All depends on what you mean by "actually new". Starcraft wasn't "actually" new, because there were other RTS games before it, and some of those were in a sci-fi setting, thus "un-newing" Starcraft? I dunno, I feel this sort of reasoning is overly strict, and bordering on fundamentalist.

After all, not being "actually new" doesn't mean not "actually good". Whingers who say that for example all Super Mario Bros. games are all the same and just repetition really irritate me. No they're not. They're unique, individual games.

Thus, WoW for example is neither Warcraft III in disguise, nor Everquest, or any of those other early MMOs. It's a unique game. Diablo 3 is not Diablo 2 with a new coat of paint schlepped on it. There's hardly a single mechanic left in the game that hasn't been changed in some way. Well, other than the isometric perspective and click-to-move scheme.

So stating "they haven't done anything really new in XX years" is just dumb. Because they HAVE done that. End of story.

 

[czekon]

aah ok i get it so secret to succes is to dissapoint as many gamers as possible .... :/

 

[Kaotik]

aah ok i get it so secret to succes is to dissapoint as many gamers as possible .... :/

Except that they do that, they disappoint some, because it's impossible to satisfy everyone, and those some keep helluva noise about it.

Some good points raised on another forum:
- They care for the community, and listen to them, change games when feasible more to what people are asking for
- They care for their older games too, even 12 years old Diablo 2 just got a quite notable patch

 

[Bludd]

All depends on what you mean by "actually new". Starcraft wasn't "actually" new, because there were other RTS games before it, and some of those were in a sci-fi setting, thus "un-newing" Starcraft? I dunno, I feel this sort of reasoning is overly strict, and bordering on fundamentalist.

After all, not being "actually new" doesn't mean not "actually good". Whingers who say that for example all Super Mario Bros. games are all the same and just repetition really irritate me. No they're not. They're unique, individual games.

Thus, WoW for example is neither Warcraft III in disguise, nor Everquest, or any of those other early MMOs. It's a unique game. Diablo 3 is not Diablo 2 with a new coat of paint schlepped on it. There's hardly a single mechanic left in the game that hasn't been changed in some way. Well, other than the isometric perspective and click-to-move scheme.

So stating "they haven't done anything really new in XX years" is just dumb. Because they HAVE done that. End of story.

You might take this the wrong way but here goes: Starcraft is Warcraft in space, WoW is EQ with Warcraft l&f.

Iterations and, for most gamers, good ones at that.

Disclaimer: I don't like any of their popular franchises. I did like Rock and Roll Racing.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Were the Warcraft RTSs that much of a financial success?

I get the feeling that most of Blizzard's money came from WoW alone.
The Starcrafts were a huge success in South Korea but I don't know if they're that big in the rest of the world.

I'm also not sure where Diablo 3 stands on, but the revenues have already paid the game, probably. From now on it's a cash cow.

 

[cjo]

From now on it's a cash cow.

More like a cash pony. I think Diablo 2 was the cash cow.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

More like a cash pony. I think Diablo 2 was the cash cow.

Can we change that into cash unicorn?

Pretty please?

 

[Kaotik]

Were the Warcraft RTSs that much of a financial success?

I get the feeling that most of Blizzard's money came from WoW alone.
The Starcrafts were a huge success in South Korea but I don't know if they're that big in the rest of the world.

I'm also not sure where Diablo 3 stands on, but the revenues have already paid the game, probably. From now on it's a cash cow.

Warcraft 2 over 1 million sold, Warcraft 3 over 3 million, Warcraft 3 expansion over 1 million.
And I doubt Starcraft 1 sold it's 11 million in South Korea alone, nor Starcraft 2 it's 4.5 million
Warcraft 3 number is from expansion's release date, not including those sold after
Starcraft 2 number is from over a year ago, not including those sold since

 

[KKRT]

All depends on what you mean by "actually new". Starcraft wasn't "actually" new, because there were other RTS games before it, and some of those were in a sci-fi setting, thus "un-newing" Starcraft? I dunno, I feel this sort of reasoning is overly strict, and bordering on fundamentalist.

After all, not being "actually new" doesn't mean not "actually good". Whingers who say that for example all Super Mario Bros. games are all the same and just repetition really irritate me. No they're not. They're unique, individual games.

Thus, WoW for example is neither Warcraft III in disguise, nor Everquest, or any of those other early MMOs. It's a unique game. Diablo 3 is not Diablo 2 with a new coat of paint schlepped on it. There's hardly a single mechanic left in the game that hasn't been changed in some way. Well, other than the isometric perspective and click-to-move scheme.

So stating "they haven't done anything really new in XX years" is just dumb. Because they HAVE done that. End of story.

Name one franchise which games havent changed almost every mechanics for 12 years? :>

Its simple to overrate Blizzard ability to 'upgrade' games when You only compare their games, but dont compare with what actually happened between those games in video games development history.

The only things Diablo 3 actually do different is combat, everything else is just upgraded or repainted.