In the late 90s and early 2000s, Blizzard became dominant in game development. A company that was cherished by millions of players worldwide due to its commendable fan service and innovative game designs.
However, due to neglectful decision-making, Blizzard could not hold its ground in the competition. The very company that introduced Esports and set a standard in gaming is now continuously facing harsh times.
Key Takeaways
- Blizzard became the most dominating game developer in the early 2000s, which would only focus on living up to their fans’ expectations.
- Neglectful decision-making in maintaining their games resulted in despondent reactions from fans.
- To make matters worse, many thoughtful entities left the company, revoking the fans’ interest and expectations of them.
- Blizzard presents projects that contradict their fanbase’s enthusiasm and plagues their game structure with micro-transactions, becoming an imminent fall from the right track.
A World Where Passion Is Your Profession
Throughout Blizzard’s game development, every release has hit massive success, gathering players worldwide on a competition platform. The company remained flawless in presenting innovative game design to its audience.
The online multiplayer feature was not common in early 2000, so Blizzard hit the jackpot by adopting the feature. StarCraft’s first tournament was held at that time, and it attracted a large crowd.
Basically, the company introduced Esports when the term did not even exist. Therefore, we can see that Blizzard was ahead of time back then.
Blizzard revolutionized the whole idea of gaming, which I admire as the company’s best trait. StarCraft set the standard for strategy games and became iconic for its competitive approach in the game development field. This opens the opportunity for all the players worldwide to gather on a platform that they all consider enjoyable and find fairly equal to compete.
Fans started having expectations from the company, and Blizzard did not fail to live up to that. The release of World of Warcraft was a massive success and a turning point where Blizzard gained the freedom to introduce new projects to the audience confidently.
Rising Above The Competition
At the time when Blizzard was planning on releasing its most fan-favorite projects, no competition stood in its way. BlizzCon happens almost every year to keep the interaction with fans and developers alive.
It appeared that success was imminent for this company. Their games would hit millions of sales upon launch, breaking their record each year.
- StarCraft sold 1.5 million copies in 1998.
- Diablo 2 sold 1 million copies in 2000.
- Warcraft 3 sold 4.4 million in 2002.
- World of Warcraft had 240,000 subscriptions in the first few hours when it was released in 2004. This count deliberately increased to 1.5 million within a few months.
- StarCraft 2 sold 1 million copies in 2010 within just 24 hours of the game’s launch.
- Overwatch sold 7 million copies in 2016.
Blizzard would become successful in attracting and expanding their player base time after time.
However, one fact that always took its toll on the company was neglectful decision-making. Blizzard always appears to abandon its previously launched titles to gather all hands on the deck for the new project. Leaving its old player base unattended and not supporting the further development of early titles.
Blizzard Taking Biggest Loss With Its Own Decisions
By the year 2009, Riot had released a new highly competitive MOBA game, League of Legends. The game was meant to compete with Warcraft 3, and luckily for Riot, the game blew up and gained a massive player count.
Warcraft 3 also held its worth then and was not looking to fall off from competition anytime soon. Besides, Warcraft 3 hosted a new game approach in its Custom Games section, designed by a modder.
This innovation was named Defense of the Ancient (DOTA). It was a successful mod of Warcraft 3 that got a lot of recognition in its player base. At this point, the MOBA genre started gaining recognition.
Blizzard took notice and planned on officially launching this mod as Warcraft Dota. However, the company was unaware that the odds were stacked against it this time. Valve interfered with their idea and claimed the trademark for DOTA. Blizzard took action and did what they thought was the most sensible thing: Filing a Lawsuit.
Ideally, Dota was created using Warcraft 3’s map editor. However, Blizzard failed to claim this, which swept them off the opportunity to work on Dota’s development. The year 2013 came, and Valve announced DOTA 2, which was undeniably a massive success for another MOBA game. This unfortunate event marked Blizzard’s downfall in the MOBA genre overall.
Eventually, a time came when Blizzard started disappointing its fans by overlooking the quality of the experience. Replacing fan service with alloyed game designs to favor game development progress to prioritize quantity over quality was undeniably the downfall they appointed for themselves.
Once An Icon, Now A Trivial
A reek of disappointment started coming from Blizzard after the launch of Overwatch, as they continued pursuing their adverse decisions for game development.
At BlizzCon 2016, Blizzard stated that old servers would remain unintended for World of Warcraft, which grieved the fans. Whereas in BlizzCon 2017, Allen Brack announced the revival of the classic servers. This act displayed the uncertainty of decision-making in the company.
At BlizzCon 2018, Wyatt Cheng announced Diablo Mobile, which was a vast grief in their decision. Surely, the idea was innovative. But the fact here was that Blizzard forgot it was targeting a PC audience.
The year 2020 introduced Warcraft 3 Reforged, which tainted the company’s reputation. It damaged the fans’ perception that they were sure Blizzard would undoubtedly deliver a polished game.
Besides that, Call of Duty: Warzone arrived and succeeded. However, one neglectful decision Blizzard made here was to introduce Battle Pass. The only enmity I felt about this decision was that it became a trend in their every game later, making micro-transactions a vital theme in their game design.
Eventually, the time came when thoughtful persons in Blizzard started resigning. After deliberately providing the Overwatch masterpiece to the community, Jeffrey Kaplan left the community in 2021. That was the year when Allen Brack also resigned.
Now, we all know that Blizzard is not the amiable company it used to be in the past. I admire the company’s commitment to providing games that revolutionized this industry. But Blizzard’s downfall clearly stated that failing to remain consistent and relying on the past is not a healthy expedition when you lack certainty in your actions.
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Shoaib Rashid is a passionate Gamer and an experienced writer who has been covering the Gaming Industry for over 3 Years. He started his career as a freelance journalist, writing reviews, previews, news, guides, and features for various industries. He joined VA Gaming as a Writer in 2022 and was promoted to Content Editor in 2023, where he oversees the editorial tasks and ensures the quality and accuracy of the content.
Shoaib loves to play all kinds of games, from Competitive shooters to the latest AAA releases, you name it, and he got them all covered; a PC Enthusiast who loves to stay upgraded with the latest hardware, and he enjoys sharing his insights and opinions with the Gaming Community.
While being a hardcore competitive Gamer he also a big Anime fan so his IGN goes by #SHiNiGaMii. and you can join him on Steam and checkout his library to learn more about his accomplishments.
