[Dumblydorr]

Blizzard has been on a downward spiral for years. They still have awesome teams releasing and maintaining awesome games, (thank you for custom colors in SC Remastered!), but by and large their direction has been towards EA and away from their true fans.

[benologist]

This is because their name is not Blizzard. Their legacy is Blizzard. Their name is Activision Blizzard. They are actively opposed to players' interests in many ways, like lootboxes which many countries seek to outlaw for teaching children to gamble, always-online DRM etc.

[redisman]

Metzen is out, Morhaime is out. Really the soul of the company has departed already. They still have some of the best talent in the industry but the products are not going to be what we used to love anymore. Makes me sad as I've supported them from Warcraft I and Diablo I until about last year (when they killed the competitive scene for HOTS with very little warning).

[puranjay]

I can't understand why anyone even expects better PR management from Blizzard after that "you all have mobile phones, right?" fiasco

[magashna]

It's no longer Blizzard, it's Activision-Blizzard, which explains the clusterfuck that the company has become.

[josefx]

If anything their perspective seems to be that their "true fans" are mainly Chinese and are playing cheap knock of mobile games.

[MrMember]

That does seem to be the case. The "big" announcement at last year's Blizzcon was a Chinese free to play mobile game with a Diablo skin.

[benologist]

It helps if you consider China has millions of little baby whales who will grow up to spend tens of billions of dollars in Activision Blizzard titles that leverage dark patterns that western countries are starting to outlaw.

[jamesgeck0]

Lack of big news doesn't mean anything. We know they had teams working on Diablo 4, Overwatch 2, and the next World of Warcraft expansion. But Blizzard has historically preferred to have extended internal development periods and not announce anything until they're close to release.

Heck, Titan was under development for years before getting cancelled without any sort of big announcement.

[cortesoft]

Their revenue was growing pretty steadily for years until this past year. What makes you think they were on a downward spiral this whole time?

[pdimitar]

The "downward spiral" premise I believe refers more to "alienating the players who made the company successful in the first place" and is not at all related to revenue or profit.

I could be wrong -- it's just that this always seems to have been the sentiment on the forums I frequented.