#1 - Nov. 14, 2014, 5:39 a.m.
Instead of raging to you like an uneducated buffoon who doesn't know the first thing about Business Administration or Game Design. I come to you as a player who has a degree in Game Design, an MBA, a GAAP practiced Accountant, and a shareholder to Blizzard Entertainment.
If you would like an educated and rational reason to why Blizzard's new expansion release is unacceptable then I ask you to read on.
After spending some time reviewing the majority of unhappy posts from fellow subscribers and your CS responses, it would seem that the simple answer to why this new Expansion failed to launch effectively was due to two reasons:
1. You failed to adequately prepare for the easily foreseeable and calculative influx of players.
and
2. Our money, invested into you, a company many of us have been gladly apart of for years, has been ill used.
Why is it that we pay the same subscription fee and upgrade fee when you as a company haven't released a sizable extension to the game in forever? In WoD, we get models, a new zone, and some new code? Any college undergraduate could have created the new models for a midterm assignment (I know this because I myself in college, modeled, rigged, animated, and mapped characters in numerous softwares first hand and I tell you everyone, it ain't that hard.) Sure it takes some time, but it took you guys months? Who is the lead of your character development?
I did a bit of digging into your annual and quarterly reports (all this information is available to anyone guys, they are a Public Company and are required to disclose all financial information). In your "2012 Annual Report" you filed a Total Assest worth of $14.2 Billion dollars, your highest Total Asset worth since 2008. In your 2014 Quarter 3 Report you filed a Total Assest worth of 13.8 Billion dollars!
This means everyone that Blizzard had, 15 days ago, Assests worth $13.8 Billion Dollars. You are making excuses for server issues and literally "LIMITING THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE THAT CAN PLAY". Why is it, that you couldn't invest some of that $13.8 Billion into something more useful like, I don't know, stronger servers! Why can't you strengthen you technical teams and upgrade you ancient decade old system? Instead of spreading your resources thin on all these dumb new games how about you take the time to update your software to allow the modern world to connect with ease. Yes you have a lot of players, we get that. But your a leader in the Online Gaming industry and a company such as yourself shouldn't have problems like. Why, just why, didn't you guys prepare? It isn't that hard! I fear you as a company no longer stand by your mission and instead aim to profit at minimum effort.
This gets better too! Those Total Assets, 15 days ago, didn't include the shares Blizzard is trading everyday. Yes Blizz, I receive your shareholder report data as well. As of this evening on NASDAQ, at Market close, Blizzards stock closed at $20.33 share. Now take that $20.33 and multiply it by their total shares, yeah there's 719,030,000 of them. So get your calculator and do the math. That comes to $14,617,879,900. Yes that's a $14.6 Billion. So go ahead and add that to the previous Total Asset total.
Unacceptable Blizzard. I hope this experience perpetuates you as a company to fall back on your roots and remember the community of dedicated players you reach. I purchase my WoD edition, I payed my subscription, and so did everyone else. What excuse do you have to unmistakably restrict me and others to play? What reason could you possibly have with 10 years of MMO providing experience to let so many of us down on such an important time for World of Warcraft? Please, reevaluate yourselves.
Thank You.
