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deriving Activision's obligations from general principlesFollow

#1 Nov 24 2012 at 11:37 AM Rating: Sub-Default
To assess how Activision handles World of Warcraft, start out from this principle:

"Every businessperson has a paramount fiduciary duty to the entire human species. By definition, that duty supersedes all other fiduciary duties, including those to shareholders, direct reports, junior staff and customers or clients."

My assessment is that Activision's senior executives need to have that tattooed on their foreheads so that they stare at it in the mirror every morning when they shave or put on makeup. Then they might get a clue. But then, pretty much every large 21st-century business relies on a hideously narrow interpretation of the definitions of "self-interest" and "prudence" and has a perspective so short-term that it's like they think God created the earth at the start of the current fiscal quarter. Activision is no different, and that's a major reason why, while the game of WoW is wonderful, the WoW community is abysmally terrible.

Regards.
#2 Nov 24 2012 at 11:59 AM Rating: Excellent
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I know thinking is hard for you but you do know that Activision and Blizzard are separate entities right? It is precious to see you got a chubby over Activision though.
#3 Nov 24 2012 at 12:02 PM Rating: Excellent
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SolaRoe wrote:
Activision is no different, and that's a major reason why, while the game of WoW is wonderful, the WoW community is abysmally terrible.


Actually, people like you are the reason why the WoW community is so abysmally terrible.

Regards.
#4 Nov 24 2012 at 12:19 PM Rating: Good
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Criminy wrote:
I know thinking is hard for you but you do know that Activision and Blizzard are separate entities right? It is precious to see you got a chubby over Activision though.


They are separate entities. Blizzard has full control of WoW, Starcraft, and Diablo. Activision has CoD, Tony Hawk, Spiderman, and a few others.
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#5 Nov 24 2012 at 12:22 PM Rating: Good
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In addition to this is a blurb from the wiki page of the merger( i know its wikipedia and anyone can edit but....)

Activision and Blizzard Entertainment still exist as separate entities.[10] The holding company does not publish games under its central name and instead uses its subsidiaries to publish games, similar to how Vivendi Games operated before the merger.[11] The merger makes Activision parent company of Vivendi Games' former divisions.

While Blizzard retained its autonomy and corporate leadership, other Vivendi Games divisions did not. For example, long-time label Sierra ceased operation. With the merger, there was a rumor that if a Sierra product did not meet Activision's requirements, they "won't likely be retained."[12] Some of Sierra's games such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon and Prototype have been retained and are now published by Activision.[13] Also, due to the closure of Sierra, the Sierra Community Forums servers have been shut down as of November 1, 2008.[14]

Edited, Nov 24th 2012 1:28pm by Rukkuss

Edited, Nov 24th 2012 1:37pm by Rukkuss
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#6 Nov 24 2012 at 12:23 PM Rating: Good
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The WoW community is horrible because it's big and therefore holds a lot of people. People are stupid. Wizard's first rule, grasshopper.
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#7 Nov 24 2012 at 12:26 PM Rating: Good
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Thanks for the info Rukkuss but plea-hease choose another color. It makes my eyes bleed.

Edit: Surprise, surprise.

Edited, Nov 24th 2012 1:27pm by TherealLogros
#8 Nov 24 2012 at 12:31 PM Rating: Good
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TherealLogros wrote:
Thanks for the info Rukkuss but plea-hease choose another color. It makes my eyes bleed.

Edit: Surprise, surprise.

Edited, Nov 24th 2012 1:27pm by TherealLogros



sorry it wont let me change the color :) but will take into consideration using a different color in the future :)
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#9 Nov 24 2012 at 12:34 PM Rating: Good
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You need to delete the existing color tags before adding new ones, I think.
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#10 Nov 24 2012 at 3:53 PM Rating: Good
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TherealLogros wrote:
Since that thread linked appears to have been deleted, I take it that it was the same as the OP here by the same poster?
#11 Nov 24 2012 at 5:01 PM Rating: Excellent
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I suppose that having to run searches through google.hk may limit my hits, but a paste and search of the quote yields no results other than the OP and a similar, deleted thread on the O-boards. It seems that you're a freshman (or high school student) who has discovered Philosophy but you haven't learned to apply the discipline to yourself, let alone the broader world. Putting your own words in quotes to appear to borrow authority or expertise is false scholarship and hubris. If it is an actual quote, failure to cite the source is poor scholarship at best.

You've misused "fiduciary duty". It is a term of law, with established limits and conditions. Your failure to understand them renders the rest of your attempted principle gibberish. Among other things, a fiduciary duty requires that the fiduciary accept the responsibility and they generally do so through a positive act. A fiduciary duty is not necessarily created even among family members. Blizzard (not Activision, Blizzard) has a whole laundry list of disclaimers that define their relationship and obligation to players. Click wrap contracts, for all of their potential flaws, have generally been supported by the courts. By playing World of Warcraft, you've made a declaration that you accept those terms and limits.

Learn to use structure, either syllogisms or Venn diagrams will help you avoid mistakes. You've started by trying to state some lofty principle, you move on to a rant about 21st century business and conclude -- offering absolutely no supporting proof -- that these points have a causal relationship to the attitudes of the player base.

Quote:
abysmally terrible


/facepalm Your badly awful torment of English is painful.

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#12 Nov 24 2012 at 5:11 PM Rating: Good
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Whatcha'll talkin' 'bout in this here thread now? *spit*

As a foreigner, I can feign ignorance and scoot by all this mumbo-jumbo talk and simply ask...

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#13REDACTED, Posted: Nov 24 2012 at 5:35 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Rhodekylle,
#14 Nov 24 2012 at 5:38 PM Rating: Excellent
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Oh, lord, I'm going to enjoy opening up this thread tomorrow.
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#15 Nov 24 2012 at 6:39 PM Rating: Excellent
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SolaRoe wrote:
Rhodekylle,

Your mastery of sophistries and facile ad hominems is admirable. Keep it up. The types who isolate and pounce on the notion that Blizzard is not Activision (a mere technicality, since Activision is the 100% controlling parent company) might even understand every twentieth word you've typed there.

Meanwhile, if there's any substance to your response, you're free to provide it. All you've done so far is what you accuse me of doing, which is to make bald statements without substantiation. Tell me where my statements go wrong and maybe I'll listen. Until then, I'll dismiss you as just doing political damage control for Activision without disclosing your conflict of interest.


Aww looks like someone got his hands on a thesaurus. Have you read your first sentence then looked back at your previous posts? That sentence alone sums up your nutter theories rather well. Then you go on to make up words (lol "technicalistic") followed by a complete lack of knowledge.

He has provided plenty of substance to the mindless rot that you decide to spew on this forum. Keep it up though princess, watching you try to act smart is hilarious. Let me guess, next you are going to come along and accuse Blizzard Activision of selling accounts to gold sellers. Smiley: laugh

Edit: While I was doing the dishes I gave it some thought. If Activision is to blame for the "abysmally terrible" community in WoW what about the communities in CoD, Halo, LoL, HoN, or if you want to keep it just in MMO's you can limit yourself to... all of them. Spoiler alert! It isn't the parent companies fault that their gaming community can be an utter ******** sometimes. It is the communities fault and more specifically it is people such as yourself SolaRoe that is the problem. Instead of forcing the community to become better you try to shift the blame onto a company. Grow a pair and become part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Edited, Nov 24th 2012 8:03pm by Criminy
#16 Nov 24 2012 at 8:28 PM Rating: Good
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I'm looking forward to the Manchester City vs Chelsea game tomorrow. Especially given that Chelsea has a new coach for this game. Should be entertaining.
#17 Nov 24 2012 at 9:16 PM Rating: Excellent
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Quote:
Tell me where my statements go wrong


Smiley: grin

Mmmmm... Nope, it doesn't work that way. You're the one who wants to sell your hot new theory, you get to prove your numbers and draw the relationships. Activision has %100 percent control? Prove it, others have already linked you to data that casts doubt on your claim and the ball is in your court to rebut it.

Save yourself the trouble, for somebody who likes to throw around the claim something is ad hominem you both love it and do it poorly. It could be the Illuminati who secretly own and control the world ... of Warcraft. It wouldn't make any difference because you've failed to define your argument; you invoke "Activision" because it is a boggle in certain parts of the player base.

Let's go through your posts and see if we can put things together for you. This is how one does ad hominem. You have trouble getting a toon out of any but the simplest of the current batch of content. You're butthurt that you can't figure out how to beat a multiboxer in low level BGs. You have a fixation on unwashed anuses, having used the phrase several times in a short posting history; it is hard to say if you're gay and in denial or simply have a scatalogical fixation. You feel inadequate and compensate by trying to seem intellectual in inappropriate settings -- for example, invoking Plato to respond to writing advice from a poster who is known to regular forum readers as an aspiring writer. You resort to passive-aggressive behavior and hide your cries of "he's mean to me" by dressing them up in Latin and glossy words. You've probably used similar tactics in communicating with guild mates, in chat, and with GMs. That has eventually brought you here, hoping that you can find a following and somehow force Blizzard (I said it) to do what you think is right for the game. Other forums have probably already banned you. Your poor communications skills and possible narcissistic personality disorder are also the reason you keep rerolling characters. You cope with your failures by demonizing others, e.g. describing your multiboxing Horde nemesis as having druids who looked like turkeys and that helps you accept running away from problems. You can't accept that other people manage to enjoy the game as it stands and instead like to think that focusing on the leveling experience would bring in millions of players who just happen to play the way you want. You probably have trouble actually seeing others as people; you see them as actors on the stage of your life and that gets in the way of having a social/sexual relationship over the long term. At some point in your life you may find these characteristics have gotten you into trouble with the criminal or administrative legal system.

As for me, I live in a country where the legal age of consent is 14 and I plan to have a wonderful evening with a young lady half my age. Smiley: nod
#18 Nov 24 2012 at 10:39 PM Rating: Good
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The One and Only Poldaran wrote:
TherealLogros wrote:
Since that thread linked appears to have been deleted, I take it that it was the same as the OP here by the same poster?


It had the same headline and contained much of the OPs first break. I didn't compare every sentency since I'm lazy. But either the OP just copied 90% of the original post (since he/she is even more lazy than me) or he/she is just a troll who wanted to stirr up the o-boards with the thread I linked.
#19 Nov 25 2012 at 6:53 AM Rating: Excellent
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Rhode, you should have added one more option to your poll: B, C, and D. It's been too quiet around here since Raw "quit" posting.

SolaRoe wrote:
"Every businessperson has a paramount fiduciary duty to the entire human species. By definition, that duty supersedes all other fiduciary duties, including those to shareholders, direct reports, junior staff and customers or clients."


This is a wonderful example of where using a thesaurus to make you sound intelligent fails for you. "Fiduciary" has a broad literal meaning that encompasses what you are trying to say, but a much more limited definition in the context in which you are using it.

SolaRoe wrote:
My assessment is that Activision's senior executives need to have that tattooed on their foreheads so that they stare at it in the mirror every morning when they shave or put on makeup. Then they might get a clue.


The point of your apparent made-up quote is that Activision (who doesn't actually run Blizzard, but since this is a WoW fan forum, let's go with Blizzard) should act in the best interests of the ENTIRE human species. Okay, fine, whatever, business should strive to make the world a better place by their existence, or at least not make it worse. Can you point to specific executive decisions that have violated this new principle you have concocted? Blizzard has three times before (with another coming out in the next patch) sold an in-game pet and donated the money to charity. There's also the instance of the boy who designed an in-game item through the Make-A-Wish foundation.

SolaRoe wrote:
...and has a perspective so short-term that it's like they think God created the earth at the start of the current fiscal quarter.


You seem fond of this phrase, this is the second time you've used it in fewer than 20 posts. Is it an original thought, or are you parroting a teacher/professor?

SolaRoe wrote:
Activision is no different, and that's a major reason why, while the game of WoW is wonderful, the WoW community is abysmally terrible.


You make absolutely no connection from any of your previous statements to this one. How does Activision Blizzard influence the community? What could the executives do to make it better? You should actually support your philosophy with concrete concepts, and then explain why implementing your ideas would be beneficial.
#20 Nov 25 2012 at 7:09 AM Rating: Excellent
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TherealLogros wrote:
The One and Only Poldaran wrote:
TherealLogros wrote:
Since that thread linked appears to have been deleted, I take it that it was the same as the OP here by the same poster?


It had the same headline and contained much of the OPs first break. I didn't compare every sentency since I'm lazy. But either the OP just copied 90% of the original post (since he/she is even more lazy than me) or he/she is just a troll who wanted to stirr up the o-boards with the thread I linked.


Here is the Google-cache link to that thread, prior to deletion.

Here's the text for it.

To assess Activision's handling of WoW, start off with the following general principle:

"Every businessperson and business has a paramount fiduciary duty to the entire human species. By definition, that duty supersedes all other fiduciary duties, including those to shareholders, direct reports, junior staff and customers or clients."

Based on that principle, I'd grade Activision's handling of WoW at a -5 (yes, that's a minus sign in front of the 5) on a scale of 1 to 10. The base game of WoW is wonderful and there is every reason to play it forever as an offline single-player game. Thanks to Activision's policies and lack of strategic vision, however, the player community is abysmally horrid, and the MMO experience on WoW approaches degrading.

Activision has actively deprecated new player recruitment in favor of existing player retention and luring back those who have rightfully quit out of boredom. Instead of marketing the game to a vast world of seven billion people who could discover it for the first time, they have kowtowed to the bored circa 2006 veterans who have every reason to stop playing because they've done everything in the game already. Activision has used gimmicks such as expansions and scrolls of resurrection to retain that existing veteran player base. In the process, they have created a playing environment where newcomers are actively discouraged by existing players from trying anything out. Newcomers are called "scrubs" on the basis that they started playing recently. The heirloom system and gold accumulation system enables more experience players to have a completely unjust advantage in player versus player competition purely on the basis that they've pumped more profit into Activision's pocked for a longer time than newcomers. Ingame discussion is overrun with obsession with the latest fads (such as panda monks) and level 85-90 issues. Nearly every guide produced even by third parties focuses on level 85-90 play and there is a total absence of information on level 1-80 play. About 75% of WoW players aren't even aware that the BG brackets were split from 10-19 to 10-14 and 15-19 some years ago simply because they've spent the past few years on their mains lounging around Stormwind Trade waiting for their heroic raid q to pop. The list goes on and on.

The real issue, however, is Activision's unduly narrow interpretation of the definitions of the words "prudence" and "self-interest." While self-interest is entirely normal and prudence is appropriate, Activision understands prudence as totally excluding considerations of benefit to anyone except the dominant voting bloc of Activision shareholders. The fact that seven billion other people on earth deserve to benefit from Activision's business activities, and that that dominant voting bloc of shareholders would benefit even more if the rest of the world benefitted as well, is totally lost on Activision's board of directors and senior executives, simply because they are a typical 21st-century large business that things God created the heavens and earth at the start of the last fiscal quarter.

It's no secret that Activision's entire effort with regard to MMOs is currently developing a new game to replace WoW. Support for WoW has disappeared. Witness the firing ("layoff") of 600 GMs and customer service reps a few months ago. Now there is a brand new strategy employed by Activision: use techniques that actively discourage subscribers from creating support tickets, so that no one will bother to create a support ticket any more because it's useless; and then, on the basis that no subscriber creates support tickets any more, discontinue support for the game altogether. That kind of self-serving doublethink is also common among the senior execs of 21st-century large companies, so its appearance in the world of WoW doesn't surprise me.

The tragedy is that WoW was indeed a wonderful game until the short-termers and speculators came to dominate the global business community. Since their favorite leisure activity is buying currency and reselling it at a profit a few milliseconds later, it's hardly a surprise that they operate Blizzard Entertainment in the same way.

Have a nice day.


TL;DR: The OP is upset about heirlooms favoring long-time players, low-level PvP balance, and the lack of focus on leveling content.
#21 Nov 25 2012 at 10:26 AM Rating: Excellent
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AstarintheDruid wrote:
TL;DR: The OP is upset about heirlooms favoring long-time players, low-level PvP balance, and the lack of focus on leveling content.


So he is new to the mmo genre. Gotcha. Smiley: nod
#22 Nov 25 2012 at 10:27 AM Rating: Good
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As for me, I live in a country where the legal age of consent is 14 and I plan to have a wonderful evening with a young lady half my age.


Out of curiosity, which system of law did you practice in? Not Chinese, I hope.

P.S.
Quote:
You've misused "fiduciary duty". It is a term of law, with established limits and conditions. Your failure to understand them renders the rest of your attempted principle gibberish.


Eh, the House of Lords has done worse (Roberts v Hopwood).

Edited, Nov 25th 2012 4:31pm by Kavekk
#23 Nov 25 2012 at 7:52 PM Rating: Excellent
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Quote:
Out of curiosity, which system of law did you practice in? Not Chinese, I hope.


Alas, you've gone and dashed my attempt at youthfulness.

No. Although I've worked with several Chinese lawyers and judges here and have a good bit of respect for them, I was a lawyer in the US. The young law students I taught here were a good group, several went on to study in the US and get licensed there. Number Three 'daughter' is a lawyer, but she has drifted off to the evils of HR.

Quote:
Roberts v Hopwood


It looks like an interesting case. Unfortunately, the current political turnover still has Google messed up and I'm not having much luck pulling up a copy of the case itself. From what I've seen, I'd expect it to be a product of the era -- a 1925 case, preceding the Representation of the People Act by three years. The courts do that from time to time, the US branch of the legal tree gave us Dred Scott v. Sandford. Smiley: disappointed

edit: typo, need more coffee.

Edited, Nov 25th 2012 8:54pm by Rhodekylle


Edited, Nov 25th 2012 8:59pm by Rhodekylle
#24 Nov 25 2012 at 9:01 PM Rating: Good
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Criminy wrote:
AstarintheDruid wrote:
TL;DR: The OP is upset about heirlooms favoring long-time players, low-level PvP balance, and the lack of focus on leveling content.


So he is new to the mmo genre. Gotcha. Smiley: nod


OMG, Seriously?

lol.

Heirlooms?

Is he aware of the fact that he can easily roll two Level <10 characters and be suited in full BoAs the very first time Darkmoon Faire comes into town provided he has Cooking, Fishing, FA and 2 Professions on 75+? You can totally start a WoW Account Today, fresh, and have 1 character suited in full BoA (except Helm/Cloak) in <2 months' time with no character higher than Level 10.

Low-Level PvP Balance? Who cares about Low-Level PvP? Go do some quests. You'll be 80+ within a couple weeks, even without the stupid heirlooms.

Lack of Focus on Leveling Content... uh... I dunno what to say here, lol. Plenty of areas, quests, and places to see. Once you get Level 90, there are more dailies than you can shake a stick at (so many, that people are complaining!).

So yeah, this guy is definitely looking like an idiot about now.
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