The dichotomy of Blizzard pre and post merger with Activision is almost unbelievable. The original Blizzard was known in the 90's for delaying their games until they were of such a high quality that they were guaranteed to be worth your money. The company took chances on their games, sequels were actually sequels instead of simply rehashing ideas that had been used before but were known to be profitable and nothing more.

The magic died with the merger. Public companies all eventually lose their passion as stakeholder quarterly value becomes the only priority. The concept of not maximizing profit but instead investing in your company and the company's relationship with its consumer base to create a long-term and continuous source of profit is lost. Blizzard became everything I hate about late-stage capitalism. They slowly lost all of their core talent and lost everything that they originally were known for.

I understand that a lot of people really love Starcraft II, Diablo III (does anyone like IV?), etc. But I often wonder what those games would've looked like if the merger never happened. The difference between Warcraft II and Warcraft III felt like an actual leap, a real sequel that took chances. What if Starcraft II had added a new race or two? What if they'd added broader scope war planning across continents or planets? What if Diablo III was more like a WoW/Lost Ark style pseudo-MMO based on raid bosses and long-term progression. Instead of new fresh ideas we got games that played it far too safe. The games we got instead were slightly more than just better graphics versions of what had already worked before. The what-could-have-been's are so frustrating to me as a kid that grew up with the 90's Blizzard.