World of Warcraft Forum » General Discussion » Analyst Mike Hickey on Blizzard/Activision and the challenges it faces. . .

Among them:

"According to Hickey, other areas of caution are a recent boost in Activision insiders selling shares -- "impossible to ignore," he says -- and increasing challenges for World of Warcraft."

"We view looming competition in the West from new MMORPGs as a greater threat to WoW’s future then the current transition," he adds, including NCsoft's September launch of Aion as a possible competitive threat."
 

(That one's for you, Zorndorf).

Read the full story here

Hm funny how know one seems to comment. I'm guessing a lot of people want to see this post buried. Anyways good find, I saw this earlier on Gamasutra and thought it was an interesting article.

BTW you could of left the calling out part of it well out. It would of been a much better post otherwise.

If I were an insider, I would probably start unloading now as well......WoW has peaked I would think.

Other than that....another bloviator.

Mike Hickey, lol. The guy has as much understanding of the gaming industry as a blender. He likes to facepalm on Activion-Blizzard. Hickey is the one that forecasted that the merger of Activision / Blizzard would not go through, due to ethnical managment conflicts . Then that it would be legally challenged for cartel reasons. Oh, and he also "knew" in 2007 that WoW would loose 20% of its player base (by 2008).

Here is a little background on Hickey. Judge yourself if he seems to be an insider.

Mike Hickey is an Associate Analyst following emerging and existing technology companies. Prior to joining Janco Partners in early 2004, Mike was a Financial Advisor with the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) working with institutional and high net worth individuals. Prior to UBS, Mike spent over 5 years with Salomon Smith Barney as an Investment Management Analyst working with institutional clientele. Mike received a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance-Real Estate from Colorado State University (CSU) and an MBA from the University of Denver (DU). Mike is a CFA Level 2 Candidate and has series 7 and 66 securities licenses. Taken from his employers website.

Blizzard also said that Warhammer Online was a possible threat.

Dont read too much into it.

Originally posted by Longsnout

Mike Hickey, lol. The guy has as much understanding of the gaming industry as a blender. He likes to facepalm on Activion-Blizzard. Hickey is the one that forecasted that the merger of Activision / Blizzard would not go through, due to ethnical managment conflicts . Then that it would be legally challenged for cartel reasons. Oh, and he also "knew" in 2007 that WoW would loose 20% of its player base (by 2008).

Here is a little background on Hickey. Judge yourself if he seems to be an insider.

Mike Hickey is an Associate Analyst following emerging and existing technology companies. Prior to joining Janco Partners in early 2004, Mike was a Financial Advisor with the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) working with institutional and high net worth individuals. Prior to UBS, Mike spent over 5 years with Salomon Smith Barney as an Investment Management Analyst working with institutional clientele. Mike received a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance-Real Estate from Colorado State University (CSU) and an MBA from the University of Denver (DU). Mike is a CFA Level 2 Candidate and has series 7 and 66 securities licenses. Taken from his employers website.

It seems to me he is the Mark Jacobs of the financial advisors :)))
 

I trust Nobel price winner John Forbes Nash Jr more. As a mathematician and economist he proved that markets where same strategies are used with the known position of the others,  a Nash equilibrium is created.

If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.

Stated simply, Amy and Bill are in Nash equilibrium if Amy is making the best decision she can, taking into account Bill's decision, and Bill is making the best decision he can, taking into account Amy's decision. Likewise, many players are in Nash equilibrium if each one is making the best decision that he or she can, taking into account the decisions of the others. However, Nash equilibrium does not necessarily mean the best cumulative payoff for all the players involved; in many cases all the players might improve their payoffs if they could somehow agree on strategies different from the Nash equilibrium (e.g. competing businessmen forming a cartel in order to increase their profits).
 

For a good understanding "game" means bunsiness markets also.

-----> Every new player added to the market which plays within the same strategies support the consolidation of the Nash equilibrium.

(Xn,...Sn) = Wow dominance. Every Wow clone reinforces the position of WOW within the market.

Only by changing completely the strategy and the gaming room you can breach the equilibrium.

Sometimes you get Nobel prices for very obvious things. The merit is he proved it mathematically. The complete math calculations of the Nash Equilibrium can be found on (please scroll to the end).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium

:))))

Copy paste works wonders. Don't even need to read anything beyond the first line, it's that predictable.

Regarding the OP and the article. I assume that Blizzard is evaluating all competition, regardless of how big or small a threat they are. It doesn't make sense to do anything else from a business perspective.

Originally posted by Xasapis

Copy paste works wonders. Don't even need to read anything beyond the first line, it's that predictable.

Regarding the OP and the article. I assume that Blizzard is evaluating all competition, regardless of how big or small a threat they are. It doesn't make sense to do anything else from a business perspective.

Yes X, but actually it proves every newly published fantasy mmorpg is fixing the locked positions in this industry.

And the only purpose of the OP was trolling with an Aion thread.

He just doesn't realise that by making the Aion statement he pushes WOW. I guess Mark Jacobs knows it by now in his retired chair somewhere on that lonely island. But perhaps MJ is not so lonely as he is joined by Gauge, Lord Brittish and some other dozen legends.

How many is the count now? 25, 26 for sure in the last 3 years... ?

Originally posted by Zorndorf

Originally posted by Longsnout

Mike Hickey, lol. The guy has as much understanding of the gaming industry as a blender. He likes to facepalm on Activion-Blizzard. Hickey is the one that forecasted that the merger of Activision / Blizzard would not go through, due to ethnical managment conflicts . Then that it would be legally challenged for cartel reasons. Oh, and he also "knew" in 2007 that WoW would loose 20% of its player base (by 2008).

Here is a little background on Hickey. Judge yourself if he seems to be an insider.

Mike Hickey is an Associate Analyst following emerging and existing technology companies. Prior to joining Janco Partners in early 2004, Mike was a Financial Advisor with the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) working with institutional and high net worth individuals. Prior to UBS, Mike spent over 5 years with Salomon Smith Barney as an Investment Management Analyst working with institutional clientele. Mike received a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance-Real Estate from Colorado State University (CSU) and an MBA from the University of Denver (DU). Mike is a CFA Level 2 Candidate and has series 7 and 66 securities licenses. Taken from his employers website.

It seems to me he is the Mark Jacobs of the financial advisors :)))
 

I trust Nobel price winner John Forbes Nash Jr more. As a mathematician and economist he proved that markets where same strategies are used with the known position of the others,  a Nash equilibrium is created.

If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.

Stated simply, Amy and Bill are in Nash equilibrium if Amy is making the best decision she can, taking into account Bill's decision, and Bill is making the best decision he can, taking into account Amy's decision. Likewise, many players are in Nash equilibrium if each one is making the best decision that he or she can, taking into account the decisions of the others. However, Nash equilibrium does not necessarily mean the best cumulative payoff for all the players involved; in many cases all the players might improve their payoffs if they could somehow agree on strategies different from the Nash equilibrium (e.g. competing businessmen forming a cartel in order to increase their profits).
 

For a good understanding "game" means bunsiness markets also.

-----> Every new player added to the market which plays within the same strategies support the consolidation of the Nash equilibrium.

(Xn,...Sn) = Wow dominance. Every Wow clone reinforces the position of WOW within the market.

Only by changing completely the strategy and the gaming room you can breach the equilibrium.

Sometimes you get Nobel prices for very obvious things. The merit is he proved it mathematically. The complete math calculations of the Nash Equilibrium can be found on (please scroll to the end).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium

:))))

I havent read  so much crap for a long time. Pulling off game theories for  mmos lol (and no,  "game" doesnt stand for computer games). You'd rather read up on some business/market strategy which are specifically made for competing companies and products, if you want to digg in so deep on that. You could see EVERY product has a lifecycle, even mmos. New products are created, if they are succesful they become stars (high market share in a growing industry sector) and later on hopefully cash cows (high market share in a slowly growing market):
" They are to be "milked" continuously with as little investment as possible, since such investment would be wasted in an industry with low growth."

That is where wow is atm. Its just a matter of time when it becomes a "dog" and drops in market share.

In case you want to read up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth-share_matrix

Originally posted by akritas

Originally posted by Zorndorf

It seems to me he is the Mark Jacobs of the financial advisors :)))
 

I trust Nobel price winner John Forbes Nash Jr more. As a mathematician and economist he proved that markets where same strategies are used with the known position of the others,  a Nash equilibrium is created.

If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.

Stated simply, Amy and Bill are in Nash equilibrium if Amy is making the best decision she can, taking into account Bill's decision, and Bill is making the best decision he can, taking into account Amy's decision. Likewise, many players are in Nash equilibrium if each one is making the best decision that he or she can, taking into account the decisions of the others. However, Nash equilibrium does not necessarily mean the best cumulative payoff for all the players involved; in many cases all the players might improve their payoffs if they could somehow agree on strategies different from the Nash equilibrium (e.g. competing businessmen forming a cartel in order to increase their profits).
 

For a good understanding "game" means bunsiness markets also.

-----> Every new player added to the market which plays within the same strategies support the consolidation of the Nash equilibrium.

(Xn,...Sn) = Wow dominance. Every Wow clone reinforces the position of WOW within the market.

Only by changing completely the strategy and the gaming room you can breach the equilibrium.

Sometimes you get Nobel prices for very obvious things. The merit is he proved it mathematically. The complete math calculations of the Nash Equilibrium can be found on (please scroll to the end).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium

:))))

I havent read  so much crap for a long time. Pulling off game theories for  mmos lol (and no,  "game" doesnt stand for computer games). You'd rather read up on some business/market strategy which are specifically made for competing companies and products, if you want to digg in so deep on that. You could see EVERY product has a lifecycle, even mmos. New products are created, if they are succesful they become stars (high market share in a growing industry sector) and later on hopefully cash cows (high market share in a slowly growing market):
" They are to be "milked" continuously with as little investment as possible, since such investment would be wasted in an industry with low growth."

That is where wow is atm. Its just a matter of time when it becomes a "dog" and drops in market share.

In case you want to read up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth-share_matrix

 

 

I am not pulling of "game" theories for MMO's. :)))
 

I refer to the market sitiuation of Fantasy mmorpg's and how this is LOCKED into a Nash equilibrium. btw a WELL known economic law.

Let me put it in a Neanderthal language: you can't out Wow ... Wow without reinforcing the current market position of Wow.

(Xn ...Sn) = Wow means the market positions become just more reinforced because everyone sticks to the same strategy of a. marketing the products and b. making the same in game mechanics and strategy.

By launching yet another Wow product (like Aoc, War, Aion, Spellborn, ...) you can't breach the Nash equilibriam by using the same strategies (in game and out of the game).

A few of these strategies? level based experience, standard quests, tank/spank/heal, fantasy based, and out of the game mechanics like single subscription based etc...

By using these same mechanics you just reinforce the already known winner of the played game.

OF COURSE you can play within the same market and with the same strategies, but succes will be limited because you just reinforced the equilibrium.

By launching such products as lorto, aoc, war, aion... you simply play the game where WOW is even more locked as the winner of the market game.

------

As to your argument of the "little investment as possible" is funny, because Wow simply assimilates the rare features these "new" competitors launch. Example: War had 3 new cards in the game: level solely through PvP, join Bg's from everywhere and zoned RvR (which was killed by the joining of BG everywhere).

Result? Wow has now level through PvP, join BG's from everywhere and RvR can't be killed by it because it has only minimal influece by owning one concentrated zone where still everyone is located.

The end situation is: War has lost its 3 cards, Wow not only took over and added the 3 cards and... racks up the 60% marketshare.

Next.

 Solution? Go for other strategies both in game and out of the game. Don't play the same game.

Originally posted by puma713

Among them:

"According to Hickey, other areas of caution are a recent boost in Activision insiders selling shares -- "impossible to ignore," he says -- and increasing challenges for World of Warcraft."

"We view looming competition in the West from new MMORPGs as a greater threat to WoW’s future then the current transition," he adds, including NCsoft's September launch of Aion as a possible competitive threat."
 

(That one's for you, Zorndorf).

Read the full story here

yep activision been sucking dry blizzard for a long time

i feel sorry for blizzard  having to carry that dead weight

activision was saved by blizzard and activision should just have closed, its fighting a loosing battle

now they re bringing down blizzard with them activision

they should split now while  blizzard can get out of the hole activision dug

mm activision will never do that it would mean bankrupt for them in a near futur

Originally posted by Longsnout

Mike Hickey, lol. The guy has as much understanding of the gaming industry as a blender. He likes to facepalm on Activion-Blizzard. Hickey is the one that forecasted that the merger of Activision / Blizzard would not go through, due to ethnical managment conflicts . Then that it would be legally challenged for cartel reasons. Oh, and he also "knew" in 2007 that WoW would loose 20% of its player base (by 2008).

Here is a little background on Hickey. Judge yourself if he seems to be an insider.

Mike Hickey is an Associate Analyst following emerging and existing technology companies. Prior to joining Janco Partners in early 2004, Mike was a Financial Advisor with the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) working with institutional and high net worth individuals. Prior to UBS, Mike spent over 5 years with Salomon Smith Barney as an Investment Management Analyst working with institutional clientele. Mike received a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance-Real Estate from Colorado State University (CSU) and an MBA from the University of Denver (DU). Mike is a CFA Level 2 Candidate and has series 7 and 66 securities licenses. Taken from his employers website.

God ....The man is a .... wow hater.
 

LOL You can find them everywhere. 1 chance in 2 he posts on www.mmorpg.com

@Zorndorf
Oh man you suffer from great delusion trying to explain the market situation in the mmo industry or any other industry with John Forbes Nash's Nash equilibrium or any other game theory.
The concepts of game theory are rather used in fields like social or social economic behaviour. Like your quoted example of the competing businessmen forming a cartel in order to increase their profits, its about if everyone is following the same strategy and follow the cartels price binding to maximise cumulative payoff for all involved. Although an individual might be tempted to break of from the mutual strategy and try to maximise his own sales/profit by lowering his prices for a product, however risking a deterioration in prices with everyone loosing. So you have a Nash Equilibrium if everyone sticks to the same strategy. The cumulative payoff can be higher if all decide to agree on a higher binding price.

Quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium
Nash equilibrium has been used to analyze hostile situations like war and arms races[1] (see Prisoner's dilemma), and also how conflict may be mitigated by repeated interaction (see Tit-for-tat). It has also been used to study to what extent people with different preferences can cooperate (see Battle of the sexes), and whether they will take risks to achieve a cooperative outcome (see Stag hunt). It has been used to study the adoption of technical standards, and also the occurrence of bank runs and currency crises (see Coordination game). Other applications include traffic flow (see Wardrop's principle), how to organize auctions (see Auction theory), and even penalty kicks in soccer (see Matching pennies)

So WTF has this to do with product strategies or market strategies in general. Try to read up better next time before you try to look smart and get yourself in deep waters. You just make yourself look stupid.
<Mod edit>

Eventually the mmo market will even out.  I am surprised how long one game has dominated the market to be honest.  At the same time it makes me sad, because so many new games have sucked so bad they can't even capture the sizable portion of players desperate for a new mmo.

When wows subs dip, will that mean the game somehow sucks?  Staying on the top ten best selling list for almost 5 years is rather noteworthy and nothing is going to rewrite history to show it a failure or something the people have not enjoyed for years on end.  Most experts say the typical mmo player sticks with a game for 18 months and then moves to something else.  It sure seems the majority of wow went long beyond that.

Warcraft has seen many challenges so far and only gotten bigger.  Warhammer, age of conan just to name a few.  If aion (or whatever game) finally digs into some of wows market share, then hopefully blizzard will respond by stepping up with more competitive features.   Competition is good for us the players.  Don't mock it so casually.

@original poster:  A fairly weak troll attempt.  It might have made an interesting discussion had you not chosen to make it some personal attack.

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Originally posted by akritas

 @Zorndorf
Oh man you suffer from great delusion trying to explain the market situation in the mmo industry or any other industry with John Forbes Nash's Nash equilibrium or any other game theory.
The concepts of game theory are rather used in fields like social or social economic behaviour. Like your quoted example of the competing businessmen forming a cartel in order to increase their profits, its about if everyone is following the same strategy and follow the cartels price binding to maximise cumulative payoff for all involved. Although an individual might be tempted to break of from the mutual strategy and try to maximise his own sales/profit by lowering his prices for a product, however risking a deterioration in prices with everyone loosing. So you have a Nash Equilibrium if everyone sticks to the same strategy. The cumulative payoff can be higher if all decide to agree on a higher binding price.

Quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium
Nash equilibrium has been used to analyze hostile situations like war and arms races[1] (see Prisoner's dilemma), and also how conflict may be mitigated by repeated interaction (see Tit-for-tat). It has also been used to study to what extent people with different preferences can cooperate (see Battle of the sexes), and whether they will take risks to achieve a cooperative outcome (see Stag hunt). It has been used to study the adoption of technical standards, and also the occurrence of bank runs and currency crises (see Coordination game). Other applications include traffic flow (see Wardrop's principle), how to organize auctions (see Auction theory), and even penalty kicks in soccer (see Matching pennies)

So WTF has this to do with product strategies or market strategies in general. Try to read up better next time before you try to look smart and get yourself in deep waters. You just make yourself look stupid.
And what is your problem anyhow about how long wow will be the market leader among mmo's. <Mod edit>
Nash equilibrium and mmo's....JESUS !!!

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Originally posted by templarga

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Originally posted by akritas

 @Zorndorf
Oh man you suffer from great delusion trying to explain the market situation in the mmo industry or any other industry with John Forbes Nash's Nash equilibrium or any other game theory.
The concepts of game theory are rather used in fields like social or social economic behaviour. Like your quoted example of the competing businessmen forming a cartel in order to increase their profits, its about if everyone is following the same strategy and follow the cartels price binding to maximise cumulative payoff for all involved. Although an individual might be tempted to break of from the mutual strategy and try to maximise his own sales/profit by lowering his prices for a product, however risking a deterioration in prices with everyone loosing. So you have a Nash Equilibrium if everyone sticks to the same strategy. The cumulative payoff can be higher if all decide to agree on a higher binding price.

Quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium
Nash equilibrium has been used to analyze hostile situations like war and arms races[1] (see Prisoner's dilemma), and also how conflict may be mitigated by repeated interaction (see Tit-for-tat). It has also been used to study to what extent people with different preferences can cooperate (see Battle of the sexes), and whether they will take risks to achieve a cooperative outcome (see Stag hunt). It has been used to study the adoption of technical standards, and also the occurrence of bank runs and currency crises (see Coordination game). Other applications include traffic flow (see Wardrop's principle), how to organize auctions (see Auction theory), and even penalty kicks in soccer (see Matching pennies)

So WTF has this to do with product strategies or market strategies in general. Try to read up better next time before you try to look smart and get yourself in deep waters. You just make yourself look stupid.
And what is your problem anyhow about how long wow will be the market leader among mmo's. <Mod edit>

---

As someone who teaches game theory in the social sciences, anytime, anywhere there is competition, you can apply game theory to it.
The stag hunt, or prisoner's dilemma (being the most popular application of it), can apply in any situation.
The issue is that the two actors must be rational in their decision making and this usually trips up most game theory applications.
One of the best applications of game theory I have ever seen is actually with drafting on NASCAR restrictor plate tracks like Talladega and Daytona.
It can apply to MMO's too since, even as you wuoted, MMO's would directly relate to "social economic behavior".

---

Wether someone calls me 'crap' or 'pathetic' or "in need for psycho help' :)))

It is a very good explanation why the strategic market situation couldn't be broken in the last 3 years.

>>>>>> Everybody is using the same strategic options which results in a ... Wow winner of the global Fantasy MMO situation.

People wonder why in God's name a PC game of almost 5 years old has a 60% market situation.

It is simple: every new player in the game uses exactly the same strategies as the winner of the game already uses.

If you have a 60% marketshare it means you simply have MORE cards than the other players. It is simply a matter of perfecting the strategic play and ... as everybody else just nicely plays along, how handy and rather "easy" it is to maintain the momentum.

I used above the example of War and in which way Wow already used two new cards of it in maintaining the strategic advantage: level through PvP (in BG's) and join BG's from anywhere. Easy.

----

Just look at what is being played the most in mmo's on Xfire:

EVE: is placed in another bracket and doesn't play the "Fantasy level based tank spank heal".

GW: is using another "out of the game" strategy in NOT asking a subscription fee.

All the rest is swimming (and drowning) against the market leader. The last 3 years it demonstrated the Nash equilibrium: a new fantasy player, honestly playing the same mechanics and in game strategies, and just reinforcing the position of the market leader.

Every new Lotro, Aoc, War, TR, Spellborn, Aoin (no doubt), ... just let you play the same game. These games will never change the order in which the market exists. It will not change the Nash equilibrium.

The objective should be: don't make the same game. But helas...

Of course it is frustrating to view the market and NOT the individual emotion of a player. The fact is that the opinion of an individual can change according to the weather conditions or bad mood from reading a forum post. :))))

Personal opinions on a game are worthless: only the market position determines if a game "succeeds" in our economic world.

Every mmo release offers some potential challenge to warcraft to some degree . What i think makes Aion different from to all the other games released since WoW is that its 1/ very polished so you wont get a half finnished product upon release like say age of conan or vanguard 2/ builds on Warcrafts style of gameplay  but is fresh enough to not be an outright wow clone /3 its not a niche game like warhammer. This game has mass appeal .I think Mike Hickey is being very prudant in say blizzard faces a challenge from it . This is a good thing it already mean Blizzard will be doing thier level best not to lose players to it . I imagine we can expect a major content patch on the 25 th september . The problem is we ve seen it all before and a new instance or battle ground wont be enough this time they really have to come up with something speacial . The largest problem for Blizzard is many of the changes they ve implimented in the last couple of years sacrificed long term play for short term prophet . They made the game a lot easier so to appeal to the very young players but this means people are getting bored quicker . You can only level so many alts cant you . Aion comes along in a year when Blizzard arnt releasing an expansion so they cant really go head to head with it as they did with age of conan and warhammer in terms of new content .

Aion is not as easy to write off as vanguard , ddo , lord of the rings , tabula rasa , warahmmer ,age of conan and any other game you care to add to that list . I dont think it ll appeal to the very young warcraft player the 8-12 year olds  . i know there is a mentality now amongst Warcraft fans that no game will ever be able to challenge it .That simply is nt true . Non of us expect a wow killer now but a succession of games that will decrease Warcrafts popularity over the years is an inevitabilty . I dont think wow is a bad game but its now a game thats showing sign of its age . The new wave of mmos we will seen released in the next few years will take a toll . I think Warcraft can only realistically maintain its levels of popularity for another 3 years at most .

There been plenty of people saying the same thing over the last 4 years though . The difference now is Warcraft is and old game its really only the most popular mmo because of the mistakes the other companys have made in terms of mmorg design . Its only a matter of time now till that changes . I m not sure if it ll be Aion that will start that trend but it looks like a very strong contender . If its not that it ll be starwars knights of the old republic or some other new title .

Warcraft of course will continue and probebrly will be around till the 2020s by which time it ll look like ultima online does to us now .Outdated but still retro fun . The one thing i can tell you is that it wont have 11 million players .

When you see folks getting pink slips at Activison and Blizzard and we in the gaming community start hearing about it that will be the time to keep an eye on them. Till such time Bilizzard will be the industry leader.

Originally posted by Elsabolts

When you see folks getting pink slips at Activison and Blizzard and we in the gaming community start hearing about it that will be the time to keep an eye on them. Till such time Bilizzard will be the industry leader.

LOL talk about stating the obvious . Why dont you tell us something we dont already know lol