Former Blizzard Entertainment Boss Explains Why Developers Canceled Half Their Games

Blizzard Entertainment, a sub-developer under Activision, a major corporation in charge of making AAA titles such as the Call of Duty series and the Destiny series, is canceling half of their games in development, according to the former boss from Blizzard, Mike Morhaime.

Blizzard Entertainment has released two games since 2015: Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm. Two games from one of the bigger development companies in the United States has released two titles in four years. Why is that? Well, Morhaime came out and explained why in an interview at the Gamelab conference in Barcelona, Spain.

He says he has done the math for a few years of how many titles have been officially canceled and says that the 50 percent mark is spot on. To start why, he says there has been a bad reception from the fans about announcements, such as Diablo Immortal which was talked about in November. StarCraft was canceled by Blizzard after two years of development so the studio could focus more on the next Diablo title and the Overwatch sequel.

While Overwatch has been a hit game for multiple years and continues to put up consistent revenue numbers, Marhaime says it’s the main source of repetitive income for Blizzard. Marhaime continues the praise of Overwatch, and rightfully so.

“We thought we could make a really compelling game with much tighter scope control,” Morhaime said, according to PC Gamer. “And I think it was probably one of the best decisions that we made. We took something that wasn’t going to ship for a very long time, might never have shipped, and turned it into an awesome game.”

With the only revenue they’re generating personally for Blizzard is Overwatch, it shows the lack of serious development they have made. Most major developers have multiple titles going at once. Look at Ubisoft, CD Projekt Red, Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, even Bethesda. Activision also skipped out on this year’s E3.

A number of other unnamed titles have never reached the surface or the light of day in the public, but Morhaime saying that half the games they make, they cancel, is concerning to say the least.