Features
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Feature
The King of Games, Michael Morhaime's 27-Year Journey
Mike was born to a Jewish family in November of 1967. From the late '70s to the '80s, when video games started getting popular, the young Morhaime purchased a gaming console that allowed limited programming, the Bally Astrocade, and spent his time developing simple games of his own.
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How Blizzard can monetize Heroes of the Storm going forward
Activision Blizzard loves making money. So much so, that their Chief Executive Officer, Bobby Kotick, during their most recent earnings call began his statement with: “We once again achieved record results in 2018.” What followed was him stating that the company would be laying off around 800 individuals but that’s a different story altogether. A few of the company’s entities: Overwatch, the Overwatch League, World of Warcraft and Hearthstone have reliably brought in income for the company in recent years. What has struggled-- and likely one of the reasons why developers were moved off the title and onto more profitable ones-- is a way for Heroes of the Storm players to be incentivized to spend money in or on a title they love. This isn’t a recent development either. All a die-hard fan of the game has to do is visit Blizzard’s official gear shop online or at a company-sponsored tournament and you will see very, very little Heroes of the Storm merchandise. Why this is so perplexing is the concept of Heroes lends itself well to merchandising.