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Discussion Kotaku: Vicarious Visions changing its name after Blizzard merger (probably to Blizzard Albany)

frog

frog

Spin it, boys!
As Polygon report, Vicarious employees “were initially under the impression the merger meant their employer would continue to operate as its own studio”, an understandable assumption to make seeing as the brand name is so synonymous with so many great games.

But during a town hall meeting on Wednesday morning staff were informed that as part of the merger, the Vicarious Visions name—which has been around since the studio’s establishment 30 years ago—was going to be removed. What it’s being changed to wasn’t disclosed, but since Blizzard names pretty much every studio after the city it’s located in, then Blizzard Albany seems as good as any other guess.
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Vicarious Visions has such a long history of high quality ports and mobile games. It’s a bummer to see them become Blizzard Albany. Especially with how toxic Blizzard seems to be these days.
 
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Very odd this. They finally get really good at port making and then they just get absorbed, rebranded and erased.

Have to wonder if someone there upset a Blizzard higher up or something.
 
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What a bummer. I guess THPS 3+4 is no longer a possibility...

VV also worked a lot with Bungie on Destiny when Bungo had the Activision deal, their work was awesome (they worked on the Season of Opulence).
 
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I don't think it means much. The meaningful change already happened when they got merged.
 
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It sucks that more of the studio identity is getting taken away. I know a lot of the people that were at Vicarious moved to Velan (studio founded by Vicarious' founders) but, it still sucks especially since a lot of young game developers that graduate from schools in the Northeast used Vicarious as a step into the industry.
 
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Huh, I didn't know they were located in Albany. This reminds me a lot of when Irrational Games was 2K Boston for a period of like... 3-5 years?

What is the Blizzard side of the company going to have them work on? They're effectively out of games to remake which has been their specialty lately.
 
Magic-Man said:
God I fucking hate Activision Blizzard. One of the few companies I actively avoid at all costs.
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Sekiro tho

(I hate Activision too for the most part)

shoptroll said:
Huh, I didn't know they were located in Albany. This reminds me a lot of when Irrational Games was 2K Boston for a period of like... 3-5 years?

What is the Blizzard side of the company going to have them work on? They're effectively out of games to remake which has been their specialty lately.
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Finally time for that......Diablo 1 remake!
 
"Hey, people actually like these branches; let's rename them because so they'll like us too." - some execs somewhere, probably.
 
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What a shame. I was a big fan of what they did in tandem with Toys 4 Bob on the Skylanders series (particularly the highlight of Superchargers having DK and Bowser) and their recent back and forth resurrecting Crash, Spyro & THPS. I guess the writing was on the wall when Acti didn't only announced they'd be working on Blizzard properties but the top figures at VV had effectively been installed as top figures at Blizzard, full merger was kind of inevitable.

I guess this case is slightly different in that it isn't entirely the studio being sacrificed to the machine as much as replacing it. With the horrible stories that have came out from Blizzard and the loss of talent, I wouldn't be surprised to look back in 5-10 years and really it's Blizzard that have been consumed by VV by necessity, to become nu-Blizzard as such.

Oh well. Between this and T4B working on Call of Duty I'm pouring one out on the end of a good thing, we'll always have the games and the memories.
 
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Given how toxic and tainted the Blizzard name is, I'd have thought they would keep their identity.
 
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