When Morhaime called Kotick to tell him that Blizzard planned to delay the next StarCraft a year, he was shocked when the new boss asked how he planned to make up for the missing revenue. Back in the Vivendi days, slipping a year might not have been a huge deal, because Blizzard had been such a small part of the broader conglomerate, but now, the bump could have a significant impact on Activision Blizzard’s stock price. It was like Blizzard had gone from small fish in big pond to big fish in small pond—except the pond was full of investor piranhas who expected revenue growth every quarter.
