From Kotick’s perspective, Blizzard wasn’t as successful as Morhaime and his team believed they were. Each new World of Warcraft expansion still took two years, and there were no other big releases to fill the gaps. Blizzard’s profits were falling—from $1 billion in 2016 to $719 million in 2017 to $685 million in 2018—and with no big products imminent, they were primed to plummet even more.
