Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years • Hacker News Board

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#121

Post by slaymaker1907 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:42 PM UTC

AmVess wrote: post #81

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #8

I can't say what's driving all the playerbase losses but: They stopped development on Diablo 3 a long time ago. It doesn't have the staying power of more modern online games where new content is added continuously. They stopped development on HotS, which never achieved the same level of pull as League of Legends. Overwatch faces stiff competition from Valorant and other competitive small team FPSes, and also has over…

In terms of WoW, I'm sure a lot of it is focusing on the top raiding guilds and leaving the casual player with few rewarding activities. Further, one of their most cherished metrics is how much time people spend doing a certain activity. Instead of making those activities more fun and rewarding, they made them take longer to complete and with fewer rewards. To top it all off, they are nearly completely deaf to their…

Definitely agree and a lot of the popular WoW content creators (Bellular, T&E, etc.) seem to agree. They don't always mention casuals, but lack of progression is a major issue, particularly in Shadowlands. As a person spending too much time playing, you are basically forced to do non-LFR raiding, rated PvP, or mythic+ dungeons to actually progress your gear at all.

Not to mention they seem to hate flying yet keep creating terrible zones unless you can fly. There aren't clear routes between common locations like roads in Skyrim. That can be ok, but in that case they really need to have a flatter level design like in Oblivion.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#122

Post by meristohm » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:42 PM UTC

sergiotapia wrote: post #6

Their games just don't feel like labors of love anymore. They feel like icky skinner boxes through and through. Every aspect of their games are a/b tested up the ass to convert as many MTX as possible and personally it's a total turn off. I downloaded Warzone and tried it out this weekend and uninstalled after 2 matches, it just felt off. Hard to describe. Like a AAA graphics Candy Crush. yuck!

I used to be trapped in those icky Skinner boxes, and feel so much better to have moved on. While I have some good memories of my time in WoW, especially the early “wonder days” of shared social space and learning how to communicate with people online, and fewer good memories relative to time spent in Diablo 3, Heroes of the Storm, and Hearthstone, I feel like there are large chunks of time missing from my past. From what I’ve read about alcoholism it feels similar. Thanks to The Blindboy Podcast and his sharing the mental-health tools (CBT, TA & others) that helped him crawl through crippling anxiety I feel much more in control of my time and actions. Very rarely now do I feel like hours slipped by with no lasting benefit. Escaping responsibilities with games I wasn’t refreshed, but drained. Multitasking will elicit this drained feeling still. Reading or listening to a good book (and I’m more and more willing to not finish books that aren’t “good” for me), going for a walk in the woods, gardening, making music, and making useful things are how I’ve replaced the videogame Skinner box.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#123

Post by worker767424 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

nickstinemates wrote: post #3

Not surprising, Blizzard has lost its way and its brand doesn't mean what it once did. The fall from grace started with the advent of paid services, and in game cosmetic shop in WoW and all of the issues surrounding the launch of Diablo 3 (let alone the disaster that is OWL/Overwatch, complete abandonment in HotS, etc.)

Maybe it's not that it lost its way, it's that they made very good games that people wanted from 1998-2005, made reasonable followups, but what people want from games has moved on.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#124

Post by jonny_eh » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

void_mint wrote: post #40

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #8

I can't say what's driving all the playerbase losses but: They stopped development on Diablo 3 a long time ago. It doesn't have the staying power of more modern online games where new content is added continuously. They stopped development on HotS, which never achieved the same level of pull as League of Legends. Overwatch faces stiff competition from Valorant and other competitive small team FPSes, and also has over…

> I can't say what's driving all the playerbase losses but: "The Blizzard Way" doesn't work anymore. Fortnite releases content monthly/quarterly. Massive updates with huge out-of-game tie-ins, changing worlds, in-game events, etc. Other games have changed to match/compete. CoD and Valorant both implement similar season-pass style systems. Blizzard, on the other hand, insists on delaying/cancelling games, releasing "o…

It's interesting that Hearthstone is the exception. They're regularly releasing new content. I still play daily after 5 years.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#125

Post by mhh__ » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

gmaster1440 wrote: post #5

nickstinemates wrote: post #3

Not surprising, Blizzard has lost its way and its brand doesn't mean what it once did. The fall from grace started with the advent of paid services, and in game cosmetic shop in WoW and all of the issues surrounding the launch of Diablo 3 (let alone the disaster that is OWL/Overwatch, complete abandonment in HotS, etc.)

What about Overwatch is a disaster?

Overwatch is quite sad in a certain sense in that it's kind of drifting, when it's probably one of the most approachable, fun, and stable games I know. I've played a few seasons in an esports team in a rival FPS, and the game is just full of annoying issues that I don't get in overwatch.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#126

Post by bgutierrez » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

lsiebert wrote: post #45

It's anecdotal, but I know at least five or six people who stopped playing blizzard games, especially HS, after they punished a player and staff for expressing support for Hong Kong in a post tournament interview. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy

I didn't like how obsessed I'd become over Hearthstone. When this happened, I took it as an opportunity to delete the app and I haven't played it a single time since.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#127

Post by TOSSAWAY_1 » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

jodrellblank wrote: post #107

TOSSAWAY_1 wrote: post #19

I quit playing overwatch and hots when they sided with SJWs (and by extension censorship and china). I also skipped tlou2 and other big titles. I'm old enough to stand up against censorship and for the right to use ugly speech. I'm not saying I expect blizzard to not exercise its rights as a private company, but I am saying I dont support companies that dont support unfettered free speech.

> " I'm old enough to stand up against censorship and for the right to use ugly speech. " Then why are you hiding behind a throwaway account? > " I am saying I dont support companies that dont support unfettered free speech. " Which companies do you support? Are there any which support unfettered free speech on their platforms?

Because I can? I said nothing about anonymity. Odd...

I'm from an age when anominity was a good thing. But do encourage all the current folks to move away from it, because I want to see them fail.

Lol I dont support any social media company. Social media is a net negative for the human experience, but that's just my opinion. I'm just a person who found the internet more fun before it needed to be safe for day time television watchers.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#128

Post by FalconSensei » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

AmVess wrote: post #81

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #8

I can't say what's driving all the playerbase losses but: They stopped development on Diablo 3 a long time ago. It doesn't have the staying power of more modern online games where new content is added continuously. They stopped development on HotS, which never achieved the same level of pull as League of Legends. Overwatch faces stiff competition from Valorant and other competitive small team FPSes, and also has over…

In terms of WoW, I'm sure a lot of it is focusing on the top raiding guilds and leaving the casual player with few rewarding activities. Further, one of their most cherished metrics is how much time people spend doing a certain activity. Instead of making those activities more fun and rewarding, they made them take longer to complete and with fewer rewards. To top it all off, they are nearly completely deaf to their…

> Further, one of their most cherished metrics is how much time people spend doing a certain activity. Instead of making those activities more fun and rewarding, they made them take longer to complete and with fewer rewards.

This is basically Goodhart's Law.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#129

Post by frozenlettuce » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

Covzire wrote: post #14

I still can't believe they butchered WC3:reforged so badly. It could have been a massive boon for them were it not for the hideously greedy ToS along with all the technical issues and straight up downgrades from the original in terms of multiplayer. There have to be some epic stories of mismanagement or hubris, if only someone would tell them.

I used my first salary to buy WC3 on 2003, so I may have an "exaggerated" emotional connection with that game. Two months before the release it was clear that they could not polish the (many) rough edges that the remaster had. Removing features like ladder and tournaments was something so unprofessional and unreal that even today I can't digest it.

Looking at the screens for the Diablo 2 remaster, it looks like that they are using the same outsourced art company to create the new models, as its style is way too similar to the WC3 remaster - I believe that it will flop too.

Re: Blizzard has lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years

#130

Post by hhh » Wed, May 05, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

AmVess wrote: post #81

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #8

I can't say what's driving all the playerbase losses but: They stopped development on Diablo 3 a long time ago. It doesn't have the staying power of more modern online games where new content is added continuously. They stopped development on HotS, which never achieved the same level of pull as League of Legends. Overwatch faces stiff competition from Valorant and other competitive small team FPSes, and also has over…

In terms of WoW, I'm sure a lot of it is focusing on the top raiding guilds and leaving the casual player with few rewarding activities. Further, one of their most cherished metrics is how much time people spend doing a certain activity. Instead of making those activities more fun and rewarding, they made them take longer to complete and with fewer rewards. To top it all off, they are nearly completely deaf to their…

I don't align with the top tier player opinion about WoW. I feel that this is who they have driven away from the game. I personally spent a large amount of time in that top-20 guild environment and have only progressively seen them care less about the edge case of boundary-pushers and more about the day to day player.

The latest systems encourage time sinking less than they did in Legion, where there were infinite diminishing returns for playing, now there is just a full-stop end to your week. Legion was the most abusive expansion with regards to a player's time. The latest expansion fixed a lot of that for me and others, but it isn't enough to keep me sustained.

WoW Classic actually kept me enthused and is extremely enjoyable, however if you were on a streamer server, there were artificial queues for ages and it was exhausting living around a queue when trying to be competitive at that top tier of play.

If TBC fixes that (doesn't have the queues at release), I will be a lot happier with it.