Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
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Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#2Stunning fall. For a while Blizzard could do no wrong. I feel that Bobby, the CEO, is very focused on results and only understands gamers third hand at this point.
That works for a while when the employees still care but once they stop caring there is no one to steer the faltering ship.
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#3Blizzards reputation has been going downhill since the merge with Activision. Some of my veteran WoW friends returned with the release of classic and TBC classic, but no one stayed for long. Blizzard has been destroying all of their franchises
WoW - convoluted imbalanced hot mess
Diablo - repetitive. Diablo immortal.
Warcraft III - buggy and laggy steaming pile of undelivered promises
Overwatch - imbalanced. Overwatch 2 with weird changes
StarCraft - thrown in a ditch left to die
HoTS - culled the competitive scene and super slow release cycle.
Hearthstone - pay2win RNG fiesta
On top of that all the scandals and drama around the company…
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#4They went nuts over esports and it affected the games and everything else followed.
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#5I don’t think it collapsed in just 3 years. Pick your favorite “things take time” metaphor, but the company has been declining for a while. It’s just that the troubles build quietly for some time using the facade of the previously built reputation
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#6Blizzards reputation has been going downhill since the merge with Activision. Some of my veteran WoW friends returned with the release of classic and TBC classic, but no one stayed for long. Blizzard has been destroying all of their franchises WoW - convoluted imbalanced hot mess Diablo - repetitive. Diablo immortal. Warcraft III - buggy and laggy steaming pile of undelivered promises Overwatch - imbalanced. Overwatc…
I find it a fascinating case study that some of the company’s most anticipated releases are just re releases: Diablo 2 resurrected, WoW classic, Warcraft 3 reforged. Death by a thousand lapses in game quality and you get a lot of hype about refurbished old games. Some of it is rose covered nostalgia but IMO there’s been a sea change in game design since the advent of the attention economy, pay to progress, micro transactions, etc
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#7Blizzards reputation has been going downhill since the merge with Activision. Some of my veteran WoW friends returned with the release of classic and TBC classic, but no one stayed for long. Blizzard has been destroying all of their franchises WoW - convoluted imbalanced hot mess Diablo - repetitive. Diablo immortal. Warcraft III - buggy and laggy steaming pile of undelivered promises Overwatch - imbalanced. Overwatc…
I find it a fascinating case study that some of the company’s most anticipated releases are just re releases: Diablo 2 resurrected, WoW classic, Warcraft 3 reforged. Death by a thousand lapses in game quality and you get a lot of hype about refurbished old games. Some of it is rose covered nostalgia but IMO there’s been a sea change in game design since the advent of the attention economy, pay to progress, micro tran…
It speaks to executive disfunction -- an inability to currate and fund a long-term creative pipeline, instead focusing on short-term revenue generators.
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#8I'm not under an illusion that it does any good, but I swore off all Blizzard products after the Blitzchung incident. It doesn't feel right giving money to a company that would side with the CCP over human rights in Hong Kong. I'd previously played Hearthstone and Overwatch, and I'd been a Blizzard fan since the original Warcraft. That happy company is dead, and something ugly is animating its corpse.
I think company founders are often great, idealistic people. People who genuinely want to make the world better.
When they step aside, however, the people who take over after them tend to be terrifying: zero empathy creatures who favor profit maximization over any and all human cost. Does anyone know why this happens?
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#9Blizzards reputation has been going downhill since the merge with Activision. Some of my veteran WoW friends returned with the release of classic and TBC classic, but no one stayed for long. Blizzard has been destroying all of their franchises WoW - convoluted imbalanced hot mess Diablo - repetitive. Diablo immortal. Warcraft III - buggy and laggy steaming pile of undelivered promises Overwatch - imbalanced. Overwatc…
This just reads like a person that doesn't like Blizzard games...
edit And at the risk of getting flagged for being brief and baity, I'll elaborate.
> WoW - convoluted imbalanced hot mess
The biggest MMO of all time, still even today.
> Diablo - repetitive. Diablo immortal.
It is a game about repetition. To call it repetitive is like saying baseball has too many bases.
> Warcraft III - buggy and laggy steaming pile of undelivered promises
The original W3 was a masterpiece. Their rerelease was a failure.
> Overwatch - imbalanced. Overwatch 2 with weird changes
A massive success. Not sure how you can call an entire game "imbalanced". You're just saying you don't like the way it's balanced.
> StarCraft - thrown in a ditch left to die
Yep
> HoTS - culled the competitive scene and super slow release cycle.
Mobas are a bad market and HoTS was a mediocre implementation of a Moba.
> Hearthstone - pay2win RNG fiesta
All CCGs.
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#10Blizzards reputation has been going downhill since the merge with Activision. Some of my veteran WoW friends returned with the release of classic and TBC classic, but no one stayed for long. Blizzard has been destroying all of their franchises WoW - convoluted imbalanced hot mess Diablo - repetitive. Diablo immortal. Warcraft III - buggy and laggy steaming pile of undelivered promises Overwatch - imbalanced. Overwatc…
> Blizzards reputation has been going downhill since the merge with Activision.
That was in 2008, right? So their reputation has been going downhill for 13 years?