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Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

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Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#11

Post by enraged_camel »

ethbr0 wrote: post #7
wpasc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, milking existing franchises is definitely a sign of deeply rooted dysfunction. I was excited for their Project Titan of whatever but it got axed. That was years ago…

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#12

Post by wpasc »

ethbr0 wrote: post #7
wpasc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it’s the hard times, strong people, good times process with more steps:

Passionate game creators make good games, good games get players and buyers, that creates profitable/well known companies, that can attract the (no offense) non passionate/revenue seeking MBA types, they worsen the games, passionate developers leave…

I HOPE those passionate developers can get together again to make new good games but who knows. I imagine it’s hard to attract capital without promise of simple game loop (read: minimal investment required) and with pay for progression. Those returns (I imagine) are just too damn juicy until people break the cycle

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#13

Post by coder-3 »

exo-pla-net wrote: post #8

I'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…

> Does anyone know why this happens?

I think it's because of incentives. For-profit companies are incentivised to maximise profits. There might be resistance against doing so in unethical ways at the start but as the company grows it becomes harder to control until eventually it just does whatever is most profitable, limited only by laws (most of the time). Any CSR or ethical decision becomes a PR stunt to distract from the unethical behaviours.

A lot of not-for-profits also fall into this trap unfortunately as they try to maximise revenue or as they become bloated with administrators.

I think at the founder level - trying to start B-corps, keeping them small-mid and embedding ethics deeply into the culture is the way to go but that is quite different from startup culture.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#15

Post by ctvo »

void_mint wrote: post #9
zahrc wrote: post #3

Blizzards 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 o…

Did you miss that the OP is speaking about the current state of these games? Why even expand with an edit when you agree with more than half their points?

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#16

Post by roenxi »

exo-pla-net wrote: post #8

I'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…

Think of it from the perspective of a zero empathy creature who favours profit maximisation over any and all human cost. What are they going to do with their life? What would need to happen for them not to end up in charge of companies?

This is a standard thing that has been happening for centuries as people try organisational structures that rely on good people being in charge. Turns out that there isn't a divining rod to identify bad people in advance, but they do tend to be hard workers who try hard to get in to positions of power.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#17

Post by NelsonMinar »

The bad behavior has been happening at Blizzard / Activision for a lot longer than three years. The only reason their reputation didn't collapse sooner is no one took the complaints seriously enough to investigate earlier.

(FWIW the Activision merger happened way back in late 2007. I don't know if the harassment predates that, but several old school Blizzard leaders are implicated.)

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#18

Post by mgh2 »

coder-3 wrote: post #13
exo-pla-net wrote: post #8

I'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…

> Does anyone know why this happens? I think it's because of incentives. For-profit companies are incentivised to maximise profits. There might be resistance against doing so in unethical ways at the start but as the company grows it becomes harder to control until eventually it just does whatever is most profitable, limited only by laws (most of the time). Any CSR or ethical decision becomes a PR stunt to distract f…

Apple is a master at this. News of its child and slave labor abuses have been brushed off because people love their products.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#19

Post by bragh »

cuillevel3 wrote: post #10
zahrc wrote: post #3

Blizzards 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?

Actually, yes. Blizzard had an unbelievable amount of goodwill and reputation built up over the years and in any case, these kinds of changes do not happen overnight.

For me, the first understanding that things are rolling downhill was how they killed the social aspect with the removal of battle.net without any replacement and completely messed up the concept of playing custom maps when StarCraft 2 launched. Longer thread from 2010 about custom maps: https://tl.net/forum/sc2-maps/139745-the-real-problem-with-s...

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#20

Post by blengert »

coder-3 wrote: post #13
exo-pla-net wrote: post #8

I'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…

> Does anyone know why this happens? I think it's because of incentives. For-profit companies are incentivised to maximise profits. There might be resistance against doing so in unethical ways at the start but as the company grows it becomes harder to control until eventually it just does whatever is most profitable, limited only by laws (most of the time). Any CSR or ethical decision becomes a PR stunt to distract f…

What examples of B-corps doing this successfully do you know?
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