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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

#21

Post by void_mint »

ctvo wrote: post #15
void_mint wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Why even expand with an edit when you agree with more than half their points?

"Why even post if you think 50% of a person's reviews are bad"

???

Again, it reads like a person that doesn't actually play those games/genres and just wants to dogpile, as is evidenced especially by the Diablo and Hearthstone critiques.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#22

Post by _RPL5_ »

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…

I don't understand why a game company is expected to have an opinion about international politics, outside of "we don't want our platform to be used for politics."

It's bad enough that Facebook mods are now in charge of deciding what constitutes the truth; don't also conscript game companies into fighting idealogical battles with foreign states.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#23

Post by unixhero »

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…

For more alone these lines, what incentives can do to a company look no further than: The Case Of Arthur Anderson.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#24

Post by trissylegs »

mgh2 wrote: post #18
coder-3 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Also making a lot money off what is essentially a huge casino. (games that use Addictive Gambling Mechanics to sell Micro-transations)

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#25

Post by ninjin »

unixhero wrote: post #23
coder-3 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

For more alone these lines, what incentives can do to a company look no further than: The Case Of Arthur Anderson.

Here is a link for those like me that had a vague recollection of the name, but had forgotten most of the details (assuming that you meant “Andersen” rather than “Anderson”):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Andersen

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#26

Post by zouhair »

bragh wrote: post #19
cuillevel3 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

For me the company lost a lot of my respect when they released Starcraft 2 without LAN support. The game was destined to slowly die.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#27

Post by FridgeSeal »

_RPL5_ wrote: post #22
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…

I don't understand why a game company is expected to have an opinion about international politics, outside of "we don't want our platform to be used for politics." It's bad enough that Facebook mods are now in charge of deciding what constitutes the truth; don't also conscript game companies into fighting idealogical battles with foreign states.

Politics isn’t _really_ a thing that you can pretend doesn’t exist and operate in isolation/ignorance of it.

You can’t pretend it doesn’t exist (see the “no politics in my video games/comics please” argument used by some gamers) because it a part of, as much as a function of, any given culture. This doesn’t mean of course, that we require every company to lay out some kind of political guidelines that they’ll support/abide by, but it does mean that when something happens culturally, and the politics “rears its head” that something will need to be done, or some position will need to be made.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#28

Post by SheinhardtWigCo »

So, firstly, I deplore the behavior that's been exposed recently. I hope the people responsible and their leaders end up getting shut out of the industry, sued and/or criminally charged as appropriate.

But I wonder if those hoping aloud that this saga kills off Acti-Blizzard are indulging in wishful thinking.

Isn't it likely that this is yet another so-called PR "disaster" that the vast majority of customers won't be aware of, won't care about, and won't be willing to shed one of their hobbies over? Most Blizzard games are designed to be more than just games to their customers. They're built to be a part of your life. Blizzard is perhaps the best in the industry at this. They've done horrible things before, as documented in this article, but it hasn't really mattered. The users are hooked and business is booming.

"Blizzard's reputation collapsed." The question is, did it collapse among a significant number of their actual customers, or did it mostly collapse among a vocal minority of Twitter and Reddit users?

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#29

Post by gpm »

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #28

So, firstly, I deplore the behavior that's been exposed recently. I hope the people responsible and their leaders end up getting shut out of the industry, sued and/or criminally charged as appropriate. But I wonder if those hoping aloud that this saga kills off Acti-Blizzard are indulging in wishful thinking. Isn't it likely that this is yet another so-called PR "disaster" that the vast majority of customers won't be…

I don't think it's customers who need to be their main concern, but employees. I have to imagine that they are going to have to pay a pretty significant premium to recruit good people going forward.

Maybe related: See the criticism of their games in this thread. Potentially this is explained by blizzard having trouble employing people who can make them good games...

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