Blizzard stopped making games and started making products at some point. That's all there is to it.
Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
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Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple is a master at this. News of its child and slave labor abuses have been brushed off because people love their products.
Also because almost every other tech company (Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, etc.) make their products at the exact same Foxconn factories. Apple just gets the biggest headline.
Cite sources for that claim please.
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#53So, 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…
Anecdotal evidence: I've seen so many posts of WoW players swearing to log off for 1 day in protest of recent events. One whole day. Meanwhile posts of players cancelling their subscriptions are few and far between.
Players won’t cancel until they’ve tried and like an alternative. Final Fantasy 14 has had a massive surge of wow players so it’s not like players aren’t looking for alternatives. If they like other games I’d expect many cancellation in the coming months.
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#54Not making their games on steam is one of their biggest mistakes. The moment they make their catalogue available on steam, they are going to get a massive boost in revenue.
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#55I'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…
Agreed with all of this.
I'm a big fan of Blizzard products, played the original Starcraft when I was younger and still play some of the more recent games. It's blatantly obvious for a long time Blizzard has been sitting on its' laurels and not innovating.
The linked article does a great job of pointing out the major Blizzard mistakes, but I'll add one more: Blizzard's storywriting ability has fallen off a cliff. I love Blizzard games because of their great stories, but for years now the storylines have become muddled and clearly written by their D-team.
An example would be this story, but there are many more I could point to: World of Warcraft's latest cinematic is a narrative disaster and players hate it https://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-warcrafts-latest-cinematic-...
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple is a master at this. News of its child and slave labor abuses have been brushed off because people love their products.
Also because almost every other tech company (Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, etc.) make their products at the exact same Foxconn factories. Apple just gets the biggest headline.
Apple probably gets the biggest headline because, of the four companies you listed in total, they're the biggest company.
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#57Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#58I'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…
We have Lewis F. Powell and Milton Friedman to thank for this.
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#59Just another point of view here: all of the politics are irrelevant. I don't know anyone, nor does anyone I know know anyone who plays anything Blizzard produces right now. Does Blizzard make any games that people want to play right now? I don't know. According to activeplayer.io[1] Overwatch's average monthly player count has never been higher, but of that demographic, I can't find anyone I know who plays it, so my…
Maybe this is not the best heuristic, but I'd look at where their games are ranked in number of viewers on Twitch
https://www.twitch.tv/directory?sort=VIEWER_COUNT
and their long term viewership
https://sullygnome.com/game/Overwatch/longtermstats
https://sullygnome.com/game/World_of_Warcraft/longtermstats
https://sullygnome.com/game/Hearthstone_Heroes_of_Warcraft/l...
Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years
#60I'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.
Letting him express his opinion would not be "fighting ideological battles"
They went out of their way to pick a side.