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Blizzard CEO denies culture of harassment and blames unions for company problems

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Re: Blizzard CEO denies culture of harassment and blames unions for company problems

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said “Harvard MBA types” not “Harvard MBAs” since you’re nitpicking

The "harvard mba types" brings a certain kind of distaste to my mouth. Using it to describe someone who is in fact nothing of the sort feels a little too sloppy.

Sloppy enough to be “Harvard MBA type”? /jk

Re: Blizzard CEO denies culture of harassment and blames unions for company problems

#153
post #57
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For instance rocket league was released in 2015 and hasn't gotten any such update since 2017. StarCraft 1 has had no balance updates in over 20 years, and the game is doing great. StarCraft 2 has had no balance updates for like a year or two, and it was slowly killing the joy of the game for everyone who bothered to suffer through it. StarCraft 2 was designed to be a game where the meta has to be shaken up occasion…

Nah, Starcraft 1 just ended up pushing balancing to the tournaments and map designers. If you tried playing it on the last Blizzard maps from the original run of Brood War, it's a questionably balanced game.

True, but then BW's map pool rotation is also way slower / more conservative than SC2's. We're used to 7 new 1v1 maps every other season by now (personally I preferred the old system where the 2-3 oldest and/or most problematic maps would get phased out every season).

Meanwhile: Fighting Spirit

Re: Blizzard CEO denies culture of harassment and blames unions for company problems

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And honestly, I don't see why they should, as it does not affect them as consumers. They should care, because buying their products is telling the company that they approve of its behavior (whatever that behavior is).

I vehemently disagree with this notion. In the case of Blizzard, I won't play Diablo 4 because I really think they have been making shit games for more than a decade. But I don't fault anyone that will play Diablo 4. People like what they like. The cases of abuse and harassment at Blizzard are known and well documented. If the powers that be refuse to act in order to punish the people and corporation involved, why do…

> why do we offload that responsibility onto consumers?

Giving money to a company is rewarding all of their behaviours, in aggregate. Because that's what a company is.

Re: Blizzard CEO denies culture of harassment and blames unions for company problems

#155

I was a huge Overwatch fan. Seeing them stop development on it and announcing Overwatch 2 as a whole new game was what made me leave the game. The promise of Overwatch 2 was a story mode, a skills system, more maps and more heroes. Now after years of development and selling the game with future promises to millions of fans, all they have is cancelling PvE and skills system, and one or two heroes and maps. This is not…

What I don't understand then is this. If the Harvard MBA types are so detrimental to a gaming company, why don't we see any or many widely successful gaming companies who are run by dev types rather than MBA types?

The successful companies get bought out by the giants after the make something popular eg. Mojang and Minecraft.

Re: Blizzard CEO denies culture of harassment and blames unions for company problems

#156
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but is run by Harvard MBA types who aren’t gamers This is going to piss people off, but that's because people who sink huge portions of their spare time and energy into video games do not become CEOs. "Getting high on your own supply" doesn't set you up for professional exceptionalism.

Sales and marketing CEOs pretend they work 24x7, but they spend much of their weekends on leisure activities such as golfing, travel, playing with their children, having expensive dinners with board members and politicians and so on. If you're committed it's really not hard to replace that leisure time with gaming.

They spend much of the working day on those leisure activities as well.

I've seen execs tell the rest of the company that a four day work week isn't reasonable while working four days themselves.

Re: Blizzard CEO denies culture of harassment and blames unions for company problems

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The height of naming irony, given this was Blizzcon 2013 and the Cosby allegations came out in 2014.

It looks like the naming was likely intentional, allegations about Cosby go back to 2004. Although Hannibal Buress didn't start talking about it in his routine until 2014. https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/bill-cosby-trial-comple...

There was a bit in 30 Rock about Cosby in 2009, too, written by Tina Fey -- who also took a shot at Cosby on SNL in 2005. Hannibal's routine was just the first to catch the public's attention.

Re: Blizzard CEO denies culture of harassment and blames unions for company problems

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? This thread is about their old games that are still being played .

Yes, and someone pointed out that their new games aren’t of the same caliber as their old games, as in, their new games won’t be played in 15 years. My comment is that you didn’t list any new game as having the same staying power.

Well, we'll find out any day now where D4 sits, right? I know where I'd put my money if I were a betting man.

Re: Blizzard CEO denies culture of harassment and blames unions for company problems

#159
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Online-only requirement. Such a shame and wasted long-term potential for D2R, D3 and likely especially D4. Compare with Diablo 2 legacy where mods like Median XL are still going strong ! (I guess that they are stuck in a bad place with their games being so popular that they attract a lot of unwelcome attention, but IMHO still not worth it for a game that is much more cooperative than competitive.)

All Blizzard game have online features, they never shutdown an online game, never, Diablo 1 is still running since 1996. I don't see issues with online only tbh.

No, the Lost Vikings for instance don't.

And last I checked they seem to have given up on supporting Diablo 1, and let GoG deal with it instead ? (Its online MP has security flaws.)

And Blizzard cannot run a game if Blizzard doesn't exist.

But even before that happens, you can already see the wasted potential : D3 (and D4) has no modding whatsoever, compare with D2R (though mods there are still heavily restricted and they have also removed normal MP from it) and especially D2LoD legacy !

https://median-xl.com/

Re: Blizzard CEO denies culture of harassment and blames unions for company problems

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But ActiBlizz doesn't have any monopolies ? (Unlike, say, Steam, or Microsoft.) If their games are bad, quickly enough nobody will buy them any more (regardless of how much they invested in marketing).

IP goes such a long way, though. To overtake ActiBlizz on MMO's, for example, you would have to build something 10x better than WoW. And any Diablo game is going to sell a shit ton, even if it isn't good.

There's no need to overtake, for instance Eve Online can exist in parallel with WoW.
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