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Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

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Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#61

Post by TeMPOraL »

gambiting wrote: post #38
propoganda wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because politicians here have lost your respect to such a degree that it’s unfathomable that you’d have any loyalty to them. It’s understandable of course, but it’s not the case everywhere. Old Russian joke about insulting Reagan in front of the kremlin etc.

>> that it’s unfathomable that you’d have any loyalty to them. It's unfathomable that anyone anywhere has "loyalty" to any politician. They are just doing a job - what do they need loyalty for? Especially from the electorate.

Look, it may be unfathomable to your alien mind from outer space, but it is what it is. Human beings tend to entangle their sense of self with causes and people they care about, whether it's a politician, a singer, a sportsball player, or a spouse. You need to accept that if you want to understand humans.

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#62

Post by realusername »

bilekas wrote: post #52

Blizzard seem to be burning a lot of bridges and goodwill they've built up over the years. It's incredible what GoG is trying to do, for a profit of course but all the same. The idea of not being able to purchase older titles in a legitimate way only encourages piracy, yet if it will squeeze an extra few pennies out for shareholders, it seems like the right move. The games industry really seems to be turning into the…

What does giving money to Blizzard is achieving for such ancient titles anyways?

Nobody from that era probably works at Blizzard anymore and some are probably retired.

Who piracy is even supposed to be spoiling here exactly even in theory?

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#63

Post by macronitis »

hyperman1 wrote: post #46
propoganda wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because politicians here have lost your respect to such a degree that it’s unfathomable that you’d have any loyalty to them. It’s understandable of course, but it’s not the case everywhere. Old Russian joke about insulting Reagan in front of the kremlin etc.

Looking at your username, I have no idea if this is a real comment, a shill for China, a troll, or sarcasm gone of the scales. That's an impressive amount of metagame for a sure-to-be-downmodded comment.

[dead]

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#64

Post by portaouflop »

llmthrow102 wrote: post #14

They've also now launched the Warcraft 3 "remaster" twice, and it's still in a worse state than it was 20 years ago. First they did less than half the job, cut budget, and launched missing major features from the original project, with only some terrible new models to show that look decent up close, but bad from the overhead RTS view. Then they did a relaunch where they did lazy AI upscaling of old models and icons t…

I used to be the biggest fanboy - buying everything they released without hesitation.

But their treatment of Warcraft III opened my eyes - the company I fell I love with that produced quality games no matter what does not exist anymore.

So long and thanks for all the murlocs…

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#65

Post by dxuh »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #36

It used to be exciting when a Blizzard release was coming out. Now it's just scary and a bit depressing when they announce something. I was excited all the way up through Overwatch 1, then the WC3 remaster and Overwatch 2 were awful. If they only messed up new releases it wouldnt be so bad; it's the incessant fiddling and worsening of what was good. Even of games that weren't meant to be "live service" games. I alrea…

You mention a really interesting point. My heart also sinks in my stomach whenever I see "X announces Y" and X is in a set of names such as "Electronic Arts", "Activision", and many more. I really wonder if these companies are aware that their customers have this reaction, but I doubt they see it as a bad thing.

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#66

Post by portaouflop »

0dayz wrote: post #48
smolder wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blizzard started down the path to failure when they merged with Activision, though I'm not sure they would have lasted much longer outside of that. It's apparent to me the only way "make quality stuff" survives as a strategy long term is to stay private like Valve. Public ownership ruins companies. They grow into inefficient messes and lose any edge they had while alienating their customers in the interest of short t…

Nope, it started waaay before that. * The sexual misconduct most likely happened way before it came out publicly as all the sleezebags stayed until it was public * real id debacle * Diablo 3 * shutting down blizzard north, despite working on d3 * spending 10 years on trying to make starcraft 2, when the rts genre was in a major slump * x years on the project titan, only to get cancelled * spent years trying to create…

Shutting down Blizzard North was when it began to get real shitty

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#67

Post by portaouflop »

fifticon wrote: post #45
hulitu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Really terrible treatment of one of the best game series of all time, and being part of Microsoft hasn't helped. It would have been nice if Warcraft 3 got the same treatment as AoE2 or AoM. Oh, Microsoft, the destroyers of GUIs. I tried AoE 3 on Steam (demo). It was a total disaster. Downloading was slow and then the game: At the first start would not let me build barracks (no suitable place found). At the second s…

my child insists, reasonably, on playing minecraft, so we must endure the microsoft launcher ui stewardship for mc. what a hot mess of bloated bureaucracy-software-dungheap. It is as if even their installer has an installer and a loadscreen. Consider if you, gosh, want to continue PLAYING EXACTLY THE SAME THING AS LAST NIGHT. The launcher design response: ouh, i did NOT expect that! Please wait while we reauth and 2F…

Luckily with Minecraft there are lots of alternatives, you don’t need to use the MS crap.

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#68

Post by portaouflop »

thayne wrote: post #55
bilekas wrote: post #52

Blizzard seem to be burning a lot of bridges and goodwill they've built up over the years. It's incredible what GoG is trying to do, for a profit of course but all the same. The idea of not being able to purchase older titles in a legitimate way only encourages piracy, yet if it will squeeze an extra few pennies out for shareholders, it seems like the right move. The games industry really seems to be turning into the…

> The idea of not being able to purchase older titles in a legitimate way only encourages piracy The solution is to dramatically decrease the length of copyright, so that old games (or other software) can be obtained legally (and modified) even if the original maker no longer sells it.

Or just pirate it like we did for the last 30+ years…

Copyright is broken and has failed it’s purpose - I have no hope that we can fix it in my lifetime.

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#69

Post by TeMPOraL »

fwipsy wrote: post #17
maeil wrote: post #9

Interesting how GOG is willing to take such a hard stand of this and fight Blizzard on it, when they immediately pulled the Taiwanese horror game Devotion for political reasons [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/dec/17/taiwanese-horr...

I guess it's not a principled stand in favor of free speech. They just want to sell games. The CCP can block them in China; Blizzard can't.

Maybe they don't feel that opinionated over free speech, which is easy when coming and living in a society where that's a given; however, they may feel much more opinionated about businesses fucking their customers over and doing the usual business shenanigans. In a way, this issue is GOG's whole shtick - selling games without DRM bullshit.

Re: Blizzard's pulling of Warcraft I and II tests GOG's new Preservation Program

#70

Post by brobdingnagians »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #21
waveBidder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

like other game companies (cough Nintendo) their old library is viewed as direct competition with their current set of games/subscription products. also wotmrth remembering that Blizzard is now a Microsoft property.

> like other game companies (cough Nintendo) their old library is viewed as direct competition with their current set of games/subscription products. That's nothing special to game companies. All entertainment companies are the same way. That's why they push for longer and longer copyrights. Copyright is what protects Disney from having to compete with its own past work.

The only reason I buy anything from Disney is because of their older work. It would be interesting to see a comparison of revenue for Disney broken down by decade of first release. Does anyone have that sort of thing or is the data not public? / Could anyone point me to the data to do that sort of analysis?
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