Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

pcgamer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 230 posts

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#121

Post by robinsoh »

cletus wrote: post #70
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? Oh it's easy to explain. Steve Jobs said it best [1]. He talks about innovation at Pepsi being a new bottle. That's what Activision Blizzard is. They have a "monopoly" with their key franchises, most notably CoD and WoW. They just release a new "bottle" every 1-2 years. Game studios are a bit like a large film studio. They don't like the creative process. It's too unpredictable. T…

> They have a "monopoly" with their key franchises, most notably CoD and WoW.

I don't follow, even in the air quotes monopoly context. Could you elaborate? I thought anyone can make a game, even that specific type of game and reach a paying audience quickly if it is good. Aren't the game engines for CoD and WoW actually owned by different companies? Eg: Unreal Engine is owned by Epic/Tencent.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#122

Post by [deleted] »

username90 wrote: post #99
411111111111111 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No game ever brands itself as P2W, so that's not really an argument. The phrasing made it pretty clear that their issue was with the LFG tool and that you get ported to dungeons when using it to level.

But the introduction of that LFG tool (more specifically the raid finder) also coincides with the start of wow bleeding subscribers, and they haven't recovered since and instead just kept bleeding. I don't think there is any evidence that there would be less players in wow if they never introduced that feature, on the contrary there are plenty of things pointing in the opposite direction.

[deleted]

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#124

Post by shawnz »

arvinsim wrote: post #80
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't see how that absolves Apple. Apple gets the bigger headline because of their claim to support environmentalism and human rights.

Who said it absolves them? I think the point is just that there is no alternative which can match them without resorting to the same abuses.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#125

Post by drumhead »

thrashh wrote: post #90
cletus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone know why this happens? Oh it's easy to explain. Steve Jobs said it best [1]. He talks about innovation at Pepsi being a new bottle. That's what Activision Blizzard is. They have a "monopoly" with their key franchises, most notably CoD and WoW. They just release a new "bottle" every 1-2 years. Game studios are a bit like a large film studio. They don't like the creative process. It's too unpredictable. T…

I think you’re more explaining what happens than why it happens. Personally I know every project or initiative I’ve pushed for is because I have a vision of how things should be . When I give up the reigns to someone else, usually they’re just doing it because they have to. There’s no replacement for passion.

Once you've lost the ability to innovate or be original, all you can do is cut costs or raise prices.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#126

Post by drumhead »

download13 wrote: post #102
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…

It's almost like there might be some inherent problem with running everything through profit motives...

There isnt, just dont expect it to solve the worlds problems or keep things fantastic or great forever.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#128

Post by tsimionescu »

411111111111111 wrote: post #84
michaelbrave wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a slow death, one by a thousand papercuts, you can see the changes in Wow as an example. Classic Wow and BC were not convenient, to enter a dungeon you had to travel to it, often you had to finish the quests in an area to unlock it, if someone wanted to come who hadn't done this yet you were compelled to help them, often these were quests that were beyond what one person could do. It was built around teamwork…

Convenience features are not the issue. Sure, there are people that don't like them but there are even more that would never bother playing without them. It's a convergence of multiple factors that's destroying WoW, and not all off them is entirely in Activision Blizzards control. I cannot remember playing any games in recent history that had a community as toxic as WoWs to non veteran players. Their effectively P2W…

> not all off them is entirely in Activision Blizzards control. I cannot remember playing any games in recent history that had a community as toxic as WoWs to non veteran players.

I think community toxicity is very much Activision Blizzards's fault. There are no community guidelines anywhere, griefing is explicitly allowed (almost encouraged) in World PvP, game masters are few and far between. The report system is more often abused for griefing than used for actual community management.

It's very easy to look at FF14 to see that this needs to all start from the top. They have a very active community management team, and enforce very strict guidelines that go way beyond 'don't sexually harass other players'. They have a new player's guild where the guidelines are often discussed, with players taking on the roles as mentors who are supposed to drill these values into people. They have a very strict policy of never attacking someone for how they play the game, unless they are completely griefing (like a healer who never heals their party). Discussing damage or other performance numbers is grounds for a time out (outside dedicated groups for the hardest content).

Additionally, the relationship between the development team and the player base is much less confrontational. The development team is relatively candid on the games direction, they often explain choices they've made in satisfying ways, and seem to actively listen to player feedback. There is a famous example of a player asking about a quality of life feature in a Q&A, and the dev lead saying something along the lines of 'you know what? That makes sense', and delivering the feature in-game a few months later.

These are all things that require some serious investment in community management, and they pay off immensely in long-term good will and loyalty. Instead, Blizzard fired a few hundred people from QA and community management positions shortly before Battle for Azeroth.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#129

Post by tsimionescu »

username90 wrote: post #99
411111111111111 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No game ever brands itself as P2W, so that's not really an argument. The phrasing made it pretty clear that their issue was with the LFG tool and that you get ported to dungeons when using it to level.

But the introduction of that LFG tool (more specifically the raid finder) also coincides with the start of wow bleeding subscribers, and they haven't recovered since and instead just kept bleeding. I don't think there is any evidence that there would be less players in wow if they never introduced that feature, on the contrary there are plenty of things pointing in the opposite direction.

But other games that have a Raid Finder are doing well and rapidly increasing their player numbers: Final Fantasy 14 has had the exact same system since the beginning, and it's definitely not hurting their growth. I think that, despite the hate it gets, LFR was far from WoW's main cause of downfall.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#130

Post by karatinversion »

robinsoh wrote: post #121
cletus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone know why this happens? Oh it's easy to explain. Steve Jobs said it best [1]. He talks about innovation at Pepsi being a new bottle. That's what Activision Blizzard is. They have a "monopoly" with their key franchises, most notably CoD and WoW. They just release a new "bottle" every 1-2 years. Game studios are a bit like a large film studio. They don't like the creative process. It's too unpredictable. T…

> They have a "monopoly" with their key franchises, most notably CoD and WoW. I don't follow, even in the air quotes monopoly context. Could you elaborate? I thought anyone can make a game, even that specific type of game and reach a paying audience quickly if it is good. Aren't the game engines for CoD and WoW actually owned by different companies? Eg: Unreal Engine is owned by Epic/Tencent.

I guess they have a legal monopoly on their intellectual property? But I do see a lot of sloppy uses of the word monopoly that just seem to be autopilot.
Post reply on HN