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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

#131

Post by FeistyOtter »

calmd wrote: post #2

Stunning fall. For a while Blizzard could do no wrong. I feel that Bobby, the CEO, is very focused on results and only understands gamers third hand at this point. That works for a while when the employees still care but once they stop caring there is no one to steer the faltering ship.

Maybe one factor is that among all Activision-Blizzard subsidiaries Blizzard makes the least amount of money, around 1/5 according to the Q1 profits. Both Activision Publishing and King make far more money by expanding into the most lucrative game sector: mobile games targeting China. The one mobile game that Blizzard is making in collaboration with NetEase (the infamous Diablo Immortal) is yet to be released. It is far more likely that CEO (and by extension company shareholders) wants to dedicate more resources to expanding into mobile market than all those old and dwindling franchises that Blizzard has.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#133

Post by mkl95 »

I played WoW during late TBC and WOTLK (late 2000s), and then I came back for WoW Classic. The thing that disappointed me the most and ultimately made me leave for good is how toxic and bitter the community has become.

Long time players treat Blizzard like an ill relative they are morally obligated to take care of, instead of a company that is supposed to release enjoyable content. Some of the middle aged and even retired people I played with treated the game like a Facebook gossip group and had shockingly immature behaviour.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#134

Post by akmarinov »

ttiurani wrote: post #104
zahrc wrote: post #3

Blizzards reputation has been going downhill since the merge with Activision. Some of my veteran WoW friends returned with the release of classic and TBC classic, but no one stayed for long. Blizzard has been destroying all of their franchises WoW - convoluted imbalanced hot mess Diablo - repetitive. Diablo immortal. Warcraft III - buggy and laggy steaming pile of undelivered promises Overwatch - imbalanced. Overwatc…

> Overwatch - imbalanced. Overwatch 2 with weird changes As a counterpoint, IMO OW is in the most balanced place it ever has been now. A lot of it has to do with the making of OW2, which has meant no new heroes, but still I do think the OW team has done excellent work with competitive balance recently. This is reflected in the most diverse hero selections ever in Overwatch League (pretty much making hero bans there o…

Hasn’t the meta in OW been double shield for a while? One of the worst ones?

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#135

Post by tokipin »

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.

As the company grows the types of people that are attracted and unattracted by the company change, as do those that are accepted and rejected by it. For example, risk averse people are attracted to mature companies, and they don't like risk takers.

One of the consequences is that companies become more specialized and lose deep expertise. To put it bluntly, its because they no longer have people with deep expertise, and even when they do they are ignored by management who tend to be less interested and knowledgeable about the subject matter.

I don't know of any company that has tried to prevent this. It's a general force that permeates everything, including recruiters, HR, their job postings, etc. So even companies that think they're preventing it probably still walk right into it regardless.

Of course, specialization is not necessarily good or bad. In a very competitive environment the company may not have a choice.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#136

Post by nindalf »

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…

The one Blizzard game that I was fond of more than any other was Warcraft III. It holds a special place in my heart because I saved money for several months to be able to buy it for myself. It was a big deal to me. And wow, that game was everything I had hoped it would be when I finally got it.

A couple of years ago Blizzard thought they’d re-release the same game with updated graphics to cash in on the nostalgia. If it had been even half decent I would have bought it. But it was an unplayable mess. They couldn’t even release a playable version of a game that already existed. That’s when I knew Blizzard had died. I’m done with them.

I’m sure they’ll survive for a long time with their CoD and WoW, but I want nothing to do with them.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#137

Post by bsd44 »

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 it feel "right" giving money to a company that would side with the American killings of civilians for oil and profit? Just trying to understand how morals work.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#138

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

unishark wrote: post #117
brundolf wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think company founders are often great, idealistic people. People who genuinely want to make the world better. > When they step aside, however, the people who take over after them tend to be terrifying: zero empathy creatures who favor profit maximization over any and all human cost. Seems to me like this has more to do with going public. When a company starts being treated as a money-printing machine, and its ac…

I think you're taking for granted all the benefits to society provided by those profit-seeking public companies. The baseline is all of us starving to death with no possessions or food except what we can grow ourselves or scrounge, not the local supermarket/retail/etc. stores always being there to provide for our needs efficiently.

That's not the baseline. That's currently the most probable medium term outcome.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#139

Post by meowface »

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…

>Steve Jobs said it best. 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.

Isn't this also kind of what Apple has become in the post-Steve Jobs era?

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#140

Post by perryizgr8 »

WitCanStain wrote: post #91
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…

Do you think worker-owned businesses can mitigate this? After all, one of their pluses is supposed to be that the workers can choose to prioritise things other than profit.

Worker owned business can't even compete. Name one such company that is in the top 5 in any product category.
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