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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

#161

Post by parineum »

SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #28

So, 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…

> "Blizzard's reputation collapsed." The question is, did it collapse among a significant number of their actual customers, or did it mostly collapse among a vocal minority of Twitter and Reddit users?

I gave a hearty chuckle when I read that WoW players had staged and in-game protest as a result of this most recent fiasco. I can't think of a better way to signal that you have no intent take meaningful action.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#162

Post by parineum »

karmasimida wrote: post #42
SheinhardtWigCo wrote: post #28

So, 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…

> Blizzard is perhaps the best in the industry at this. They've done shitty things before, as documented in this article, but it hasn't really mattered. The users are hooked and business is booming. Not as of now they are losing talents. Blizzard is notoriously in the industry for exploitively underpaying their employees.

I have a friend that previously worked in the industry fir several companies, including Blizzard and Activision proper. The stories are indiscernable. The industry itself treats enoloyees like chattle because there 10 people waiting fir the opportunity to be exploited by their favorite franchise.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#163

Post by Tehnix »

hnick wrote: post #148
parrellel wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably 11, When the first third of Starcraft II released without LAN support, borked custom games, and with that mess of a story. But that was just an aberration surely. Then 2012 was the real money auction house in Diablo 3 with an even worse excuse for a story and I gave up on the company. They got a few brownie points back for coming up with the successor to TF2 in Overwatch, but by that point that was the aberr…

You just reminded me that SC2 was split up into 3 parts. I'd completely forgotten. I can't remember how they justified it at the time, but through the lens of history and their other actions it certainly looks like they thought it'd just be easy to make us pay 3 times. Either way, I enjoyed SC2 for a while but it just felt like it was missing something compared to Brood War. I never did buy the other 2 parts.

The campaign took a different focus on each parts of SC2. I personally enjoyed this, and thought it was much better than a much shorter storyline crammed into one game (or alternatively a delay of several years before release).

IMO SC2 was a great success, but it feels like they are no longer giving it much love because it’s not a recurring revenue driver for them :(

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#166

Post by parineum »

pfdietz wrote: post #160
parineum wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pedantic but didn't Activision buy Vivendi's game subsidiary completely? I assume Blizzard was the target asset there but I seem to remember that the whole company was purchased.

To be even more pedantic: there was a deal where Vivendi's games properties was merged into Activision, the combined entity was renamed Activision-Blizzard, and Vivendi got controlling interest in it.

Oh interesting. I didn't realize Vivendi was still involved. I thought they sold the games department to exit the industry but I guess it was the opposite.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#167

Post by VortexDream »

endgame wrote: post #86
wpasc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it a fascinating case study that some of the company’s most anticipated releases are just re releases: Diablo 2 resurrected, WoW classic, Warcraft 3 reforged. Death by a thousand lapses in game quality and you get a lot of hype about refurbished old games. Some of it is rose covered nostalgia but IMO there’s been a sea change in game design since the advent of the attention economy, pay to progress, micro tran…

It's also telling that the team doing SC: Remastered cared enough to make an emulator for EUD maps (SC1 maps which used a buffer overflow accessible from within the map scripting language to execute arbitrary code), but the War3: Reforged release was a big steaming turd of missed promises.

At the very least they're capable of doing decent remasters, which why it was surprising how absolutely terrible the WC3 remaster was and how much they cocked it up. I have rarely seen such a bad series of decisions before in making a game. I've seen plenty of bad games but WC3R is on another level.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#168

Post by kator »

microtonal wrote: post #145
meowface wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

Apple innovated a lot post-Steve Jobs. The development line of the A CPUs that led to the M1 is definitely not ‘a new bottle every 1-2 years’. The M1 out-innovated Intel, Qualcomm and to a lesser extend AMD. Apple also branched out to other categories with the Apple Watch and AirPods. Apple is most definitely still innovating.

While the nerd in me wants to agree with you, aren't all of these just great examples of deeper vertical integration?

When I started in computing most major players had their own CPU's, and over time everything converged on mostly Intel with AMD/ARM in there to mix it up. Now we see companies swinging back to the old days where each will have their own CPU's. To me its a return to vertical integration and exposes all of us to a new era of lock-in.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#169

Post by pfdietz »

parineum wrote: post #166
pfdietz wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be even more pedantic: there was a deal where Vivendi's games properties was merged into Activision, the combined entity was renamed Activision-Blizzard, and Vivendi got controlling interest in it.

Oh interesting. I didn't realize Vivendi was still involved. I thought they sold the games department to exit the industry but I guess it was the opposite.

That deal was in 2008. Five years later, in 2013, Kotick raised money to buy out Vivendi, and Vivendi exited the industry shortly thereafter.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#170

Post by vbezhenar »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #39

Just 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…

I'm playing WoW since 2008 and don't plan to stop. I don't like the direction that gameplay has taken, but I understand that's because of players changed and what worked in the past, will not work in the future, so I adapt. The only thing that bothers me is western propaganda (strong women everywhere, gay characters) which significantly increased in the last years, but that's a rather minor annoyance for me.
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