171–180 of 230 posts
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It's almost like there might be some inherent problem with running everything through profit motives...
There definitely is. However, we must remember that we are enjoying a standard of living unimaginable only a few hundred years ago. I think the system has some inherent flaws, but it has still served us extremely well.
I've logged a lot of hours on Overwatch (and, previously, WoW), but this morning I uninstalled it and the Battle.net launcher for good. I'll find something else to play.
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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 an organization has grown to multiple layers of management the people on top will eventually become those who are good at climbing the ladder. How we choose our leaders is IMHO one of the most important problems we yet don’t really understand. It’s partly a function of how we structure our organizations.
Steve Jobs seemed to be very concerned about this and spent a lot of time trying to create an innovative organisation independent of him. What have we got since him? A smart watch and ever increasing apple taxes on the App Store. And incremental improvements to the iPhone.
It’s really depressing but I’m not sure as humanity we can do better really. The entrepreneur is just someone who starts with nothing and creates something. You can only go so far in recreating that in a large organisation.
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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.
There was no need for inverted commas in the GGP post. Intellectual property is precisely a government-granted monopoly under specific rules. Nobody else can make a Call of Duty game: they have a monopoly on the market for Call of Duty games.
I’m not sure I agree with them, but stating that they have a monopoly over their own IPs is so obvious and uninteresting that I find it hard to believe that’s what they were going for.
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 remember playing WoW back in the day and how great their European support was. It was groundbreaking really, and it still sets the standard for what I want out of online support. I quit back during wrath of the lich king because I got old, and didn’t really follow things until they made Warcraft 3 Reforged which I preordered. When it turned out to be a bad game I again turned to Blizzards European support but the new experience was horrible by comparison. I mean, it worked just fine but I had to wait 48 hours where as previously it was only a few minutes for an online chat back before that sort or thing was more common.
So what happened in those 10ish years? Well, it turns out that all of the European supporters were laid off in France to cut costs during one of the company’s most profitable years.
That’s pretty normal in large companies, but it’s also a way to become just like everyone else instead of being outstanding, and that’s where they are heading isn’t it?
All the horrible sexual misconduct is another thing in the culture. It would be very criminal in my country and I hope the American courts handle it, but it’s wider effect speaks of a terrible working environment and that’s just not where you make the kind of games that made Blizzard famous in the first place.
It’s a little odd to see the shift in management as well, because it’s not like Sierra or Vivendi aren’t profit exhuming enterprise organisations, but somehow they realised that the “excellence” was what made Blizzard work and I guess Activision just didn’t get that memo.
I do think the politics of streamers and other influencers abandoning their games will have an impact though. But that’s just my personal opinion, and I’m not really a good source considering the only video game I play these days is blood bowl.
Blizzard once made games for $60. Then inflation happened, and they had to pay their employees more. But gamers are stuck in a "back in my day candy bars were a nickel" mindset, and refuse to pay more than $60. So they had to hide the true cost of the games inside dark patterns and upsells. The end.
The argument that games should cost more than $60 because "inflation" is preposterous. By the same logic, personal computers should cost $100,000 because "inflation" since they cost $10,000 in the 80's.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once an organization has grown to multiple layers of management the people on top will eventually become those who are good at climbing the ladder. How we choose our leaders is IMHO one of the most important problems we yet don’t really understand. It’s partly a function of how we structure our organizations.
Just trying to play devils advocate, im not sure it’s possible to do it differently. You simply can’t replicate true founder attitudes and mentality and choices with a management with stock options and fiduciary responsibility. Steve Jobs seemed to be very concerned about this and spent a lot of time trying to create an innovative organisation independent of him. What have we got since him? A smart watch and ever inc…
And Swift, and Apple Silicon, and FaceID, and HomePod (which hasn't been a massive success but is at least an attempt at something new), and a return to the Cheese Grater Pro, and massive improvements to Maps, and the perpetual autonomous driving rumors. What am I forgetting? Oh, Apple actually halved App Store rates for smaller developers, inducing the stores on other platforms to do similar. Maybe some of these were on some sort of roadmap that Jobs left behind, but not all of them could have been.
The "innovation at Apple died along with Jobs" argument is looking more and more ridiculous as more time passes and Apple continues to innovate.
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Once an organization has grown to multiple layers of management the people on top will eventually become those who are good at climbing the ladder. How we choose our leaders is IMHO one of the most important problems we yet don’t really understand. It’s partly a function of how we structure our organizations.
Just trying to play devils advocate, im not sure it’s possible to do it differently. You simply can’t replicate true founder attitudes and mentality and choices with a management with stock options and fiduciary responsibility. Steve Jobs seemed to be very concerned about this and spent a lot of time trying to create an innovative organisation independent of him. What have we got since him? A smart watch and ever inc…
Also I don’t think we are at a optimization level where only the most radical types like founders are needed. It is probably enough to get out of the way of reasonably smart people. I see this in the public sector all the time.
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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…
Okay. And? You still need innovation to make something like the M1.