Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years • Hacker News Board

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#211

Post by stjohnswarts » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 5:28 PM UTC

coder-3 wrote: post #13

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? 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…

By and large I think the top level execs of these companies are sociopaths. Not the classic ones that are obvious and ultimately cross too many people. No these people are on a spectrum of being able to understand human emotions and feel them just enough to easily fool standard humans. However their 90% goal is money and that blinds them over time to things like customer loyalty, fair product for a fair price, innovation and it just becomes a money press to them and then they lose customers and throw their hands up and declare well that's just the way it is completely forgetting how their founding products and innovations got them there.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#212

Post by mthoms » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

greedo wrote: post #202

_nalply wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP probably meant that people pay more and more for apps. They buy more apps or more expensive apps or more people buy apps. In other words, even with rate staying the same Apple has ever increasing revenue from the App Store.

And the GP would be wrong. Apps have never been cheaper and the App Store is a prime reason. The drive to $.99 or free apps started there. Apple's increase in services revenue is primarily due to the incredible number of Apple devices in use, as well as the increased number of services being offered now.

I’m curious about your “apps have never been cheaper” comment. Is that actually true? Does that take into account long term ownership (recurring subscriptions)?

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#213

Post by nobodyandproud » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 5:35 PM UTC

zpeti wrote: post #173

acje wrote: post #109

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…

It’s not strictly technical, but some level of privacy is the big differentiator between Apple and everyone else.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#214

Post by arnaudsm » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:00 PM UTC

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…

It's darwinian, founders are selected over product success. New CEOs are selected for their finance skills.

The first tend to be creative and empathetic, while the latter prefer cost cutting and lack of empathy.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#215

Post by eric-hu » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:25 PM UTC

Foomf wrote: post #85

eric-hu wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a very active Starcraft 2 player up until the Blitzchung controversy in late 2019. For me, Starcraft was and has been the most engaging RTS made, both to watch and play. I still haven’t found a satisfying replacement. RTS as a genre is getting dwarfed but other game types, but it has its niche. I was engaged enough with the game that I was paying for seasonal War Chests—-essentially skins, to bump the tournamen…

Age of Empires 2 is still getting regular updates. There aren't too many RTS games nowadays but you should give AOE2 HD a try.

I have, thank you for the suggestion. It’s not bad. I was hopeful going into it, but it just doesn’t do it for me to the same degree SC2 did. Main reasons:

- Competitive games are a bit too long for me to watch. - Random map mode is a bit too RNG in the start with boars and sheep (I’m actually okay with this, but my buddy gets frustrated with it. If he loses interest then we can’t do 2v2s. - The base game mode (Random Map) is a bit too slow for me too. I’ve tried turbo mode, which is nice, but the economy/military doesn’t feel quite balanced. Empire wars is pretty nice, though. It’s basically a feudal age start. - Visually, a lot of units look the same. It’s hard to tell apart strategies and technology levels at a glance. This impacts both the playing and the esports aspects for me.

Overall it’s still a good game. I have it installed and play AIs from time to time. I don’t try to ladder though.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#216

Post by Macha » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #96

void_mint wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For every other point outside of Overwatch, you justified, agreed or misunderstood the OP and defended its release vs. its current state. The points weren't critiques, is what I'm saying. Calling a game a "hot mess" doesn't actually say what's wrong with it. For WoW, as an example, it's inarguable that it's the biggest MMO of all time with a super active playerbase, even now. Saying "Well it's a hot mess" ignores a…

I wonder what the total number of MMO players is. Maybe the genre is dying and WoW is accelerating its demise.

It depends what you define MMO as. If you consider it as traditional MMORPG, then the answer is clearly yes. WoW once had 12 million active players, now FFXIV is likely at 1.5 million, we're not sure if WoW is still above that, and ESO, SWTOR, GW2 and Runescape have a couple of hundred thousand each.

If you extend the definition a bit you can sort of fit stuff like big minecraft networks, Path of Exile, etc. into it. Which initially seems a bit silly, but then people general consider things like retail WoW, Guild Wars 1 to be MMOs despite most gameplay taking place in explicit instances, or world zones that are so heavily instanced that you'll only see a small number of other players. And the gameplay of Path of Exile is hardly as disparate from WoW as say Eve Online or Runescape.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#217

Post by ben_w » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:00 PM UTC

falomor wrote: post #189

ben_w wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being ignorant of politics isn’t the same thing as being able to operate in that state. Imagine your hypothetical team had been (over)working on a game which was all about the “valiant mujahideen freedom fighters in Afghanistan fighting off the Soviet Union” when 9/11 happened? Or they started working with the likeness of any of Prince Andrew, Rolf Harris, Kevin Spacey, etc. before they became personae-non-grata? Jus…

Postal was published after the Columbine shooting and did well enough to warrant a sequel. I can't imagine a less justifiable premise. The United States has large numbers of contrarians and free speech supporters - they even enjoy constitutional protections. Neither the free market nor the state obstructed Postal's success.

I believe both of my two examples are vastly less politically acceptable in America than mass shootings, mainly on the basis that nothing changes in the USA as a result of mass shootings while things did in fact happen as a result of 9/11, and that child abusers have always been in the category of “villains so evil we don’t need additional explanation”. There’s a reason why you have political cartoons like this: https://images.app.goo.gl/dRaH47BbaKAjJt116

(And that’s just the USA; the rest of the world isn’t like America, ignoring politics in other countries can get your games banned for reasons that would never hold up in America because of the First Amendment)

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#218

Post by wutbrodo » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:12 PM UTC

bigyikes wrote: post #207

wutbrodo wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Airpods, which are near-universally lauded and undoubtedly innovative. Are airpods innovative? I thought wireless Bluetooth headphones have been around for ages, including ones with better (subjective) aesthetics and sound quality than airpods. This is a sincere question. I'm not familiar enough with airpods to know if they have some novel feature, or pulled off a magic combination of marketing+quality+features tha…

Maybe my Apple fanboyism is showing but I think the Airpods had exactly that magic combination you described. The case with a battery, seamless pairing, great battery life, reasonable EQ, and iconic style made them a smash hit.

Ha I get you, I tend to have a low opinion of Apple products so I try to temper my assumptions and ask questions about the products with an open mind.

Hm, my understanding is that this combination of positives wasn't especially novel in the wireless headphone market. Was it?

As far as the design, I tend to think Apple has historically excelled at design, to the point that my favorite phones aesthetically have been shameless Samsung rip-offs of iPhone designs. But I don't see this reputation lived up to in their last few products: eg, the square Apple Watch is a lot uglier than the contemporary (at launch) round Motorola offering. And I personally find Airpods to look like hearing aids; I was recently in the market for high-quality Bluetooth headphones and the Airpods' hideousness is part of what knocked them out of the running.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#219

Post by greedo » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:36 PM UTC

mthoms wrote: post #212

greedo wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the GP would be wrong. Apps have never been cheaper and the App Store is a prime reason. The drive to $.99 or free apps started there. Apple's increase in services revenue is primarily due to the incredible number of Apple devices in use, as well as the increased number of services being offered now.

I’m curious about your “apps have never been cheaper” comment. Is that actually true? Does that take into account long term ownership (recurring subscriptions)?

When the App Store first launched, it wasn't unusual to find apps being sold for more than $20. That quickly dropped to where it was hard to find an app that cost more than $.99. Of course this meant that many large vendors simply didn't create or sell apps in the Store, fearing to cannibalize their products.

Now the model has shifted to subscription based apps. But even with these, there's a huge amount of free apps as well. It appears that the majority of income comes (as it does in Las Vegas) from "whales" who spend an disproportionate amount of money, primarily on games.

Re: Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

#220

Post by ksaj » Sun, Aug 01, 2021, 7:41 PM UTC

bigyikes wrote: post #207

wutbrodo wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Airpods, which are near-universally lauded and undoubtedly innovative. Are airpods innovative? I thought wireless Bluetooth headphones have been around for ages, including ones with better (subjective) aesthetics and sound quality than airpods. This is a sincere question. I'm not familiar enough with airpods to know if they have some novel feature, or pulled off a magic combination of marketing+quality+features tha…

Maybe my Apple fanboyism is showing but I think the Airpods had exactly that magic combination you described. The case with a battery, seamless pairing, great battery life, reasonable EQ, and iconic style made them a smash hit.

Also, the size is key. Hearing aids keep getting smaller and less visible while continually improving at varying performance metrics, and airpods represent that technology starting to impact the consumer market.