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Ex-World of Warcraft developer's thread about China and the gaming industry

408 points by seapunk 7y ago

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
impowski 7y ago
Wow, he will stop playing Classic WoW for now, such a huge loss for Blizzard. As an ethnical Chinese he probably should just go to Hong Kong and protest against the Government instead of doing nothing and writing on Twitter about it. People are dying there and he just canceled his Vanilla WoW subscription. How cute :3
- derision 7y ago
  It's important for those with a large following to speak out on these topics too. Not everyone has to be in the streets protesting. Some people can use their influence and following to spread the message further than it would otherwise. He used his platform to speak out, at risk of harming his livelihood and ability to do business in China. Meanwhile, you've done even less. Don't be a hypocrite.
  - impowski 7y ago
    I don’t care about Hong Kong. It’s their business to deal with. Some people can influence, not him. So the guy lives in US and “spoke out” to his audience to lose “an ability to do business in China”, yeah sure. I don’t see how this makes me a hypocrite though.
    - derision 7y ago
      He influenced me, and others too based off the replies to his message. Why are you so upset about someone speaking out against injustice?
      - impowski 7y ago
        I'm not upset, I see this as "seeking an attention from an audience". And speaking will not change anything only taking actions which are not "I declined subscription to a game and made the world know about it". People in the Hong Kong are clearly taking actions against injustice and not the ones who sitting at home and tweeting about it. It's just how I see it and it's my opinion. Such events could happen with any public company which make a living from international deals and their business could lose money. Blizzard didn't even make it clear on what they think about those injustices and people already taking sides. This is just a consequences of taking an action to protect their business.
- koonsolo 7y ago
  Your comment is even cuter.
martin_bech 7y ago
This is also next level Streisand effect. I would have never heard of any of all this, if Blizzard had just ignorred the player. Now its on HN a bunch of times, on my twitter timeline etc.
- bananatron 7y ago
  So true! I have 0 visibility into the Hearhstone world, but now I've canceled my pre-orders and my WoW account.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- baud147258 7y ago
  I've read elsewhere that such move might be deliberate, by complying to Chinese demands, but also drawing a lot of attention to the situation.
- danso 7y ago
  Not really. Presumably it was already big news in Asia.
  - dx87 7y ago
    My wife heard about it, and she doesn't follow any gaming at all. She said that writers and beauty bloggers she follows on twitter were talking about it. US politicians from both sides of the isle were criticizing Blizzard as well. Blizzard made it a big deal everywhere.
    - danso 7y ago
      Right, but ostensibly Blizzard's main reason for this sanction was to protect its business interests in China. The parent commenter suggests that if Blizzard just "ignored" it, the issue would go away, as if Chinese censors and the mainland public hadn't already taken notice.
curiousgal 7y ago
For some reason, gamers appear to care about Hong Kong but didn't bat an eye when other gaming companies shut their servers down in Syria/Iran in order to comply with the U.S.. If a large portion of Blizzard's players hadn't been Chinese they wouldn't have reacted that way. So to me, Blizzard is the victim here, they were put in a lose-lose situation. Regardless, I don't see how a company refusing to have its events politicized is considered so bad. If people are so adamant about sticking it to China, they should boycott their actual products instead.
- booleandilemma 7y ago
  Are you asking why Americans don’t care about what happens to Iran?
- jaimex2 7y ago
  Because China dictating what can and can't be done affects them, the Syria/Iran embargo didn't. I dont think Blizzard are in a lose position at all, they've already made a ton of money. Worst that will happen is the gravy train is a little thinner.
  - cjslep 7y ago
    That's why, following the very-broken "vote with your wallet" mentality, I'm asking for a buyer's remorse refund for everything I've ever bought. SC1, brood war, Diablo 2, SC2, Diablo 3. I don't expect to succeed but it'll be one voice in a chrous, and some $ in some internal "potential lost money" metric an MBA is frantically trying to compute.
    - donpott 7y ago
      I'm genuinely curious: Why do you think the "vote with your wallet" mentality is broken?
      - cjslep 7y ago
        A system where power is dictated by a set period of every X years where, for one day, everyone biological person is issued exactly 1 unit of "voting currency" that is equal in value to the 1 unit of "voting currency" every time period before to determine that power shift; is not comparable to a system where biological people and non-biological constructs are continuously exchanging "voting currency" which itself has fluctuating value and can be accumulated such that a "later vote" is often unequal to an "earlier vote" which can lead to highly unequal power concentrated where there is high "voting currency" concentration, and there is never a set time where power is designed to shift. It's a long winded way of saying "I don't believe the analogy holds up to scrutiny".
Miner49er 7y ago
> It’s one thing to keep politics out of games, which I am still a proponent of doing. It’s another to unfairly and harshly punish voices that speak out against corruption, against abuses of human rights, and freedom. What does he mean by this tweet? It seems somewhat contradictory. I assume he means that he's against Blitzchung bringing up politics, but he's more against Blizzard's punishment? Seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it too. Not sure how you can prevent politics in gaming without creating and enforcing rules to prevent politics in gaming, which is what Blizzard has done here.
- ryanlol 7y ago
  >Seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it too Your premise only makes any sense in an utterly black and white world. There are many different levels of enforcement. Blizzard could’ve sent Blitzchung a note pointing out their significant Chinese audience and asked him to refrain from such comments in the future during Blizzard events.
- fesoliveira 7y ago
  It means that is in favor of keeping a game's content apolitical, while he supports free speech and calling out corruption in the gaming scene. The former is a long standing debate point in the gaming community sparked by developers of many high profile games with clear political messages saying that their games are not political. The other is the current situation with Blizzard and NBA.
- stevenkovar 7y ago
  I'm pretty confident he means keeping politics out of games' content.
  - baud147258 7y ago
    Or (remembering older tweets from him), keeping out political content/messages that might appear too blatant, preachy or out-of-place in the context of the game.
    - 7y ago
roenxi 7y ago
It is interesting to look back at the last ~50 years from a strategic standpoint. The West gambled that economic prosperity would usher in an age of Chinese liberty, if not actual democracy, and that attempts to resist that would lead to economic collapse. With benefit of hindsight maybe that strategy was too passive. China has embraced the technical aspects of Western society but it looks dangerously like it will carry them with an authoritarian philosophy. It is a pity; particularly since the English Common Law system combined with separation of power is the greatest accomplishment of the Anglosphere and China would have really ushered in an age of enlightenment had they taken that on.
- jhanschoo 7y ago
  > The West gambled that economic prosperity would usher in an age of Chinese liberty, if not actual democracy Early on, not without reason. The outcome of the Cold War seems to be to the democratic-capitalist West's favor. It seems to me that as we move closer to contemporary times, this ideological component starts to take a backseat as businesses grew increasingly reliant on China's affordable export economy.
- deogeo 7y ago
  > The West gambled that economic prosperity would usher in an age of Chinese liberty, if not actual democracy, and that attempts to resist that would lead to economic collapse. I'm sure the corporations that make those trade agreements saw it as nothing more than cheap labor and large market. How this would help liberty is just something they tacked on to sell it to the public.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    The 5 eyes are a totally disproportionate amount of the worlds military spending. They have a lot of faults, but they also look a long way into the future to spot potential threats. America has been implementing a worldwide strategy against Russia for a very long time. If you look at a map US allies make a nice little fence around Russia. It seems unlikely that trade agreements are being made with gay abandon and no consideration for the geopolitical situation. People like to pretend that there isn't a scheme afoot, but that is a ruse. Integrating with China would have been given extensive consideration beyond "cheap goods, aye?".
0xDEFC0DE 7y ago
>I was removed from a company I founded (after Blizzard) for refusing to take a 2 million dollar kickback bribe to take an investment from China Resisting that takes strength. $2m to take more money and keep quiet? I'd probably quit in shame or be fired eventually, but that's life-changing money. I do wonder if we could take some amount of money from China and simply not give them what they ask for though when they start making demands, or giving them the run-around.
- baud147258 7y ago
  Or perhaps he already had enough money that it wasn't that life-changing for him.
- faet 7y ago
  Well, from people who worked with him they said he was frequently absent and a bad leader. He is also blamed for much of their financial troubles for wanting to frequently change direction. https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130737-Updated-Red-5-Studios-Employees-Speak-Out-Against-Dismissed-CEO?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=news&utm_reader=feedly https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130737-Updated-Red... Additionally, the company took Chinese money 3 years prior to him being fired. Red 5 Studios was majority owned by The9 (a Chinese company) early 2010. Prior to being bought out they closed one office and fired about 30 people. So, I kinda doubt he was removed solely "for refusing to take an investment from china". Especially, when they were already owned by a Chinese company.
  - wowxp 7y ago
    Go away troll
    - Cuuugi 7y ago
      It's a counter point from a valid source, that at best complicates Mark Kern's claim. How is that trolling?
  - blue11 7y ago
mimikatz 7y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_XJxqnxzaY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_XJxqnxzaY has to be the most clever means for the creative class to fight back. Reminds me of cultural jammers of the 90s.
- ethbro 7y ago
  I'm not sure if it was as prevalent in other games (WoW et al), but the cutthroat, zero-sum nature of Eve Online produced a ridiculous volume of user-made, pro-group propaganda videos. Goonswarm was especially famous for it. All versions of "People sitting on the sidelines outnumber people with an opinion, so it's more productive to sway them to your cause than your enemy."
- andromeduck 7y ago
  That was very well made and the spirt of democracy is a nice touch.
remon 7y ago
One of these again. I struggle to form a coherent opinion on this one. Yes the player broke tournament rules and yes you can argue that he should be banned on that basis alone. But oh my god. Even if they banned him just on the basis of enforcing that rule rather than pampering to the Chinese market (and that's a huge if) the visuals of this are so predictably bad. What meeting can they possibly have had where the options were "Just reprimand him in private" or "Ban him, get into the news cycle and face weeks of public backlash" and they landed on the latter? It's hard to imagine the decision wasn't almost completely fuelled by Tencent's part ownership of Blizzard and Blizzard's stated goal to expand their marketshare in China. If so, it devolved from a company increasingly known for just poor decisions and communication (mobile Diablo announcement anyone?) to a company that publicly and blatantly prioritises shareholder interests over ethics. And let's be frank; there's not that much anyone can do about it. People can claim they're uninstalling Blizzard games. And I'm sure some do. But the next time they release an objectively good game everyone's back in.
- baud147258 7y ago
  Perhaps the decision wasn't taken in a meeting, it might have been a single exec high enough in the food chain to apply such a decision, with perhaps either a panicked or knee-jerk action.
  - remon 7y ago
    Maybe. If so it might be in their interest to publish the decision making process.
- remon 7y ago
  Interesting followup: I just tried to permanently delete my Blizzard account and the request is being denied regardless of my method of verification. The SMS passcode verification claimed on first attempt that it was denied "Due to too many attempts". Makes you wonder if they're intentionally breaking the delete account flow in hopes of weathering the storm.
  - Ocerge 7y ago
euix 7y ago
blizzard hasn't made a good game for about 15 years now. When I was kid Blizzard produced games like warcraft 2 and Diablo. That all ended when they discovered the cash cow of mmorpg. The last unequivocally old blizzard quality game was frozen throne.
- rejschaap 7y ago
  People have a tendency to remember games from their childhood more favorably. World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 were very high quality games. Obviously the business model had to change, we don't live in the 90's shareware world anymore.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > we don't live in the 90's shareware world anymore. We do more than any other time since the 1990s; the modern F2P + IAP model is pretty much exactly a resurrection of the 1990s shareware model taking full advantage of low-friction online payments.
    - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
      The difference being the Shareware was much less obnoxious - you got the first act of Doom or Wolfenstein, and it was fully functional, you could enjoy it as much as you liked, the only impetus was to get more via shareware - modern F2P means that your experience is always hampered - even what you do experience is less than what it could be. Doom E1M1 was complete - you couldn't make the experience better by paying money, but there's always that XP potion or better item in a F2P model.
    - bsharitt 7y ago
      I disagree, there's often no "full version" of these free to play games to buy. There are a few developers that do the in app purchases to unlock the full version, and it seemed to a more popular business model in the early days of mobile app stores, but now they seem to be drowned in a sea of games that rely on an unending stream of in app purchases that incrementally move you forward.
hanselot 7y ago
Everybody slightly off-center must be losing their minds trying to reconcile the facts. Trump vs China Trade War, everybody feels so bad for China. China has 3 Million person internment gulag, suddenly China is wrong. So, you gonna turn on China like you turned on Kanye?
ben_jones 7y ago
Is it safe to assume those same bribes to game studios and gaming journalists have likely also been applied to Software start ups and tech journalists?
LinuxBender 7y ago
I am certain nobody will agree with my opinion, but I will share it anyway. This sounds to me like a design problem. If you don't want to risk someone expressing an opinion, then give them a drop down of things they can choose from to say. "zug zug" "LokTar O'Gar!" If you want a social platform where people can express opinions, then keep that thing distanced far away from anything where money, competition, politics, etc... are involved. People will do what people can do. In this circumstance, humans were set up for failure and they will fail again. Keep the social platform identifiable names away from names used in a competition.
manicdee 7y ago
And yet the International Postal Union still considers China a developing country so we all subsidise their shipping. What counts as a developed country if it isn’t giant pools of money that every corporation around the world wants to be involved in?
homulilly 7y ago
Kern is an unhinged, extreme right whackjob so I would take anything he claims with a grain of salt regardless of your feelings on Hong Kong or Activision Blizzard.
Haga 7y ago
Just another Britain, just another east India company, just another empire.
4b11b4 7y ago
The writer of the thread opened my eyes to an entire new perspective on the world. History, philosophy, humanity... Much more than about a video game...

408 points by seapunk 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

Wow, he will stop playing Classic WoW for now, such a huge loss for Blizzard. As an ethnical Chinese he probably should just go to Hong Kong and protest against the Government instead of doing nothing and writing on Twitter about it. People are dying there and he just canceled his Vanilla WoW subscription. How cute :3

derision 7y ago
It's important for those with a large following to speak out on these topics too. Not everyone has to be in the streets protesting. Some people can use their influence and following to spread the message further than it would otherwise. He used his platform to speak out, at risk of harming his livelihood and ability to do business in China. Meanwhile, you've done even less. Don't be a hypocrite.
- impowski 7y ago
  I don’t care about Hong Kong. It’s their business to deal with. Some people can influence, not him. So the guy lives in US and “spoke out” to his audience to lose “an ability to do business in China”, yeah sure. I don’t see how this makes me a hypocrite though.
  - derision 7y ago
    He influenced me, and others too based off the replies to his message. Why are you so upset about someone speaking out against injustice?
    - impowski 7y ago
      I'm not upset, I see this as "seeking an attention from an audience". And speaking will not change anything only taking actions which are not "I declined subscription to a game and made the world know about it". People in the Hong Kong are clearly taking actions against injustice and not the ones who sitting at home and tweeting about it. It's just how I see it and it's my opinion. Such events could happen with any public company which make a living from international deals and their business could lose money. Blizzard didn't even make it clear on what they think about those injustices and people already taking sides. This is just a consequences of taking an action to protect their business.
koonsolo 7y ago
Your comment is even cuter.

martin_bech 7y ago

This is also next level Streisand effect. I would have never heard of any of all this, if Blizzard had just ignorred the player. Now its on HN a bunch of times, on my twitter timeline etc.

bananatron 7y ago
So true! I have 0 visibility into the Hearhstone world, but now I've canceled my pre-orders and my WoW account.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
baud147258 7y ago
I've read elsewhere that such move might be deliberate, by complying to Chinese demands, but also drawing a lot of attention to the situation.
danso 7y ago
Not really. Presumably it was already big news in Asia.
- dx87 7y ago
  My wife heard about it, and she doesn't follow any gaming at all. She said that writers and beauty bloggers she follows on twitter were talking about it. US politicians from both sides of the isle were criticizing Blizzard as well. Blizzard made it a big deal everywhere.
  - danso 7y ago
    Right, but ostensibly Blizzard's main reason for this sanction was to protect its business interests in China. The parent commenter suggests that if Blizzard just "ignored" it, the issue would go away, as if Chinese censors and the mainland public hadn't already taken notice.

curiousgal 7y ago

For some reason, gamers appear to care about Hong Kong but didn't bat an eye when other gaming companies shut their servers down in Syria/Iran in order to comply with the U.S.. If a large portion of Blizzard's players hadn't been Chinese they wouldn't have reacted that way. So to me, Blizzard is the victim here, they were put in a lose-lose situation. Regardless, I don't see how a company refusing to have its events politicized is considered so bad. If people are so adamant about sticking it to China, they should boycott their actual products instead.

booleandilemma 7y ago
Are you asking why Americans don’t care about what happens to Iran?
jaimex2 7y ago
Because China dictating what can and can't be done affects them, the Syria/Iran embargo didn't. I dont think Blizzard are in a lose position at all, they've already made a ton of money. Worst that will happen is the gravy train is a little thinner.
- cjslep 7y ago
  That's why, following the very-broken "vote with your wallet" mentality, I'm asking for a buyer's remorse refund for everything I've ever bought. SC1, brood war, Diablo 2, SC2, Diablo 3. I don't expect to succeed but it'll be one voice in a chrous, and some $ in some internal "potential lost money" metric an MBA is frantically trying to compute.
  - donpott 7y ago
    I'm genuinely curious: Why do you think the "vote with your wallet" mentality is broken?
    - cjslep 7y ago
      A system where power is dictated by a set period of every X years where, for one day, everyone biological person is issued exactly 1 unit of "voting currency" that is equal in value to the 1 unit of "voting currency" every time period before to determine that power shift; is not comparable to a system where biological people and non-biological constructs are continuously exchanging "voting currency" which itself has fluctuating value and can be accumulated such that a "later vote" is often unequal to an "earlier vote" which can lead to highly unequal power concentrated where there is high "voting currency" concentration, and there is never a set time where power is designed to shift. It's a long winded way of saying "I don't believe the analogy holds up to scrutiny".

Miner49er 7y ago

> It’s one thing to keep politics out of games, which I am still a proponent of doing. It’s another to unfairly and harshly punish voices that speak out against corruption, against abuses of human rights, and freedom. What does he mean by this tweet? It seems somewhat contradictory. I assume he means that he's against Blitzchung bringing up politics, but he's more against Blizzard's punishment? Seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it too. Not sure how you can prevent politics in gaming without creating and enforcing rules to prevent politics in gaming, which is what Blizzard has done here.

ryanlol 7y ago
>Seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it too Your premise only makes any sense in an utterly black and white world. There are many different levels of enforcement. Blizzard could’ve sent Blitzchung a note pointing out their significant Chinese audience and asked him to refrain from such comments in the future during Blizzard events.
fesoliveira 7y ago
It means that is in favor of keeping a game's content apolitical, while he supports free speech and calling out corruption in the gaming scene. The former is a long standing debate point in the gaming community sparked by developers of many high profile games with clear political messages saying that their games are not political. The other is the current situation with Blizzard and NBA.
stevenkovar 7y ago
I'm pretty confident he means keeping politics out of games' content.
- baud147258 7y ago
  Or (remembering older tweets from him), keeping out political content/messages that might appear too blatant, preachy or out-of-place in the context of the game.
  - 7y ago

roenxi 7y ago

It is interesting to look back at the last ~50 years from a strategic standpoint. The West gambled that economic prosperity would usher in an age of Chinese liberty, if not actual democracy, and that attempts to resist that would lead to economic collapse. With benefit of hindsight maybe that strategy was too passive. China has embraced the technical aspects of Western society but it looks dangerously like it will carry them with an authoritarian philosophy. It is a pity; particularly since the English Common Law system combined with separation of power is the greatest accomplishment of the Anglosphere and China would have really ushered in an age of enlightenment had they taken that on.

jhanschoo 7y ago
> The West gambled that economic prosperity would usher in an age of Chinese liberty, if not actual democracy Early on, not without reason. The outcome of the Cold War seems to be to the democratic-capitalist West's favor. It seems to me that as we move closer to contemporary times, this ideological component starts to take a backseat as businesses grew increasingly reliant on China's affordable export economy.
deogeo 7y ago
> The West gambled that economic prosperity would usher in an age of Chinese liberty, if not actual democracy, and that attempts to resist that would lead to economic collapse. I'm sure the corporations that make those trade agreements saw it as nothing more than cheap labor and large market. How this would help liberty is just something they tacked on to sell it to the public.
- roenxi 7y ago
  The 5 eyes are a totally disproportionate amount of the worlds military spending. They have a lot of faults, but they also look a long way into the future to spot potential threats. America has been implementing a worldwide strategy against Russia for a very long time. If you look at a map US allies make a nice little fence around Russia. It seems unlikely that trade agreements are being made with gay abandon and no consideration for the geopolitical situation. People like to pretend that there isn't a scheme afoot, but that is a ruse. Integrating with China would have been given extensive consideration beyond "cheap goods, aye?".

0xDEFC0DE 7y ago

>I was removed from a company I founded (after Blizzard) for refusing to take a 2 million dollar kickback bribe to take an investment from China Resisting that takes strength. $2m to take more money and keep quiet? I'd probably quit in shame or be fired eventually, but that's life-changing money. I do wonder if we could take some amount of money from China and simply not give them what they ask for though when they start making demands, or giving them the run-around.

baud147258 7y ago
Or perhaps he already had enough money that it wasn't that life-changing for him.
faet 7y ago
Well, from people who worked with him they said he was frequently absent and a bad leader. He is also blamed for much of their financial troubles for wanting to frequently change direction. https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130737-Updated-Red-5-Studios-Employees-Speak-Out-Against-Dismissed-CEO?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=news&utm_reader=feedly https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130737-Updated-Red... Additionally, the company took Chinese money 3 years prior to him being fired. Red 5 Studios was majority owned by The9 (a Chinese company) early 2010. Prior to being bought out they closed one office and fired about 30 people. So, I kinda doubt he was removed solely "for refusing to take an investment from china". Especially, when they were already owned by a Chinese company.
- wowxp 7y ago
  Go away troll
  - Cuuugi 7y ago
    It's a counter point from a valid source, that at best complicates Mark Kern's claim. How is that trolling?
- blue11 7y ago

mimikatz 7y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_XJxqnxzaY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_XJxqnxzaY has to be the most clever means for the creative class to fight back. Reminds me of cultural jammers of the 90s.

ethbro 7y ago
I'm not sure if it was as prevalent in other games (WoW et al), but the cutthroat, zero-sum nature of Eve Online produced a ridiculous volume of user-made, pro-group propaganda videos. Goonswarm was especially famous for it. All versions of "People sitting on the sidelines outnumber people with an opinion, so it's more productive to sway them to your cause than your enemy."
andromeduck 7y ago
That was very well made and the spirt of democracy is a nice touch.

remon 7y ago

One of these again. I struggle to form a coherent opinion on this one. Yes the player broke tournament rules and yes you can argue that he should be banned on that basis alone. But oh my god. Even if they banned him just on the basis of enforcing that rule rather than pampering to the Chinese market (and that's a huge if) the visuals of this are so predictably bad. What meeting can they possibly have had where the options were "Just reprimand him in private" or "Ban him, get into the news cycle and face weeks of public backlash" and they landed on the latter? It's hard to imagine the decision wasn't almost completely fuelled by Tencent's part ownership of Blizzard and Blizzard's stated goal to expand their marketshare in China. If so, it devolved from a company increasingly known for just poor decisions and communication (mobile Diablo announcement anyone?) to a company that publicly and blatantly prioritises shareholder interests over ethics. And let's be frank; there's not that much anyone can do about it. People can claim they're uninstalling Blizzard games. And I'm sure some do. But the next time they release an objectively good game everyone's back in.

baud147258 7y ago
Perhaps the decision wasn't taken in a meeting, it might have been a single exec high enough in the food chain to apply such a decision, with perhaps either a panicked or knee-jerk action.
- remon 7y ago
  Maybe. If so it might be in their interest to publish the decision making process.
remon 7y ago
Interesting followup: I just tried to permanently delete my Blizzard account and the request is being denied regardless of my method of verification. The SMS passcode verification claimed on first attempt that it was denied "Due to too many attempts". Makes you wonder if they're intentionally breaking the delete account flow in hopes of weathering the storm.
- Ocerge 7y ago

euix 7y ago

blizzard hasn't made a good game for about 15 years now. When I was kid Blizzard produced games like warcraft 2 and Diablo. That all ended when they discovered the cash cow of mmorpg. The last unequivocally old blizzard quality game was frozen throne.

rejschaap 7y ago
People have a tendency to remember games from their childhood more favorably. World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 were very high quality games. Obviously the business model had to change, we don't live in the 90's shareware world anymore.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > we don't live in the 90's shareware world anymore. We do more than any other time since the 1990s; the modern F2P + IAP model is pretty much exactly a resurrection of the 1990s shareware model taking full advantage of low-friction online payments.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    The difference being the Shareware was much less obnoxious - you got the first act of Doom or Wolfenstein, and it was fully functional, you could enjoy it as much as you liked, the only impetus was to get more via shareware - modern F2P means that your experience is always hampered - even what you do experience is less than what it could be. Doom E1M1 was complete - you couldn't make the experience better by paying money, but there's always that XP potion or better item in a F2P model.
  - bsharitt 7y ago
    I disagree, there's often no "full version" of these free to play games to buy. There are a few developers that do the in app purchases to unlock the full version, and it seemed to a more popular business model in the early days of mobile app stores, but now they seem to be drowned in a sea of games that rely on an unending stream of in app purchases that incrementally move you forward.

hanselot 7y ago

Everybody slightly off-center must be losing their minds trying to reconcile the facts. Trump vs China Trade War, everybody feels so bad for China. China has 3 Million person internment gulag, suddenly China is wrong. So, you gonna turn on China like you turned on Kanye?

ben_jones 7y ago

Is it safe to assume those same bribes to game studios and gaming journalists have likely also been applied to Software start ups and tech journalists?

LinuxBender 7y ago

I am certain nobody will agree with my opinion, but I will share it anyway. This sounds to me like a design problem. If you don't want to risk someone expressing an opinion, then give them a drop down of things they can choose from to say. "zug zug" "LokTar O'Gar!" If you want a social platform where people can express opinions, then keep that thing distanced far away from anything where money, competition, politics, etc... are involved. People will do what people can do. In this circumstance, humans were set up for failure and they will fail again. Keep the social platform identifiable names away from names used in a competition.

manicdee 7y ago

And yet the International Postal Union still considers China a developing country so we all subsidise their shipping. What counts as a developed country if it isn’t giant pools of money that every corporation around the world wants to be involved in?

homulilly 7y ago

Kern is an unhinged, extreme right whackjob so I would take anything he claims with a grain of salt regardless of your feelings on Hong Kong or Activision Blizzard.

Haga 7y ago

Just another Britain, just another east India company, just another empire.

4b11b4 7y ago

The writer of the thread opened my eyes to an entire new perspective on the world. History, philosophy, humanity... Much more than about a video game...