7 ms·

"Do you guys not have phones?" -Blizzard staff in 2018, in response to booing fans upset that Blizzard wouldn't make a PC version of a game those same fans obvi

"Do you guys not have phones?" -Blizzard staff in 2018, in response to booing fans upset that Blizzard wouldn't make a PC version of a game those same fans obviously wanted to play. This company has been contemptuous of their players for years. They fell into that classic trap of "If we [do something that will alienate all our customers] we can get 10x as many customers from [untapped market]" As anybody should have been able to foresee, the old customers were indeed alienated and the new customers never materialized.

taneq 5y ago
"Trust me, you think you want it, but you don't" - Blizzard, about vanilla WoW, a year before releasing WoW Classic.
- scruple 5y ago
  Yeah, JAB (who the quote is attributed to) is now the President of the company, too... To be fair to him, however, he did admit his failure on that one.
- knuthsat 5y ago
  The thing with most companies optimizing addiction (user engagement) is that they use these weird optimization loops that improve metrics one by one (+x% then +y%) but then end up with a product so far from the long-term equilibrium. There's no context as to what each player wants. The loop just works across the whole player base, not really aimed towards any context of the player.
  - SuoDuanDao 5y ago
    This is so true, and most people in these spaces will still defend the metrics they're using. I've encountered this a lot when trying to suggest how advertising could be a social good.
  - inteoryx 5y ago
    Something like how gradient descent may be able to find a local maximum but unable to find superior global maximums. Or, how if you add one more ad to your website you may increase revenue, but if you keep doing that you will eventually destroy the site's usability, drive off your traffic, and, perhaps irreversibly, crater your revenue.
- schlupfknoten 5y ago
  Was it really a year before? I thought it was many years earlier that he said that.
  - taneq 5y ago
    Sorry, you're right - it was announced the next year but took several more years to release. (I believe that was said at Blizzcon '16 based on eg. https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/4dqtvj/you_think_you_do_but_you_dont_blizzard_responds/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/4dqtvj/you_think_yo... and WoW Classic was announced at Blizzcon '17 https://diaryofdennis.com/2017/11/04/official-vanilla-world-of-warcraft-servers-announced-during-blizzcon-2017/ https://diaryofdennis.com/2017/11/04/official-vanilla-world-...)
agilob 5y ago
Was it 2018? Wow that was fast. It must suck for them since that fiasco, losing online players during pandemic when we're all stuck at homes, doubles the pain at least.
mywittyname 5y ago
I think this is more of the enthusiasts vs. causal user conundrum. Gaming has made the transition to a mature industry where mass market appeal is more profitable than a great product aimed at enthusiasts. I can't really blame either side. It sucks for enthusiasts who want games that are complex, to be offered a watered down experience full of MTX. But it sucks for studios when they sink a 10xs the money into producing a complex PC game and earn maybe half the revenue.
- freshair 5y ago
  Brands have value insofar as the consuming public recognize those brands, right? I'd wager that Diablo is most famous for the first two games which both came out 20 years ago, and that the enthusiast segment of the market recognizes this brand more than the casual segment (who, by nature of being casual, know less about historic games.) In the enthusiast/pc segment of the market, Diablo may still be a valuable brand. But in the casual/mobile segment of the market, the Diablo brand is relatively unknown and relatively worthless. Trying to sell games to mobile/casual gamers is fine, but they probably should have invented a new brand for the purpose (like they did with Hearthstone) instead of burning an old brand for little gain.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    You'd be surprised at the cache that old IPs have with young people who've never played them before. Young people have still heard about the legendary games from places like YouTube but may not have the capability to play them.
    - ramblerman 5y ago
      > You'd be surprised at the cache that old IPs have with young people who've never played them before. This is obviously what the bliz heads thought, but I doubt it's true tbh. That legendary status lives in our head, and isn't necessarily translated because people hear about it. You can't inject nostalgia by describing it.
  - dleslie 5y ago
phillryu 5y ago
I feel like it's relevant to mention how huge Hearthstone is, and that's a mobile first game (at its best on iPad which is rare) that I feel is totally Blizzard tier quality with expected polish and substance to it, and both satisfied a lot of Blizzard fans + successfully tapped into that 10x market. There's fair criticism to how it monetizes but it still dominates its category for a reason, they continue to own it like the MMO genre with WoW. I don't know where I'm going with this, I guess just that between Overwatch and Hearthstone I actually mostly enjoyed this recent era of Blizzard and I'm more hopeful for what's next. I didn't feel contempt from them playing these games, I felt that old Blizzard spark.
- akmarinov 5y ago
  Yeah i find that weird, viewership numbers on Twitch for HS have been steadily dropping for the past 2 years and have halfed in the time. Yet it seems people still play it.
- skystarman 5y ago
  Hardcore gamers love to trash ATVI/Blizz but they are without a doubt dominant gaming developer/publisher in the business, and it's really not even close unless you count Tencent. Ask people on HN if they like CoD and they'd laugh at you but the games are IMMENSELY popular every release and they print cash for ATVI.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    When people bash Blizzard, they aren't bashing them based on their revenue or market penetration. A bad opinion of Blizzard does not translate into also believing they are failing to generate revenue or attract players. They have plenty of other reasons to bash Blizzard.
    - skystarman 5y ago
      This isn't what I was saying. My point was that these criticisms never acknowledge that ATVI is massively successful and the critics are always in the minority. They assume because a few hundred on a message board said something the entire company is a failure and everyone agrees. For the record I agree with most of the criticism...I also acknowledge what I want isn't necessarily what others want.
seriousquestion 5y ago
And that accelerated with the Activision merger. Historically they were better aligned with gamers.
drewwwwww 5y ago
you're presenting this a little bit disingenuously. expectations were high that diablo 4 would be announced in 2018, and instead there was the announcement of a partnership to develop a mobile version of diablo. folks were upset and the presenter reacted poorly. the following year diablo 4 was announced and much was forgiven. the mobile game is still not out (in closed beta rn) and early reports are good. you can fault blizzard for thinking its core fans at blizzcon would be excited about a mobile game, but if you are a game developer with a popular IP you're making a huge mistake not developing for mobile, as it will be the majority of the global gaming market for the foreseeable future.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  They probably picked a poor audience for the announcement. By nature, those present were never going to be all that receptive to a new mobile-first game. Slightly better venues would have been either E3 or PAX, where the audience doesn't consist almost exclusively of hardcore fans of their more traditional offerings.
hnick 5y ago
The feature downgrades of 'bnet 2.0' or whatever they called it that they announced when Starcraft 2 came out was the beginning of the end. SC2 as a game was fine (not amazing for me but plenty liked it) but everything around it was a mess. D3 solidified this trend of them losing the plot.
Eric_WVGG 5y ago
All this talk is making it sound like Valve did everyone a favor by bailing on game development at their peak :\
- EamonnMR 5y ago
  Blizzard bailed, valve bailed, who's left, really? But then again, a PC game has to compete with not only other PC titles but the entire history of Windows games via Steam/etc. You can make a brilliant RTS experience but will people play it when Starcraft exists?
_the_inflator 5y ago
Yes and no. I see your point and agree totally on the "want to play" level. However it is really legit to consider new options. After all Blizzard's games are community driven - and why not try to increase the community? Execution was really bad. That's where I agree again. So it is a tough business after all. Like show business. Have a look at Star Wars for example.

taneq 5y ago

"Trust me, you think you want it, but you don't" - Blizzard, about vanilla WoW, a year before releasing WoW Classic.

scruple 5y ago
Yeah, JAB (who the quote is attributed to) is now the President of the company, too... To be fair to him, however, he did admit his failure on that one.
knuthsat 5y ago
The thing with most companies optimizing addiction (user engagement) is that they use these weird optimization loops that improve metrics one by one (+x% then +y%) but then end up with a product so far from the long-term equilibrium. There's no context as to what each player wants. The loop just works across the whole player base, not really aimed towards any context of the player.
- SuoDuanDao 5y ago
  This is so true, and most people in these spaces will still defend the metrics they're using. I've encountered this a lot when trying to suggest how advertising could be a social good.
- inteoryx 5y ago
  Something like how gradient descent may be able to find a local maximum but unable to find superior global maximums. Or, how if you add one more ad to your website you may increase revenue, but if you keep doing that you will eventually destroy the site's usability, drive off your traffic, and, perhaps irreversibly, crater your revenue.
schlupfknoten 5y ago
Was it really a year before? I thought it was many years earlier that he said that.
- taneq 5y ago
  Sorry, you're right - it was announced the next year but took several more years to release. (I believe that was said at Blizzcon '16 based on eg. https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/4dqtvj/you_think_you_do_but_you_dont_blizzard_responds/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/4dqtvj/you_think_yo... and WoW Classic was announced at Blizzcon '17 https://diaryofdennis.com/2017/11/04/official-vanilla-world-of-warcraft-servers-announced-during-blizzcon-2017/ https://diaryofdennis.com/2017/11/04/official-vanilla-world-...)

agilob 5y ago

Was it 2018? Wow that was fast. It must suck for them since that fiasco, losing online players during pandemic when we're all stuck at homes, doubles the pain at least.

mywittyname 5y ago

I think this is more of the enthusiasts vs. causal user conundrum. Gaming has made the transition to a mature industry where mass market appeal is more profitable than a great product aimed at enthusiasts. I can't really blame either side. It sucks for enthusiasts who want games that are complex, to be offered a watered down experience full of MTX. But it sucks for studios when they sink a 10xs the money into producing a complex PC game and earn maybe half the revenue.

freshair 5y ago
Brands have value insofar as the consuming public recognize those brands, right? I'd wager that Diablo is most famous for the first two games which both came out 20 years ago, and that the enthusiast segment of the market recognizes this brand more than the casual segment (who, by nature of being casual, know less about historic games.) In the enthusiast/pc segment of the market, Diablo may still be a valuable brand. But in the casual/mobile segment of the market, the Diablo brand is relatively unknown and relatively worthless. Trying to sell games to mobile/casual gamers is fine, but they probably should have invented a new brand for the purpose (like they did with Hearthstone) instead of burning an old brand for little gain.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  You'd be surprised at the cache that old IPs have with young people who've never played them before. Young people have still heard about the legendary games from places like YouTube but may not have the capability to play them.
  - ramblerman 5y ago
    > You'd be surprised at the cache that old IPs have with young people who've never played them before. This is obviously what the bliz heads thought, but I doubt it's true tbh. That legendary status lives in our head, and isn't necessarily translated because people hear about it. You can't inject nostalgia by describing it.
- dleslie 5y ago

phillryu 5y ago

I feel like it's relevant to mention how huge Hearthstone is, and that's a mobile first game (at its best on iPad which is rare) that I feel is totally Blizzard tier quality with expected polish and substance to it, and both satisfied a lot of Blizzard fans + successfully tapped into that 10x market. There's fair criticism to how it monetizes but it still dominates its category for a reason, they continue to own it like the MMO genre with WoW. I don't know where I'm going with this, I guess just that between Overwatch and Hearthstone I actually mostly enjoyed this recent era of Blizzard and I'm more hopeful for what's next. I didn't feel contempt from them playing these games, I felt that old Blizzard spark.

akmarinov 5y ago
Yeah i find that weird, viewership numbers on Twitch for HS have been steadily dropping for the past 2 years and have halfed in the time. Yet it seems people still play it.
skystarman 5y ago
Hardcore gamers love to trash ATVI/Blizz but they are without a doubt dominant gaming developer/publisher in the business, and it's really not even close unless you count Tencent. Ask people on HN if they like CoD and they'd laugh at you but the games are IMMENSELY popular every release and they print cash for ATVI.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  When people bash Blizzard, they aren't bashing them based on their revenue or market penetration. A bad opinion of Blizzard does not translate into also believing they are failing to generate revenue or attract players. They have plenty of other reasons to bash Blizzard.
  - skystarman 5y ago
    This isn't what I was saying. My point was that these criticisms never acknowledge that ATVI is massively successful and the critics are always in the minority. They assume because a few hundred on a message board said something the entire company is a failure and everyone agrees. For the record I agree with most of the criticism...I also acknowledge what I want isn't necessarily what others want.

seriousquestion 5y ago

And that accelerated with the Activision merger. Historically they were better aligned with gamers.

drewwwwww 5y ago

you're presenting this a little bit disingenuously. expectations were high that diablo 4 would be announced in 2018, and instead there was the announcement of a partnership to develop a mobile version of diablo. folks were upset and the presenter reacted poorly. the following year diablo 4 was announced and much was forgiven. the mobile game is still not out (in closed beta rn) and early reports are good. you can fault blizzard for thinking its core fans at blizzcon would be excited about a mobile game, but if you are a game developer with a popular IP you're making a huge mistake not developing for mobile, as it will be the majority of the global gaming market for the foreseeable future.

ineedasername 5y ago
They probably picked a poor audience for the announcement. By nature, those present were never going to be all that receptive to a new mobile-first game. Slightly better venues would have been either E3 or PAX, where the audience doesn't consist almost exclusively of hardcore fans of their more traditional offerings.

hnick 5y ago

The feature downgrades of 'bnet 2.0' or whatever they called it that they announced when Starcraft 2 came out was the beginning of the end. SC2 as a game was fine (not amazing for me but plenty liked it) but everything around it was a mess. D3 solidified this trend of them losing the plot.

Eric_WVGG 5y ago

All this talk is making it sound like Valve did everyone a favor by bailing on game development at their peak :\

EamonnMR 5y ago
Blizzard bailed, valve bailed, who's left, really? But then again, a PC game has to compete with not only other PC titles but the entire history of Windows games via Steam/etc. You can make a brilliant RTS experience but will people play it when Starcraft exists?

_the_inflator 5y ago

Yes and no. I see your point and agree totally on the "want to play" level. However it is really legit to consider new options. After all Blizzard's games are community driven - and why not try to increase the community? Execution was really bad. That's where I agree again. So it is a tough business after all. Like show business. Have a look at Star Wars for example.