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Blizzard's reputation collapsed in just three years

377 points by azalemeth 5y ago

calmd 5y ago
Stunning fall. For a while Blizzard could do no wrong. I feel that Bobby, the CEO, is very focused on results and only understands gamers third hand at this point. That works for a while when the employees still care but once they stop caring there is no one to steer the faltering ship.
- FeistyOtter 5y ago
  Maybe one factor is that among all Activision-Blizzard subsidiaries Blizzard makes the least amount of money, around 1/5 according to the Q1 profits. Both Activision Publishing and King make far more money by expanding into the most lucrative game sector: mobile games targeting China. The one mobile game that Blizzard is making in collaboration with NetEase (the infamous Diablo Immortal) is yet to be released. It is far more likely that CEO (and by extension company shareholders) wants to dedicate more resources to expanding into mobile market than all those old and dwindling franchises that Blizzard has.
zahrc 5y ago
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. Overwatch 2 with weird changes StarCraft - thrown in a ditch left to die HoTS - culled the competitive scene and super slow release cycle. Hearthstone - pay2win RNG fiesta On top of that all the scandals and drama around the company…
- wpasc 5y ago
  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 transactions, etc
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    It speaks to executive disfunction -- an inability to currate and fund a long-term creative pipeline, instead focusing on short-term revenue generators.
    - enraged_camel 5y ago
      Yeah, milking existing franchises is definitely a sign of deeply rooted dysfunction. I was excited for their Project Titan of whatever but it got axed. That was years ago…
      - evanmoran 5y ago
        Using existing franchisees isn’t the problem. It’s doing it poorly!
    - wpasc 5y ago
      I think it’s the hard times, strong people, good times process with more steps: Passionate game creators make good games, good games get players and buyers, that creates profitable/well known companies, that can attract the (no offense) non passionate/revenue seeking MBA types, they worsen the games, passionate developers leave… I HOPE those passionate developers can get together again to make new good games but who knows. I imagine it’s hard to attract capital without promise of simple game loop (read: minimal investment required) and with pay for progression. Those returns (I imagine) are just too damn juicy until people break the cycle
  - zahrc 5y ago
    I’ll give them that one, as people have been demanding the re-releases, especially classic and Diablo
  - endgame 5y ago
    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.
- void_mint 5y ago
  This just reads like a person that doesn't like Blizzard games... edit And at the risk of getting flagged for being brief and baity, I'll elaborate. > WoW - convoluted imbalanced hot mess The biggest MMO of all time, still even today. > Diablo - repetitive. Diablo immortal. It is a game about repetition. To call it repetitive is like saying baseball has too many bases. > Warcraft III - buggy and laggy steaming pile of undelivered promises The original W3 was a masterpiece. Their rerelease was a failure. > Overwatch - imbalanced. Overwatch 2 with weird changes A massive success. Not sure how you can call an entire game "imbalanced". You're just saying you don't like the way it's balanced. > StarCraft - thrown in a ditch left to die Yep > HoTS - culled the competitive scene and super slow release cycle. Mobas are a bad market and HoTS was a mediocre implementation of a Moba. > Hearthstone - pay2win RNG fiesta All CCGs.
  - ctvo 5y ago
    Did you miss that the OP is speaking about the current state of these games? Why even expand with an edit when you agree with more than half their points?
    - void_mint 5y ago
      > Why even expand with an edit when you agree with more than half their points? "Why even post if you think 50% of a person's reviews are bad" ??? Again, it reads like a person that doesn't actually play those games/genres and just wants to dogpile, as is evidenced especially by the Diablo and Hearthstone critiques.
      - ctvo 5y ago
        For WoW your reply is a fallacy without addressing the original point. For every other point outside of Overwatch, you justified, agreed or misunderstood the OP and defended its release vs. its current state. You think your edit justified your original reply, where you attack the OP's credibility without addressing any of their points, I disagree.
        5y ago
- cuillevel3 5y ago
  > Blizzards reputation has been going downhill since the merge with Activision. That was in 2008, right? So their reputation has been going downhill for 13 years?
  - bragh 5y ago
    Actually, yes. Blizzard had an unbelievable amount of goodwill and reputation built up over the years and in any case, these kinds of changes do not happen overnight. For me, the first understanding that things are rolling downhill was how they killed the social aspect with the removal of battle.net without any replacement and completely messed up the concept of playing custom maps when StarCraft 2 launched. Longer thread from 2010 about custom maps: https://tl.net/forum/sc2-maps/139745-the-real-problem-with-sc2-custom-maps https://tl.net/forum/sc2-maps/139745-the-real-problem-with-s...
    - zouhair 5y ago
      For me the company lost a lot of my respect when they released Starcraft 2 without LAN support. The game was destined to slowly die.
      - grp000 5y ago
        Not to mention the whole Starcraft BW esports fiasco with KeSPA.
  - zahrc 5y ago
    Yes. Especially with the release of WoW cataclysm
  - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
    Pretty much, yes. I’d say most wow fans say Burning Crusade was the high point and that was released in January 2007.
  - parrellel 5y ago
    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 aberration. Everything else has been nostalgia or momentum.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- blibble 5y ago
  meanwhile if you watched their last BlizzCon(online) they were patting themselves on the back, saying how amazing they are and what a brilliant job they're all doing it was very odd to watch indeed, they're completely divorced from reality
- Ericson2314 5y ago
  I said I once Boeing : McDonnell Douglas :: Blizzard : Activision Someone told me which of McDonell or Douglas was to blame in response but I forgot.
- jlarocco 5y ago
  On the other hand, people have been saying that for decades now. I was a huge fan of the original Blizzard games, and I remember thinking they were getting off track with StarCraft, and being unhappy that WoW was a MMOG. And don't even ask about Diablo 3. In a perverse way, it's actually kind of amazing they've been able to milk their franchises for so long.
- ttiurani 5y ago
  > Overwatch - imbalanced. Overwatch 2 with weird changes As a counterpoint, IMO OW is in the most balanced place it ever has been now. A lot of it has to do with the making of OW2, which has meant no new heroes, but still I do think the OW team has done excellent work with competitive balance recently. This is reflected in the most diverse hero selections ever in Overwatch League (pretty much making hero bans there obsolete). OW2 PvE and PvP 5v5 from what we know to me seem both to be good plans and can make the game huge again – or not. Depends on the execution.
  - akmarinov 5y ago
    Hasn’t the meta in OW been double shield for a while? One of the worst ones?
    - ttiurani 5y ago
      No, those days are long gone. OWL is dive or pharah+ball or rush, and sometimes some double shield or mcree+torb. A lot of comps can work.
- beezischillin 5y ago
  You’re completely right. I quit WoW for the same reason. Lucky, too because I had an unhealthy addiction to it and it kinda resolved itself with that.
- jpeter 5y ago
  Hearthstone Battlegrounds is amazing
bombcar 5y ago
They went nuts over esports and it affected the games and everything else followed.
wpasc 5y ago
I don’t think it collapsed in just 3 years. Pick your favorite “things take time” metaphor, but the company has been declining for a while. It’s just that the troubles build quietly for some time using the facade of the previously built reputation
exo-pla-net 5y ago
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 founders are often great, idealistic people. People who genuinely want to make the world better. When they step aside, however, the people who take over after them tend to be terrifying: zero empathy creatures who favor profit maximization over any and all human cost. Does anyone know why this happens?
- coder-3 5y ago
  > 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 from the unethical behaviours. A lot of not-for-profits also fall into this trap unfortunately as they try to maximise revenue or as they become bloated with administrators. I think at the founder level - trying to start B-corps, keeping them small-mid and embedding ethics deeply into the culture is the way to go but that is quite different from startup culture.
  - mgh2 5y ago
    Apple is a master at this. News of its child and slave labor abuses have been brushed off because people love their products.
    - trissylegs 5y ago
      Also making a lot money off what is essentially a huge casino. (games that use Addictive Gambling Mechanics to sell Micro-transations)
      - 5y ago
mahgnous 5y ago
I been bitching about Blizzard since they sold out. It's been way longer than 3 years.
NelsonMinar 5y ago
The bad behavior has been happening at Blizzard / Activision for a lot longer than three years. The only reason their reputation didn't collapse sooner is no one took the complaints seriously enough to investigate earlier. (FWIW the Activision merger happened way back in late 2007. I don't know if the harassment predates that, but several old school Blizzard leaders are implicated.)
SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
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 aware of, won't care about, and won't be willing to shed one of their hobbies over? Most Blizzard games are designed to be more than just games to their customers. They're built to be a part of your life. Blizzard is perhaps the best in the industry at this. They've done horrible things before, as documented in this article, but it hasn't really mattered. The users are hooked and business is booming. "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?
- gpm 5y ago
  I don't think it's customers who need to be their main concern, but employees. I have to imagine that they are going to have to pay a pretty significant premium to recruit good people going forward. Maybe related: See the criticism of their games in this thread. Potentially this is explained by blizzard having trouble employing people who can make them good games...
  - SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
    It would be unprecedented for one of the most profitable companies in the games industry to struggle to hire top talent. The industry has always relied on a hiring pool that is willing to put up with untold amounts of bullshit for the privilege of working on games instead of CRUD apps. I don't think this thread or any other social media is a good indicator of a company's ability to hire talent. Look at Google and Facebook. They get shit on constantly by online commentators, but they're doing pretty well and seem to have no problem hiring at market rates.
    - gpm 5y ago
      Facebook pays well above the typical market rate from what I can see, presumably as a result of that being the only way to attract the talent they want with their reputation. Google has a great reputation as a great place to work with most people in the industry. I think that is actually responsible for a pretty decent portion of their success. People in the game industry who are any good have the ability to work for any number of companies in the game industry, Blizzards worsening reputation is going to mean blizzard has to do more (probably pay more) than those other companies to attract them.
borodi 5y ago
They were greedy and put profit over game quality and were on down for a while. They haven't released a good game in years, and the WoW expansions have been a lot more miss than hit. But the harassment is what finished it for me. Shame.
ydnaclementine 5y ago
Last good blizzard product was warcraft 3
- ant6n 5y ago
  Nah, the last good blizzard product was The Frozen Throne.
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    Nah the last good blizzard product was Starcraft 2.
    - accountofme 5y ago
      Nah the last good blizzard product was diablo 2.
      - phendrenad2 5y ago
        Nah, last good Blizzard product was The Lost Vikings.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        ant6n 5y ago
        Haha, good one. I actually had to look that one up.
andrewmcwatters 5y ago
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 visibility into this is narrow and limited. Clearly they're probably doing better than ever, and the loudest or most outspoken players just feel differently. At the end of the day, I don't think anything else matters besides whether or not they're producing products people want to play. [1]: https://activeplayer.io/overwatch/ https://activeplayer.io/overwatch/
- praisewhitey 5y ago
  Maybe this is not the best heuristic, but I'd look at where their games are ranked in number of viewers on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/directory?sort=VIEWER_COUNT https://www.twitch.tv/directory?sort=VIEWER_COUNT and their long term viewership https://sullygnome.com/game/Overwatch/longtermstats https://sullygnome.com/game/Overwatch/longtermstats https://sullygnome.com/game/World_of_Warcraft/longtermstats https://sullygnome.com/game/World_of_Warcraft/longtermstats https://sullygnome.com/game/Hearthstone_Heroes_of_Warcraft/longtermstats https://sullygnome.com/game/Hearthstone_Heroes_of_Warcraft/l...
  - BigJono 5y ago
    I can't speak to the others, but Twitch as a heuristic is going to be extremely misleading for WoW, since it's centered almost purely around the competitive aspects (raids and M+), and almost in sync with every other part of the game going to shit, those two have grown in popularity with proper "e-sports" style coverage being introduced. The WoW devs are still very good at making raid encounters and competitive dungeons. And they have literally zero competition in that area. So as long as they don't do anything catastrophic, they'll maintain that segment of the playerbase by default.
- eric-hu 5y ago
  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 tournament price pools for pros. These war chests had community funding goals that they consistently hit and exceeded for the time I was still tracking the game. After Blitzchung, I decided to just move on from the game.
MangoCoffee 5y ago
"Asmongold on Blizzard Now Blaming Players for Being Too Toxic" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFqbfdcnNf8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFqbfdcnNf8 i saw the tweet by Blizzard dev. He blamed the players for Blizzard internal problem. this whole mess is Blizzard's own problem and he is dragging the players into it. he should just say due to internal problem. the patch for WOW 9.2 will be delay and leave it. Blizzard have been going down hill for awhile. They treat their players like cash cow and try to milk them anyway that they can. players = paying customers. if you can't cook the burger that a customer already pay for. your paying customer will leave. its simple as that. bottom line: Blizzard treat their employees and customers like shit.
whateveracct 5y ago
Blizzard stopped making games and started making products at some point. That's all there is to it.
publicola1990 5y ago
Not making their games on steam is one of their biggest mistakes. The moment they make their catalogue available on steam, they are going to get a massive boost in revenue.
ergot_vacation 5y ago
"Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. Revenue: 8.09 billion USD (2020)." Who needs reputation?
download13 5y ago
Financialization ruins everything. Who'd've fucking thought...
- parineum 5y ago
  Financialization also created the thing.
phendrenad2 5y ago
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.
- hnick 5y ago
  Have wages among their demographic kept pace with inflation?
- throw_m239339 5y ago
  The gaming market is much more larger than it used to be 10 or 20 years ago. So Blizzard are selling way more games. Wow doesn't cost only $60, it's a subscription. 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.
- jpeter 5y ago
  Productivity improved. With engines like Unity or Unreal, a single person can make a game in a few years.
denton-scratch 5y ago
What's a "caster"?
- arh68 5y ago
  A commentator during the match. Or after the match, before the match, &c. Like Joe Buck or Bob Costas. The person talking about the game and usually interviewing the player(s).
  - exdsq 5y ago
    From 'Broadcaster'
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      Thank you! I am now better-informed.
LeoNatan25 5y ago
Blizzard’s reputation was tarnished the moment they sold out to Activision. Soon after, they starting using the Activision monetization methods, churning garbage “games”, etc.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  Vivendi sold them to Activision. Blizzard itself had no say in the matter. Blizzard hasn't been its own master since soon after it was formed.
  - parineum 5y ago
    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.
    - pfdietz 5y ago
      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.
      - parineum 5y ago
        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.
        pfdietz 5y ago
        That deal was in 2008. Five years later, in 2013, Kotick raised money to buy out Vivendi, and Vivendi exited the industry shortly thereafter.
mkl95 5y ago
I played WoW during late TBC and WOTLK (late 2000s), and then I came back for WoW Classic. The thing that disappointed me the most and ultimately made me leave for good is how toxic and bitter the community has become. Long time players treat Blizzard like an ill relative they are morally obligated to take care of, instead of a company that is supposed to release enjoyable content. Some of the middle aged and even retired people I played with treated the game like a Facebook gossip group and had shockingly immature behaviour.
LocalH 5y ago
I've been boycotting Activision (and thus Blizzard) since way before this, just because they ineptly handled the Guitar Hero brand and managed to kill it off commercially way too quickly. Looks like I dodged one hell of a bullet by doing so. Fuck ActivisionBlizzard
bovermyer 5y ago
Until I read this article, it didn't really dawn on me how truly bad it's gotten. 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.
TheChaplain 5y ago
Shame really. The Warcraft universe is something I grew up with and with WoW met many long lasting friends.
vhold 5y ago
There should be some mention of their fight against the EFF. https://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd https://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd
- voakbasda 5y ago
  This lawsuit should generate more hate from all computer users, not just gamers. They screwed over not only their own users, but they hurt everyone on the planet. The ruling that they bought directly undermines the ability to develop interoperating software. Of any kind. For anything. Want your right to repair? Blizzard directly took some of that from you, and for that I hope they burn in hell.

377 points by azalemeth 5y ago

Stunning fall. For a while Blizzard could do no wrong. I feel that Bobby, the CEO, is very focused on results and only understands gamers third hand at this point. That works for a while when the employees still care but once they stop caring there is no one to steer the faltering ship.

FeistyOtter 5y ago
Maybe one factor is that among all Activision-Blizzard subsidiaries Blizzard makes the least amount of money, around 1/5 according to the Q1 profits. Both Activision Publishing and King make far more money by expanding into the most lucrative game sector: mobile games targeting China. The one mobile game that Blizzard is making in collaboration with NetEase (the infamous Diablo Immortal) is yet to be released. It is far more likely that CEO (and by extension company shareholders) wants to dedicate more resources to expanding into mobile market than all those old and dwindling franchises that Blizzard has.

zahrc 5y ago

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. Overwatch 2 with weird changes StarCraft - thrown in a ditch left to die HoTS - culled the competitive scene and super slow release cycle. Hearthstone - pay2win RNG fiesta On top of that all the scandals and drama around the company…

wpasc 5y ago
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 transactions, etc
- ethbr0 5y ago
  It speaks to executive disfunction -- an inability to currate and fund a long-term creative pipeline, instead focusing on short-term revenue generators.
  - enraged_camel 5y ago
    Yeah, milking existing franchises is definitely a sign of deeply rooted dysfunction. I was excited for their Project Titan of whatever but it got axed. That was years ago…
    - evanmoran 5y ago
      Using existing franchisees isn’t the problem. It’s doing it poorly!
  - wpasc 5y ago
    I think it’s the hard times, strong people, good times process with more steps: Passionate game creators make good games, good games get players and buyers, that creates profitable/well known companies, that can attract the (no offense) non passionate/revenue seeking MBA types, they worsen the games, passionate developers leave… I HOPE those passionate developers can get together again to make new good games but who knows. I imagine it’s hard to attract capital without promise of simple game loop (read: minimal investment required) and with pay for progression. Those returns (I imagine) are just too damn juicy until people break the cycle
- zahrc 5y ago
  I’ll give them that one, as people have been demanding the re-releases, especially classic and Diablo
- endgame 5y ago
  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.
void_mint 5y ago
This just reads like a person that doesn't like Blizzard games... edit And at the risk of getting flagged for being brief and baity, I'll elaborate. > WoW - convoluted imbalanced hot mess The biggest MMO of all time, still even today. > Diablo - repetitive. Diablo immortal. It is a game about repetition. To call it repetitive is like saying baseball has too many bases. > Warcraft III - buggy and laggy steaming pile of undelivered promises The original W3 was a masterpiece. Their rerelease was a failure. > Overwatch - imbalanced. Overwatch 2 with weird changes A massive success. Not sure how you can call an entire game "imbalanced". You're just saying you don't like the way it's balanced. > StarCraft - thrown in a ditch left to die Yep > HoTS - culled the competitive scene and super slow release cycle. Mobas are a bad market and HoTS was a mediocre implementation of a Moba. > Hearthstone - pay2win RNG fiesta All CCGs.
- ctvo 5y ago
  Did you miss that the OP is speaking about the current state of these games? Why even expand with an edit when you agree with more than half their points?
  - void_mint 5y ago
    > Why even expand with an edit when you agree with more than half their points? "Why even post if you think 50% of a person's reviews are bad" ??? Again, it reads like a person that doesn't actually play those games/genres and just wants to dogpile, as is evidenced especially by the Diablo and Hearthstone critiques.
    - ctvo 5y ago
      For WoW your reply is a fallacy without addressing the original point. For every other point outside of Overwatch, you justified, agreed or misunderstood the OP and defended its release vs. its current state. You think your edit justified your original reply, where you attack the OP's credibility without addressing any of their points, I disagree.
      - 5y ago
cuillevel3 5y ago
> Blizzards reputation has been going downhill since the merge with Activision. That was in 2008, right? So their reputation has been going downhill for 13 years?
- bragh 5y ago
  Actually, yes. Blizzard had an unbelievable amount of goodwill and reputation built up over the years and in any case, these kinds of changes do not happen overnight. For me, the first understanding that things are rolling downhill was how they killed the social aspect with the removal of battle.net without any replacement and completely messed up the concept of playing custom maps when StarCraft 2 launched. Longer thread from 2010 about custom maps: https://tl.net/forum/sc2-maps/139745-the-real-problem-with-sc2-custom-maps https://tl.net/forum/sc2-maps/139745-the-real-problem-with-s...
  - zouhair 5y ago
    For me the company lost a lot of my respect when they released Starcraft 2 without LAN support. The game was destined to slowly die.
    - grp000 5y ago
      Not to mention the whole Starcraft BW esports fiasco with KeSPA.
- zahrc 5y ago
  Yes. Especially with the release of WoW cataclysm
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  Pretty much, yes. I’d say most wow fans say Burning Crusade was the high point and that was released in January 2007.
- parrellel 5y ago
  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 aberration. Everything else has been nostalgia or momentum.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
blibble 5y ago
meanwhile if you watched their last BlizzCon(online) they were patting themselves on the back, saying how amazing they are and what a brilliant job they're all doing it was very odd to watch indeed, they're completely divorced from reality
Ericson2314 5y ago
I said I once Boeing : McDonnell Douglas :: Blizzard : Activision Someone told me which of McDonell or Douglas was to blame in response but I forgot.
jlarocco 5y ago
On the other hand, people have been saying that for decades now. I was a huge fan of the original Blizzard games, and I remember thinking they were getting off track with StarCraft, and being unhappy that WoW was a MMOG. And don't even ask about Diablo 3. In a perverse way, it's actually kind of amazing they've been able to milk their franchises for so long.
ttiurani 5y ago
> Overwatch - imbalanced. Overwatch 2 with weird changes As a counterpoint, IMO OW is in the most balanced place it ever has been now. A lot of it has to do with the making of OW2, which has meant no new heroes, but still I do think the OW team has done excellent work with competitive balance recently. This is reflected in the most diverse hero selections ever in Overwatch League (pretty much making hero bans there obsolete). OW2 PvE and PvP 5v5 from what we know to me seem both to be good plans and can make the game huge again – or not. Depends on the execution.
- akmarinov 5y ago
  Hasn’t the meta in OW been double shield for a while? One of the worst ones?
  - ttiurani 5y ago
    No, those days are long gone. OWL is dive or pharah+ball or rush, and sometimes some double shield or mcree+torb. A lot of comps can work.
beezischillin 5y ago
You’re completely right. I quit WoW for the same reason. Lucky, too because I had an unhealthy addiction to it and it kinda resolved itself with that.
jpeter 5y ago
Hearthstone Battlegrounds is amazing

bombcar 5y ago

They went nuts over esports and it affected the games and everything else followed.

wpasc 5y ago

I don’t think it collapsed in just 3 years. Pick your favorite “things take time” metaphor, but the company has been declining for a while. It’s just that the troubles build quietly for some time using the facade of the previously built reputation

exo-pla-net 5y ago

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 founders are often great, idealistic people. People who genuinely want to make the world better. When they step aside, however, the people who take over after them tend to be terrifying: zero empathy creatures who favor profit maximization over any and all human cost. Does anyone know why this happens?

coder-3 5y ago
> 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 from the unethical behaviours. A lot of not-for-profits also fall into this trap unfortunately as they try to maximise revenue or as they become bloated with administrators. I think at the founder level - trying to start B-corps, keeping them small-mid and embedding ethics deeply into the culture is the way to go but that is quite different from startup culture.
- mgh2 5y ago
  Apple is a master at this. News of its child and slave labor abuses have been brushed off because people love their products.
  - trissylegs 5y ago
    Also making a lot money off what is essentially a huge casino. (games that use Addictive Gambling Mechanics to sell Micro-transations)
    - 5y ago

mahgnous 5y ago

I been bitching about Blizzard since they sold out. It's been way longer than 3 years.

NelsonMinar 5y ago

The bad behavior has been happening at Blizzard / Activision for a lot longer than three years. The only reason their reputation didn't collapse sooner is no one took the complaints seriously enough to investigate earlier. (FWIW the Activision merger happened way back in late 2007. I don't know if the harassment predates that, but several old school Blizzard leaders are implicated.)

SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago

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 aware of, won't care about, and won't be willing to shed one of their hobbies over? Most Blizzard games are designed to be more than just games to their customers. They're built to be a part of your life. Blizzard is perhaps the best in the industry at this. They've done horrible things before, as documented in this article, but it hasn't really mattered. The users are hooked and business is booming. "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?

gpm 5y ago
I don't think it's customers who need to be their main concern, but employees. I have to imagine that they are going to have to pay a pretty significant premium to recruit good people going forward. Maybe related: See the criticism of their games in this thread. Potentially this is explained by blizzard having trouble employing people who can make them good games...
- SheinhardtWigCo 5y ago
  It would be unprecedented for one of the most profitable companies in the games industry to struggle to hire top talent. The industry has always relied on a hiring pool that is willing to put up with untold amounts of bullshit for the privilege of working on games instead of CRUD apps. I don't think this thread or any other social media is a good indicator of a company's ability to hire talent. Look at Google and Facebook. They get shit on constantly by online commentators, but they're doing pretty well and seem to have no problem hiring at market rates.
  - gpm 5y ago
    Facebook pays well above the typical market rate from what I can see, presumably as a result of that being the only way to attract the talent they want with their reputation. Google has a great reputation as a great place to work with most people in the industry. I think that is actually responsible for a pretty decent portion of their success. People in the game industry who are any good have the ability to work for any number of companies in the game industry, Blizzards worsening reputation is going to mean blizzard has to do more (probably pay more) than those other companies to attract them.

borodi 5y ago

They were greedy and put profit over game quality and were on down for a while. They haven't released a good game in years, and the WoW expansions have been a lot more miss than hit. But the harassment is what finished it for me. Shame.

ydnaclementine 5y ago

Last good blizzard product was warcraft 3

ant6n 5y ago
Nah, the last good blizzard product was The Frozen Throne.
- brianwawok 5y ago
  Nah the last good blizzard product was Starcraft 2.
  - accountofme 5y ago
    Nah the last good blizzard product was diablo 2.
    - phendrenad2 5y ago
      Nah, last good Blizzard product was The Lost Vikings.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - ant6n 5y ago
        Haha, good one. I actually had to look that one up.

andrewmcwatters 5y ago

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 visibility into this is narrow and limited. Clearly they're probably doing better than ever, and the loudest or most outspoken players just feel differently. At the end of the day, I don't think anything else matters besides whether or not they're producing products people want to play. [1]: https://activeplayer.io/overwatch/ https://activeplayer.io/overwatch/

praisewhitey 5y ago
Maybe this is not the best heuristic, but I'd look at where their games are ranked in number of viewers on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/directory?sort=VIEWER_COUNT https://www.twitch.tv/directory?sort=VIEWER_COUNT and their long term viewership https://sullygnome.com/game/Overwatch/longtermstats https://sullygnome.com/game/Overwatch/longtermstats https://sullygnome.com/game/World_of_Warcraft/longtermstats https://sullygnome.com/game/World_of_Warcraft/longtermstats https://sullygnome.com/game/Hearthstone_Heroes_of_Warcraft/longtermstats https://sullygnome.com/game/Hearthstone_Heroes_of_Warcraft/l...
- BigJono 5y ago
  I can't speak to the others, but Twitch as a heuristic is going to be extremely misleading for WoW, since it's centered almost purely around the competitive aspects (raids and M+), and almost in sync with every other part of the game going to shit, those two have grown in popularity with proper "e-sports" style coverage being introduced. The WoW devs are still very good at making raid encounters and competitive dungeons. And they have literally zero competition in that area. So as long as they don't do anything catastrophic, they'll maintain that segment of the playerbase by default.
eric-hu 5y ago
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 tournament price pools for pros. These war chests had community funding goals that they consistently hit and exceeded for the time I was still tracking the game. After Blitzchung, I decided to just move on from the game.

MangoCoffee 5y ago

"Asmongold on Blizzard Now Blaming Players for Being Too Toxic" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFqbfdcnNf8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFqbfdcnNf8 i saw the tweet by Blizzard dev. He blamed the players for Blizzard internal problem. this whole mess is Blizzard's own problem and he is dragging the players into it. he should just say due to internal problem. the patch for WOW 9.2 will be delay and leave it. Blizzard have been going down hill for awhile. They treat their players like cash cow and try to milk them anyway that they can. players = paying customers. if you can't cook the burger that a customer already pay for. your paying customer will leave. its simple as that. bottom line: Blizzard treat their employees and customers like shit.

whateveracct 5y ago

Blizzard stopped making games and started making products at some point. That's all there is to it.

publicola1990 5y ago

Not making their games on steam is one of their biggest mistakes. The moment they make their catalogue available on steam, they are going to get a massive boost in revenue.

ergot_vacation 5y ago

"Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. Revenue: 8.09 billion USD (2020)." Who needs reputation?

download13 5y ago

Financialization ruins everything. Who'd've fucking thought...

parineum 5y ago
Financialization also created the thing.

phendrenad2 5y ago

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.

hnick 5y ago
Have wages among their demographic kept pace with inflation?
throw_m239339 5y ago
The gaming market is much more larger than it used to be 10 or 20 years ago. So Blizzard are selling way more games. Wow doesn't cost only $60, it's a subscription. 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.
jpeter 5y ago
Productivity improved. With engines like Unity or Unreal, a single person can make a game in a few years.

denton-scratch 5y ago

What's a "caster"?

arh68 5y ago
A commentator during the match. Or after the match, before the match, &c. Like Joe Buck or Bob Costas. The person talking about the game and usually interviewing the player(s).
- exdsq 5y ago
  From 'Broadcaster'
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Thank you! I am now better-informed.

LeoNatan25 5y ago

Blizzard’s reputation was tarnished the moment they sold out to Activision. Soon after, they starting using the Activision monetization methods, churning garbage “games”, etc.

pfdietz 5y ago
Vivendi sold them to Activision. Blizzard itself had no say in the matter. Blizzard hasn't been its own master since soon after it was formed.
- parineum 5y ago
  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.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    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.
    - parineum 5y ago
      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.
      - pfdietz 5y ago
        That deal was in 2008. Five years later, in 2013, Kotick raised money to buy out Vivendi, and Vivendi exited the industry shortly thereafter.

mkl95 5y ago

I played WoW during late TBC and WOTLK (late 2000s), and then I came back for WoW Classic. The thing that disappointed me the most and ultimately made me leave for good is how toxic and bitter the community has become. Long time players treat Blizzard like an ill relative they are morally obligated to take care of, instead of a company that is supposed to release enjoyable content. Some of the middle aged and even retired people I played with treated the game like a Facebook gossip group and had shockingly immature behaviour.

LocalH 5y ago

I've been boycotting Activision (and thus Blizzard) since way before this, just because they ineptly handled the Guitar Hero brand and managed to kill it off commercially way too quickly. Looks like I dodged one hell of a bullet by doing so. Fuck ActivisionBlizzard

bovermyer 5y ago

Until I read this article, it didn't really dawn on me how truly bad it's gotten. 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.

TheChaplain 5y ago

Shame really. The Warcraft universe is something I grew up with and with WoW met many long lasting friends.

vhold 5y ago

There should be some mention of their fight against the EFF. https://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd https://www.eff.org/cases/blizzard-v-bnetd

voakbasda 5y ago
This lawsuit should generate more hate from all computer users, not just gamers. They screwed over not only their own users, but they hurt everyone on the planet. The ruling that they bought directly undermines the ability to develop interoperating software. Of any kind. For anything. Want your right to repair? Blizzard directly took some of that from you, and for that I hope they burn in hell.