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Should my gamer heart flutter at the idea that this might be long good-term for Blizzard? NetEase seemed to have an extraordinary influence in making modern Bl

Should my gamer heart flutter at the idea that this might be long good-term for Blizzard? NetEase seemed to have an extraordinary influence in making modern Blizzard as financially extractive as possible of its player base. And surely, there are other relations that have made modern Blizzard into what it is, but you can see the NetEase fingerprints on every title released since 2008.

blibble 4y ago
I don't think so I know WoW in china operated under a completely different business model where you pay by the hour instead of a expansion packs and a monthly subscription (no idea about their other games)
ramesh31 4y ago
I'd be more optimistic about the Microsoft deal than anything. There's a potential that they could treat Blizzard's IP as a loss leader into the MS ecosystem, and lighten up on that stuff.
Ygg2 4y ago
> Should my gamer heart flutter at the idea that this might be long good-term for Blizzard? No. WOW and it's planetary popularity killed Blizzard not some deal with CCP backed company.
kibwen 4y ago
> Should my gamer heart flutter at the idea that this might be long good-term for Blizzard? Why would you want that? Companies don't make games. People make games. All the people at Blizzard who made the games that you remember fondly have moved on. There's nothing left but an empty shell of a brand running on the fumes of inertia.
- leidenfrost 4y ago
  Yeah. I watch closely the development of games made by Frost Giant Games and DreamHaven. That's where the people who made those good games went.
- jrockway 4y ago
  Yeah. I can tell from playing OW2 that there are literally 0 "old Blizzard" employees left. Even ignoring the things that players really hate like monetization strategies, you can tell the culture is gone. New characters say their own name wrong for months after release ("Hey, it's Keiko!" did get fixed). New characters have identical silhouettes to existing characters (try identifying Nemesis Ramattra versus Sigma through a wall). It's just little things like that where they've given presentations and written blog posts on how it's so important to not mess things like that up, and then you watch them mess it up and charge you $10 a month to play a game you already bought. It's sad to watch because the figureheads go off to start their own companies, and the games just aren't as good. Blizzard spent way more money on game design (mythology, iteration after iteration of characters before release) than any startup could ever afford to, and they really reaped the rewards. Then Activision buys them, decides they should focus on Candy Crush, the employees all sexually harass each other, and it's over! (To be fair, I think a lot of people left because they made more than enough money over their career. Who wouldn't leave when you have enough to retire.) It's sad because it will be a long time before we see a similar game studio appear again. If you like their games, pray and take up a hobby like fishing. It will be a while before we're having the same kind of fun that we used to have.
  - bob1029 4y ago
    > If you like their games, pray and take up a hobby like fishing. It will be a while before we're having the same kind of fun that we used to have. No. I will take to my keyboard and begin work. Someone has to actually do this or it will never happen. I can't sit idly by anymore. What they did to OW1 was unforgivable to me. I intend to build my own arena shooter at this point. We need to learn to work within our new constraints. You are right - Getting as much original capital involved would be impossible. Doesn't mean we can't do it a different way. There are other ways to have fun that don't require 8 figure art budgets or selling our souls to the various platform vendors.
    - jrockway 4y ago
      That's fair. I have had the same thought, but I really don't have the skills to make a gaming startup successful; no network, no experience, etc. The code is do-able. Everything else is hard. Have a good plan (or people that you can trust) for that part. The one change I'd make to Overwatch is to just balance each rank separately. Let the bronzes run around doing 300 damage railgun shots. Don't let pro play make the game less fun for casual players that just want to meme for a couple hours a week, but do have some progression so people can outgrow that. I've watched a lot of videos of new players trying OW2 for the first time, and the game is just impossible for them. The next FPS/MOBA hybrid should be as approachable as Overwatch was in 2016.
confidantlake 4y ago
Fingers crossed, the future is frostgiant. That is where a lot of the ex blizzard people ended up.

blibble 4y ago

I don't think so I know WoW in china operated under a completely different business model where you pay by the hour instead of a expansion packs and a monthly subscription (no idea about their other games)

ramesh31 4y ago

I'd be more optimistic about the Microsoft deal than anything. There's a potential that they could treat Blizzard's IP as a loss leader into the MS ecosystem, and lighten up on that stuff.

Ygg2 4y ago

> Should my gamer heart flutter at the idea that this might be long good-term for Blizzard? No. WOW and it's planetary popularity killed Blizzard not some deal with CCP backed company.

kibwen 4y ago

> Should my gamer heart flutter at the idea that this might be long good-term for Blizzard? Why would you want that? Companies don't make games. People make games. All the people at Blizzard who made the games that you remember fondly have moved on. There's nothing left but an empty shell of a brand running on the fumes of inertia.

leidenfrost 4y ago
Yeah. I watch closely the development of games made by Frost Giant Games and DreamHaven. That's where the people who made those good games went.
jrockway 4y ago
Yeah. I can tell from playing OW2 that there are literally 0 "old Blizzard" employees left. Even ignoring the things that players really hate like monetization strategies, you can tell the culture is gone. New characters say their own name wrong for months after release ("Hey, it's Keiko!" did get fixed). New characters have identical silhouettes to existing characters (try identifying Nemesis Ramattra versus Sigma through a wall). It's just little things like that where they've given presentations and written blog posts on how it's so important to not mess things like that up, and then you watch them mess it up and charge you $10 a month to play a game you already bought. It's sad to watch because the figureheads go off to start their own companies, and the games just aren't as good. Blizzard spent way more money on game design (mythology, iteration after iteration of characters before release) than any startup could ever afford to, and they really reaped the rewards. Then Activision buys them, decides they should focus on Candy Crush, the employees all sexually harass each other, and it's over! (To be fair, I think a lot of people left because they made more than enough money over their career. Who wouldn't leave when you have enough to retire.) It's sad because it will be a long time before we see a similar game studio appear again. If you like their games, pray and take up a hobby like fishing. It will be a while before we're having the same kind of fun that we used to have.
- bob1029 4y ago
  > If you like their games, pray and take up a hobby like fishing. It will be a while before we're having the same kind of fun that we used to have. No. I will take to my keyboard and begin work. Someone has to actually do this or it will never happen. I can't sit idly by anymore. What they did to OW1 was unforgivable to me. I intend to build my own arena shooter at this point. We need to learn to work within our new constraints. You are right - Getting as much original capital involved would be impossible. Doesn't mean we can't do it a different way. There are other ways to have fun that don't require 8 figure art budgets or selling our souls to the various platform vendors.
  - jrockway 4y ago
    That's fair. I have had the same thought, but I really don't have the skills to make a gaming startup successful; no network, no experience, etc. The code is do-able. Everything else is hard. Have a good plan (or people that you can trust) for that part. The one change I'd make to Overwatch is to just balance each rank separately. Let the bronzes run around doing 300 damage railgun shots. Don't let pro play make the game less fun for casual players that just want to meme for a couple hours a week, but do have some progression so people can outgrow that. I've watched a lot of videos of new players trying OW2 for the first time, and the game is just impossible for them. The next FPS/MOBA hybrid should be as approachable as Overwatch was in 2016.

confidantlake 4y ago

Fingers crossed, the future is frostgiant. That is where a lot of the ex blizzard people ended up.