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Why is Blizzard so damn good at Esports?
bcbully
Member EpicPosts: 11,843
From WoW arena to Starcraft, to Hearthstone and now Overwatch, Blizzard is leading the way. Sure you have Riot and the phenomenon which is LoL, that seems to be more of a one off though. Blizzard seems to be able to do it when they want, whenever they want.
Check out the Overwatch World Cup. It's a amazing production. No one else does it like this. Tell me why do you think Blizz can hit that Esport spot time and time again?
Check out the Overwatch World Cup. It's a amazing production. No one else does it like this. Tell me why do you think Blizz can hit that Esport spot time and time again?
Comments
Also the most watched eSport game on twitch.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There are better RTS than SC, better shooters than OV, better mmorpgs than WoW and better cardgames than hearthstone.
Blizzard is just very good at making trailers and pumping money into marketing.
But I still smile at the term "eSport"
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I can think of a ton of studios that put far more effort into their titles, especially considering their size difference in man power as well as resources.
I have no chip on my shoulder against Blizzard, still I can't think of anything they've done that was fun for me, even being a fan of RTS and Isometric games (WC and Diablo), their worlds just don't seem that imaginative to me, WC is pretty much a lesser version of Warhammer... Diablo is too far removed from the RPG genre for me, it's hack and slash IMO....which i personally despise.
I'm much more impressed by studios like Obsidian, Larian, In the past Black Isle and Troika, etc... WHile they might not have the polish, they have the passion I've never found in Blizz titles.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
This is a ridiculous statement and it once again highlights your belief that Blizzard is only successful because they have money. I've asked this before a few times, but I'll ask it again- how do you think they got so much money to begin with? I'll clue you in- it wasn't from making bad games.
Overwatch is truly leagues above the competition (while granted, it's competition is Paladins, Battleborn and the 10 year old game tf2). If it wasn't made by Blizzard, it might not be as popular but to say it wouldn't be 1/100th as popular is basically stupid.
HotS is an excellent example. The game is basically an uninspired copying dud, which is the kind of game most Devs push out regularly. And it's not doing so great because of it (despite having the apparent power to multiply the playerbase by 100x just by having the Blizzard logo on the opening screen).
Personally, I have well over 300 hours in Overwatch, and just last night I was playing and said to myself "just one more game". 8 hours later I was exhausted and my life was wasted. I haven't had a game do that to me in, well basically forever with 300 hours already in it. And none of that time was I thinking "Man, this is great because it's Blizzard."
"why do you think so many devs have left Blizzard? Its not because of pay (many took pay cuts when leaving) - the corporare culture stifles creativity and passion is why."
Or... maybe they just got plain bored working on the same shit for the ancient game WoW....
Anywho, as to the OP, I think Blizzard by now has a ton of experience with e-sports with Starcraft 2's popularity in Korea and Hearthstone's popularity worldwide. This has helped them figure out what works and what doesn't in e-sports.
Blizzard would not be were they are if their workforce was without passion and creativity.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/awards.html
In before "but hey!!! look how many rewards they earned in the past compared to now" ! Right , like the majority of the media who rewarded in the past exists anymore, nor there are SO many rewards in today's market that worth mentioning them.
So, see that "bad card game" how many rewards have? Or that SC which there are better RTS's over there? Or WoW! Even Diablo 3, which was not their best game, got a good chunk of rewards.
Now please, link me that game of yours who earned the same . Ok , half at least. Ok ...
Point is : Blizzard had success in the past and it's also having HUGE success in the present.
As you can see from above, THEY WORKED THEIR FUCKING ASS LIKE CRAZY TO BE WHERE THEY ARE! It's not like they started with 5k workers and billions in their bank account.
[mod edit]
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
I was impressed that Overwatch didn't look dated compared to their previous releass like D3 ans SC2. But styled PS3 games like Bioshock 3 still look batter than OW.
I'm sorry but I would love to know what OP is smoking. The only Blizzard game that has been a force in ESports was original starcraft. And that was made by a team of people who have long sinced moved on to other companies and projects. HotS is a complete and utter joke in esports. Starcraft II made a wee bit of a splash, but by and large is still massively overshadowed by original Starcraft (esports wise). Overwatch is making some headway, but is plagues by balance issues which are a critical problem in esports.
Unfortunately Blizzard has a company philosophy on how they make their games (I.e. almost never nerfing, always bringing things up to match the OP skill/ability/class,etc. Also every "expansion" having to up the power quotient by a factor of 10, etc) that is going to continue to hinder their abilities to make any serious splash in esports.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Overwatch has a hit yes, which I still don't understand why.
Companies who can do the same : Facebook, Google, Apple ....actually ANY company can do that ! Even you can do that to any other person/company which has less money then you ( and I believe there are many ) ! Same in sport. Football . Barcelona has the money to keep Messi , one of the best player out there. SO WHATS THE POINT ACTUALLY?!
Man, where have you been living?
Reporter: What's behind Blizzard success, and how do you make your gamers happy?
Blizzard Boss: Making gamers happy is not my concern, making money.. yes!
When csgo had 1 million viewers on twitch they were giving away skins to viewers which can be sold/traded.
I also like that Game of War makes nearly as much as WoW. It's a terrible game, even compared to WoW. It's just a slightly more visually appealing version of old text-based games like Ogame and Kings of Chaos.
Seeing that really makes me want to develop and MMO for phones that isn't total crap. I feel like something like Pocket Starships with some more features and room for emergent gameplay could really be the framework for an insanely fun game.
Dungeon Fighter is a 2d beat-em-up with a huge grind. The game is produced by a Korean company called Neople. It's pretty good if you like that style of game. Part of the reason you've never heard of it is because here in the West it was published by Nexon, who screwed everything up like usual and eventually killed the game off. Neople, however, republished it themselves for the Western market, though I have no idea how it's doing now. From what little I know and remember, it's also heavily micro-transactioned.