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Blizzard: A Recovery Story - Garrett Fuller - MMORPG.com
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Blizzard: A Recovery Story - Garrett Fuller - MMORPG.com
If you were to tell me this summer that Fallout 76, Diablo, and Steam’s Artifact announcements would go over like a lead balloon I would tell you that you are crazy. However, that is the reality in games this holiday season. Three of the biggest game companies with fans that far exceed the word devoted are now facing a harsh reality, they finally pissed off their fans. For this first article we will focus on Blizzard and how they might recover from the first ever disastrous BlizzCon on record.
Comments
Do you guys not have a phone?!
Anyways, what they did to Heroes of the Storm was the last straw for me. I won't be touching any blizzard games... I feel betrayed. I love HotS, its the only MOBA I could stand, and they decided to put Maintenance Mode (in disguise) on it. I'm really upset over this, like Really upset. Of course they have to announce this after the sale of the 365Days premium boosters, not the other way around
Aloha Mr Hand !
Then they unceremoniously kill HotS esports without even warning the teams ahead of time, and apparently going back on what were previously communicated plans about an even bigger budget to support events this year. It was killed via a damn blog post, with pro players receiving a short, generic email afterwards.
And that's not to mention the ongoing issues with WoW between crap communication and a lot of ongoing community complaints about things that seems abnormally high compared to at least Legion.
Yeah, Blizzard's usually rare to have a miss, but they seem to be cropping up more frequently. At least IMO, they're no longer the company they once were and that many of us fell in love with. A lot of folks are blaming Activision, and while I think they have part of the blame I think Blizzard's bad habits (burning money), arrogance, and size are catching up to it.
After the whole Diablo Immortal announcement fiasco, they were quick to announce they were not done with Diablo 3 yet and that the fans had something to look forward with the upcoming season in form of new content.
Right. Seeing the Season 16 announcement and patch notes. Bait and Switch. It was nothing but blatant ad-hoc damage control at Blizcon to put out the fires at their little convention after Diablo Immortal blew up in their faces.
This is really the last straw for me. Next to the BfA expansion fiasco for WoW and patch 8.1 bringing nothing to the table that would convince me to come back.
I am done with Blizzard. It's clear they are fully controlled by ActiVision now and them now calling the shots over Blizzard.
They had a good run, but so did Bioware and SOE back in the good ol' days. Now Blizzard can join their ranks.
Aloha Mr Hand !
Death of WoW is inevitable, it is just a matter of time and it is time to move on, Blizzard knows this and has already started to branch out to widen their portfollio.
There will always be some left behind(ie.these boards) and there is no point catering to them, they are not Blizzard's future(or anyone's else).
So yeah, just fck them.
I think i read last night that HOTS is officially on maintenance mode. I'm done with blizzard these guys and their investors are just blinded by money. They want so much of it that they just pissed on us and think we giving in with mobile games, life supporting their moba and really nothing for pc anytime soon or ever except for remakes of some old tired games in their library. Why not Warcraft 4 or Diablo 4 or even starcraft 3?
You literally hang around here because you dislike what people post and wanna mark it with an LOL or condescending remark. Useless.
Maybe the stock will recover next year, but then again maybe not.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
You could put ALL of Blizzard's games except Wow into one pile and the effort it would take to make ALL of them is less than one AAA mmorpg.So how they manage to WASTE soooo much money is beyond me,they don't have any quality game engines,none of their games have quality lighting to graphics,like wtf have they been doing to spend so much money,they have a higher overhead than Square Enix but produce far less games and all of the games except Wow are PUNY small games.
So do they need to win back an angry fanbase or a fanbase that finally woke up and realized Blizzard makes VERY average to sub par games.
While Blizzard was the apparent COOL wagon to jump on,now it is Fortnite and Epic.I guess Epic's Fortnite cartoony graphics were just one better than Blizzard's cartoony graphics.
Knwo why the Diablo announcement SHOULD piss you off,they were targeting a MARKET,the mobiel market,they were NOT doing it becuse they wanted to make you a great game..NO,they wanted to corner a market that is very lucrative,that is what blizz cares about,making money.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
"Activision Blizzard" even.
The significance being: Pre-buyout under Vivendi: Blizzard reported through Activision; this was the time of "release when its ready". You got the idea that Blizzard did there thing.
Post-buyout: the name on the door is Activision Blizzard. Run by Activision and Blizzard bods - with a sprinkling of King bods these days no doubt.
Which means that we shouldn't "blame" Activision for any of this. The "Blizzard" bods will probably have been behind this stuff - being the ones with the "best insight" into the Blizzard bit of the company.
EDIT- though the card highlighting annoys me. You can see your opponent highlight a card in their hand during, say, the combat phase, the game pauses everything to give them time to decide if they want to play it or not. It has the effect, for red and blue decks especially, of tipping the opponent off that you likely have a counter/DD card you can cast at any time.
you say these 3 you would never guess? sure its not guessing when you are sure they will fail
or he does so to make you think that, or he jsut let his mouse in the middle and it highlight it jsut because its there, youa re thinking too much on it
It's not something that doesn't also happen at the table. Just seems exacerbated because if your opponent doesn't have an instant to play, it instantly moves to the next part of the combat phase.
This is also backed up by the removal of Graphical Novels and the story arc that went with them, indicating that they had changed their mind and that the penny had dropped in a big way, ushering in a new clear path, yielding a far more exciting game in the future. Of course this would mean they would have to sacrifice themselves on the alter of disappointment for Blizzcon 2018 .... but we live in a fickle world and the gamble is that it is far better to be an even bigger hero at a later date than an average popular Joe now. I would say that they are 'trebling' efforts with a Diablo direction and re-designating in house talent to help. Far better to make one fantastic ship than repainting and tickling tugboats ... so yes bye bye Heroes of the Storm, which was always clearly late and old hat ... and not as modern or appealing as Smite.
Overwatch is a fantastic game for what it is and so well accomplished and WOW is just experiencing that 'middle' story arc expansion preparing itself for a far better journey. Again this means that from a lull in 2018 I would bet on booms in 2019 and 2020.
For me a Worlds of Diablo, Devils and Angels MMO would be a Boom .... I wouldn't care if they used the same engine mechanics as WOW ..... at least we know it would work.
Gut Out!
What, me worry?