His trajectory looks pretty standard. Alex Afrasiabi - MobyGames
Quest Designer (one of many)
Lead Quest Designer
Lead World Designer
WoW Creative Director
The law suit investigation started 2 years ago based on complaints that are older than that. The “old guard” did not start really leaving until the past 2-3 years. So no, I would not say that he was being kept in check - more that they just turned a blind eye to it.
Serious question, not meaning to bait anyone.
How many of you posting here, will cancel your subscriptions to any Blizz products you pay for? How many will not purchase D2R, D4, DI? How many will stop posting here, since it is technically a Blizz product.
Will anyone walk the walk, or is this just all show and no go?
A simple response is all that is needed. All of the whys have been discussed at length in the pages above.
I’d guess a lot of people are waiting to see what they do about it? It seems like Brack may be fired given he seemed to be aware of it and didn’t do enough.
Maybe they’ll do a massive purge of problematic people and try to move forward from there?
Read “Basic Economics” by Thomas Sowell and then we can talk.
Not all men, only the ones that do that.
Well, for me that’s easy since their quality have already disappointed me quite a bit. I cancelled my WoW sub last year (WoW was my main Blizzard game) when I tried the FF14 free trial and got instantly hooked. I can definitely live without D4, I love Grim Dawn and Titan Quest, PoE isn’t really my thing but I can learn to love it. I like D2 but their servers are absolutely awful which also drove me away from that game, and I strongly dislike D3 so that one won’t be missed. DI looks like a cashgrab and didn’t interested me much.
So for me, this is not even a good metric of “being willing to sacrifice something I like” because I was already gonna do it regardless for other reasons. This scandal wasn’t a deciding factor for me more than it was the last straw in a series of disappointments. Before this happened, Hong Kong happened. Shadowlands happened. BfA happened. The completely out of touch announcement of DI happened. Warlords of Draenor happened. Warcraft 3 Refunded happened. “You think you do but you don’t” happened. D3 AH happened. Error 37 happened. It’s a big snowball of disappointments and I feel like a lot of people just had enough of it.
I already answered it. No, I am not cancelling anything.
I can be upset with part of the company culture, I can want to see change. I can also be happy with the people who are awesome there, which is most of them.
If I decided to avoid any place that had workplace scandals/treatment issues in some departments I could not buy or use anything.
I spent 14 years being treated that way myself (not at blizzard but in tech/engineering). Roof over my head and food matered. I also naively thought it would get better or I could somehow be good enough to change it/rise above it. I finally left.
The people who do good work don’t deserve to be boycotted. I can hold the management to account while supporting the workers.
This could be a real reason many of the old guard left. The timing lines up. Investigations start, they know crap is going to hit the fan, so the jump. Just speculation, but let’s say those that left were the ones causing and covering it up, it’s going to be hard for Blizzard to hold anyone accountable.
Not for this. I already stopped my sub for WoW because I wasn’t having fun. I still enjoy OW, HS, and HotS, and am very excited for D4.
As stated earlier in the thread, I find boycotting things that are easy not to do, easy not to have, or have many other similar options available is just self serving. Boycott something that would make your life inconvenient, now that would mean something.
Agree 100%. It’s the you live in a society delima. We’d have to be 100%independent and self sustaining if we took a moral stand like that against every company that did something bad.
Need to pick and choose unfortunately. But my request to those that plan a boycott. Take the money you were going to spend and put your money where your mouth is and donate it organizations that support survivors of abuse and ones that promote awareness. Otherwise your boycott is meaningless outside of your own self importance.
I do agree with that. If I was enjoying all those other games, I probably would still play them, because this scandal wouldn’t have represented just another drop in an ocean of things that disappointed me, but unfortunately, most Blizzard games went on a direction that I no longer enjoyed. This is less of a boycott for me, and more of a “giving up on this company”. But then again, I don’t think I’ve completely given up, otherwise I wouldn’t be wasting my time here in this forum expressing disappointment
Read him. Not impressed by his outdated views, or his refusal to incorporate current sociological data and theory into his work. His more recent work, Wealth, Poverty, and Politics is boring in it’s retread of typical conservative talking points that focus on production and ignore systemic issues entrenched in social and political systems.
I urge you to read a little Marx and Engels, then some Franz Fanon, then some Noam Chomsky. And don’t forget Kalecki. If you’re enjoying Sowell (shudder), you really need to read Kalecki.
If I had a nickel every time a conservative wheeled out Thomas Sowell to defend right-wing silliness, I would own the whole free market.
I don’t think you’re equipped to keep this up.
It wasn’t a decline in quality. I still find thier gsmes good. Most of our friends stopped and we weren’t raiding. Too old for trying to find a new home of people like us and have no time for the BS PuGs.
I’m not sure how anyone can be instantly hooked on FF14 though. The input delay is more than enough to kill it for me. But it was so boring. I was told it gets better after the first expansion. I ain’t got that kind of time to be bored for that long until it gets better.
For me a game has an hour or so. If it cannot give me a good feel of what it’s going to be, or it doesn’t feel good. Im done. And I love me some FF, which disappoints me because I just can’t get into it.
If people have not read some of the collected stories, they should. This thread has a great curated collection of former folks, current folks, etc.
It was not all women being sexually harassed either.
You will find though, that even though who did suffer abuse point out this is an Industry issue, not just a Blizzard (Riot, Ubisoft, etc) issue.
I’m really not here to advertise FF14 or other games. But since you asked why I got instantly hooked on it, my personal taste, obviously, but
Those two reasons are why I was actually into it from the moment I made my character. As for why I stayed,
Anyway, I don’t see myself going back to wow ever again. FF14 is not for everyone, I completely understand why you find it boring, but it’s definitely for me.
I’m talking about the half second it takes from clicking before your character interacts or does the ability. I have no issue with the GCD.
I live in Brazil, when I played WoW retail, I had a 400ms ping constantly. Compared to that, FF14 actually feels pretty responsive to me
Lol. You probably won’t notice it. But with a connection that rarely goes above a 25 ping, it’s something coded I to the game or maybe all the actions are handled server side. But coming form games where everything happens in real time, that little delay is a deal breaker for me.
I understand that, luckily it doesn’t bother me at all
Haven’t played WoW since TBC and never felt the urge to go back. D2R holds no interest as long as they maintain the purist mentality and preserve “features” myself and others consider a detriment to the game. I have my doubts on D4 and it’s basically “I’ll see how reviews go after launch…” status.
Funnily enough, my character was called into question relative to paragon investment in D3, which I’ve never been shy about asserting not chasing high numbers between never playing multiplayer meta and finding the game any more fulfilling by simply increasing enemy stats. Exercising my discernment simply concluded I did not enjoy D3’s “competitive endgame” status quo. Or perhaps more succinctly, I don’t a play a game for long periods if I’m not having fun with it. How this somehow correlates into my perception of the world has certainly been A take, but it’s also done little to dissuade me from how backward and out of touch conservative talking points and buzz words tend to be.
Focusing on D4, however, my review status is still on the table, but like others, how this situation winds up being handled is also a contributing factor. I will not perceive a settlement with NDAs and sealed documents as justice being done. On the contrary, that tends to come off as bribing victims into silence with the wealthy just getting a stern finger wagging. Granted, I also find the accusation some made that CA is just trying to extort money from Blizzard through politics as disgusting, as if affected women put themselves in the spotlight like this for funsies. I 100% expect doxxing and death threats toward people speaking out to follow because we’re already seeing the playbook of the counter-MeToo culture in action.
Interesting replies, thanks.
For me, I gave up on WoW along time ago; the game was just not fun anymore. Not sure about D2R, but I will continue to play D3, and am very excited for D4. DI, nah I don’t play games on my phone.
For me this is more a Blizz management issue than anything else. Yes the bad seeds obviously are a problem, but managements reaction to this ongoing issue is the real problem. I love the games I play, and will continue to play them, and support the good people at Blizz. I just hope some overpaid heads roll. Blizz needs a leadership change, and perhaps this lawsuit will be the impetus needed for that change.