A simple example to showcase,
We as players can do a better job on our ladder rank, yet why we don’t?
Same application applies to the company that may lack resources or expertise.
Until we are able to resolve the fundamentals at root, recurring issue will always resurface.
Hearthstone is really not a typical video game, such as Mario and God of War.
You don’t “experience” anything.
The only “fun” factor is to stomp your opponent.
Only one player has “fun”. The other player feels the pain.
It’s interesting. Blizzard is the only company I’ve felt regularly insulted by, to the point where I do indeed wonder if it’s a marketing strategy to stop the player from taking things for granted.
It doesn’t work for me. I unsubbed from WoW a year ago and haven’t bought a HS pack in 3 years. I actually just had enough of the “we know better” attitude while they wrecked things I used to enjoy. I’m playing other games where I do feel they’re making games for their customer and not their egos.
I started playing this game beacuse I like TCGs or in this case CCGs, not beacuse of some love for a company nor some nostalgia towards epic fantasy. Over the years it has been blantly shown that the team of creators are mediocre at best, as to their standars of quality and ideas in regards to balance, add to that some very angrying practices like the rigged matchmaking that now a days is not just only known to all but condoned and even celebrated and the fact that every time a new patch rolls up somthing gets screwed in one way or another.
What felt like something that started like a very simple and convinient product that one, as a player, felt good supporting, growed into a moster that’s both horrible and scary in the ways in wich tries to scam their player base out of their money to the point that whenever a “reward” or positive change gets implemeted it just feels like the company saying “throw them some leftovers so that we can keep milking them.”
Was thinking about this today
I also think it weird they very rarely reply to posters in their official forums but use reddit & twitter instead
I know they get attacked here a lot but it feels like they just abandoned things - their answer (if they ever read this) would probably be about being attacked en masse but then they need to understand that people are passionate and they aren’t addressing things (not advocating rudeness on players’ parts that is just not on)
I also think this constant “release, power creep, nerf, release, power creep, nerf” cycle needs to be addressed - ppl get upset, riled up then “kind of” placated but the cycle continues
I genuinely do not think the devs care anymore - feels like players have more passion for the game - Devs & streamers seem to be fixated on sycophancy and money
Blizzard is in “milking” mode.
The last real game it made is Starcraft 2.
Lots of smart people loss their “real” jobs in a recession.
Hopefully, they can team up and create small innovative companies to challenge it.
I think this sentence really captures the essence of the issue. But these people need to be able to see it for themselves, and sadly this toxic codependency blinds the said player to the truth that at the end of the day, what will matter to the video-game company is “did we make some money today?”
I had to take dependency based classes recently as part of a court-ordered program. It’s really alarming how similar even video games can be to other more traditional addictive substances and the effects that these toxic neuroses have on the brain.
This isn’t true. I’ve had several games that played out, I lost, and were quite fun. But then again I also like playing chess and Civilization 2.
I’ll admit, I’m guilty…that’s why I started. I played WoW up through Cataclysm…Panda-Land was boring so I took a break and started playing HS because I also play MTG at home.
To be fair, the current Team 5 is NOT the same Team 5 that was here when this all started. You can thank Activision Corporate for that since they own Blizzard.
I can’t fully endorse the Rigged thing, even though I have my own thoughts about probabilities in this game in particular, However I totally agree that they release these sets without playtesting bare MINIMUM. I personally didn’t sign up to beta-test your new cards and I’m not getting anything extra, special, shiny, or anything. The only way I am compensated for my time by the company I’m trying to support is with frustration as I have to play against a bunch of bad design mechanics. And its not just me, its all of us. Then the company can “balance patch things” as a means of placating us the consumer.
Exactly.
I started playing because i turned in a Wow ticket and this was back when you could still get an actual person lol and they invited me to play. I had never heard of ccg’s before then, and i was really into Wow pet battles.
Since the WTCG offered rare pets, I thought Blizz would offer some kind of cross game pets. They didn’t, and i quit Wow, but I stuck with this game
even after all of the people i joined with had quit.
For me, Blizzard make great quality games but somehow always ruin them with some annoying aspect that doesn’t have to be a thing. The same is true of WoW.
Can relate. When I started playing Path of Exile two years ago after pumping 50+ hours and getting a lot of enjoyment from the game I spent 30 bucks only to show appreciation to the devs because I felt they did a fantastic job and deserved it.
I also have sometimes went out of my way to support some 15 bucks great indie titles by gifting them to friends or buying cosmetics/soundtracks even though I don’t care for this stuff at all.
Unfortunately I can’t do that for Blizzard and won’t spend even a single cent more than I need because the company feels souless and greedy. Don’t get me wrong - no one argues that gaming companies are not charity and need to make money. But there’s a difference wether you make cash by trying to monetize everything or by making your customers satisfied. It’s a shame that Blizzard went on with the first method.
it’s all been said so many times already…“image problem that could be fixed” when they come up with cr@p like Diablo immortal or W3 reforged?. the problem is the “milking” attitude enforced by the greedy corporate puppeteers
I think addiction often doesn’t really stem from the item/substance itself, but from issues in one’s personal life that create the desire to escape from a harsh reality.
Many young people are lonely and have crippling self-esteem issues, with grim prospects for their futures. A perfect environment to foster unhealthy addictions.
So true. I also think We live in a society that has promoted instant gratification for so long that people expect it as normal these days.
I think it’s more that quality of life is simply going down for many first-world countries/areas, such as the US.
The cost of living has gone up significantly in recent years, the cost of college (Which is now viewed as a necessity for life, and if you don’t complete it, you are considered a failure) has gone up even more, and wages/salaries have stagnated across the board. And public schooling has done little to prepare the younger generations for the real world.
And now those people are growing up. Even if they’re just as capable as their parents, they likely won’t get as far in life, because the economy is crap compared to their parents’ time. And many of them could easily end up on the street if they slip up at any point during college or their careers, putting an enormous amount of pressure on them.
We live in a society that has been pretending that things are okay when they’re not. Living conditions and future prospects have been getting progressively worse for the average citizen, not better. And no one’s rushing to fix it.
PREACH (20 characters)
Not gonna lie, the internet’s freakout over Diablo Immortal always seemed to me like the pettiest of grievances. Oh no, there’s a new game coming out for your pet franchise which isn’t on your preferred platform? Whatever will you do now?
That being said, the mishandling of Reforged was a pretty amazing display of corporate ineptitude. It’s like they were working with a paint-by-numbers plan on how to deliver the worst possible product in the most insulting possible way. It’s recursive ineptitude: goes all the way down.
I think review-bombing it to the point where it’s rated as the worst game ever made (Surpassing many eldritch abominations that were masquerading as games, along with a litany of so-called “games” that don’t actually work at all) was going too far, but it’s telling that they managed to screw up something as simple as a remaster so badly.
Reminds of the time EA managed to screw up Tetris.
Wait what?