For those to lazy to click links…
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We’re constantly changing and evolving not only our video game purchases, but how we support and contribute to those game purchases. This evolution is vital to our ability to continue doing what we love to do—buying great games—and it’s what makes a video game consumer a consumer.
Over the past several years, the work of evaluating Blizzard purchases and seeing poor decisions from a previously stalwart company has led to new games and other products that we’re proud to have purchased. These are games such as Path of Exhile, DotA 2, and even donations to private servers like Nostalrius. We now have more non-Blizzard, high-quality options than at any point in video gaming history. We’re also at a point where we need to take some of our hard-earned dollars and bring their marketplace power to other developers. As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to shift some of our money from Activision Blizzard to other companies, and we’re excited to see the passion, knowledge, and experience that they’ll bring to us and even eSports professionals who depend on them for their livelihood (and I know we’re thinking about all of them and their families right now before Christmas). This isn’t the first time we’ve had to make tough choices like this. Games like Fallout 76, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Dungeon Keeper Mobile, SimCity 2013, and more would have been highly profitable had we not made similar decisions in the past.
Despite the change in Blizzard’s direction, Heroes of the Storm remained a love letter that linked us to a time when Blizzard made consumer-centric decisions based around quality and commitment, rather than sh**ty mobile rip offs for Chinese markets. We’ll continue actively supporting Heroes of the Storm with playtime, reminiscing, and a cadence that our community loves, though our feelings toward you as company and your games will change. Ultimately, we’re setting up our nostalgia for long-term sustainability. We’re so grateful for the support your company has shown from the beginning, and our fond memories will continue to support the legend of Blizzard past with the same passion, dedication, and creativity that your former employees shared with us in making the old Blizzard so great.
We’ve also evaluated our plans around future Blizzard games—after looking at all of our priorities and options in light of the change in how you support games long-term, the Blizzard consumers and Blizzard fans will not return in 2019. This was another very difficult decision for us to make. The love that the community has for these IPs is deeply felt by everyone who waits on them, but we ultimately feel this is the right decision versus moving forward in a way that would not meet the standards that players and fans have come to expect… i.e. your sh**ty mobile game plan and predatory kiddie-gambling strategies rather than the quality and commitment we expect, as well as crappy expansions with little communication with your communities, killing profitable games that aren’t profitable enough, etc, etc.
While we don’t make these decisions lightly, we do look to the future excited about what the decisions will mean for our other game developers and all the projects they have in the works. We appreciate all of those old Blizzard games and everyone who worked on them in old Blizzard, and look forward to sharing many more epic gaming experiences made by other companies that were inspired by your old values and old talent.
Good luck with your stock and your eSports,
Blizzard Consumers and Blizzard Fans
Hasn’t WoW had a subscription fee, paid expansions and an in-game store for a long while now? OW popularized lootboxes. To be fair people seemed to have been slurping away at Blizz’s crappy offerings for a while now. A mobile game that drains your wallet seems to be just what Blizz fans would want.
This post is made all the better because my WoW sub ends January 1st! ![:smiley:](https://d3rakab8gpdsa3.cloudfront.net/en/heroes/images/emoji/twitter/smiley.png?v=6" ":smiley:")
And I pretty much support this message.
To be fair an in-game store for mounts, expansions and the like isn’t that big of an issue. Particularly when those expansions take two or more years to make. As opposed to the EA play book where they strip out game features and story to repackage as day 1 DLC. That is when things go to far. Or again, like EA predatory lootboxes where they lower your drop percentage based on amount spent.
I only occasionally return to the game because of how boring it is, but those expansions are expensive and they never look like they justify the price compared to other titles. On top of that there are other games that add additional content without these paywalls. So throwing in an in game shop that offers paid content that is of the kind that people who play MMOs would want to grind for is waaaaaay over the top. If you’re okay with that you are okay with shi**y monetization. Full stop.
I know multiple people who are running Icecrown every chance they get for invincible. So “It’s mounts” or “It’s transmogs” in the case of the helmets seems dumb to me.
The guy changes a few words around and gets all that Reddit gold? Opportunist.
/sarcarm
100% agree. Especially since they have started Time gating everything. Call me crazy but as a client who Paid for BfA, I expect to have access to the content I paid for. Not to have some garbage time lock on it so they can milk money from me.
This is absolutely amazing, it seems it also reached r/all in the process.
super duper cool post
It’s clever. I liked it.
Jeez, what happened to you over the past 24 hours?
What is reddit gold, what can you do with it?
Hi everybody! I’m also a long time fan of Blizzard. I must have spent thousands of hours on Diablo, Diablo 2, Warcraft 3 Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne, Starcraft, Starcraft 2, and Heroes of the storm. Blizzard and their games have really been a cornerstone in how I have developed as a person.
I just want to spend a few moments saying thank you to Blizzard. I don’t think you deserve this angry back lash and I’m excited to see what’s in store for the future.
This is golden. bookmarked!
You don’t pay much attention do you.
Well said OP. For every blizzard game there is a competitor that is trying hard to garner customer support. Frequently they listen to feed back and make improvements based on it. I’d rather support those companies instead if blizzard is intent on ignoring their customers.
Well that’s a proper answer in a proper tongue. Well played, gotta definitely upwote it.
Couldn’t sum up my feelings better. Bye Felicia.
OP BlueLightningTN here. Just want to say thank you to everyone who has made that thread the most upvoted and most awarded in the history of Heroes of the Storm! Sadly, it’s also likely that it will be the last major thread out of the community, but it was nice to see HotS trending on r/all after Blizzard killed it.