What the hell has happened to Blizzard? I used to love everything about them and even wanted to work there at one point as my dream job. Now I despise everything about them, especially with each bit of new information that comes out and is learned. They have fallen quite a bit, it’s almost like they are deliberately playing out the fall of Arthas in real life.
We’ve got them treating an employee like they are less than human (and it’s not just this guy lets be honest here). How they can act like “every voice matters”, preach all this inclusiveness stuff and boast about the characters in their games such as Tracer and now Soldier 76 is beyond me when they treat this guy the way they did. Absolute bs and total hypocrisy, the way he was treated makes me sick to read about and I feel so god damn sorry for him. http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1sqp7gi
Then we’ve got them absolutely being out of touch with their fans. They have no clue what we want anymore, they seem to think Diablo Immortal was something we would eat right up, they seem to think BFA was acceptable to release to us. They seem to think letting games stagnate like Diablo 3/Starcraft 2 and actively trying to kill some in HoTS case is perfectly fine. Read this and tell me that they are actually following any of these mission statements anymore, you can’t. http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/mission.html
Then we have their crusade against “toxicity” that is killing them and their games. HoTS players know firsthand how harmful this crusade has been to the population and how it completely discourages people from engaging in any kind of conversation from fear of ban. This doesn’t even stop here it extends into Overwatch and even WoW, what happened to the days where we used the tools we were given and muted/blocked people we didn’t want to hear from, it’s not like these tools are gone. Hell they even are attempting to police TWITCH chat of all things, forcing you to link your bnet account to chat. No one can tell me that’s not a threat of “if you say something we don’t like or post and emote we don’t like you’re account is on the line”, there is no other reason to enforce this. And don’t think this won’t extend to the MDI for WoW/Arena Championship. https://dotesports.com/overwatch/news/blizzard-is-testing-a-new-moderation-system-for-overwatch-contenders-twitch-chat
Bungie is getting smart and jumping ship from Activision while keeping Destiny, will be curious to see the change this brings for the future. I think it’s too late for Blizzard to do the same though even if they could find a way out. Their soul is gone and they are in too deep with Activision, they don’t make games for gamers anymore or make decisions around them, they only try to please the shareholders. Here’s the Bungie link since its kind of fresh news. https://kotaku.com/bungie-splits-with-activision-1831651740
I know I’ll likely get backlash for this post and it’ll probably get deleted by Blizzard but I don’t care, needed to get all this off my chest. I’ve been holding out on a sliver of hope that maybe Blizzard could get back to how they used to be but I don’t think this is ever going to happen. It’s just going to get worse, this is just a husk of the Blizzard I fell in love with. I don’t even want to support them by playing Classic WoW when it’s here anymore, something I had been looking forward to for a long time. I’d rather remember them how they used to be not what they’ve turned into. I suggest anyone on the fence about Blizzard or this game to start looking into finding a new company to support. It’ll hurt at first but Blizzard is continuing on down a dark path where there is no return, do you really want to support a company that treats it’s own employees like garbage and its fans like the enemy/garbage, that doesn’t release quality products anymore?
I think that Mike Morheim was kind of the last barrier between what Blizzard was and the consuming maw of Activison. I still say he was “convinced” to leave rather than want to just retire.
Bungie/Destiny leaving Activision is a good thing, a blueprint if you will, for Blizzard to follow suit. It will take the extraordinarily poor performance of sales going forward with Blizzard products to ignite the flames of independence.
I would like to know what are Activision Blizzard values now, but they certainly need to take a look at it.
Customer will buy great products, but they also buy products from company they share values with.
Activision Blizzard latest decision to included microtransaction, going full mobile and leaving old title that people love to play to die (i.e. suddenly cutting HGC without any form of mitigation) seems more like a company that cares more about moneys than customers.
Gamers dedicated to blizzard franchise will not forget that.
We have a tons of choice when it comes to what we want to play.
I’m glad Bungie left and took Destiny with them, maybe they’ll actually be able to do the series justice now without Activision looming over them. I think Blizzard is too far gone though to have any shot at leaving and even if they did what heavy hitters are left now? Pardo, Metzen and Morhaime are gone and Mr. You Think You Do-But You Don’t is at the helm. They are more likely to be completely absorbed by Activision.
Er Metzan that is he’s in guest star mode with the company yeah? LOL I just think of him as a ghost haunting Blizzard’s HQ because he’s got some unfinished business to do.
Well I found your problem, looks like someone stuck a giant “ACTIVISION” in front of there. Seen this type of thing happen before, it’ll soon be inoperable.
Here’s the second, probably more realistic reason. The people who used to work at Blizzard 10-15-20 years ago, no longer make up the company, which is normal. These aren’t just the big company employee’s that get to act as the PR guys like Jeff Kaplan, but the smaller names that went into the credits that contributed in the past to many of their great games. Generally when a company is bought, or merged in this case, it results in restructuring, management changes, and lots of internally shuffling, and many times a lot of employee’s leave (or are laid off.)
With as much money as WoW still makes alongside Overwatch’s revenue, in their eyes they are doing things right.
Used to love blizzard game. I as well decided to become a programmer in hopes to one day work for them. Thankfully I like programming so no worries there and have a job I love. What bliz has been trying to pull off for the past few years is down right wrong. I don’t even want to were this company is going.
At the current rate of going from older to younger demographic, their target audience could be developing fetuses when technology has advanced where such communication is possible and they can open loot chests in mobile games wirelessly with thought. The parents would get a free mount as incentive.
Couldn’t stand D1 and I got the game for free on my xbox1.
Destiny 2 could have been really fun…then 3 missions later we returned to the same BS.
Destiny 3 (a pure bungie game)… I’ll have that game pre ordered in the 500$ edition gold plated case.
Amen OP. Amen. It is very sad to see. It’s a tragic shame to be honest.
God the great games this company has pumped out.
WC2, WC3, Starcraft 1 & 2, the Diablo series, Hearthstone, HOTS and what is almost certainly the greatest achievement in the history of the industry with WoW (at least until the aptly named Cataclysm arrived). Overwatch… I mean, these are some of the best games, often THE best game, in their respective genre.
It breaks your heart to see where its going. And i blame Activision.
![:sweat_smile:](https://d3rakab8gpdsa3.cloudfront.net/en/heroes/images/emoji/twitter/sweat_smile.png?v=6" ":sweat_smile:")