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And you know why. We ALL know why. It has nothing to do with League or DURRTa or the 4 billion other wannabe MOBAs either. It has everything to do with you and the state you’re leaving your game in.
80% of your roster is instantly obsoleted by the other 20%. Every new hero you release is instantly a firstpick/firstban because of how ridiculously powerful you make them out of the gate. Mal’ganis is currently the most banned hero EVER in HotS history, eclipsing even Rework Rehgar and prenerf Zarya. Orphea currently has the best traits/abilities/talents from 5 different heroes combined into a single hero (She’s S+ Area Denial, S+ Damage and S+ survivability simultaneously). She renders heroes from every single category except support obsolete.
And we all know your next hero is going to be hilariously broken in a completely new and unique way… but we’re tired. We’re tired of it. That’s why you’re losing people so quickly and are having to constantly adjust your matchmaker to actually allow it to find games (QM allows multiple instances of the same hero across both teams on a near-constant basis now. And it’s supposedly the ‘most played mode’).
You are sacrificing game balance and the loyalty of your playerbase for money. Literally, for money. You release game-destroying over-the-top broken heroes with overloaded kits and then kick out a bunch of skins and such that are gem-only for them so you can rake in the cash. Once the sales start to drop off, you nerf the hero just barely enough to shut the community up like you did with Mal’ganis. Seems you took the lessons learned from the Fenix and Maiev releases to heart. The nerfs were too much too quickly and sales cratered on both.
You didn’t used to be this kind of company. You used to actually care about balance. You used to care about the enjoyment of your playerbase, not just how much cash you could funnel off of them and how fast you could do it. You have changed.
And now your once-fiercely loyal playerbase is speaking up in droves about how we feel about this change across multiple franchises. The cash cow is in tatters, down to levels not seen in the last decade. Diablo’s franchise credibility has been utterly spent and discarded. Starcraft’s in shambles, being abandoned in favor of a game made 20 years ago (Brood War) by the Esports scene. Overwatch still waxes and wanes because it’s still relatively new but that won’t last and we all know it. Heroes of the Storm started off as a literal fanservice game… and look at it now. It screams cash grab harder than a P2W shop on a Private WoW Server.
We all know why this is happening. Your guys in creative, if they’ve been there long enough, also know why. The CMs reading this probably know why but are actively prohibited from saying it out loud. There’s a singular word that can be tied to the current state of Blizzard across all franchises. A single word that can be used to wholly sum up the fury and dissatisfaction that 25 years of loyal fans are currently feeling. A single word which contains within it the root of every single problem that is now coming to a head simultaneously for your company.
That word is Activision.
It is the cancer consuming you and killing your franchises. If any of you reading this at Blizzard have the will to save your company… the cancer must be excised before it kills the host. Do it. Do it before it’s too late. Do it before the damage cannot be undone. Do it for yourselves.
Do it for US.