What is it you are disappointed in? A blizzard employee not leaking information? Just because they know things doesn’t mean they are allowed to share it.
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A content creator has people interested in their content because people like the game and play it. Without the customers and the interest in the game the content creator has no viable content.
So while I can agree that a content creator is more valuable in immediate terms of marketing voice and reach… saying the actual customers of your service are unimportant is putting the cart before the horse.
The CMs have a great point that they are apple and orange comparisons because one is your actual targeted audience and the reason for the continued existence of the game and the other is basically unpaid marketing.
The point I’d make as to which is ESSENTIAL to a business would be that content creators didn’t really exist 30 years ago yet video games were still pretty successful and those days are the foundations of the video game industry today.
You don’t need content creators to have a successful video game, but you need customers.
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They do free advertising for the game that Blizzard can’t accomplish with even a million dollar budget.
In short: Yes, yes they are.
The only connection the community has with content creators is the money they pay so the CC’s can stare at a webcam all day and act badly.
Publicly withholding information given to CCs means this has already failed.
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Reread AndyB’s posts from yesterday
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It’s not actually about making anyone’s job easier, it’s about a mutually-beneficial relationship. Call it symbiosis.
I feel fairly familiar with this concept because I’m in news (I write online articles). I have a lot of local agencies that will send me press releases (that are sent to our news agency, but never the general public.)
IF they do a really good job, make it clean, nice, and include some great pics that they give us permission for, I am 100X more likely to do a write-up for my website. Why? Because it makes better content. It benefits my agency to have better content.
And they get all this lovely free advertising out of it. They get free exposure, they get proper info out there, they basically get access to our audience. It’s mutually beneficial. When they send me good stuff, I get better content for our site, they get exposure (which, better yet, is probably nicer than what they themselves could do–most of the local businesses I work with don’t have anyone on staff who could put together nice news articles like my news agency).
It’s the same here. They try to make it as convenient and as feasible as possible for the content creators to do OW-related content. This benefits the content creators because hey, they like having good source material for new content. But it also benefits blizzard because they have engaging content they themselves don’t have great ways of creating, and they have access to content creators’ audiences.
This isn’t about favoritism, it’s business. This is good business, built on making relationships. Trust me, in news, most of my job isn’t to watch stuff like a hawk and then report on it as fast as humanly possible. Sure, it happens sometimes, but that is rough reporting where a lot of mistakes are made. Most of my content is things people deliberately send to me, trying to get access to my audience, and that’s really not a bad thing.
I applaud Blizzard for working with content creators and trying to build those relationships. It really does show they value the community, even though NDA makes it all seem sort of “evil” somehow. Giving them time to prep content is good.
Should they communicate more with the community? Yes. But them communicating with content creators is a step in the right direction.
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And as I said, I can see the benefit when it contributes to a healthy community … but that isn’t what we have.
But is making that news go through basically other players and in the eyes of all the rest of the player base giving those people preferential treatment the RIGHT step to take after starving EVERYONE of information for years and an abysmal showing of promises VS delivering for 2 years?
I understand it’s beneficial for both parties. It’s important to look at what it looks like from the perspective of the rest of the playerbase though, especially right now where we’ve been “just wait!”-ed for weeks with nothing and now being given LESS for an event than we’ve ever been given before along with MORE promises that it’s just because there’s so much more coming if we’ll only be patient.
Like I said before, there’d be so much more understanding and excitement if we weren’t where we are today. Trying to pick up where we left off like 3 years ago when people were excited about new news isn’t the right move.
Them talking to content creators is better than nothing, but I don’t think it’s sending the right message or the right approach to the current situation.
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I’m not going to call anyone out specifically.
But the goal of a content creator is to get views, likes, and ultimately, attention. Because that’s how you make money on the internet.
Overwatch is a means to pursue that goal to get attention.
And there have been times when I would call the behavior of some content creators as more “childish” and less “professional”.
I’ll be curious to see if them being treated as professionals actually produces more professional behaviors.
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When they decided to censor McCree and told players to f off because muh feeling of the dev team it was obvious that they don’t care about the players.
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When you whitelist some content creators (like the ones that tell people to drown in legos), you are discriminating the accessibility and disseminability of your live-service.
You’re signalling that some people, - ones you especially like and will mouthpiece for you - are just worth more than others.
No. We benefit when there is no cherry-picked inclusion process. We benefit when content is grown bottom-up by having a good product and letting natural hype/uploads percolate the space.
That is shadow marketing and it’s predatory. You’re artificially controlling the sphere of influence. That borders on conflict-of-interest and anti-trust.
That is so corporate. It’s not natural, it’s forced.
The community wants to cancel half of those guys, and wants to see new blood fresh faces. We also want a transparent selection/partnership process that is open to all.
Enough with the rich getting richer. We are all “trusted partners” by buying the game and playing it.
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Yes, content creators are more important, that peasants.
As long as you do not have trust fund with multiple zeroes, or huge subscriber count, for Blizzard you are not a partner, merely a pleb, that was allowed to touch “greatness” that is Blizzard game. Because you have nothing to offer to them, besides your meager penny for their game.
Clown knows a lot about entertaining people, but knows nothing about making proper game. It’s like asking professional singer, how to make a good song - they only sing songs, that were written by someone else.
So you effectively prevent competition by protecting “privileged partners”, so no new faces can emerge. I am no PR manager, but isn’t your goal entirely opposite, to have more streamers and other “influencers” shine light on your game, not less?
I wonder, if some of Blizzard employess will try to earn some extra cash by leaking info to content creators outside of this “closed circle”. Hope it happens, as it would undermine “partners” monopoly on early access to it and break this cabal of conspirators.
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apparently yes according to blizzard
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Guy is partner with Florida mayhem overwatch league and he roasted the company and dry humped it.
Wait…
You want to fire an entire PR department because of the heresay of one streamer and Blizzard’s reputation in a time of sexual assault scandals and consistent delays?
I think business leaders get a lot of stick for being “evil” (for instance, making an event team redundant when they had no events was seen as evil for some reason) but wouldn’t it be nonsensical and equally evil to end a large group of people’s livelihood for these reasons?
Do you think PR are responsible for timelines or the conduct of members of the the management?
Why on earth would you fire them?
Also, in the real world, ALL PR departments agree on comms beforehand and don’t say anything outside of what’s agreed.
Senior leaders sometimes circumvent that - which is clearly what Jeff did. This isn’t exclusive to Blizzard and anyone with real life experience knows this.
No, you are not.
You are criticizing completely common practice and calling it a cabal of conspirators.
If you look at it from a content creators perspective, they have build a community around and contributed to a game through all the lack of content and hardships. They should be rewarded for this extremely hard work and persistence by being brought closer into the circle.
If someone new puts in the same effort to build a large community, I’m sure the door will open. If they don’t, why should they be given a freebie?
It’s how they would lose that “community” they built, by isolating themselves with their privileges.
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Well that won’t happen. It’s standard practice.
Then let me ask something that is tied to this whole financial interest thing.
People who has a financial interest in something, needs extra attention from devs.
Ok that is completely fair (as annoying as it is when the rest gets literally nothing).
But why do these people have the rights, to directly influence hero balance through dev discords, when in some cases, it is crystal clear that their livelyhood is depending on certain heroes being broken or kept garbage?
As an example a hitscan DPS streamer will always advocate for changes that makes them able to provide better content for his/her viewers and will desperately try to make “residentsleeper” characters as unviable as possible.
9 out of 10 content creator would want Brig gone from their matches entirely (that is why to this day, they are complaining about her), while wanting Ana in their matches for sick skillshots (dosnt matter to them how big the gap is between Ana and the second best support pickrate already). Fix Brig so she is usable in lower ranks without a PHD (just look at her pickrate for gods sake), and revert Mercy to Mass rez version with line of sight and casting time requirements btw.
When is the average players chance to influence balance directly? Those who would do it out of passion and not financial interest? There are a hell of a lot players out here on the forums, who could easily come up with way more detailed, balanced and FUN to use (for every single hero) card, than any content creator ever could.
Why? Because our focus is to make every hero fun to use and not providing an environment that is fun to watch at all cost or make heroes fun to play against.
As for these recent content creator cards, the problem with them is that even though there are some genuinely good and balanced ideas out there (that is not the Cassidy air roll btw), it cannot be properly tested, because the card itself is otherwise full of “omegalul” changes.
And if it is communicated as a joke only, then make sure to not add hidden genuine balance changes in it,because thats how unnecessary drama starts, and it is all because we dont know which one is the trojan horse.
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Isn’t it obvious? Because otherwise they may simply leave. And unlike pleb, they have a lot more “weight” - their fans would follow them to different game.
If push comes to shove, Blizzard would probably even bribe them directly, just so they would stay.
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