Has anyone ever noticed that compared to other game studios, and or developer teams — Overwatch’s developers seem to not really like their community?
I mean, don’t get me wrong. I don’t blame them for not wanting to interact with some people, due to how toxic the community has become. But, isn’t it still apart of their job to have some form of basic interaction(s) with folks? And no, I don’t mean posting foot fetish meme videos on Twitter. I mean actually engaging in discussion(s) with the community.
Like case in point, take Warframe. Their developers stream regularly (damn near daily), have frequent Q and A’s, regularly talk about changes in the works (and why), do giveaways of free platinum (in-game currency) along with other things, etc. They just show their community that they are appreciative for their community, and that they care. You know? They engage with you, as if you matter. The OW team…? You might get a video talking about balance changes here and there, but that’s about it.
And there’s so many more examples I can provide to developer teams showing their community that they genuinely care about them. And that they aren’t just another potential buyer of their product(s). Like just the other day, one of the devs apart of the No Man’s Sky team made the news for helping a fan fix/restore a save of 600-something hours. They didn’t have to do that, but still. They did. And the reason that they gave, was so awesome. And shows that they care.
Again, I can provide tons of examples, but one thing I’m noticing is just how much the developers don’t interact with their community here. And I know it’s the player base’s fault, but still. The only way you’re going to fix it, is by engaging with your community. Genuinely understanding the people’s frustration(s) with your product. And then working with them to come to a resolution. Not this nonsense that has been going on for as long as it has been now. Which honestly says a lot about how they view the community.
10 Likes
I think Warframe is an outlier, but I don’t play many other live service games
Nah, there’s a LOT of game developers out there that frequently engage with their communities. Both western and eastern developer teams, they show a ton of love and interactions with their fans on a regular basis. Like to the point where you can join their Discord server (of the game), and speak with them about their game and other things relating to it.
And that’s really interesting, because I myself didn’t really know such a thing existed until I observed it firsthand. With Warframe being the first one I saw be so interactive and engaging with their community, which lead me to wondering about other teams. And yeah. Sure enough, there’s a lot. Across multiple game genres.
3 Likes
They give us behind the scenes (it’s about all we get) and rundowns explaining stuff. They talk to streamers, do interviews every so often.
They could be way more quiet.
And I know where you’re coming from, I play plenty of steam games. With a discord link, where you can talk to devs if you’re on at the right time. But they have less traffic happening. And I’m sure it’s still annoying(atleast) for a good chunk of them.
We both know there are people who would just send paragraphs on why (this hero) is broken. Not anything to deal with it, just that they have 58 reasons to tell you why that thing is bad.
That is like the bare minimum, and very sad to see such a thing defended. Because that tells me that folks have become so conditioned to such behavior, that it is normalized. And it shouldn’t be.
“Lacking” implies that there is something in the first place. This feels more like community and devs talking past each other right now.
1 Like
Thats becaise blizz doesnt actually DO anything
They shuffle the damage and CD timers by 1 and call it a workday
1 Like
Many years ago, the game director and dev personnel use to interact regularly here and on other social media platforms. There was a negative incident where Blizzard had to formally apologize for something said by a developer. Shortly thereafter, the dev team stopped posting altogether and only the community management team posted here.
Suspect this was due to the incident and a corporate mandate restricting interaction to avoid future incidents. Blizzard as a whole has moved to more controlled interaction, like streams, videos, and interviews with friendly streamers.
Recently, community management postings have dropped off here as well. I suspect this is due to cuts to the team earlier this year.
5 Likes
the community here sucks anyways, why would anyone want to interact with you all?
4 Likes
This is not a valid reason to avoid communicating with your community. Unless you go radio silent and cook up a beast of an update (AKA the No Man’s Sky’s dev’s approach), all that remains is shameless promotion of battle passes and shop skins, which they absolutely deserved to be thrashed for.
I think they would actually get flamed less if they explained there thoughts and genuinely listened to the general sentiment of the community. Not being able to block out excess noise in order to receive genuine feedback is a fault that will cripple them.
1 Like
Tennocon 2025 is still happening as far as I know. When was the last Blizzcon?
1 Like
I’ve never really understood the fascination with dev communication. Most players don’t really care. But for the few that do, I think blizzard does a pretty good job. Just the dev blog updates are even (in my opinion) a little too frequent. There just simply isn’t that much to discuss. Some of their posts seem redundant, or unnecessary.
1 Like
The same reason any dev wants to talk to you, for direct feedback.
They don’t need to reach out for that anymore. It’s just constant.
Pretty sure they are aware that an individual doesn’t reflect the whole community.
This is one of the rare unicorn cases for a AAA game that is successful and making money.
And yet, the devs have shown us time and again that they hate the players, hate the game and would prefer to kill it.
2 Likes
The last dev post here in the forum is from May 22, 2021
This is how little they care.
Their only strategy now is getting on the good side of the CCs to promote the game for them and do once a years Q&A on reddit.
2 Likes
I dunno as a software developer myself I would freaking hate to have to constantly talk to the public. Imagine if just doing your job meant trying to justify how you do it to millions of people every once in a while.
4 Likes
I believe they meant a community manager. I am not sure if we even have one anymore. They might have been laid off…
1 Like
No. Why would it be? No other engineering or design professionals are expected to regularly communicate with their end users on social media. Why should game developers be different? Doesn’t make sense.
There are developers out there who enjoy taking time to do this, and that’s cool. But they should be seen as the exception.
2 Likes
