After the hong kong controversy, a lot of people quit these games because no one wanted to support blizzard, understandably.
Im a bit inconsistent with what im saying right now, since even after what happened with blizzard I did continue playing these games. But not for long, its been quite a while since the last time i’ve played any blizzard game.
But my question right now is that, does simply playing a blizzard game support blizzard? Is being “active on their game server”? giving them money? because i’m somewhat hesistant to come back, and the new updates look kinda interesting. Forget buying anything with real money, because that one is obvious.
But how good is the game looking right now? Is it bad? Or is it better?
Eh some what, depends on what you mean by “support”. Do they earn money? Most likely not unless you actually buying loot boxes and skins still despite the fact so few come out you should never have to buy them if you play the game.
On one hand playing their game does support them in that it boost their active player numbers, gives other people some one to play against and helps their metrics. On the other hand you using their servers cost them money.
So more or likely no, not really if you already own the game. Continuing to play it is at best neutral imo.
Already has in select games. I think it was Street fighter or Mortal Kombat that had advertisements on the back ground of matches and/or character skins… Something you had to pay to have removed.
Oh and many many mobile games have that “watch an ad to continue” thing. Basically every time you want a new life or just every 10 minutes or so it plays an ad so you can keep playing.
Yes and no, but Blizzard really doesn’t tell any one the player numbers, not even open investor calls. It’s not like steam were you see how many people are playing and affect sales that way.
That said if NO one played the game people might notice, but a few thousand here or there is swept under the rug. Mostly Blizzard flouts it’s streaming numbers to some how say the game is doing well… numbers been well known to be inflated by their whole 'afk to get tokens" policy.
Not directly but it allows them to say “we have X amount of players”.
It seems they care more about people watching their esports than anyone playing their games (at least in OW’s case) since they can get money from ads and sponsors in this way.
In a way it supports them. They are using active users in their fiscal reports, which in terms are read by investors which use the report to determine if they’re staying or not. So while you’re not directly paying, you’re making sure that Blizzard can show to some active user numbers that in terms can generate money.
Though personally I don’t care that much about that. What I’m not doing is buying Blizzard products any more. I might invest in OW2 now that it’s more or less guaranteed that the reign of Kotick is coming to an end and the age of Microsoft is fast approaching. While Kotick will still be onboard for some time, I think it won’t be long after that he’ll “retire”.
Most likely no however I do think it gives them a means of “support” in terms of their actions with how the game works or is being made. I imagine they take high player numbers as a sign of acceptance or approval. I see people complain about what overwatch 2 is going to be then say they’ll wait for pve. Which from what I understand is going to be paid content. I don’t think this will do anything to “teach blizzard a lesson” that overwatch 2 isn’t want people want if PVE is more played than PVP. It’ll just make them pull their interests from pvp. The best option is to just leave and not look back.
No, if you already bought the game many years ago, and don’t buy lootboxes, you’re just playing a server paid by someone else, or by Blizzard themselves, which is the same, in a way…
Playing the game does support the company yes, even if you don’t spend any money simply spending your time on it adding to the active player base is still supporting it.
Not the best video, nor one of the longer ones describing the issue… but as most of those like the old Jim Sterling one (back when he was funny) have too much swearing for this place =p
That was Street Fighter V, which didn’t have any offending ads. But, I actually hate the way the game plays, so I don’t touch it much, but there was/is product placement in one of the stages… A literal fighting ring with redbull plastered in the center, IIRC.
As for the actual ad that plays before the round, it’s usually something Street Fighter V related, begging users to buy character packs or something else that everyone playing the game already knows about…
Tekken 7 kinda did something similar. In the Arena stage, you see ads for events that came and passed… in 2017…
But, no, playing overwatch doesn’t help the game in a monetization sense. That’s why they’re making Overwatch 2, to begin with.
As far as the game goes, it’s kinda meh. So many smurfs flooded the game. Makes me wonder how the sequel will perform, when everyone has 4 different accounts to play on.
Just play the game if you want to play it. All this “vote with your wallet” stuff is really overblown and basically never works. The only way it works is with a coordinated group of human beings, and that just doesn’t happen. People are far too atomized at this point for that to be a viable solution.
Whether you support the company or not, it’s totally random whether other people join you. Under those conditions, there is really no point in obsessing over your contribution.
If you find them too morally corrupt to support, then don’t support them. But don’t make that choice with the expectation that you are actually accomplishing anything, because you aren’t. It’s more about how you feel on your end than actually affecting the company, which has millions of other players making their own individual choices, which you can’t impact at all.
Depends. Do you consider making queues worse and lowering player numbers to be better than putting additional strain on their servers? Each person is gonna have a different answer. Personally I’ve chosen to not play until there are signs of permanent change or if there’s something like PTRs that disproportionately benefits team 4 over actiblizzion corporate.
The end result is play if you have fun, don’t if you don’t. Boycotting stuff for various reasons is kind of stupid. Every company has some skeleton in their closet, something evil and disgusting they have done to a worker, to a customer or to the products themselves.
If you truly want to boycott every company that did something wrong… you’d be hard to find a company to buy anything from.
