New Aaron Keller Interview

[MamaHong-1462]

@Dasaries-11327

Yes, Map packs behind a paywall.

no plz no, that kind of thing just creates massive playerbase segregation

[Marcane-11355]

@QuakMcCree-1976

BRUH!
Humans, human beings, people, mammals, individuals, “H. (full word is forbidden to use ) sapiens”… all the same thing. I would be concerned if he had called them “monkeys” though, since it is inaccurate, to say at least.

Watch the Netflix movie “Next Gen,” to know what in the world I’m talking about. All you need is Netflix, type the name of the film in, and watch it. You’ll see my perspective when the movie hits the part before the end of the movie. To try to keep it OW related, Aaron’s (I think) first task at his new job/position: Mei skin for Mei Melee (pun intended). The skin is ok. It does it’s job. Not super impressive or anything. (As others argue with me that it’s the ugliest skin in the game, when I wanna compare it to something like Lightning Tracer or something, but am realistically not in the mood to pick a fight with somebody, and kinda don’t wanna)

[JediLegend-1734]

Yeah. I still wish it would happen though. I wasn’t playing back in those days, so I only have youtube videos to see what it was like.

[Chiana-21849]

@Dysvalence-1915

He gets directly asked if he’s gonna protect the game from Actibli$$ion’s grubby fingers and he dodges the question. Really inspires confidence about the profitability future of the game.

There’s protecting and there’s holding the game back. The dev’s take a year to plan and make skins while other games do it faster. They also take too long to address balance issues of maps and characters. And things like Bridget somehow make it out of beta in massively broken states showing how awful their QA/etc is.

The game needs a lot improvements in how its handled and I hope the guy brings some of those needed changes about. Jeff was keeping OW in this stagnant state and likely was the one to put OW1 into maintenance mode.

At first i was concerned with Jeff leaving… but now I think I’m going to be open minded about this new dude, because I know how poorly Jeff ran the game so far.

[Devils-1895]

@NJghost222-1224

@PlumpyVegan-1865

More independent than how? They’ve always had a big conglomerate overseeing them.

They had Morhaine there? Big deal. He always had to answer to the corporation that owned them.

Try again.

Ok how about this. Since the Activision merger, the Activision has systematically replaced upper management in multiple departments.

At one point in time, Blizzard had a lot of autonomy. Where developers made games for gamers with a high focus on quality.

Over time, Activision has changed the culture at Blizzard HQ. First with the many changes as noted above, but then by changing how things are done internally. For example, in game dev meetings, it is now common for sales and marketing to be part of the meetings influencing design decisions, pushing corporate agendas.

Used to be, make good games for gamers and people will buy them. Now, it’s market games for certain target sales to appease share holders, disregard quality.

Note in the last couple of years or so the mentions of making mobile games for each IP of Blizzard coming up regularly.

“Don’t you have phones?!”

Rumor has it that Jeff leaving wasn’t amicable. He was forced out over direction of OW2. Note in the interview when asked how long he knew about Jeff’s departure. Aaron completely side stepped the question and gave an answer that never addressed it. Talking up what he had basically already said in the interview, almost like there were corporate notes provided…

I wouldn’t be surprised if there were PR reps that were present for the interview.

Knowing a few people who work there, I can say that their stress levels have increased steadily and that they don’t talk about working at Blizzard the same way any longer.

There is no rumor to this except for the forum rumors who might as well be random people makin stuff up

As for upper staff leaving over the past decade… yes people retire. That is sort of how it works

Activision is nothing more than a boogieman for people to use to blame everything they do not like on. It basically serves the same function for people as OWL.

[NJghost222-1224]

@Devils-1895

As for upper staff leaving over the past decade… yes people retire. That is sort of how it works

Activision is nothing more than a boogieman for people to use to blame everything they do not like on. It basically serves the same function for people as OWL.

Except many of those people DIDN’T retire. They went off to other game studios or formed their own studio.

And I know for a FACT that Activision has enforced a change of culture over at Blizzard HQ. And the changes haven’t been…positive.

[UnusualMeats-1146]

@Dasaries-11327

4 ) Pink Mercy should be a YEARLY fund raiser for cancer research.

i think they should do different skins every year if they do something like this. the same skin for the next 5 years will be quite boring imo

[Devils-1895]

@NJghost222-1224

@Devils-1895

As for upper staff leaving over the past decade… yes people retire. That is sort of how it works

Activision is nothing more than a boogieman for people to use to blame everything they do not like on. It basically serves the same function for people as OWL.

Except many of those people DIDN’T retire. They went off to other game studios or formed their own studio.

And I know for a FACT that Activision has enforced a change of culture over at Blizzard HQ. And the changes haven’t been…positive.

Yes that is quite literally also very common. Very rarely do people stay with a company for 25+ years especially in the games industry. There is burnout. There are people who want to build new things. The Games industry is an industry where on any application a guy may have worked 3-4 different companies in 7-8 years and still be considered a great hire. Your “evidence” is not evidence. Its explaining that Blizzard has the same turnover that literally every company does.

Also calling something a fact does not make it so. You have zero evidence. I could say I know for a fact that you consume the souls of the dead to survive and I would have provided the same evidence as you did (guess what game I was playing earlier).

Blizzard is still doing the same things that drive me crazy but also that I respect them for. There are things I wish Activision would get more involved in. For example not having the philosophy of “lets just stop releasing extra content because we plan on releasing a new game but we keep delaying that new game to make it perfect so the content drought goes longer and longer with end in sight and then eventually we will release a game that is good and you will have 1-2 happy years before we repeat this cycle” THEY DID THIS MORE THAN ONCE (in fact they have literally been doing it for over 15 bloody years with every bloody franchise). If Activision had half the influence people here claim they do, then they would have jumped in and been like “release some stuff to keep the numbers up” rather than letting the draught drag on.

[NJghost222-1224]

@Devils-1895

Also calling something a fact does not make it so. You have zero evidence. I could say I know for a fact that you consume the souls of the dead to survive and I would have provided the same evidence as you did (guess what game I was playing earlier).

At this point I do t care if you or anyone else believes me. I know what I know and can’t divulge from whom I know it from inside the company.

I know, internet being what it is and all, how that can come across. Yet, for me, I know what the truth is. Heck, I wish I could say half of what I know about stuff that goes on behind the scenes. Some stuff would freak people the heck out. Some stuff would run in direct opposition to many things people have said or continue to say about employees there or how / why the company has said and done some things.