Yeah unfortunately, based on some of the things he’s said, it kinda sounds like Jeff’s role in Overwatch development has majorly scaled back. He’s indicated a few times that he hasn’t really been as heavily involved as he was
Oh? Admittedly, I haven’t been watching the longer interviews Jeff’s been doing with streamers and youtubers, but I hadn’t heard anything about this. Do you have any specific examples in mind that talk about this sort of thing?
Can you tell me what ATVI is pursuing that’s exploitative? I have tons of shares in ATVI and even sold tons of shares. Curious as to know what you think they are exploiting.
While you could argue that lootboxes in general are exploitative, I tend to consider OW’s to be the best possible implementation (i.e. purely cosmetic, not providing any in-game benefit, able to be earned by playing the game).
Some might not have the same opinion, though.
But yeah ‘exploitative’ was a pretty hyperbolic word choice. I highly doubt Blizzard would go down that road when it comes to the mobile Diablo game, but mobile games in general seem to be little more than window dressing on some of the most predatory microtransactions in the industry more often than not so I’m at least concerned about the possibility.
If you look at the blizz/dev tracker he states he doesn’t really have the freedom to implement things into the game like he used too, and he misses it. He’s worked on games with non directing roles. I think he may have coded WoW in the super early days of development. So he has the skill and ability to code the game, but someone/something isn’t giving him the ability to. I mean, he is a Director of the game. I don’t think directors directly implement what happens in the game, the direct it.
Best to get off the sinking ship now.
I guess what I’d like to know whether it’s just that Jeff isn’t coding/programming things in the game, or if his role has been “majorly scaled back” as another comment said.
From what I could glean after looking at a few months worth of Jeff’s replies here on the forums, it sounds like he’s still very much involved in directing the game. As long as that’s the case, I’m happy. I think it’d be cool if he rolled up his sleeves and got his hands dirty with some programming, but I’m more concerned about the bigger picture and the overall direction of the game, which seems to be Jeff’s role.
I really don’t have much to say on this other then it’s sad. Seeing people who tried to make the game as good as they could get laid off is very upsetting and it shows who really runs the show and pulls the strings.