this has nothing to do with the lay offs what I am saying. You really don’t get it.
Oh, sorry for assuming it was about lay offs in a thread about lay offs. Anyway, once again, they don’t have to appease us. And 90% of the time if they did it would result in really stupidly broken stuff in the game.
You truly don’t understand what I am talking about. You take things to the extreme and don’t actually use critical thinking when reading what I say.
I don’t think there’s any real arguing the fact that they don’t care about communication with customers. Hell, the developers never even post on their own forums, and whenever they do a stream, they hand-pick certain questions while ignoring all the hot-button ones that people actually want answers to.
Of course, that was all tolerable so long as the big, cold, corporate machine was churning out content and updates that were worth my money. Now, however, the content/updates suck and I’m more awestruck than ever at how slowly they’re released.
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I heard Elder Scrolls Online is just getting better and better, and they keep giving the players what they want from the franchise.
“You want Summerset Isles? Here’s the isles.
You want Elsweyr? Here’s Elsweyr.
You want werewolves and vampires? YOU CAN BE THOSE NOW
You want dragons? HAVE SOME DRAGONS.”
I’m waiting for a free weekend trial or something so I can dip my toes in and see how I like it.
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Same.
Bonfire and any future companies originating from previous Blizzard employees will have my full attention.
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I’ve heard the same. My biggest hang up is that I really want a “co-op” mode for an Elder Scrolls game. And am just salty enough that I stubbornly refuse to try out their mmo XD
This.
Customer relations may not directly impact the bottom line, but it’s a necessary investment. Treat your customers like you value them and they will create value for your company.
This is such a bone-headed misstep, especially when players have already felt unheard for years.
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aye. They are even adding necromancers.
Really the only highly requested thing they haven’t done so far that I can see is an expansion on the cyrodiil pvp zone or a new pvp zone.
Exactly. Rule 1 of game design. Design the game your players want to play, not the one you want to play.
Ignoring your players is the exact opposite of what you want to do. It reminds me of SOE just before WoW came out. Couldn’t be bothered. We all know how that went.
I’m just taking this one step further. Laying off people for profit is not what I want from the “best” mmo publisher. You’re GAME DESIGNERS! Design a better business model.
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If I were to take a look from a game dev perspective mixed with company/stockholders drama, it would be that they cut expendable jobs that don’t require skills directly related to game design, to hire actual game developers. Yes it’s true that they could have cut their own salaries or just not force the ‘profit’ increase margin to satisfy shareholders, but who are they to care for the next person they may not know personally.
While the business practice of layoff and rehire for a lower position and pay is a terrible business practice, they’ve done it only to those that don’t really have a skill set for the job industry of the future. Like some say, being a CM is like reading forums, interacting with players, pulling crucial feedback out, consolidating it and handing it over to the people to deal with. Most people in the forum here do have more views (probably padded from scrolling) and could more or less know as much as a CM does from reading. Does it sound like a skilled job? No.
Same goes for game masters, who follow the written textbook to deal with problems or just send it to the next level superior. Not very difficult either after you memorize the book, again another thing that doesn’t require a skill.
2019, jobs are increasingly demanding skills, while some of the more trivial jobs are automated by AIs, machine learning and better design/coding. A good example would be item restoration, which used to require an audience with a GM via chat or ticket to deal with, now sends you to a page to just find and tick off what you’re missing yourself.
It sucks but honestly, these people that lost jobs didn’t learn a new skill to stay in the industry, and got the short end. They may or may not return as a different job or with lower pay, but I hope its a wake up call that they’re expendable until they get a job that requires more skills.
While creative freedom for devs to make what they want is certainly true and should be what dev strive for when making their games we need to keep in mind this isn’t their game. They inherited it from its’ creators. The game had an established audience when they came in and took control. they should be catering to that audience because they bought this game and gave it the success it had. They made it known across the world.
We need to remind the dev team this isn’t their game. As it stands they are abusing their privilege to work on the game. They don’t view the playerbase with the authority that it should have.
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Is op 7yrs old or someone that has never had a career past mcdonalds?
ya that was 2012 we in 2019 now blizzard already lost some their games like heart stone… overwatch isnot popular anymore. there is plenty games tbh but we just gotta go there and try… I got only 20 days left and am done
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Blizzard right now are like spoiled children that think they are invincible. We need to be the parents and take away their toys until they learn their lesson.
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They also said that every one of their IPs is going to be mobile, and some of their best developers are working on those, so don’t expect that the investment into the development side means anything to do with PC games.
Bobby Kotick has always been a greedy sociopath. Stories from back in the 90’s tell us that he hasn’t changed at all. EA is bad, but he’s worse and much better at covering his tracks. Did you know that he’s been CEO of Activision since 1991? Did you know that during the Great Recession he brought in managers from the canning industry to push numbers and KPIs over gameplay quality?
Did you know that he bragged about using fear of unemployment during a recession to pay people less, and pushed company-wide crunch time to get more hours per dollar out of developers while, at the same time, holding back pay raises for everyone but himself and upper management?
He actually has a well known history of screwing over independent contractors in fashion similar to Donald Trump. Only he used to quietly declare bankruptcy while never paying, instead of loudly refusing to pay.
He’s the biggest d-bag in the game industry. The #2 spot is so far behind him we’ll have to self-reflect to figure out who they are after he goes away.
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It sounds like there needs to be an intervention. This is why I advocate for the establishment for a worldwide government that represents the gamers of the world and who’s sole purpose is to keep game publishers and studios in line. If they get too greedy they get punished.
I logged on just to agree with this. They focus on development, which many gamers requested, and we then whine when they need to fire 8% to increase development by 20%. Lastly, all companies are cutting customer service and support staff as technology and centralization makes a lot of those positions unneeded. Lastly, a Publicly traded company must consider it shareholders. Or, the company goes out of business and they fire 100% of their staff and the gamer gets no games
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Contrary to whatever these companies believe technology isn’t advanced enough to do this.
The evidence especially in regards to WoW is quite clear.
“I love WoW so much. I want to play it every day and hope it goes on forever”
If that was said in game and 5+ people reported it the player would be auto kicked out of the game and silenced for 3 days.
Machines are not capable of performing the necessary functions for proper customer support and communication.