With the creative and certainly financial freedom that Blizzard now has thanks to the acquisition by Microsoft, and now that the yatch man has finally been kicked out of being CEO. Can you now focus on the biggest problem with this game? THE BOTS, although they generate “income” for blizzard, I think they have lost more than they have gained due to the people who have stopped playing and the entry of new people due to this problem than the income they obtain from these bots, which We all know that most of them come from a specific country that I will not name.
The impression that Blizzard gives with World of Warcraft and the null intention of ending the problem of bots, only demonstrates to the world and to any video game and MMOS player that the game is completely corrupt and tainted by subscription money regardless. that this is dirty money that harms the well-being of the players.
Microsoft’s artificial intelligence cannot be less intelligent than these bots that move by clicking, please do something.
They absolutely don’t and it doesn’t take a whole lot of thought to understand why.
Let’s ignore the usual quotes from Blizzard since despite how much sense they make, people get triggered if you use them.
First of all, there is absolutely 0 reason for a botter or gold farmer to sub in a legitimate manner because it would cut into their profits. If they WERE subbing legitimately, and Blizzard WAS making money from them, it then be in Blizzard’s best interest to ban them as soon as possible, because that botter has already paid for that sub and Blizzard has already gotten their money, so banning them sooner would cause them to create a new account and sub again, making even more money. However, it clearly doesn’t work like this, and botters are not going to be spending money on bots that could be banned before any profit is made, so despite what people like to think, Blizzard is not making money off of bots, and is instead losing, due to charge-backs, stolen accounts, etc.
Bobby may be gone but his legacy continues since people that conformed to his way to doing things, including destroying the business model of Overwatch and driving a lot of its original players away, are still there.
The people who cared more about games and gamers like Kaplan and Morhaime are still gone and the people that replaced them are still who they are and going to do the things they do.
You see this also in the business models for D4 (yearly planned expansions so we pay way more for way less) and the new announced 3 expansions for WoW which may be less content for the same money we paid in the past.
No, banning them too quickly would cause many of them to stop even trying because it wouldn’t be cost effective for them anymore. If they bought a sub and got banned the next day, do you think they made $15 worth of gold in that first day? Even assuming they somehow made $15 worth of gold, you still have to consider that they are doing this as a means of income so unless they make more than the $15 in that time period, it’s still not worth it.
Blizzard and other types of game developers typically cite this, but people get fussy and claim it’s all lies because they have nothing better to reply with.
That could be why Blizzard waits a bit before banning bots. If I were them, I’d monitor them after already gathering data proving its a bot, keep track of where the gold goes, and then ban them after a while, ensuring the bot owner doesn’t figure out what set them off (I believe Blizzard already has Warden to automatically detect bots, but it doesn’t auto-ban unless its a previously established footprint), and then once banned, clean up the damage. You have to strike a balance between hindering their effect while also not helping them think of ways to get around detection.
The solution to the whole botting problem is to decrease the return on investment (ROI) by significantly raising the game’s subscription price. The more expensive the game is, the more painful it will be to purchase droves of replacement accounts as existing ones get banned. The game has been $15 per month for nearly two decades, and because of inflation, it’s less painful than ever before to simply purchase droves of bot accounts.
I’d say $30 - $35 per month would make a dent in the bot problem.
They cite it, but they don’t provide any actual data, right? Just to be clear.
If I were them, I’d place a lock on their account that prevents them from using the AH or trading with other players and just keep letting them farm stuff xD
If I had the money/know-how, I’d also create a hidden server with the same name as the one that they were playing on and I’d xfer their character to it and they’d keep farming on an empty server.
For the amount of time this would take, botters would just make a way to adjust accordingly within a day. This isn’t a solution, it’s a waste of time.
Is not being told that’s what happens enough? Does the data matter? They give us the data on how many bots are banned per month and people dismiss it immediately.
People aren’t going to accept evidence from Blizzard no matter what it is, because they all believe Blizzard fibs it anyway. They’ll accept information from suspect sources if it supports their belief, though.
I’ve had this long standing conspiracy that the bots are either somehow owned/operated by Blizzard/A rogue employee(s) or they pay blizzard a sizeable tax by creating new accounts/subs. Props up shareholder value in the long run.
Blizzard benefits in a very major way, I’d wager they get new bot account signups more often than real player signups. This is great for metrics.
We spend more money to develop new bot catching software, we hire more people to ban these bots and handle the increase in tickets requesting unbans.
Of course those banned accounts were paying us a monthly fee so our revenue will take a hit.
So…what do you think?"
Try pitching that to the execs and watch how fast you find yourself back on the job market.
And THAT ladies and gentleman is why the bot issue will NEVER be fixed.
They will continue to give the illusion that the bot issue is being “controlled” while not really doing much at all.
I know a lead dev at Blizz will see this post, nod his head and say “this guy gets it”. They can and never will publicly state this, but this is exactly the situation.
Except, it’s not. We’ve already covered how illogical it is to think Blizzard profits off bots, in this very thread. Blizzard loses money when you break it down logically.