Streamers are detrimental to WoW part 2

Community General Discussion
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Don’t read the title and start writing. I’m not some toxic ranter or some hardass. Just a dude who wants to brainstorm like big boys. There are multiple sides to this, no it’s not simple and black or white. Also assumr streamer/youtuber are interchangeable here. Content creators basically

I made a thread a year or so back that was very productive, and i figured I’d rebroach the subject. A thread for when WoW was doing badly, and one for now where things are better than ever, and the argument stands in both cases.

Basically, in my opinion, streamers are a funnelled voice to developers, very loud, very impactful. It makes sense on the surface: someone with millions of followers who play the same game would be a smart locus of info and feedback for developers, right? Dead wrong. Let me try to explain why.

  1. A stream, or a comment section aren’t filled entirely by people who play the game. In-fact, i’d say it’s split. This pollutes the opinion.

  2. Followers of streamers tend to echochamber the streamers opinions. You would be hard pressed to find an opposing voice in chat, even if there was, it would be drowned out by the tide. This pollutes the opinion.

  3. An opinion that has direct ties to monetary gain is dangerous. When WoW is doing badly, the wind blows that way viewership wise. When it’s doing well, the same. You become unable to seperate streamer from streamer, let alone streamer to follower from the general mood of the game rather than an actual evaluation of which systems are doing well and which aren’t.

Those are 3 major points i can think of off the top of my head. Basically, the loudest voice is NOT the majority opinion, number or followers or not. It’s simply the top of the pot, and is a terrible place to take development feedback from. How can you ensure quality development when your “best” source of feedback is one millionaire with a horde of 16 year old followers in an echochamber who don’t represent the actual wow playerbase? In the end, its the day to day players fault for not being outspoken about it.

The solution: we need an INGAME method of polling, the most similar successful example i can pull from would be runescape. A way of polling from players who don’t go to the forums, where the loud and upset drown out the majority, and who don’t pay attention to streams. That’s where the meat of your players are. Otherwise, you’ll keep rubberbanding from amazing to terrible. Arent you sick of that development cycle? Good to bad straight shot? Ever wonder why that is? Because you’re scooping out the middle. You’re forgetting the grey area. And blizzard needs to start polling the quiet majority so we can truly see an enjoyable future. One even better than we have now

TLDR; loud, inaccurate voices on forums and influential people are drowning out the majority of the quiet playerbase, and to access them, bring the options TO them ingame, otherwise the loud and upset will exit the game to make their opinions known, and the rest will do nothing but complain only when it’s too late. This is preventative.

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the community council was supposed to be a tool to include/reach more areas of the community much in the same way you would like to see expanded upon…but streamers are still their advertisers…money talks i guess.

it can be concerning, because some of these streamers are more entitled & full of horrible ideas than even the scrubbiest loudmouth we often see on social media…it has felt like blizzard considers them before the majority of the community sometimes…but i think this has def changed as of the end of SL. :100:

I agree though - i think OSRS does it right…but they have a smaller, cult-like community of like minded players…WoW is all over the place…it’s gotta be hard to try and appeal to everyone in such a diverse community like this :nerd_face:

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True, i know it’s near impossible to appeal to everyone. But i think everyone is on board that we shouldn’t be appealing to a minority of players who may or not be playing. Who may or may not be just on a chat train on a stream. Who may or may not be forums ranting. Most players don’t function like that and we need to start feeding blizzard those opinions.

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you are giving content creators more credit then they are worth

activision blizzards decisions, as any billion dollar companies decisions, follows the money.

they will always do what gets them the most money.
if making the most money currently align with said content creators ideas they will do it.
if doing the opposite thing of what the content creators want will get them more money they will do that.

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This whole anti-streamer thing is so sad and boring.

Just a massive shizo rant based off assumptions. Do you really think someone like Asmon has Ion’s ear? Do you think SL would be even half as bad if they listened to most streamers and players from the start? Korthia and the covenants would be almost nothing like what we got.

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I dunno. With more and more interviews from developers being conducted with content creators, devs themselves stating they’re frequent viewers and content creators themselves LITERALLY talking directly to the developers in videos as if they’re watching. I think you’re underestimating the connection between the two

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Blizzard can still use streamers feedback as an excuse for overall negative features.

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Considering Ion has joined asmon streams for an interview like twice now i think? Yes. Make no mistake streamers can have opinions that align with player interests but just because we got something good, or got something wrong, doesn’t mean it can’t be even better? What if the feedback was taken from what actual players think day to day, I’m looking at what could be. It could’ve been even better. It can be

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content creators are the new tv commercial

streamers/youtubers are glorified talking ads

interview with a content creator is just a way for any company to market their product

get with the times old man

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Get a hobby, man.

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I’m literally 23 no need to start being toxic we’re all just chatting. Yes it’s a marketing tactic but you’re not worried a few agreeable devs start to implement changes based off of what bellular thinks? What asmon thinks? Not what we the players want and think should happen?

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How could it not happen? Bellular and Asmon are more important to Blizzard than you and me are, because of the marketing impact they have. If you’re an influential streamer, well you know, you have influence. I know everyone hates that streamers have an influence, but they have an audience, and so they have an influence that is outsized compared to the average player. Just how the world works.

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This is because streamers put their real life bodies and voices online and people on the internet are crazy. If they say the same thing as everyone else, it’s safer for them. They won’t be the only one expressing a unique opinion that makes some viewers hate them and cuts out a source of their revenue.

Additionally, people can independently come up with the same idea or opinion, especially when presented with the same stimulus (WoW).

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I’m not on that train that hates streamers. I watch a couple here and there it’s great second monitor content.

My issue is where you have the potential for influence pushing for changes that people don’t want. “But, streamers have a big following, don’t you think that’s BECAUSE what they say is in-line with the community?” God no. They’re often, not always echochambers of scrambling for attention, big headlines for marketing. You’re telling me the guild groups raiding heroic, your moonguard RPs, your pvp friends, the achievement hunters, the pick your group are being outspoken about what they want? God no, they’re not given the chance with all the noise.

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When streamers, example Bellular, start talking about firing customers (that companies should be able to do that) that to me is detrimental to the health of gaming itself.

I frankly don’t care what he was talking about that was automatically off putting to me and I will no longer watch his content and I thank God I never subbed to him.

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10characters

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Yes, it’s true what you say, but their influence is a fact. It’s very real. It’s distorted, but it is what it is. Gaming companies are very concerned about the leading streamers of their games and what they think, this is an issue across the board not just in WoW. They have an audience so they have influence, whether it is distorted or not – so Blizzard (and other companies) pay attention because of the sheer influence.

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He’s been interviewed by a lot of streamers.

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8 posts on the forums over three years isn’t a hobby. Not one like yours, a boy so insecure that he can’t entertain discussion on something he can’t agree on. Get over yourself, narcissism is so 2000s.

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I’ll take it over quivering in fear at the sight of Asmongold. As I said, this whole anti-streamer thing is cringe.

Have fun with your little rant, kid.

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