I’ve been playing WOW since February 2005, and I’ve never felt so disconnected from the game as I do now.
To start my presentation, I would like to make some important points. I worked for years as a data analyst, I had experience in a mobile games company that came out of nowhere to be a unicorn worth a few billion dollars in the market today.
I quote this experience to say that my intentions dont come from a place of complete innocence about this market.
Anyone who has experience in this market knows that the mechanisms of WOW , are designed so that the player has maximum engagement in the game, and engagement in the context of those who elaborate this type of experience has nothing to do with fun.
I know a lot of people in this forum firmly believe that the developers have some kind of emotional involvement with the story they got their hands on. But the truth is that in this market, a company that has this type of behavior really cares about only one thing: profits.
Everything is done to maximize the user’s addiction, and therefore get him to spend real money on the game and MAU. The way the story develops is of little relevance, the players’ wishes are totally irrelevant.
In my experience working in companies with this philosophy, the work environment is toxic to say the least. So I’m not surprised by all the scandals involving Blizzard lately.
This model of game company imported from Asia, seems to me deeply sick and doomed to failure. And I think an important portion of the gaming community has begun to understand that predatory super-profit corporate practices are turning game franchises into skeletons of what they once were.
One of the aspects that lead this business model to fail in the West is the fact that its user exploitation practices are so evident that at a certain point the player ends up becoming aware that he is being harmed, especially when this company in the past had a different policy, and he/she has ways of comparing the past and the present.
After this exposure, I think it became clear to whom I address: the WOW community. I have little hope for a dialogue with the developers of this game, in a way I think it’s almost unfathomable to expect any change from them.
But despite all the problems our community has always had, I still think WOW has one of the most interesting gaming communities in the world, and I think we spend too much time discussing what Blizzard wants us to discuss, like its recent policy of censorship.
To me this is a reflection of how much we have lost the ability to articulate and vocalize our desires. And as my limited English made clear, I am not an American. And I see with sadness how much it seems that you seem to have lost the ability to articulate to fight the interests of the powerful as in the past.
I think I speak for many when I say that WOW is not just another game. I understand it as a hobby and as a defining part of who I am. I tried many times to quit game because of his current status , and I try to be interested in other games. But for some reason beyond my conscience, I never did. I even came to the realization that I don’t like video games, I like World of Warcraft.
I come from a culture where people have a body cult and preffer outdoor activities. And for many years, I tried to hide my passion for WOW. But today when people ask me what I like to do in my spare time, I always openly say that I love reading philosophy and playing WOW. Even though people look at me with a certain contempt for liking a game, I’m not ashamed anymore.
I’m not ashamed to miss going out on a Saturday because I’m in a discord talking about orc or kaldorei lore with a person who lives in another country and I’ve never seen his face.
I’ve met amazing people throughout my WOW journey, people from different cultures, different personalities. Knowing at least the basics of 4 languages helped me on this journey. But I could see over these 16 years how people who play WOW are much more similar than they imagine.
I could see how there is something more homogeneous that binds us all together than I initially imagined, and that is the passion for fantasy. People who love fantasy have always been somehow treated as weird by their peers. And having today a tool that takes our trait to the extreme is what WOW has always been until some time ago without parallels in the history of the industry.
That’s why part of my narrative also has to do with the fact that I seek to praise people who share this hobby with me. And that although this company sees us as silly nerds ready to give their money because we don’t have an interesting life, we unlike them are not ashamed to like what we like, and certainly unlike them we would not be ashamed to get involved in the development of this game with real passion.
In my country we have a saying: This is done to impress Brits. Which means that an action has no real intention, it is merely a distraction so that real results dont happen, and that´’s part of the political practice of doing nothing but creating in people the impression that something is being done.
To me Blizzard’s actions recently after the lawsuit accurately denote the fable of the man who dreamed of marrying Beyoncé. He didn’t quite know how to do this, so to start putting his plan into practice he decided to seduce the postman, because at least he was doing something. Acting for acting does not lead to better results. And for me this is the big problem.
What will really change everything in my opinion, and this is the point I would like to make, is the unity of the community around some topics. To start with, I think we should seriously think about demanding the participation of community representatives in Blizzard decisions. I think we’re adult enough, and we have the ability to overcome our narcissism to the point of appointing people to bring our issues to the company.
I think it is imperative for the company to clarify its policy of allowing all types of carrys. Blizzard needs to go public and say why it doesn’t act more harshly on these people. And we have to demand answers now!
Blizzard needs to go public and tell us why 95% of the game’s content is abandoned, and why even though I know a group of 7 people from a private server who did a revamp in Kalimdor and Eastern Kingdoms in less than 1 year, Why doesn’t Blizzard do the same? Because she always tells us that it would cost raid tiers, and new contents, and those same 7 people created thousands of new quests, contents and new factions with reputations.
I demand to know and I’m sure most do too, why are 7 people more competent than a multi-billion dollar company at creating more content in less than 1 year?
Why do you think compartmentalizing our in-game experience is better than having an experience where the world is the protagonist?
Why do kaldorei fans have to be living on the streets of Stormwind for over 3 years ? Why have forsaken fans had the lore of their race utterly destroyed, and their leader portrayed as a crazy psychopath, and why does every powerful woman in WOW turn out to be a freak? I’ll confess that as a black person, I’m grateful that my minority doesn’t have characters to represent them in WOW, based on the way Blizzard represents powerful women where every time they go Daeeeeeeenerys Jenkins I would hate to see the same being done with a character that it was black.
I thought about these questions in 5 minutes, and anyone who gives their opinion is free to ask their own questions or even disagree with the nature of my topic.
But I would like to close by saying something, I would truly like to know, why Blizzard doesn’t talk to us. And why do we let this happen?