Why do Blizzard deny this?

[Deleted]

When asked about strategically releasing information, patches, betas etc to counter other games, Blizzard deny it and say it's a co-incidence, and they have more important things to worry about.

I don't have a source on their exact quote, but it's so obvious. Wildstar released two days ago and OHH what a COINCIDENCE, alpha invites start rolling out.

[Abbzow]

They think they're ready to launch Beta...having it 2 days after Wildstar means nothing....
They could do it at the same day Wildstar was released, but nah.

[Tazila]

I personally don't find an alpha invite more inciting than a newly released game and I'm not even interested in wildstar.

I've seen what WoW early beta's look like... alpha seems terrifying to me.


That and they still have to adhere to their own personal time table. It's almost impossible for them to release a beta/alpha thing in some weird open time where another game isn't trying something big, be it a release or patch. If they waited around for their own private time, WoD would never be released.

[Terahertz]

Because they're not forced to admit it neither do they have to answer to anyone because of these things.

[Deleted]

i guess it looks bad if they say they do it to try and counter other releases, everyone knows its not a coincidence though.

[Deleted]

It's very obvious that Blizzard is trying to counter other games with patches/alpha/betas/expansions since they have done so in the past almost every time. They don't want to admit it because they don't want players to believe that they are ''scared'' of these other games.

[Bamboozles]

When asked about strategically releasing information, patches, betas etc to counter other games, Blizzard deny it and say it's a co-incidence, and they have more important things to worry about.

I don't have a source on their exact quote, but it's so obvious. Wildstar released two days ago and OHH what a COINCIDENCE, alpha invites start rolling out.

why does it matter to you what they admit to?

yes, it's a pretty clear marketing strategy. no, they don't have to admit it to you for some warped sense of gratification.

[noidentity]

Why is this always a shock to people?

It's business, competition releases something, Blizzard releases something themselves to distract.

[dusselldorf]

Maybe because it most certainly is a coincidence? We still have closed beta to get through before the actual game is launched. To think that they are altering the alpha release date because of another game is verging on paranoia. Moving the date for alpha release forward or back would affect the entire development process and end up in unnecessary delays, something they obviously would want to avoid.

[jaykaywhy]

Strategically, if Blizzard was trying to sabotage Wildstar's success with WoD Alpha, they're pretty bad at it--

It would have been far more effective if Blizzard announced the date that Alpha/Beta was slated to begin, so that people would be deterred from pre-purchasing Wildstar. They would also have sent out more invites than the handful of people that did get them.

It makes no sense if Blizzard was trying to steal/keep customers away from Wildstar to quietly begin the alpha with little fanfare and to such a small group of people. They're a multi-million dollar corporation. They must have better marketing strategy than that.

[tachycardias]

It's still in the f&f stage. I'm not sure how that directly 'steals' any of wildstar's 'thunder'. Like, ok, more info coming out but almost no one able to play.

[ComputerNerd]

Because every game that players have touted as a wow-killer has failed to be so.
Blizzard can deny having to counter other games because they have not had to.

You are the one in denial.
A rushed game to meet a deadline of another product would be a broken game, and that would drive players away more than a delay would.

[Orange Joe]

When asked about strategically releasing information, patches, betas etc to counter other games, Blizzard deny it and say it's a co-incidence, and they have more important things to worry about.

I don't have a source on their exact quote, but it's so obvious. Wildstar released two days ago and OHH what a COINCIDENCE, alpha invites start rolling out.

I don't see how f&f alpha invites will do anything against wildstar?

[RoKPaNda]

i guess it looks bad if they say they do it to try and counter other releases, everyone knows its not a coincidence though.

When asked about strategically releasing information, patches, betas etc to counter other games, Blizzard deny it and say it's a co-incidence, and they have more important things to worry about.

I don't have a source on their exact quote, but it's so obvious. Wildstar released two days ago and OHH what a COINCIDENCE, alpha invites start rolling out.

Really? This conspiracy theory again? It's a Friends and Family alpha invite. That doesn't deter people from playing Wildstar or encourage them to play WoW or do any favors whatsoever for Blizzard. At all. At best people that are in the alpha might stream for a day or two and people might see that, but nobody and I mean literally nobody is going to skip Wildstar because they can play one little zone of an ALPHA of an MMO expansion. Blizzard has no reason to care about Wildstar, a new MMO comes out, people leave and play that for awhile. That's just how it works. Blizzard has no reason to care unless those people keep playing Wildstar instead of WoW.

So lets recap... Friends & Family alpha invites:

Doesn't increase hype.
Doesn't get them any publicity beyond a week or so.
Doesn't deter people from playing Wildstar
Doesn't make people want to start playing the current game.

So yeah, they can deny that it, because there's nothing to indicate that a F&F Alpha wave is a response to Wildstar. Lol.

[Socialhealer]

this argument is about as provable as religion.

prove there is a god?
prove there is no god?

and for blizzard

prove they did it because of wildstar
prove they didn't do it because of wildstar

there your thread is pointless, because no-one can prove anything it's just internet ramblings.

[Feali]

It's called a marketing strategy.

[Barnabas]

I don't think it matters. In this alpha you only get one zone and nothing is tuned so who cares? Also there isn't gonna be a lot of people in this beta. So I don't see Wildstar or any other game having much to worry about.

[Buu]

i guess it looks bad if they say they do it to try and counter other releases, everyone knows its not a coincidence though.

Not EVERYONE. Some hipsters wannabe think it's cool to be blind to the obvious and deny it.

[Rixis]

It's not just a friends and family Alpha, a lot of web celebrities/fan sites/streamers etc have been invited. Whilst I don't say that this is in response to Wildstar (not something i personally care about /shrug). There will be increased hype/publicity. Hell, WoW streams on twitch are running 10 times more viewers now than they were a couple of days ago, and it's not exactly "prime time"

[Daez]

They do things on their own time schedule. When you are the big daddy of the MMO world, you don't really worry about trying to match your competitors schedules. WoW will still be going strong a year from now when everyone that took a chance on Wildstar realizes that it, just like every other MMO made since WoW, is yet another WoW clone that has much less content. Then Wildstar will go P2W if it is not already and that will entice more people to play it but less to actually pay the P2W prices.

The only game Blizzard has to worry about is WoW. WoW made itself the giant that it is, and if they are not careful, WoW will destroy itself. It will destroy itself if Blizzard returns to catering to 10% of the player base while screwing the other 90%. However, they are moving closer to that with WoD, and that will be a trying time for WoW. My guess is if they see anything to hit at a subscription drop due to their catering to the Mythic crowd that they will quickly jump away from that in the next patch after WoD and try to say that they were just saving the best for the first patch when it comes to casuals.

Hell, they might see a subscription uptake, but the number one problem with WoW is that they want to meter things out. They do stupid things like introduce Valor weekly caps which require people to cap weekly while not realizing that in order for anyone to join the game right now and see meaningful content (like the Mythics think they should aim to do) they need to be able to achieve decent enough gear to raid. When most guilds won't take you without your legendary cloak and gem and it takes over a month to get it, please tell me how you get to raid other than LFR. You can argue Flex, but most groups now want 550 to run Flex. The only problem with that is you can only get to 520 without running Flex 1 unless you have your legendary cloak (which takes 4 weeks AT LEAST to get).

If Blizzard was smart they would realize their number one population numbers were before they instituted these stupid caps that caused anyone who took a break from the game for any reason to be screwed in terms of actual raiding causing them to be forced to settle for LFR which is now being nerfed out of existence in WoD. I do not think I really want to deal with WoD LFR if there is absolutely no incentive for any competent player to run it (no real gear, no Valor, no nothing).

tl;dr: WoW will crush itself if it continues down the WoD path of believing that anyone that does not commit their schedules to WoW is not really welcome in the game.

(Before you all go on the... we only raid 4 hours a week kick... you only raid a very set time schedule, and in order to raid at all you need to meet that time schedule... most people with a life have these things called commitments during many of these time periods... if you make it work... good for you; however, for those of us that can't we will continue to feel unwelcome until we just hit that cancel button.