Riot might be the "new Blizzard"

[ONCHEhap]

No one will ever be liked as much as Blizzard was. Blizzard come from a time when gaming was still that pure and innocent thing and when everything was made with passion and exclusively for the fans. A time when the internet wasn't a real thing and when online communities with millions of people didn't exist.

Blizzard come from a time where they were nearly everyone was good and nice, and Blizz were among the best and the nicest of them all. Riot can't possibly ever compete with that as they are from a completely different era.

back when games were made by nerds for players,and not by corporates for shareholders

[Arikara]

I don't really give a damn about any of the new games they've announced, and I certainly don't give a damn about LoL.

The problem with Blizzard is that they have so thoroughly embraced the games as a service model, but at least they once conducted themselves differently. Riot never has, and never will.

[Radaney]

Riot is probably the company that did the most damage to the internet as a whole by introducing the concept of "everything I don't like is toxic " (thanks,Riot Lyte)

That alone ensures they'll never be liked anywhere near as much as Blizzard was

That's ironic consider both companies cater to PC culture at their best interest and drop it as soon as it's not convenient for them.

They're both as bad as each other, both stereo typically corporate.

[Temp name]

Blizzard is about 50 50 imho but you get to choose if you want to play hardcore or not in there games.

Blizzards games are all very accessible to casuals. They're just trying to push e-sports into some of them that clearly weren't designed for it.

LoL is anything BUT casual friendly.

[Rennadrel]

Well, they fucked themselves over by trying to defend China from criticism by their players who are supporting the Honk Kong protestors. No amount of dirty Chinese money is going to recoup what they could lose in the fallout. Also, their games look absolutely meh and not even remotely interesting.

[Acidbaron]

All Riot is really doing is branching out, because moba's have past their peak a while ago.

Blizzard tried to do the same when MMO's had ran their course and no longer were attracting many new players.


We'll see how successful riot is, always up for trying more competitive shooters with a spin to them.

[Unholyground]

Well, they fucked themselves over by trying to defend China from criticism by their players who are supporting the Honk Kong protestors. No amount of dirty Chinese money is going to recoup what they could lose in the fallout. Also, their games look absolutely meh and not even remotely interesting.

You support China if you own anything lol. Look on the bottom of everything you own, look where it is made. We all sold out to China ages ago, before we were born in a lot of cases.

[Holdodlig]

While Riot can grow and become something bigger, I don't think it will become the "New Blizzard" since they obviously don't have the same design philosophy. As for Blizzard being "dead" or in a bad shape, we'll see that at Blizzcon.

[wargone]

This can actually be a pretty good thing though, the more competition that these companies get, the more quality they will need to strive for...

oh no. I want more companies to be competition.. But why Settle for "be another blizzard" i want a company that dont just make all their games about microtranstions.

[Marrilaife]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't played LOL for 3+ years and in all that time they managed to release ~4 new champions (I checked the list and the unknown names were Neeko, Yuumi, Sylas and the Q-something girl Qayida or so) so it seems to me that's not much better than "maintenance mode" HOTS.

I quit LOL around the time when they put lootboxes in (with lootbox-exclusive skins) and started reworking every old noob friendly champion into some "e-sport viable" version ruining everything I liked about them as a casual player, and every new champion was an overcomplicated mess.

The community was also pretty horrible, raging kids throwing temper tantrums everywhere, and putting someone on your ignore list didn't even prevent the matchmaking algorythm from putting them again with you on the same team.

Back when they had a "tribunal" where you could see chat prints and vote ban / innocent I think I've learnt every possible swear word in majority of eastern european languages and still most of the time you'd only be banned if you non stop wrote for 30 mins swear words and slurs. Kid could ruin dozens of games by terrorizing everyone "do what I want or I afk / feed" and if he would get a ban, it would be a small temporary slap on the wrist one, and he'd still come cry on forums about "unfair ban".

If anyone thought wow community is toxic, elitist, rude and new player unfriendly, they've never seen LOL.

Thanks for reminding me why I quit and that I should never return.

Also no idea why people are drooling over the fact Ghostcrawler is there, and gloryfying his past, when he was working on WOW he was responsible for Cataclysm that was generally a flop after greatly received WOTLK, only raids were good everything else in Cata was crap (oh sorry, transmog was good too), so basically WOD / BFA levels of crap, just because WOTLK had 12 mil subs at its peak even if people started quitting in Cata it wasn't that much visible as it was in WOD and after. Also he was treating playerbase with exactly the same smug attitude "we know better anyway" as Hazzikostas and whoever else came later.

[Mojo03]

Bonfire studios is the new (old) Blizzard if you base it on talent and culture. If you don’t know what that is google it.

I’d like more games to play, but right now the gut reaction is that the new Riot games look pretty generic. Like they pulled a bunch of data of what they think the most people will like and want and decided to make a few games from it. Hopefully they are good, but I’m not exactly excited, nor is there anything novel about any of it.

[Temp name]

No amount of dirty Chinese money is going to recoup what they could lose in the fallout.

Do.. Do you actually believe that? China is a HUGE market. We're talking bigger than the US here. The choice was between lose some of the US/Europe, or ALL of China.

[Rennadrel]

Do.. Do you actually believe that? China is a HUGE market. We're talking bigger than the US here. The choice was between lose some of the US/Europe, or ALL of China.

Most of China aren't all gamers, there's a market, but it ain't anywhere near a billion people. Apparently the other more ethical parts of the world aren't enough for greedy bastards like Riot and Blizzard.

[Arrashi]

I doubt it. Making lots of games is one thing. Making lots of good games is another. Making multiple games that are genre defining is a whole another beast.

[Vorkreist]

The new Blizzard as in the new trash garbage game company? Sure I'd go with that.
They make their own OW? Amazin. It will totally revolutionise that genre I bet. OW is trash and dying and it was a decent effort.
They make their own Artifart. Amazin. Another take for something that was already shown to be hopeless by valve's take.
A new MMO in 2020 + ? I can't even begin to express how hilariously hopeless it is to dream of having success with a mmo in this day and age. I have nothing against Ghostcrawler I bet he could make something decent but the mmo ships have long sailed.
Are they successful in farming that normie lol no standards crowd ? Sure. Big $$$$ for Tencent and thats about it. There nothing of quality or substance coming from that company.

[omeomorfismo]

Well not quite as blunt as that, but "the old days" companies had to make a good game, a games reputation is what sold it, and the only way they made money was selling games, now you can put out any free to play garbage and just monetise it with pay to win shit and it works it doesn't need to be good, just pray on peoples stupidity, that wouldn't have worked before due to lack of mobile devices and the internet. Back then if you made shit games you'd make shit money, things have certainly changed.

Just look at clash of clans, that's made billions and what compelling features does it have? oh yeah you can buy your way to victory and that addiction keeps people spending. I mean it's better than 99.99% of games out there if you're counting how successful its been money wise, but story, gameplay etc it's hollow and shitty and anyone can copy paste that crap all day long.

lol? you forget arcade cabinets?

[Ausr]

Except Riot support is absolutely, utterly shambolical and they literally couldnt give two shits about your account with how ever many dollars worth of skins purchased etc. I know so many people who were hacked, recovered their accounts within days only to find Riot were upholding permanent bans. You know Riot, sometimes company data is breached and emails and passwords are stolen, maybe you should invest in an authenticator system and then everyone is happy, but you know.. money.

That all said, they do make great games. I once was chat muted for 75 games on league, and in only 1/5 cases did I even say a single word, and it was telling someone to 'leave me the fuck alone already' because he was flaming me. Opened a ticket, only for a riot rep to say he read the cases and would uphold the ban and you can consider this case final. Joke support. After 75 game chat ban was up, played about 20 games, got chat banned for another 50 I think it was, no email as to why, nothing on my account info as to why, contacted riot and asked, and they just said, there will be no discussion on this matter, case final and closed. So basically, I got chat muted for nothing with no explanation.

That was like 5 years ago, I quit league perma after that, not giving them any more money if they cant even give me fair honest support.

I dont think you are shilling though, their announced games look good!

Literally no negative at all in his post. If that isn't a shilling post, then I'm the smartest man alive.

[Makabreska]

Some people may have already forgotten about Riot's recent scandals with employee treatment. Also, the studio has a history of "power-tripping-kids-in-charge" behavior. Also, they are 100% owned by Tencent, and it's this company, that pushed Riot into making more money. Also, a studio with only one game experience (MOBA), will make a card game, a fighting game, an FPS, possible MMO and whatnot, all AT ONCE. I mean, what could go wrong? Don't get starry eyed, because it's just your standard upcoming game reveals, same thing what EA shows on E3. But this time it's from an inexperienced studio.

- - - Updated - - -

Most of China aren't all gamers, there's a market, but it ain't anywhere near a billion people. Apparently the other more ethical parts of the world aren't enough for greedy bastards like Riot and Blizzard.

Well, recent trends/events in gaming and movies show, that this market is huge enough to warrant appeasing to Chinese consumer and their government. I mean, we have many examples, when movies are being saved from bombing, thanks to Chinese viewers (Pacific Rim, Warcraft). No wonder more games and films try to appease this audience.

The community is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be.

If anything the standards on League have gotten way too harsh.

LoL was THE ONLY game, where I encountered players queuing up only to absolutely troll and ruin their team mates experience from the start and out of sheer malice. But yes, community has improved over the years.

[Sentynel]

Toxic player base....terrible customer support....not listening to player feedback....

Yeah Riot and Blizzard have a lot in common :P

Blizzard's CS is actually one of the better ones out there. Never had any complaints with them in 13 years.

Riot on the other hand... that one support person treated me if I was a fucking degenerate or smth.

[TheRevenantHero]

Blizzard's CS is actually one of the better ones out there. Never had any complaints with them in 13 years.

Riot on the other hand... that one support person treated me if I was a fucking degenerate or smth.

I've had issues with Blizzard CS for as long as I've been playing WoW. And the fact that they pretty much made it impossible to call their support line and automated a lot of their reporting systems really just cements how lazy they are about helping players.