Most damaging Blizzard action

[Greengrim]

... if MoP was good or not is not a discussion I want to do again.

MoP was complete garbage, what is there to talk about?

[Hyral]

Dungeon Finder

[vindicatorx]

Blizzard’s name isn’t as clean as it used to be. This year and last saw lots of actions damaging to their good name. Which, in your opinion, was the worst thing Blizzard has done?

I don't think there was a single instance where they went from great company to EA 2.0 if so I would say when they merged with Activision is when the downward spiral began

[Rotted]

Blizzard’s name isn’t as clean as it used to be. This year and last saw lots of actions damaging to their good name. Which, in your opinion, was the worst thing Blizzard has done?

Patch 6.1 in Warlords. Twitter integration and selfie sticks as they "Key" content of that patch. That had to be the biggest fuck you they ever did to the player base

[Shiza]

Blitzchung by far, nothing comes close to that. That's going to hang over Blizzard for a long time. It also reached outside of Blizzards fanbase, all the news networks, celebrities, people outside the gaming industry. "Oh you hear about Blizzard" "Oh you mean that company that bowed to China" that's how Blizzard are going to be seen outside the gaming sphere.

Everything else is just contained within Blizzards fanbase, a shitty expansion or a line from a con means nothing outside of the gaming space and has no impact int he grand scheem of things. The Blitzchung debacle transcended gaming.

Sure the outrage for it has died down, but when people think of Blizzard its going to be them bowing to China, and that may have forever scarred them. Its going to make more than Blizzard making a good expansion to fix that mess.

I would add to anyone who supports Blizzard in this decission or is even happy it, especially the one fascist from Page 1 who thinks that speaking out in favor of democratic rights is somehow being a SJW, that the problem isn't really that they took action because he breached their rules. If they had given him some appropriate punishment in line with what is normal with how they treat statements like this, nobody but a few nutjobs would have cared. One problem absolutely was the statement of the Chinese Hearthstone Twitter, which may have been managed by a chinese company, but still made a Blizzard property look kinda fascist. Then there is the double standart and how severely Blitzchung was punished, which really made a controversy out of it. And we know that there was a double standart going on, looking at how shortly after an american Hearthstone team did the same and there was no reaction from Blizzard, no punishment.

So we know, it wasn't about the rules. It was about Blizzard bowing down to the autoritarian chinese government so they don't lose their favorable status in the chinese market.

[Ghostile]

no, but announcing it to their hardcore pc audience who paid money to be there is. should have just announced it anywhere else and it would have been fine.

It's not like it took the spot of another game.
People expecting something bigger feel violated, while the rest are indifferent.

[Doffen]

MoP was complete garbage, what is there to talk about?

Hehe, that is my opinion too, but I have been discussing it with the MoP fans here on mmo-champ before and I find no reason to do it again.

[callipygoustp]

Well...as with everything that has several instalments, there will be people ranking it. They might disagree, but if you ask 1000 ppl, you get a good idea. So some installment (x-pac) will always be considered the best and the worse. As you said: WoD and then Cata before it...but atm BfA is giving them a run for the money. And at the top you currently have WotLK.

Guess it is time for another mega poll soon

I'm curious to see how BfA stands down the road. Personally, I like BfA. I do read forums. I do see the disgrunted posts. However, I think, over time, BfA will stand out as a "not bad" expansion. Personally, i think people are going to miss the mechanics associated wtih azerite and corruptions; yes, rng sucks but I think these systems have made for an interesting gearing system and I think people will miss them when they are gone.

- - - Updated - - -

Making Diablo Immortal a major announcement in a predominantly PC user Blizzcon with the condescending meme "Don't you all have Phones?!"...

I can't imagine that will ever be "lived down". What an utterly ridiculous response to the customer base.

[Nerraw]

I love that the surgical dismantling of an entire game and leaving its pro players and support staff, literally hundreds of people, without an income 10 days before Christmas and the following firing of 800 community people less than two months later didn't even make the list.

[Hellobolis]

It's not like it took the spot of another game.
People expecting something bigger feel violated, while the rest are indifferent.

if you google around a bit you can find news reports that a diablo 4 teaser/announcement was planned but cancelled.

i imagine i'd be pretty pissed off too if i paid a few thousands bucks to hear an announcement of the diametric opposite of what i wanted and/or expected.

[Wilian]

WTF? Can't you at least name a few of those "lots of actions damaging to the good Blizzard name"? ...and I mean LOTS.

EDIT: Oh....there is a poll now after all. Yeah..OMFG...what hiddious actions they have taken..."lots" of them. I vote "Other": "GC promised me a Pony".

In an earlier draft of my reply I wondered if you would drag up Blizzchung as pretty much the only damaging thing and hope that starts a nice little shitshow.

This seems to have touched you on some deeply personal and emotional level

[unbound]

TBH, it was when they starting selling gold after spending years decrying how gold-sellers would clearly ruin the economy and that we should not support such things.

Prior to that point, you could make somewhat of an argument that Blizz wasn't truly trying to cut corners since Wrath. The selling of gold really put the nail in the coffin that Blizz was no better than other large game developers who put profits above all else.

[Kolvarg]

I actually disagree with this.

The type of fan that pays for a ticket to physically go to a convention are the hardest of the hardcore. They're the most dedicated fans of Blizzard, and what Blizzard does. Blizzard is, by and large, a PC-based game company. This isn't ActivisionBlizzcon. It's BLIZZcon. So when Blizzard presents an image or perception of abandoning those fans in order to pitch a PHONE GAME to those PC fans when they knew damn well that all of those con-goers were expecting a Diablo 4 release..... Well. That shows a distinct lack of understanding who their core players are.

It's not wrong of Blizzard to want to expand into other areas of gaming. There is nothing inherently wrong with Diablo Immortal. Where the blunder by Blizzard was is in pitching the idea to the wrong people at the wrong time, and in a way in which REALLY made those core fans feel like they were being swept aside in order for Blizzard to pursue profits.

Are many gamers entitled? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean Blizzard didn't screw up by the numbers here.

Except that's not what they presented at all. Presenting a spin-off mobile project does not in any way paint a picture of abandoning the PC market. They literally stated multiple times that they had multiple Diablo projects in the works but weren't ready to talk about yet.

Even today, that people know very well D4 is being worked on, they still mock and moan and cry about Immortal almost at tantrum levels simply because they didn't get what they wanted when they wanted.

I'm not saying Blizzard does not have some fault here, I do think they were far from perfect in how they went about it, especially with hyping a Diablo announcement beforehand, but let's be real: Anyone who paid what they did to be there in the hope of watching a D4 announcement live, kinda played themselves. And let's not fool themselves, those BlizzCon tickets would have sold out even if they literally stated: "we have nothing interesting to announce this year".


To me it's very simple: They make games, the fans pay in order to play those games. That's all. No one gets to dictate what they can or should do no matter how long one has been buying their games. They are completely free to do whatever the hell they want, and what people are actually entitled to do is to simply choose not to buy something if they don't want it, and of course give constructive feedback if they want to. It's completely normal and even expected for a company that size to try and explore its franchises in new and different markets.

I mean, does anyone even bat an eye when they announce they're releasing a new Warcraft book, or coloring book, or board game, or card game? Or are books and board games somehow magically targeted at their core audience when a mobile game is not?

I understand having been disappointed at the time. I understand thinking it was in poor taste to give it such prominence. But the reaction the community had was absolutely unnecessary and nothing short of a childish tantrum, in big part it was and still is just an excuse for people who already want to bash Blizzard regardless.

[Kolvarg]

I can't imagine that will ever be "lived down". What an utterly ridiculous response to the customer base.

It was. It also was funny for the first few days, and now it's just bloody annoying.

But I'd like to see how the majority of the critics would have behaved in those developers' shoes, being at the front of the shitshow it became in front of such a huge audience + online audience.

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I love that the surgical dismantling of an entire game and leaving its pro players and support staff, literally hundreds of people, without an income 10 days before Christmas and the following firing of 800 community people less than two months later didn't even make the list.

Truth.

[Usernameforforums]

While blitzchung was a huge issue, i think the release of warcraft 3 reforged actually hurt them as a company. Not releasing a quality product as they have in the past, it broke a lot of peoples trust.

[Yunru]

Nerfing fun. Putting long cooldowns on stuff.

Every damn expansion!!!!

[Kumorii]

Diablo "Immoral", shows how out of touch they really are.

Wow... I understand not liking phone games, but holy shit. Calling it immoral is some next level idiocy...

[Nnyco]

I love how so many people are claiming the vast majority of people forgot about Blitzchung or didn't care yet here we have a thread where people both care and remember. The only reason Blizzard took action was because of their Chinese shareholders. They think their money is more important and although Blitzchung's comment was him making a statement against the Chinese tyranny, Blizzard punished him because they didn't want to lose China's money. I think it was Blizzard's worst actions because they showed that they don't give a shit about their players. They care about money and nothing else.

The only reason people talk about it in this thread is because someone brought it up.

[Martymark]

I was ok with WOD although I didn't love it. BFA and the way they treated Horde players was the kiss of death for me.

"We forced you to burn a tree for no reason! You are so evil, hate yourself you scumbag! Hate yourself you worthless trash" for an entire expansion.

[Ghostile]

if you google around a bit you can find news reports that a diablo 4 teaser/announcement was planned but cancelled.

i imagine i'd be pretty pissed off too if i paid a few thousands bucks to hear an announcement of the diametric opposite of what i wanted and/or expected.

people assumed there would be D4 announcement, but there wasn't.

Assumption is the mother of all screwups.