Blizzconline2021's highlight moment for me was the reveal of Diablo2: Resurrected. They're in a dire need of fresh IPs.
While I would love a WoW 2 with improved graphics I don't think they really need new IPs.
Even if people here see in their tea leaves that Blizzard isn't succesful, they really are, because they know their core fanbase and that is the WoW and Diablo community.
Hence they use these IPs for new games, stretching out from the MMO and Hack/Slash market, like Hearthstone and HoTS. This is smart, because it will attract the core and maybe it sticks. They are however realistic enough to see when it doesn't like with HoTS.
Products like WoW Classic are genius. Not only has the community greedly demanded them for years, it also takes very little investment to get it running because people specifically wanted it unchanged. Blizzard literally got to sell a 16 year old product again, that is the dream of any company.
After that it is really very unsurprising that Diablo 2 receives a remaster too. Not only are remasters and remakes a very common thing in the gaming industry (see RE2 Remake), but the Diablo Fans have been playing the shit out of D2 for decades and they will devour Resurrected for sure.
So I would argue that because and not despite focussing on their core IPs while making experiments with different game types, Blizzard is as successful as it is.
Unfortunately, I agree.
IMHO, this could be what happens when marketing people run your gaming company and game developers have no say. One can only bleed talent for so long before it is completely gone.
Remakes and remasters are a good thing. IMO, they are the best thing Blizzard has going via Vicarious Visions. Now Vicarious Visions is incredible and talented and IMO they are putting that team on this separate project which IMO was the best news for Blizzard in a LONG time, and they need to keep that up. More talented developers, less meta-marketing.
With the Tony Hawk 1+2 remake VV showed me that they know what makes a game good and where to make sacrifices in the name of modernity and where to draw the line. Fans didn't trust Blizzard with this in Classic, hence "no changes" among other reasons, but I trust VV to make those types of calls and I would say for old games, they should change them as they see fit. That is they type of trust Blizzard could rebuild.
Last edited by Zenfoldor; 2021-02-25 at 05:29 PM.
The bolded parts are exactly what I have been saying about the video game industry for years now. Developing games is no longer about the passion but rather about making as much money as possible in the smallest amount of time and with the least amount of effort. Instead of making unique and creative single player story driven games, developers these days want to make copy-paste online multiplayer games because it's the easiest way to make money. They charge you for the game itself and then entice you with shiny DLC skins, buy-to-win type weapons and gear and in game currency to buy. It's a gold mine. They know what the average gamer mentality is these days and they take advantage of it.
Video games, I think, had more soul back in the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox days. Hell, even back in the PS3/Xbox 360 days. Today it just feels purely like a money making business and that's it. I feel that it's even becoming like it's own Hollywood at this point with so many games trying to be like a movie with actual actors providing voice and facial features for their characters and they try so hard to pretend that it's not a video game by making it feel so "realistic", it's annoying. I'll take a Jak and Daxter or Timesplitters type game over any of these realistic cinematic games or online MMO looter-shooters any day.
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So this position of 'Blizzard cant create good games anymore' yet you continue to throw your currency and time at Blizzard, Why is that? Seem paradoxical if you ask me. If you weren't looking to have your mind changed, was this just some blog post that missed your blog and landed here?
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I understand the reasoning behind WC3 reforge, because it exists a MMO called WOW that blocks new progression of WC4... I get that.
I don't understand Diablo 2 remake, what is stopping blizzard from making Diablo 4 that is in all aspect better than diablo 2 that a remake is necessary ?
Lol, according to this forum they never could.
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That elusive company which doesn't care about profits, has had the exact same people working there since the start, never lets their fanbase down with bad titles and treats each and every employee down to the janitor with the utmost respect.
Aka, a rosy image of what game development used to and should be.
Madden also sells millions of copies, but it is still inferior to previous iterations of madden
Sales do not always reflect quality and vice versa
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Rockstar continues to get better and better with each title. For 20 years now
Well they probably have to please their Activision overlords so even if they could make the game great again and meet most of the reasonable demands from players, they are probably not allowed to as long as it means a decrease in profits.
In any case I wonder if WoW would still be a thing today if Blizzard had never gotten absorbed by Activision.
it happens what always happens:
small enthusiastic company land a great hit.
small enthusiastic company love what they do and get succesful.
small enthusiastic company become bigger business.
big money makin machine company buy small enthusiastic company.
small enthusiastic company is now a big money makin machine.
big money makin machine just does not things a small enthusiastic company does.
big money makin machine use the sucessful name and milk as much money as possible, as long as possible, before it goes down.
ppl normally need over 15 years, until they realize the new company (modern ATVI Blizzard) has nothing in common with the old company (Blizzard/Blizzard North), besides the name, before the downward spiral begins.
thats how it goes since 1950 or so, in any market.
so, when you expect in any near future (as long as Blizzard is that multibillion dollar company) that they „go back to their roots“ and start making games great again, i have bad news for you. this will not happen. instead they will do whatever marketing and managmenet analysis say will make the most money. and no, makin good games does not make the most money. building cheap stuff by cost effective development, polishing it and selling it by the name Blizzard as high quality, with smart cash grab systems to a broad audience.... THIS will make the most money.
look: Fanbase of Blizzard dont want mobile games. we knew this before Diablo Immortal. Why Blizz is doing this anyway ? Because there is a big market. Because they can make money by polished cheap shit full of cash grab systems. They are simply not interessted in investing huge amount of effort/time/money by producing 1 great high quality game and land a hit. you can simply get higher profits by doing other things. look at Rockstar Games (a company that use this approach): are they succesful and rich ? yes. are they THAT rich as ATVI Blizz? not in the slightest.
thats just business as usual. sad but true.
Last edited by Niwes; 2021-03-04 at 02:19 PM.
Maybe they have been too successfull. With the IPs they have, why would they dare venture into new grounds? They can just keep on chugging along with what they have. Its brilliant really with the relaunches of old wow xpacs along with retail. The next years they will lean back and launch retail xpac+bc & wotlk. The remastered versions of D2.
Can keep on teasing with D4, probably years away.
The only thing we are going to see from Blizzard that we can regard as "new", will be mobile/tablet games that are buildt within current IPs.
Like many here said in todays age is all about making money, not passion
For me only one game appears to be made from pure passion "recently" it was Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and many are waiting for Hellblade 2
Now in Blizzard? At max some devs from Overwatch at the release but not anymore
This. And long-term emotional and monetary attachment/investment. Sort of in a sunk-cost kind of way almost. Every new expansion helps justify the absurd amount of time and money many of us have already spent. And the truth is we still just plain enjoy checking new expansions even if we don't have the same will to play it non-stop for months on end, or if we end up ruining our own experience by always comparing them to unrealistic standards set by exploring X expansion when we were new to the game.
With that said, I think the honest core issue is people's perception of what is a "good" game nowadays. People online talk like any game that isn't great or even the best is just bad and not worth your time, and that's just not true. There are amazing games, there are great games, there are good games, there are above-average games, there are average games, there are not-so-great games, there are bad games and there are outright unplayable games. It's not just good or bad, love or hate.
And the truth is honestly WoW and all its expansions have always pretty much been at the very least above-average or good, even Cata, WoD and BfA.
The same is true for more recent releases like D3 and OW. They might not be amazing genre-defining games like D2, W3 and original WoW were, but they're still damn good games.
Last edited by Kolvarg; 2021-03-04 at 03:12 PM.
exactly when was that time where developer made sp story driven games?
because in the '80s there was a plethora of arcade games with stupid difficulty to spend more coins, '90 was full of copy pasted platforms everywhere with dumb expansions to recycle the same game, '00 fps and mmos with subscriptions, p2w and introduction of dlcs, '10 mobas and the lastman standing shooters with their esthetic gambling
12/6/2009 -23/11/2020 rip little deathstalker Ferretti. proud forsaken, enemy of the livings
The last games that were really good for me are Witcher III, Bioshock series and Dark Souls. Had also read somewhere that many small game industries have been bought up over the time by big companies and shareholders and are now just a money printing machine more or less. The smaller the studio, the more passionate the development in my opinion. Game development nowadays equals a marketing concept, which is very bad for the overall game experience.
With small I don't mean like 10 people.