Planted Threads by Blizzard

[Seiken3]

Good evening, everyone.

Over the last couple of years, I've been watching these forums and seen some "odd" topics come up now and again. Topics that are to spark both creativity, discussion and also conclusions.
Now, I've often been one for asking questions simply to incite discussion and whatnot, like: "If Sylvannas go bad, would you forgive her? What would take for you to forgive her?" - that was actually a thread posted a few years back.

So the reason why I am making this post is to incite thoughts and discussion:

Do you think Blizzard have either employees hanging out in fanbases to "take the temperature" regarding certain topics, incite discussions and otherwise gather data for "what if we write the lore this way?"? Do you think this is a good way to get in touch with their playerbase, or should they do more surveys?

Writing this, I realize I might sound like I have been hired or placed her by blizzard themselves (I am just a curious gamer is all ), but do you guys think that many of the threads out there are planted?

[Ryzeth]

[Tinfoil-hatting intensifies]

[Darsithis]

I have no doubt some Blizzard employees frequent forums under other accounts. Planting threads, though? That seems pretty pointless.

[Seiken3]

I have no doubt some Blizzard employees frequent forums under other accounts. Planting threads, though? That seems pretty pointless.

How so? I'm sure if they're uncertain about "Should we kill off this character, or let them live", they'd be able to see where the playerbase is on the dillemma by simply asking in a forum or the likes, no?

[Video Games]

I wish. Maybe sl wouldn't have turned out so awful if they did.

[Aucald]

It's doubtful. It would be largely unnecessary since fans and critics of the game will already expound on basically every topic under the sun without external prompting, often at length and repeatedly, offering a wide cross-section of viewpoints for any curious developer.

[exochaft]

It's possible that Blizz employees may start a thread here and there, but the extreme vast majority would not be. Furthermore, they may just be for curiosity's sake, not some corporate information gathering scheme.

First and foremost, they don't have the manpower to do so on any large scale. If there are employees whose sole job is to get the pulse of the community via social media and forums, there's already way too much information to parse. While starting your own thread and following that can illicit more targeted responses, they will not last long before devolving into useless information and getting derailed if they are not extremely targeted or part of some isolated forum of discussion, kind of like the official WoW beta forums. However, my experience after having been an alpha/beta/PTR participant for a long time is that Blizz has been failing massively in terms of generating information to the players that helps with proper feedback, providing a structure to facilitate better feedback, and taking in the feedback of the players themselves. Basically, they've gotten really bad over the years with communication in general via officials means that are supposed to be open feedback channels for players... so using non-official channels to accomplish the same thing would be even more unlikely.

If there was something Blizz does in an official or unofficial manner that checks the pulse of the community beyond surveys, I would say things like Twitter are as close as you're going to get. However, I think it's way more likely they wish to influence people's opinions rather than gather them when using social media... or at least individuals within the company would like to influence or propagandize certain views or issues. Whether one deems that proactive or passive is up for debate, but it's never really in relation to forum postings (typically forum posts come after Twitter mesasges anyways).

So to summarize: it's extremely unlikely Blizz plants forums posts as they're extremely bad with not only their official informational posts but also with official information gather channels meant to get the pulse of the players and community. You're more likely to see individual employees of Blizz try to influence and/or propagandize their views (or just diarrhea of the brain) on Twitter than seeing direct action on forums.

[MoanaLisa]

No. I don't even see what the point would be. We're a small drop in a very large ocean respectively. Blizzard has far better ways to query their customers, former and otherwise, than dropping threads on MMO-C.

As bad as Twitter generally is there's more useful feedback there than here. Facebook as well. There are numerous FB groups for World of Warcraft that have members that literally number in the 10's of thousands. I cannot and will not speculate about other sites.

[Triceron]

How so? I'm sure if they're uncertain about "Should we kill off this character, or let them live", they'd be able to see where the playerbase is on the dillemma by simply asking in a forum or the likes, no?

Because the forum is full of trolls who don't give any legitimate responses.

Why the hell would Blizzard come to forums to get ideas when all they're gonna get is shit like #Sylvanasdidnothingwrong or Sylvanas will become a First One.

[Skirdus]

Literally everyone: We hate Sylvanas and want to move on from her horrible excuse for a character arc

Blizzard: What's that? You want Sylvanas to be the center of attention for the next two expansions? I got you, fam!

[arkanon]

Big no - they have access to actual data - all the data you can imagine - they dont need to know what a handful of people on a tiny fansite have to say. Thats not saying "they dont care", im just saying the data they have access to is factual - not just the rambling thoughts of some forum user who may or may not play wow.

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Because the forum is full of trolls who don't give any legitimate responses.

Why the hell would Blizzard come to forums to get ideas when all they're gonna get is shit like #Sylvanasdidnothingwrong or Sylvanas will become a First One.

This is actually a strong reason why fansites dont hold the sway of the official forums - its not tied to an actual account in any way. Now the official forums may be full of trolls as well, but Blizzard can at least see who does and who doesnt have an account. I believe they have even called out the odd person from time to time claiming they have done XYZ when Blizzard come out and say "well, actually, you have not". Thats not the norm, but im sure they HAVE done it, and have spoken at times about how what people say on the forums vs their actual activity in game are often very different.

[BronzeCondor]

These kind of threads have existed forever, although it wouldn't surprise me if Blizzard has made efforts from time to time to parse the audience to see their favorability towards one scenario or another.

[shoc]

I don't know about the rest of you but at least I'm on Square Enix' payroll to negative astroturf the game on MMO-C.

[Grahamington]

This must be true because everything the player base ask for, they do the opposite.

900 IQ

[Paperfox]

This is something that I also think is occurring.

There's been a few threads about things like:
- Isn't Diablo worth a monthly sub?
- Aren't sub prices too low?
These are subjects that few gamers would agree with.

Tin foil hat time: I sometimes wonder if ActiBlizz replaced some of their CM folks with shills on the forums. Because it seems that some of them do everything they can to stoke division and so fragment the playerbase. If we're fighting among ourselves, then how can we hold ActiBlizz accountable?

On the other hand, they're probably trolls.

[arkanon]

Great - now anyone who says anything even remotely positive about Blizzard or a Blizzard product will be flagged as an employee.

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I don't know about the rest of you but at least I'm on Square Enix' payroll to negative astroturf the game on MMO-C.

Im actually part of an ultra secret department within Blizzard who carry out 'blackops'. Our mission is to paint Blizzard and all their products in a negative light. We are an advanced Psy-ops division, focused on using advanced reverse psychology techniques to bolster Blizzard stocks. On second thought, I have already said too mu.............................................................

[Sensa1]

Big no - they have access to actual data - all the data you can imagine - they dont need to know what a handful of people on a tiny fansite have to say. Thats not saying "they dont care", im just saying the data they have access to is factual - not just the rambling thoughts of some forum user who may or may not play wow.

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I agree that it's extremely unlikely that Blizzard employees are posting on MMO under assumed names to gauge player feedback. That being said, I don't think they're not doing it because they have "all the data you can imagine". Blizzard's interpretation of their own data is highly suspect.

They have over the years repeatedly justified certain actions based on the data that completely, and conveniently, ignores the fact that they had previously set the incentives (and lack thereof in certain circumstances) in such a way as to skew the results to begin with. That deliberate blindness has led them down garden paths they shouldn't have gone down and caused them to become over reliant on the MAU metrics which really only tell you if you have successfully created a time sink but not whether you created one that players enjoy.

[shoc]

I would also think that a game dev company would rather just delete the forums if they became a liability rather than spend money on feel-good propaganda.

Although I would not be surprised if ATVI as a whole spends a nice chunk of their marketing budget on astroturfing and planting the seeds of hype on forums.

[arkanon]

I agree that it's extremely unlikely that Blizzard employees are posting on MMO under assumed names to gauge player feedback. That being said, I don't think they're not doing it because they have "all the data you can imagine". Blizzard's interpretation of their own data is highly suspect.

They have over the years repeatedly justified certain actions based on the data that completely, and conveniently, ignores the fact that they had previously set the incentives (and lack thereof in certain circumstances) in such a way as to skew the results to begin with. That deliberate blindness has led them down garden paths they shouldn't have gone down and caused them to become over reliant on the MAU metrics which really only tell you if you have successfully created a time sink but not whether you created one that players enjoy.

All good points, however I will specifically agree that having all the data in the world is useless if you interpret it poorly. Even your example here is fantastic - i will put forward an intentionally extreme scenario:

Blizzard create an item which is BiS for every spec in the game - to obtain this item, you have to grind out 5 hours a week on some mindless, boring, repetative obomination which everyone says they hate, and MOST people are only doing the content to obtain the BiS item at the end.

Now, that data will show HUGE participation rates for the content, but if you removed the incentive, would anyone have done it? Unlikely. But if Blizzard just look at participation, they may introduce a system which is just the "mindless, boring, repetative obomination" of content that everyone hated, then say "well shit, everyone loved it last time, what happened?"

[Thage]

Don't think Blizz of all companies need to do any astroturfing at all, especially here.