Mike Ybarra - Blizzard Trust and Culture Efforts Update

[nvaelz]

Qwik's whole post about rebuilding trust is intertwined with a false corporate agenda about "culture, social issues" but actually it's about capitalistic greed and deceptive game design.

The amount of boosters for sale during the 9.0 patch of Shadowlands was amazing. Blizzard must've made a fortune on token sales during this time. 9.1 came with BOE Korthite crystals that had a 1-3~ droprate per day and you needed 40? Korthite crystals. If they wanted to keep the integrity of the game intact they'd actually have made Korthite crystals BOP but since it's so perfectly matching WoW token sales why would they? Why wouldn't they design the game around the Premade group finder(boost finder service) or BOE crafting materials... XD

Just look at 9.1.5 they increased Korthite crystal drops but that's many months after the damage was done. The damage being the respect lost from the playerbase. Wonder why they won't introduce systems such as solo queue? = there's no way they'll profit from it. As long as the subscription cost isn't inflated they'll keep trying to stab dollars out of our backs and pretend it's about some cultural social harassment issues or whatever they think we don't "trust" them about. Lies upon lies, the blizzard way.


Literally the whole game design is about non-enjoyment. Sure you can grind boars to farm gold to buy more legendaries, but legendaries is just one out of fourteen pieces. You'll be gated and have nothing to do unless you play the struggle game which Qwik loves anyway, he's a boosting service seller, he LOVES M+ and I doubt he would understand what a casual player enjoys.

More avenues of enjoyment would include up-to-par ilvl gear from -> reputations? worldquests? torghast? crafting? but nooooo, you have 3 choices. m+(competitive), pvp(competitive), mythic raiding(competitive). So Blizzard thinks that good game design is competition only. If you want good gear you have to be competitive. Competition brings toxicity beyond a doubt and if there's no avenue for players that don't want to be competitive(with good reason) to get good ilvl gear - then what is this game even?

Can't they see the culture they are creating for their players? It's infectious... Vanilla WoW or TBC was also infected with this "retail culture" where everything is about competition and not about enjoyment.

Casual players deserve avenues of gear aswell. The whole design philosophy around sociopathic/narcissistic/greedy/competitive players deserve higher ilvl is disgusting. What of the minority of friendly lovely players that manage to be grouped with eachother and still clear highest tiers of content is such a low % of the activity we see in the game. All about pugs and being a hardass. Is this some Cobra Kai culture we live in or what?

Maybe you can make the game a bit more friendly and a little less prestigious and a bit more adventurous?? There's no reason to have some competitive=ilvl score reality which you have so much created(Blizzard) but it fits so well with your greed and you'll keep making garbage systems and empty world design for the sake of it. Thanks for the toys and transmogs and mounts we get to farm tho - that'll be the blessing those below mediocre ilvl players get to partake in unless they are the lucky few that have decent groups that can avoid the hatred; the top ilvl club. Also those ppl that buy boost or are hardasses can enjoy the top ilvl club too.

GJ.

[YorHa-Unit-2B]

Lwt me rephrase that

"White unskilled only got the job because I am friends with someone males"

Is that better.

Well, that's a different story. Meritocracy should most definitely apply to all regardless of race, gender, sex and sexuality, but usually the results of meritocracy don't really help the case of most "diverity and equality" focused individuals.

[Kathranis]

Ah Blizzard making games by going far left...this will not end well.

If you think this, or anything going on in American politics, is "far left," you're listening to straight up propaganda and need to broaden the media you consume.

Apart from a handful of true Progressives and Socialists like Bernie Sanders and the squad, most of the Democrats in this country are Neoliberals (that's right wing capitalist economic philosophy, btw, since so many of you folks don't seem to know what the word means) that are basically on the same side as the Republicans on most issues.

People like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Manchin, Kirsten Sinema, etc. just dress up in the aesthetics of social justice, but have no interest in affecting meaningful change. They're never going to take away your guns or implement universal basic income, so you can stop bellyaching like the Socialists are taking over the country. They can't even push incrementally progressive policies past Congress with a Democrat majority.

I'm not even going to get into representation and diversity. Just get over it. You're on the wrong side of history and you have been for the last 60 years. Aren't you folks supposed to be the ones who run around hollering about freedom? Why is it that you guys never want to let other people have a seat at the table or live their lives the way they choose to?

[Toppy]

Well, that's a different story. Meritocracy should most definitely apply to all regardless of race, gender, sex and sexuality, but usually the results of meritocracy don't really help the case of most "diverity and equality" focused individuals.

Its funny you think that its a meritocracy when everyone is openly aware that getting good work has for decades now been less "What you know" and more "Who you know". Its not that suddenlly loads of white people cant get work because they arent being permitted, its more so that some work places are taking baby steps in no longer hiring based on "Well I know such and such from church".

[Kathranis]

Well, that's a different story. Meritocracy should most definitely apply to all regardless of race, gender, sex and sexuality, but usually the results of meritocracy don't really help the case of most "diverity and equality" focused individuals.

Where the hell do you see a meritocracy in America? Everyone has externally imposed advantages and disadvantages that they have no control over and there's pretty much nothing in place to level the playing field. One of the most accurate and consistent predictors of your success in the US is your childhood zipcode, which has absolutely zero to do with merit.

The closest we have to a meritocracy is probably sports, and even then it's still highly dependent on whether or not someone has access to the right education and training to find and cultivate those talents.

[Grimbold21]

. Currently the gaming msrket is dominated by white males. Not because they have the skills or the knowledge, only cause they are white and a male. This is just a fact. And for you to even come on here a spew that crap is hypocritical

Labels someone as stupid, produces this gem.

Let's start with how you claim that the gaming is predominantly white and male. That by itself is fine. However, you chose to add that this predominance is explained by ethnicity and gender and not necessarily skill.

Not only did you assert that, but you were the under the impression that labelling it as fact would make it as a fact.

I think I speak for some of us when I say I'd like to see what sort of data you can produce that allows the measuring of these workers habilities and conclude without a doubt that their positions are an outcome of immutable traits.

Let's not gloss over the fact that in an attempt to point out a racist/sexist situation, you engaged in the same sort of behavior. Not only that, but you made use of the thing that others are being accused of making in the opposite direction.

Can we please ditch the whole shenanigans of screaming discrimination when you see a statistical discrepancy? It's boring and intellectually immature

[nvaelz]

Yeah you guys keep being confused about these "politics" that are like carrots infront of your faces. You'll miss the real point which is a diversion tactic that insults your intelligence.

They are protecting their greed by using social issues as a diversion tactic to skewer your sense of reality because that's how little they respect you.

[Grimbold21]

Its funny you think that its a meritocracy when everyone is openly aware that getting good work has for decades now been less "What you know" and more "Who you know". Its not that suddenlly loads of white people cant get work because they arent being permitted, its more so that some work places are taking baby steps in no longer hiring based on "Well I know such and such from church".

One can easily construe diversity hirings to be its own sort of networking. I'd even say it'd be a more nefarious one.

While I know you were not saying, this phenomenon of getting job through someone else isn't a racial trait.

[nvaelz]

My concern is the games. Yes i want them to have a safe work space but my concern is the games. Why was none of this focused on Making better games. If you want our trust back that is where you earn it. not by lecturing us about equality and diversity when Blizzard is the one that was under investigation for years lol How about for once listen to us the people that player your games and take some advice for once. The fact that people are bailing on Blizzard games isn't just the horrible things that have been going on in that company that was just the tipping point. This just proves to me though that nothing is going to change at blizzard from a creative design.

Ahh they're twisting your poor brain around why oh why is isn't it about the games?(reality) why is it a diversion tactic to twist my brain around oh how little they respect you!

It's funny how we must defend ourselves from all corners because we're talking about the sensitive topic of diversity and how we should value eachother in the most intricate human ways possible. It's a good way to protect themselves. What an evil way to lie huh?

Just look at all these poor confused people that think this is about social justice but actually it's just a weaponized blue post with no respect for our intelligence. How uncommon!

- - - Updated - - -

Blizzard is just words (empty words that is) and no action. Dealing with your office culture should be done behind the scenes and we the customers just want to get the quality that we used to get. At least try to do a better job than Brack did where you actually make actions that will speak louder than words. Who am I kidding he's probably back to selling boosts.

One great gesture would be to give WC3: Reforged a lot of attention and try to actually finish the game. Its still missing features that the original game had and they promissed that it would be added back, here we are reaching its 2nd anniversary and it got nothing. Compared to Hearthstone which is getting like most attention out of all their titles, it consists of at least 3 different games now (the card game, battlegrounds, mercenaries) and all modes receive tons of updates. For WoW you'd make me really happy if you fire Danuser (yes even more than Ion) and try to reboot the game to make it like WotLK with all kinds of improvements.

You know they only released WC3:Reforged to claim ownership to their IP right? It's their greed that caused them to create it not their desire to make a quality HD release because they didn't. Oh I'm reminded how much I hate Blizzard everytime I open Reforged(I only own classic I'll never buy reforged) and I crash and then I'll reopen it and host a game with my friend and we'll play a round and then I'll host the game again and she has to restart the game because the quick join function bugs out. It's hilarious how much time I've wasted because of Reforged. Oh I hate Blizzard.

[Darkguyver2020]

Hilarious coming from a fragile white dude who thinks workspaces should remain mostly white .

No. We believe people should be hired because they are qualified for the job. Not for some asinine box ticking quota.

You idiotic minorities have been crying for years about discrimination in the workplace. Yet now you think it's fine when the opposite is occurring?

Pot, meet kettle!

[nvaelz]

You are not that smart are you. You can literally look up actual real data. It is dominated by white males. And when we say dominating we meab like 90%.

Also the only people who use the wording "commie lie" are fucking morons. Sorry to tell you.


But that's the thing, it absolutely should be dominated by "white males". Last i looked the U.S. is a white country with every other race being minorities. Therefore it only makes sense that a company (any company for that matter) is comprised of mostly white people. Companies in India are dominated by Indian people, companies in Norway are dominated by Norwegian people, companies in Italy are dominated by Italian people and so on... will you complain about them as well ? Are they somehow racist and bigoted ? Perhaps you'd like the indigenous people of every country to be completely erased in a mad scramble for "equality" and "diversity" ? Or is it just for white americans ?

Yeah! Just look at the game "Lemmings" It's a whole line of white people one after the other! What about diversity there should be atleast one different color and gender every step we must have absolute mathematical equality in how people are placed into positions. What insanity! XD

Now I'm #Triggered to get into this whole equality nonsense aswell. Let's all just talk about how much we hate mean people that think someone based on their gender/race deserves less instead! No hating on white people tho because I'm white and I'll think you're a nasty racist for hating me for being white and I'm also male so don't hate me because of my gender because I'll think your a sexist and don't bring me your stats about how unfair it is that a huge majority of white people exist somewhere in some positions because that's just a war on the white people and nothing else. Diversity isn't about destruction of the white male it's about ACCEPTANCE of all people and their humanity. Don't be silly it's really insulting to me that you start trash talking white males it's really racist and rude, just because you're in 2022 and you think this cultural trend that white males are evil you think it's ok to be a racist prick cuz you want to recycle the cycle of hatred forever but it's not how we get along.

Oh man I can't believe I quoted you I just read the end of your post and it says something about.

Perhaps you'd like the indigenous people of every country to be completely erased in a mad scramble for "equality" and "diversity" ? Or is it just for white americans ?

That's hilarious because "white america" was created by invading and erasing the indigenous people of america. Not that long ago either. Hilarious. You're actually a european if you're a white american....

Anyways, lets not sulk about the past and all the evil deeds of the past it's about the future and how we should live in peace for the future of mankind in general and calling america "white america" is really really triggering to people that understand the history of america.

[Muhammad]

Currently the gaming msrket is dominated by white males. Not because they have the skills or the knowledge, only cause they are white and a male. This is just a fact. And for you to even come on here a spew that crap is hypocritical bs.

It's statements and claims like these that don't get challenged enough, because diversity quotas are also applied to universities and schools and then they produce unqualified people who begin to repeat the same questionable claims such as "There is systemic racism, just look at this (bad quality) research paper on it (written by someone else who also only was hired because of diversity quotas)".

[Toppy]

No. We believe people should be hired because they are qualified for the job. Not for some asinine box ticking quota.

You idiotic minorities have been crying for years about discrimination in the workplace. Yet now you think it's fine when the opposite is occurring?

Pot, meet kettle!

Reality: People are hired based on not their qualification but where they were born and/or who they knew.

Then again your "You idiotic minorities" comment just makes me realize you're a dumb racist and not actually looking for anything based in reality.

[regardoz]

Where did he lie?

He/she seems to work with them...
I hate people that judge other like they have met them in person

[Toppy]

Funny thing is people saying "I just want them to make a better game"

Their bullshit company culture has likely CAUSED the game going to shit.

Their leadership are all in a big clique and in a place where they cant be questioned. Not keeping their positions on merit but rather on their place in the heirarchy.

You cant BOTH claim that you want a better game while also saying that the culture (leadership) isnt a problem.

Thats the big irony. Theres little question that the leadership at blizzard keep screwing up. But turning around and going "We're going "To far" with cleaning up the workface culture"? Thats hypocrisy. The poor leadership is a direct consequence of their workplace culture.

[Daronokk]

Our top priority—now and into the future—is the work we are doing to rebuild your trust in Blizzard.

As if that's even possible at this point. Blizzard is dead. The people that made it great in the past are gone. The people running the show now have nothing to do with Blizzard. It's Blizzard in name only.

There is zero chance of them making a decent game in the near future. Not a slim chance, just plain zero.

The people in charge now love to shit all over the previous work. It's some kind of personal vendetta. Just look at Danuser's work on Shadowlands. That is the Blizzard we will see going forward. Good luck with that shit, I'm out.

What trust is there to gain when they aren't even capable of producing decent games? If on a personal level they're assholes but at least they make great games there is work to be done but I would give it a chance. But if they release shit games what's the point of even listening to their self centered views? I really don't care. It's a waste of time.

[GreenJesus]

Its funny you think that its a meritocracy when everyone is openly aware that getting good work has for decades now been less "What you know" and more "Who you know". Its not that suddenlly loads of white people cant get work because they arent being permitted, its more so that some work places are taking baby steps in no longer hiring based on "Well I know such and such from church".

I had a second cousin who worked at Apple who's JOB it was to go around the world and recruit "brown people". You know why don't you? Because Apple can pay them 50% less than an american worker by holding them hostage with a visa. Diversity is just an excuse for a lot of these companies to recruit from India or wherever and pay less money in labor by taking advantage of the visa program.

[Toppy]

I had a second cousin who worked at Apple who's JOB it was to go around the world and recruit "brown people". You know why don't you? Because Apple can pay them 50% less than an american worker by holding them hostage with a visa. Diversity is just an excuse for a lot of these companies to recruit from India or wherever and pay less money in labor by taking advantage of the visa program.

That's not a diveristy hire. One of the points of hiring people regardless of race or sex is that their pay will also be equal.

You're confusing two different things.

[GreenJesus]

That's not a diveristy hire. One of the points of hiring people regardless of race or sex is that their pay will also be equal.

You're confusing two different things.

Well, obviously that isn't happening since even the Co-CEO's weren't paid equally.

[Cubster20038]

well sadly I think Microsoft will be in charge when they take over and yes I know the die hard fans of World of Warcraft will say not true