Blizzard was once the king of innovation, what happened?

[Lochton]

I think a bigger problem is that the game director, Ion Hazzikostas is neither a programmer nor a game designer.

Pretty sure it was confirmed that he had taken up programming? I know his legal license is still valid but he mentioned after getting it that he sought to be a programmer.

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Yeah, this is probably true. I resubbed to WoW last night to compare Classic and Retail. Classic is actually more fun than retail despite the fact that it's almost 18 years old. That's nuts to me. I bet the same is also true of Diablo 2 vs. Diablo 3.

Well, that is an objective observation, though.

[Relapses]

There's a lot of really great new games actually that are so much better than stuff before it. Blaming it on nostalgia is a pretty cheap excuse used to excuse criticism of something they love. I am looking forward to the new Baldur's gate game, Its very different than the old Baldur's gate but from what I have seen it looks like fun. I aint looking from nostalgia goggles and thinking just because its new its bad.

Unfortunately most tings new from Blizzard considering their current reputation isn't good. Kinda like Bioware, once a great games company who made critically acclaimed games is now making half baked horrible messes of games. Most of us are just not drinking the Blizzard Kool-aid to not see that their games are not as good as they used to be.

Now with that said this is a matter of perspective, if you enjoy their three new recent games like their mobile game and Warcraft 3 Reforged, or the upcoming Overwatch 1.5... I mean 2, then good for you. But the company is driven by greed, toxic work conditions and low morale within the company. and it shows in their games. Their games are not fun right now, and maybe thats due to the developers behind the scenes are not having fun either. Who'd a blame them?

Sure there are a lot of bad faith haters out there, who will hate blizzard because 'lol Blizzard'. I was literally going to bat for blizz in BfA I enjoyed that expansion (until the end, the end sucked) but the fact is there are a lot of us who want Blizzard to be better, to be that company we loved... Not me though I gave up on that philosophy and just stopped playing their games period, I think people holding out for hope Blizzard to be the 'old Blizzard' are delirious... But I been blizzard clean for 18 months, but people are entitled to love their games just as much as people can not like them and feel free to criticize them.

OT: With that said blizzard have never been an innovator, more like a perfecter, they take games of other genres and perfect them and make them better, the RTS genre, (although some will argue AoE is better), Diablo, Hearthstone, and even Overwatch). Now their recent outings haven't been as good, their new clash Royale game will rake in some cash but if its a better alternative to it that remains to be seen, Overwatch 2, hasn't gone over well, outside from core esports players, and Warcraft 3: Reforged... well... we don't speak of that. some would even debate are they even perfectionists anymore? Guess the real test would be their survival game that's in the distance somewhere.

There's little substance to topics like this because they're just a place for people to share their boring, "I remember when I was 11 and I had to raid in 8 inches of snow uphill both ways," stories and pretend like Blizzard intentionally made the game worse. And if you dare suggest that the people who play WoW have changed more than the game itself, you're just "drinking the Blizzard Kool-Aid" and clearly everything that Blizzard has produced post-WotLK is inferior. (Despite still being the most popular subscription MMO by an insane margin.)

[dwarven]

Pretty sure it was confirmed that he had taken up programming? I know his legal license is still valid but he mentioned after getting it that he sought to be a programmer.

He's probably doing the best he can with the ultimatums he's (likely) been given by the execs. All of his game direction probably looks great on paper, but somehow doesn't really translate into a fun game in reality.

[Lochton]

He's probably doing the best he can with the ultimatums he's (likely) been given by the execs. All of his game direction probably looks great on paper, but somehow doesn't really translate into a fun game in reality.

Honestly. You just described the majority of the issues with the teams at WoW. The bag has been tightened it feels like, so they are giving us what they can, meanwhile under major pressure from a new legal team, a new HR team, new diversity management, new employees/teammates, and new skillsets of varied portfolios (we've seen a lot of great work done which is hardly praised in recent content), and threats to the fear of unionizing.

[Daronokk]

WoW happened. Success can be crippling.

Having such a successfull MMO meant they focused on playing safe in order to not lose anything as opposed to innovating and embracing change with the possibility of even greater success. And after WoW Blizzard hasn't been able to release a good game. Diablo 3 was horrible at launch. Titan was scrapped and turned into Overwatch. Heroes of the Storm is a late copy of Dota. None of the games or franchises performed well.

Not to mention what success does to a company. It attracts a different set of employees. Ones that don't necessarily share the enthousiasm of the original people. And going public gets you stakeholders who only care about short term profits over long term plans. It's a struggle a lot of growing companies have to deal with. Many succeed but also many fail in this regard. The original fans often feel alienated by this new focus and new plans. Just look at Star Wars for example. Attracting a bigger audience or targeting a different group of customers isn't always a good thing.

Long story short, WoW was Blizzard's peak. It's all downhill from there. Sure they still have lots of money and can release expansions and remasters, cashing on that nostalgia, but they seem inable to create something new that actually does well. The soul of the company is dead.

[Aydinx2]

You sure have a lot of opinions about how good things are that aren't even on an Alpha.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I don't think the answer is as simple as just saying "blizzard lost all good people" or "they just got complacent" or even "the industry changed". Like usual, "nothing" happens in a vaccum. Blizzard's old guard got complacent, part of them left, new bad parts (fans) joined all while the industry itself changed massively from nerds that made cool shit to corporate slaves, design commitiees and penny pinchers that just want to felate stock holders. There may be one or another reason what weighs a bit more heavily, but in the end all of these things contribute to the current state of this game and the industry as a whole.

And all that before the very obvious yet true and constantly repeated statement: Blizzard was never innovative to begin with. It wasn't just the iteration on other people's idea either, it was also the level of polish that made their titles relevant as well as sheer dumb luck with titles like WoW exploding at the right time or even them buying Diablo's original studio shortly before the game released. Heck even warcraft as a warhammer-light was just luck, because the retards at games workshop didn't license the IP that Blizzard originally wanted to use for "Warcraft". Who knows if the franchise would have ever resonated as well with people if they had gone full wankhammer with the universe? The times when Blizzard didn't have luck, like with DotA, shows how things could have gone...

[VinceVega]

What happend to ANY of the succesfull devs... look at them. They still make money but creativley they are all broke.

EA? Same game over and over.
Bethesda? MAYBE starfield will get them back on track
Rockstar? Basically nothing
Valve? Lol... they cannot be counted as a dev anymore
Bioware? Got chewed up. Andromeda was not half as bad as all the bullshit getting released now and then they had to make a life service they had no experience in. Dragon Age is their last hope then it is over.
Riot? Making stonks by pandering to the horny crowd. Only sexy anime girls in a game so old they cannot even get custom games to work.
Ubisoft is probably the worst of them all. Amazing franchises all run into the ground. Their BlueByte subsidiary is still going strong with the ANNO series after a dip but even they DESTROYED the settlers franchise now.

Epic Games... well they at least make good engines.

Even the mid to small tier studios are not safe from that development.
Maxis imploded
Paradox is just buggy DLCs now (they at least make good maingames every decade or so)

The only devs who are in any way still creative are the small ones.
SuperGiant games for example

And Blizzard... well... they decided that abandoning expansion is a good way to develop the game and forcing players into a endless mobile game loop is smart. They make money. Lots of it. But it is a downwards spiral. Slow but it goes down. And they can't get out of it anymore apparantlly because they cannot insult their current players but cannot get the old ones back.
HoTs abandond despite not even being that unsuccesful. Just not billion dollar franchise
Hearthstone is a MESS
Warcraft is just boring. I would not even say bad. Just uninspired.
Starcraft. Abandond... why? I still have NO idea
Diablo: focus went to mobile. I don't have much hope for Diablo4. Path of exile filled the niche. Too little WAAAAY too late... again.
Overwatch? With NO reason completly abandon one of the biggest games in years to make a unneaded sequel that completly fucks up the game and changes everything by making it even faster by gutting it to 5 players only. Jump in DIE. Immediatly. Fuck tactic. And it is not even a sequel... it is a downwards compatible patch.
Sure PvE. But that could have been a seperate game without killing overwatch 1.

Every single decision they made since gutting HotS was probably the worst decision they could have made.

And i am not even speaking about the moral bancrupcy of the big studios. But that is a problem of gaming as a whole ot just the devs. Fans and studios alike.



Also don't hold your hope for SquareEnix. Every last one of the above mentiones was in the place SE is now once upton a time.

Edit: Almost forgot that new IP from blizz in a genre that was in its prime 2 fucking years ago... like... wtf.... and they teased it and the NOTHING. Why mention it so early in the first place when there is nothing to show? This game will be HoTs 2.0. Way to late to the party again.

[jeezusisacasual]

When the entire genre is moving to a pick up and play instead of scheduled events you tend to get this sort of thing. They are trying to stick to what they feel they do best ( Raids ) but with a dwindling amount of players who partake in them and the metrics to back that up hopefully they can move some of those resources and put them toward the more engaged content, like the justification for LFR but for the modern game. Now one can hope the creation catalyst stays with us forever to finally give an equal avenue to raid tier sets without actually raiding.

[Tiwack]

Companies often go to shit when they become public-traded as shareholders only care about things they can easily measure like revenue and profits. It's the crush of greed that's let inside when solid companies pursue funding for expansion and big projects. They ride that good reputation and prestige for as long as they can but ultimately it's not something that's easily measured and gaged by beancounters that just see news-mentions as free advertising regardless of the subject/issue at hand.

[Kallisto]

Blizzards Innovations This is a list of every game they ever made...not counting expansions to anything/

RPM Racing: First game..a Racing game

Lost Vikings: Puzzle Platformer...was mildly innovative at the time due to interesting control scheme but nothing steller

Rock N Roll Racing: What if Racing game HAD LICENSCED MUSIC!

Death and Return of Superman: Forgot they made this....yay Superman Game

Blackthorne: Basic 2d Shooter

Warcraft: RTS's did exist Warcraft mearly streamlined it

Justice League Task Force: Oh I guess Blizzard did Injustice before NetherRealm in the time when everyone was trying to copy SF2's success (Oh gee look what blizz usually does)

Warcraft 2: Better Streamlined Warcraft

Diablo: Will give them this..nothing like Diablo really ever came out before

Lost Vikings 2: Oh look more Lost Vikings

Starcraft: Online play was really the clincher here and the custom scenarios you could do so yay a little innovation

Diablo 2: Better Diablo with online play...not saying this is bad but was hardly innovative

Warcraft 3: Better Starcraft

Wow: Casual Friendly Everquest

Starcraft 2: Better Warcraft 3..yet also somewhat worse

Diablo 3: Ahh yes the massively singleplayer online game..such innovation

Hearthstone: Ok...MTGOnline did it first and I'll give Blizz this they really set a standard for F2P games and they were the first online card game made specifically with being digital in mind. So yeah they took MTGOnline and made it better (Debateable)

Heroes of the Storm: Today on Blizzard was mad they didn't get DOTA..also more casual friendly League of Legends

Overwatch: Let's make the TF2 classes actual characters!

Then games not out yet OW2, Diablo 4, and Diablo Immortal which can be summed up as Mobile Diablo, Different Diablo, and Overwatch with an instagram filter.

There got that out of the way.

The thing about Diablo 1+2 is that Blizzard North made these and at the time were not actually Blizzard. They were once called Condor and were renamed when Blizzard's parent company bought them out and realised they could use the Blizzard name on the new purchase so that when Diablo comes out people will think "The guys that made Warcraft did this, neat. I'll give it a go.". Until 2005 Blizzard and Blizzard north were completely different studios.

[Miffinat0r]

As people have pointed out--most of WoW is EQ Casual mode.

If you want innovation; Look at Ashes of Creation, and Dreamhaven (whenever they announce a game)

[qwerty123456]

For it to be innovative it needs to be intentional though. WoW becoming casual friendly was not intentional. It was response to feedback back in Vanilla. The original plan was for it to be grindy with just a few quests for world building. But people loved quests so more were added. Which is why there are entire zones that are nearly devoid of quests or why there is a significant disparity between Horde and Alliance quests available; none of it was planned, it was all done in reaction to feedback. That they embraced the feedback is admirable but not innovative.

They certainly intended to be the most casual friendly MMO at the time. While they still had/have penalties they weren't as harsh as other mmos at the time.

[Lochton]

If you want innovation; Look at Dreamhaven (whenever they announce a game)

Eh, I'm not going to hype up a company without seeing a development plan or product ideas. For now, if you want innovation, look at companies with actual development plans, heck, even Palia shows more future than Dreamhaven.

[Beefhammer]

Dragonflight looks like it might turn out okay. Talent trees returning and the UI changes will be good. The one race one class idea could be great, or it could be a disaster. But this is an rpg, not an action game, so I’m not sure what they’re doing there really. Probably ran out of time/lore excuses to let more races be evokers. Dragon riding looks ok. It would be great if this was 2012.

All of these features could be okay, and that’s about it really. But, this isn’t Blizzard’s style; to just make things “okay”. They were once a titan of gaming, with each of their games selling like mad, with groundbreaking features and gameplay. Diablo and Starcraft were unicorns in their own right as well. And after WoW came out, it seemed like Blizzard couldn’t be stopped.

So, what the hell happened? We have two mobile games coming out that have been copy pasted from other games, a dead rts and a dead Dota clone, and a string of mediocre WoW expansions. Not to mention OW 2, which is an actual copy paste. Is Blizzard just in maintenance mode? I remember when Warcraft 3 came out, it was like the second coming for gaming. Diablo 2 probably still hasn’t been surpassed to this day as the best ARPG ever. Was it the Activision merger? Talent leaving? Entropy taking its ugly toll? Probably all of them, but the Blizzard of today is not what I remember them as a kid.

Do you think Dragonflight will bring a return of Blizzard’s old greatness?

Blizzard was never kings at innovating anything. Taking something they liked and polishing it with their style, sure.

[Kokolums]

Blizzard was NEVER the king of innovation. Blizzard separated themselves from the pack as a gaming company by offering the BLEEDING EDGE in social gameplay with battle.net 1.0. For some stupid reason, they decided that was not the secret of their success, and decided it was "polish" or "great narratives". They tore down their social gaming aspect, destroyed battle.net 1.0, turned increasingly in favor of antisocial gaming, and then the company went in the toilet and was sold to Microsoft. Microsoft will probably decide it will "listen to the blizzard community" which is now hyper toxic, instead of listening to the 12 million players that fled, break the games even more and then throw their hands in the air and just monetize the hell out of it all with microtransactions and pay to win.

[Dystemper]

The Golden age of video games is over, all we get anymore is just rehashed copies if other games , a few exceptions here and there.

[Dhrizzle]

Blackthorne: Basic 2d Shooter

Blackthorne was a cinematic platformer, similar to Prince of Persia and Flashback.

[Mysterymask]

The Golden age of video games is over, all we get anymore is just rehashed copies if other games , a few exceptions here and there.

I mean....it's like how people think the 80s had all these great movies cause back to the future and Empire Strikes back came out then but easily forget all the crap in between

Video games are the same the vast majority of 8 and 16 bit games were unplayable garbage with a handful of honest to goodness great here and there. The whole rehash something that did well existed then too and a LOT mainly when Street Fighter 2 and Sonic blew up so everyone made their own 2D fighter and edgy mascot playformer to try to cash in. Add in all the shovelware and bad movie/tv show games and suddenly it's not so pretty anymore

[Kathranis]

Blizzard has never been considered "the king of innovation." I can think back two decades to conversations about this, and the widely held opinion was always that Blizzard took other peoples' ideas and refined and polished them, but did very little innovation of their own.

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Dreamhaven (whenever they announce a game)

Someday one of these studios will announce something, I guess. Took a while, but Second Dinner (founded 2018) finally announced what they've been working on.

Bonfire Studios was founded by Pardo in 2016 and still hasn't announced anything. And one of their biggest gets, Wei Wang, already left them to found his own studio in 2021, Imagendary Studios.