Mike Ybarra - Blizzard Trust and Culture Efforts Update

[Wadrak]

Oh right... getting free renown and doing LFR means the game is for everyone.

Is that really all your limited mind can think of when someone wants the game to be fun again for everyone?

Ok but what exactly have you in mind ?

[Plutarch78]

This just reinforces my desire to never play a Blizzard game again. Blizzard is dead. So let's stop hoping and praying the company goes back to its roots. The original founders and game developers gave up a long time ago, its time we do the same. Acti-Blizz-Microsoft is run not by people who have a passion for making and playing video games. Its run by MBA clones and diversity hires (fuck you California).

From Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, Warcraft II: The Tides of Darkness, Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal, Diablo, Starcraft, Starcraft: Broodwar, Diablo II, Diablo II: LOrd of Destruction, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King will forever be remembered as the golden age of Blizzard. Everything afterward was designed solely for profit and nothing else.

Its sad, really.

[Sanguinerd]

Game has literally never been more casual friendly than it is right now.

You're making the same mistake as the other guy quoting me about LFR.

The game being casual friendly or not is irrelevant when the available content isn't fun to do, that's the point.

Next to that is the term "casual" so broad it's hard to define so I won't go into that.

They're designing it specifically for top players, then slice it up and time-gate the fuck out of it before offering it for the rest of the playerbase when it should be the other way around. Make a fun game for everyone THEN add hard shit for people looking for a challenge.

[Irefusetodie]

Wake me up when their focus is on making quality video games instead of their shit engagement metrics. Until then, I will never trust Blizzard again.

[Sanguinerd]

But it is fun to do. Path of Ascension is dope as fuck. Korthia is fun if a bit ugly. M+ is near perfect. There are so many mogs and appearances to collect. There are tons of cool side stories to enjoy. Etc. Etc.

There are fun things to do for sure but unfortunately it's not enough and it shows. Ofc the entire lawsuit thing didn't help but subs were dropping and servers felt empty even before that.

Generally speaking people do not like Shadowlands and alot of the QoL stuff came once again too late. I'm sure 9.2 will bring some people back but we're gonna have to wait and see if they'll stick around.

So here's to hoping statements like the one made by Mike are more than just pretty words, there isn't that much good will left from what I can tell.

[Zodiark]

This is all well and good but at the end of the day as players all we really want and care about is good quality content that A: Respects the established lore that made us fall in love with the game in the first place, and B: Respects our time as seasoned players who have been there time and again over the years supporting WoW through thick and thin.

[Biomega]

But it is fun to do.

Well now, that's a bit subjective isn't it.

Path of Ascension is dope as fuck.

This is open to a minority of players only, unless you want to constantly flip back and forth between covenants (and have the renown to do so, which new players will take some time to get to in the first place). It's also not without its own issues.

Korthia is fun if a bit ugly.

There are many complaints about the zone as well. Repetitive quests and bosses, intentionally disruptive terrain, etc. Not to mention that hopping around a zone collecting eggs every day to pump your reputation isn't exactly everyone's idea of "fun".

There are tons of cool side stories to enjoy.

Come now, be reasonable. TONS of COOL side stories? What exactly are you referring to here? Just random quests in low level zones or something?

[Edward Wu]

Game has literally never been more casual friendly than it is right now.

Holy shit, this might be the worst post I have ever seen on this website, and that's an accomplishment ROFL.

[Tiev]

But it is fun to do. Path of Ascension is dope as fuck. Korthia is fun if a bit ugly. M+ is near perfect. There are so many mogs and appearances to collect. There are tons of cool side stories to enjoy. Etc. Etc.

I'm glad you're enjoying the game. I don't think your opinion is shared by many, though.

[Grimoires]

You say "we" an awful lot. I think it's cute you think you can speak for anyone but yourself.

I'll give you a novel idea, as a customer. If a company isn't making a product that you think is good/worth your money, stop giving your money to them and go elsewhere.

I think it's cute you assume I have sub. I stopped subbing several months ago when I realized the quality of the game was suffering. I'm more than happy to resub upon each expansion to see if I enjoy it once again. All that said, I stay connected because I truly loved the game, at one point, and hope to once again.

Also, as a fellow customer, you don't want a good product? Ok then I won't speak for you and others like you who don't want a quality product for their money.

/shrug

[Darkguyver2020]

Fuck all this diversity crap. Just make good games again instead of shoving this woke virtue signalling leftie drivel down our throats!

[Ihavewaffles]

cultural leader? Sounds like a SJW commissar...

[Xorzor]

Fuck all this diversity crap. Just make good games again instead of shoving this woke virtue signalling leftie drivel down our throats!

Glad someone said it. Woke sjw filth is not required nor wanted. It's an infection that no one needs to deal with.

[TheWorkingTitle]

Diversity quotas and forced diversity, developers whom openly detest the game and its playerbase, increasingly more mtx, and a focus on emotional/irrational frivolities. WoW might actually be dying this time. You would have to somehow clean house entirely and bring in old Blizzard North developers and those in their developer tree that they've taught and or inspired. This new group from the past 4-5 years has absolutely ruined the greatest game of all time. All good things come to an end, but damn, what a sad, illogical, and floundering way for them to go out. Go woke, go broke.

[exochaft]

We are customers. We pay money for products. We want good products.

That said, as humans we also value humans and we'd like to hope that the company creating the products we pay for are upstanding companies and treating their employees well. However, many of us have first hand experience working for companies that claim "inclusivity" and "diversity" but end up silencing one group to appease another.

If some of us are "the most awful people" then what are the upstanding folks like yourself actually doing to make things better?

Unfortunately, I think the concept of "diversity hires" is one of those things that's best described by the saying, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." It's similar to Affirmative Action in a way, where the end result is just fighting racism using racism. Ultimately, the question that should be asked is why are you doing such an action and is the action itself part of the problem. I've seen the arguments that it's for having more diverse experiences and opinions/perspectives, but that's assuming that just because my skin is a certain color or I have certain genitalia between my legs, I'm a monolith with anyone who has those same physical properties... also, when you delve into the minutia and supposed explanations, it's basically just 'socially accepted racism/sexism/etc.' at the end of the day. If you're hiring based upon someone's race, religion, gender, etc., that's probably a problem (unless the job specifically needs one of those things).

Despite some of the posts I've seen, the main thing that will gain the trust of the customers back has nothing to do with the social stuff... it's the products. I'm sure there's a bunch of people in this thread who have iPhones, Nikes, etc., and it's no secret the social stances and conditions in which these products are made, yet people are happy to be loyal customers. While some people will make a stand based on social issues, realize that you are in the vast minority. At the end of the day, most customers do not care what the employees are doing to each other or what the employees are subjected to in terms of working conditions. Customers want the products they paid for, and the only time they may care about the social stuff is if they see a direct link to said stuff and them not getting the product they want, when they want, for the price they want.

This isn't to dissuade people to make decisions based upon their morality, quite the opposite actually. If you don't want to be a customer to a company that you think does something immoral, that's absolutely fine. That being said, it's getting sliiiightly hard to do so when companies keep merging and businesses become larger conglomerates or essentially monopolies. Making a moral stand is much easier when there's a viable alternative, and it's much harder when there's no alternate. Such is the way of humanity, and all of us are guilty of looking the other way on some level just to get the result we want.

I could put this in a more philosophical perspective as to demonstrate why there's a rift in people about this topic, and it's about what people fundamentally believe. If you believe that humans are fundamentally good, you will likely believe that things such as forced diversity hiring is a good thing (as it's ultimately about external factors being evil, not the humans). If you believe that humans are fundamentally flawed/broken, you'll likely believe that things such as forced diversity hiring are just the same evil as it's trying to replace, leading to the same outcome that you're trying to fix (as it's ultimately about humans being humans, and the external factors are just exposing what was already there).

[Chilela]

I'm seeing so many comments that say "We don't care about any of this, just make the games better." You're all so far off the mark.

Making games is work, and having a functioning, welcoming, workplace at blizzard will result in better games. The passion and reverence that used to make blizzard games so great has been gone as a result of these corporate nightmares.

Mend Blizzard's culture, and the good games will result from hard working employees that love what they do.

I hope Microsoft's meddling is limited besides getting leadership on the right track (Removing Kotich for starters). It might be a long shot, but I hope Blizzard can become the game studio it was pretending to be for all these years.

Unfortunately, fixing Blizz's culture doesn't change the fact that a number of the controversial changes made over the past few months in particular were actively pushed by the devs themselves, wholly independent of player concerns. Barring a massive sweep of the dev team, I don't see this changing, doubly-so given that Blizz, on every level from corporate to developer, has been eager to push the very principles that causes said changes to begin with. There's inevitably some people who are 100% on board with this sort of mindset, but I can't call myself one.

EDIT: 10/10 post right above mine.

[Dr Assbandit]

Fuck all this diversity crap. Just make good games again instead of shoving this woke virtue signalling leftie drivel down our throats!

Glad it's triggering you lot so much.

At this point I hope they continue this trend of social wokeness because we all know that "go woke get broke" hasn't been true in any capacity so righties can simply just cry about all this social equality in abject rage .

[VideoGamePlayer]

Where's the video games

[tomolak]

"We’re measuring our executive and management teams directly against culture improvement. This means their (and my own) success and compensation will directly depend on our overall success in creating a safe, inclusive, and creative work environment at Blizzard."

Ah cool, cause you are sure as heck not measuring them for the quality of the game.

So glad I'm out as of 10.0

[EyelessCrow]

You say "we" an awful lot. I think it's cute you think you can speak for anyone but yourself.

I'll give you a novel idea, as a customer. If a company isn't making a product that you think is good/worth your money, stop giving your money to them and go elsewhere.

Immature viewpoint. You're allowed to have a viewpoint and express it. It's like saying instead of disagreeing with him you should have just not responded and moved on. It's equally stupid, if you're incapable processing negative comments that is a flaw you have, not them.