Blizzard can't create good games anymore

[RoKPaNda]

I mean for as much shit as people gave D3 when it came out it's almost a decade old at this point, Blizzard hasn't put effort into it in years, and people still flock to it every few months for a new season. So even when they get pretty much universal shit from the vocal parts of the community they still have the classic Blizzard longevity. The only notable exception is WarCraft 3 Reforged and that was honestly more that their marketing was complete shit because people didn't understand what they were getting. Aside from a lack of ranked ladder the game itself was fine if a little buggy. That's not really new though, original SC / WC3 were absolutely buggy broken messes on release and weren't fixed until a paid expansion and several patches so eh.

Blizzard is still Blizzard and while I would love to give them a free pass and blame Activision or whatever else, they're still Blizzard. They have some really good employee retention, surprisingly, it's very rare to see people go 10/15/20 years in a company like we saw in Blizzard in this industry. If anything they probably need a lot of new talent because the rest of the industry has really stepped up. A small indie company in New Zealand made Path of Exile for example. Normally more competition would be a good thing, but since Blizzard is a pretty complacent company that isn't great at innovation (They usually copy trends instead of starting their own) all competition has really done is highlight the flaws that have always been there in Blizzard.

That said, I personally think Shadowlands is one of the worst iterations of WoW that they've ever done. It seemed great at the start but it became apparent pretty quickly that the reward system was unrewarding and unsatisfying. I see they're fixing it, but I'll take another look at the game for the next major raid, MAYBE. FWIW this is the first time since the inception of Mythic raiding that I've quit before I finished a tier and it's the first time that logging in and doing progression content ever felt like a chore.

[Traveler Voltin]

RIP Starcraft.

Something has to break for blizzard to fix itself.

[Bee76]

What in particular about OW2 and D4 look "amazing" to you so far?

Sorry for the late answer, and i have to admit my english isnt the best, but i will try

I dislike pure "pvp meta shooters", so the idea of doing "pve content" in coop, with heroes to develop via talent trees and "quests" in the setting and in the lore of overwatch is something im really excited about.

Diablo4 is something even better for me. I enjoy Diablo 3, but i always missed the ingame depth of diablo 2 lod. If you remember, in diablo 2 neraly every specc was endgame playable due to that skill synergies, runewords, equip. In D3 you have to play with a bunch of sets, thats all.
The itemisation looks good for me, every stat is useful for example. There is so much more that looks amazing to me, story, style, gameplay looked great. Im really looking forward fpr OW2, but to be honest im hyped like a 13yo for diablo 4.

Thats of course just my opinion, but in the second you can preorder those 2 games, i will do it. Maybe both games wont fit my expectations like SL did so far. But i will give them a try and im pretty sure i will spend some time in those games and will have fun for hours.

[AngerFork]

Personal opinion: I tend to like current Blizzard games still. I've been enjoying Shadowlands, I'll occasionally dabble in OW, and I've really been starting to get into D3 on the Switch. So I disagree in principle with the idea that "Blizzard can't create good games." But I will admit that Blizzard absolutely doesn't take the same risks or have the same innovation that they used to.

I suspect it's more or less corporate risk management. Playing it safe means you can more or less assume specific costs and profits, something that smaller indie companies really can't do with any true measure of success. It's not quite as fun or bold, but it is a safer financial investment. That's largely what most large companies want in any industry, not just games. Add in microtransactions to further expand what profits the game will bring in, and there really isn't a strong fiscal reason to take chances, even if it would make the game more fun overall.

[Morgaith]

D4 Looks dreadful really but i'm hoping it will be at least some form of competition to PoE.

[Araya]

Activision was smart with Blizzard I'll give them that. They made the take over a very slow burn and took there time.

[Relapses]

no one can change my mind and i am not looking for a reason to play, i already do. what interests me more is if there are other people who share my opinion.

I'm glad you sought validation of your super unique opinion that Blizzard sucks. I'm sending one validation your way right now as we speak. Please allow 6 to 8 weeks delivery.

[rhorle]

Activision was smart with Blizzard I'll give them that. They made the take over a very slow burn and took there time.

Blizzard is the one responsible for their current state. Stop using Activision as the boogeyman in the closet that ruined a company. It has been 14 years since Vivendi acquired Activision and merged it with their games department. It has been 8 years since Activision Blizzard bought itself out from under Vivendi. It wasn't a take over as Blizzard has remained largely in control of itself since then by the way the corporate structure is set up.

Blizzard created the Blizzard of today. Activision Blizzard, their parent company, didn't slowly ruin/takeover/whatever. They just let Blizzard be blizzard. It shouldn't have taken this long for Blizzard to start to diversify but it did.

[Kokolums]

Blizzard does not offer a "value add" to their games. When you design a game, you first must ask "I NEED to play THIS game over other games because of X, Y, Z" and HAVE AN ANSWER.

Maybe the answer is:

the graphics for your game are the best in the genre by far.
you provide the most frequent and meaningful updates to your game in the genre by far.
you have the bleeding-edge social experience in the genre by far.
you have the best cross-platform support in the genre by far.

Blizzard's answer USED to be that they had the bleeding-edge social experience in video games by far with battle.net 1.0. It literally had streaming before streaming was invented around 10-15 years later. They ripped ALL of that out of their games.

Today, what is the value add?

Are the graphics the best? NO.
Do they offer the most frequent and meaningful updates? NO.
Do you offer the bleeding-edge social experience? NO.
Do they have the best cross-platform support? NO.

For a time they claimed their value add was "polish"...whatever the heck that means. I didn't see it.

They are just a mediocre game company pumping out sequels and xpacs.

[Darkeon]

Ohh, they can. They just won't, because you will buy their products either way.

[Kokolums]

Blizzard is the one responsible for their current state. Stop using Activision as the boogeyman in the closet that ruined a company. It has been 14 years since Vivendi acquired Activision and merged it with their games department.

In those 14 years, they really haven't produced a hit besides Hearthstone. And that was because it had a value add. It was the ONLY online card battler will full support on both phones and PCs. You HAD to play Hearthstone if you liked the genre because the support wasn't there for the full range of computer hardware for other games in the genre.

[Flame6]

Donno about you, but Diablo 3, hearthstone and overwatch are all good games.

[Kokolums]

Donno about you, but Diablo 3, hearthstone and overwatch are all good games.

Torchlight 2 is a great game. You have to be more than that. There is nothing about it to separate it in the ARPG genre. There are plenty of great games better than Blizzard has put out that went nowhere. Your game must clearly separate from the pack. You must shake the players and show them why they must play yours over others.

World of Warcraft does not demand attention. It doesn't have the best graphics. It doesn't get the best and most frequent updates. Social has regressed mightily. Its not cross-platform friendly. its got nothing going on really. Its playerbase continues to age.

[Jastall]

Donno about you, but Diablo 3, hearthstone and overwatch are all good games.

Hush, how dare you actually like things in such a thread rather than bemoan the fact that, shocks and gasps in the audience, a video game company is doing their best to make money.

[Paperfox]

Go to YouTube and watch Steve Jobs talk about who runs a company: engineers or salesmen? (Title of video is: Designer's Digest - Steve Jobs on the role of product and marketing people.)

Until and unless their MAUs go down, they will keep the Fun tap open only a trickle. If they continue being successful (as defined by an investor, not a player) then they will continue to keep the games the same.

[Stormspellz]

Shadowlands sells like good bread and people here are like "Blizzard can't make good games"

Some of you got some weird complexity regarding Blizzard games. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean they are bad games, in the same way that lots of people here probably dislike Counter Strike but it's still a good game.

transformers movies made a lot of money in ticket sales, doesn't mean they are good movies.

[Utrrabbit]

Exactly.

Blizzard become one of the game companies that is lower than average. They dont have even have a one decent game but garbage..

Wow is litetally the single highest played game on the planet.

Every other one they have is super popular.

People who say they are lower than average when they out sell basically every other one is laughable.

Wow currently has 18 mil subs according to the latest stats.

The reaaon they are doing D2 remastered and TBC classic us because the playerbase is asking for it

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transformers movies made a lot of money in ticket sales, doesn't mean they are good movies.

Tranformers does not have 18mil players.

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Blizzard does not offer a "value add" to their games. When you design a game, you first must ask "I NEED to play THIS game over other games because of X, Y, Z" and HAVE AN ANSWER.

Maybe the answer is:

the graphics for your game are the best in the genre by far.
you provide the most frequent and meaningful updates to your game in the genre by far.
you have the bleeding-edge social experience in the genre by far.
you have the best cross-platform support in the genre by far.

Blizzard's answer USED to be that they had the bleeding-edge social experience in video games by far with battle.net 1.0. It literally had streaming before streaming was invented around 10-15 years later. They ripped ALL of that out of their games.

Today, what is the value add?

Are the graphics the best? NO.
Do they offer the most frequent and meaningful updates? NO.
Do you offer the bleeding-edge social experience? NO.
Do they have the best cross-platform support? NO.

For a time they claimed their value add was "polish"...whatever the heck that means. I didn't see it.

They are just a mediocre game company pumping out sequels and xpacs.

A mediocre gaming company that produced the single largest and most played game currently at 18 mil subs and players. Active subs.

Everything you say or will say is wrong. So do not even try replying. You are wrong in everything.

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D4 Looks dreadful really but i'm hoping it will be at least some form of competition to PoE.

PoE is a PoS I played that game for 5 mins before I tossed that trash out. I was physically angerd with how low quality crap it was.

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Basically- the same thing happened to Blizzard and MMO's in general that happens to everything in this world.

1) They created something great
2) Corporations realized there was money it.
3) Corporations swooped in, used the money they had to buy people out and took over.
4) These corporations then examined all the little details of the product and tried to squeeze every red cent out of their "investment" (the product you used to love). In doing this- they changed the product so that it no longer resembles what you really loved and is now a "cash cow" for investors that threw up some money in Step 3 (above). Most of these investors have no real first hand knowledge of the product or field- they just want a "return" on their "investment" (surely you can understand). They don't even care if the product fails (some investors will even bet against it in a "play") as long as they make the profit they expected from it.
5) The original fans of the product slowly lose faith and go elsewhere and the product dies a slow death as the corporation tries to bleed whatever funds are left in it- leaving an empty husk.
6) Product/ genre is somewhat dead and the corporations move on to the next victim.

Sorry that's just how greed works, it doesn't care about your little "game"- it only cares for $$$$$$. There's ways to fix it, but people are just too lazy in general to bother.

Wow is still the most played game on the planet.

Morons like to say it is dying when it is actually doing better now than it did at any point. It currently has 18mil subs. More people play wow than every other game. It has more active players than the next 5 games combined.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

I mean lets be real. The studio that was great had its name bought so that it could be slapped onto crap in the hopes that it will sell more units. It actually fought pretty long and hard to maintain what it once was too and for that you kind of have to salute to it but it's a battle that no matter how hard you fight it eventually over takes and kills. I am sure it can still turn out its cash cow in WoW every couple years for years to come. I am sure every once in a while it will cough out something that sticks. But over all it will be buy the glory from the past, remember us, and as always.. please.. open your wallet and leave all cash behind. Because you know.. remember.. things were pretty good when you were a kid right.. that was "us". Lets be "friends" still.

[Stormspellz]

Tranformers does not have 18mil players.

.

wow doesn't ahve 18mil players, maybe 18 mill accounts ever made but not 18 mil subs

[Advent]

wow doesn't ahve 18mil players, maybe 18 mill accounts ever made but not 18 mil subs

Pretty sure it has 100m accounts ever made, and that was reported 7 years ago.