Have you lost respect for Blizzard?

[SlickR]

Do you think Blizzard will somehow miraculously add lan, chat and cross-server play after all the complaints about it and the loosing of respect they have, which is shown in this thread?

[minerals]

...maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe

[EndlessSky]

Compared to their late 90's early 2000's days I can say yes I have lost respect for Blizzard, ever since World of Warcraft and maybe even late Frozen Throne they have been going downhill as a company and are losing sight of what made them great.

Now, it seems like they are just trying to make money especially with their merchandise and "premium" features. Maybe if the new games they are working on and Starcrafts 2 single player campagin turns out great I will cut them some slack because the fact is they are a buisness.

[deadlyhazard]

Just a little bit. I've always, always been against microtransactions even if it's just for aesthetics. The stuff they did with WoW made me rage quite hard to the point where I quit the game.

I'm also a bit disappointed in Battle.net 2.0 and how they failed to live up to their promises. Most companies do, but I didn't really expect it from Blizzard.

As long as they eventually fulfill them, and steer clear of microtransactions for SC2, then my faith shall be restored.

[BusinessMonkey]

Nice post Blackdog. I think you got a lot of aspects covered, the way I see it as well.

I haven't lost the respect for the company, but I have lost some trust. I don't trust them as much as I would've 3 years back, when I first heard about SCII.

[Hamshank]

The game isn't even out yet.

Maybe it's because Blizzard is so great that people hold a beta to such high scrutiny.

To me it's ridiculous, you'll love it when it comes out, cry more.

[dandiesel]

I could not disagree with you more and your assessment seems illogical.

Not really, it's closer to McDonalds than Shakespeare. Blizzard puts out very safe, very polished products.

There is nothing wrong with safe and polished. There is almost no appeal to a company in putting out a product into a competitive market that's overtly risky and rough/buggy.

They also rely on their name to sell a great number of copies. If any other company put out WC3, that game would have flopped hard.

What's wrong with brand recognition and image maintenance? Plus if the product is total shit as you imply, in a competitive market WC3 wouldn't have sold nearly as much. Apple owes its existence to its brand and image.

The same with WoW, if it was made by any other developer, it would be a semi-successful MMORPG that would have been dead within a few years.

Yet another wild conjecture. WoW, like all of Blizzard's games, is successful because of Blizzard's constant support. Maybe it's because I lack experience with other titles, but I have never come across a more supported games than say BroodWar. Which brings me to your next point.

I've lost a great deal of respect for Blizzard because it's clear they are no longer a "gamer's" company. They sort of respect the community, but it's clear money > common sense right now. It's all about monetizing features of Bnet (tourney support, esports, etc etc) instead of building a community. Plus, they have the gall to say what we want instead of listening to the community. "Do you really want chat channels?"

False. False. False. Don't you realize a strong community (which Blizzard is obviously going for, hence Bnet 2.0, hence the delay) not only benefits the game but also makes money for them? These guys aren't stupid. Say they don't have an explicit goal of nurturing a community (which obviously any developer does). Either way, to achieve the end goal of making money, they need a robust community that can prolong the life of the game and promote the game.

I personally think Blizzard wants to make money as any rational actors would want to in a competitive market, but also is devoted to the legacy of the game. For the most part these developers aren't board room execs. They are passionate gamers like us just trying to make a great game especially when there is an overwhelming pressure is on to do so.

[Hoywolf]

Well Blizzard really isnt the same company we know and loved before, majority of their team has already left and made their own companies. They are just using the success of the brand name really. In which i voted for Yes, a little bit, because of that fact and because of the disappointment of battle.net 2.0, which will cascade its sub-par functionality into Diablo 3 as well as its other new games.

[Blackdogkt]

The game isn't even out yet.

Maybe it's because Blizzard is so great that people hold a beta to such high scrutiny.

To me it's ridiculous, you'll love it when it comes out, cry more.

Just a small example from a tiny circle of gamers among the myriads of us, my gaming buddies. Bear in mind, we all managed to get into the beta, even if a bit late, we've all played a varying amount of matches (i played the least, around 30-35, the others have racked up a couple of hundred matches though) and we have also preferred staying indoors 3-4 nights during the past 2 weekends so that we could have a LAN party, instead of going out in the glorious mediterranean summer to get hammered on booze and annoy scantily clad women. Oh, and we have spent 2 years of our lives playing SC:BW in webcafes when broadband coverage was non-existent, so it must be pretty obvious that we are in fact interested in the game quite a bit. So, what do these people think of SC2?

One will probably buy the game immediately, as long as he remembers to do it. He's an impulse shopper but he's not exactly getting sweaty palms about it.
Another guy will order from an online shop to save money. He says "i can wait even if it takes a few weeks for the game to be shipped to my doorstep, it's not like i'm itching to play on the day of release".
I will buy the game when i feel the price is justified by the features. That could mean i will pick it up during the first week of release if they improve some things, or that i will occupy myself with something else for 2-3 months until the price drops.
Another guy, possibly the best player in the group and the one who's most prone to "losing" himself in the game world as he plays, studying builds and watching all of day9's webcasts to improve his game, came up with a total bomb the other day. He said "i might skip it completely, based on how much of a milk-the-cow-dry attitude they display without giving us back something in return". This comes from a guy who wanted to win so badly when we used to play SC:BW that he even got the shakes and had anxiety attacks a couple of times (ie, he was a total starcraft "junkie"). And so on.

All in all, in a group of 5-6 people whom all used to be pretty avid fans on of the original title, there are no pre-orders for the sequel and nobody is going to be playing on day one. In fact, the average time of purchase within the group is 2 weeks to 1.5 month after release.

The reason? Well, the way games are nowadays, it's not only about the gameplay experience. If a publisher (any publisher, this is not about Blizzard) forces the customer to jump through fiery hoops before he can get basic utility/functionality that was standard 10 years ago, then that customer is fully entitled to and quite possibly might skip the game completely (worst case scenario) or wait until it's considerably cheaper.

And this tells us how business works. If you want to make money, you build and sell what people want, otherwise your profits suffer. Pretty simple stuff.
The irony in all of this is that the board room execs are the ones who should get this, but they don't because a lot of time they are mesmerised by visions of quick profit. In fact, it's usualy the developers (the non-economy trained part of any company) who understand this and that's why they usually want to "throw the community" a bone. Community means constant spotlights and coverage and your game selling for years. It's not always about cold hard math and profit reports. When you make entertainment products you need to talk to people's "emotions" as well, otherwise you'll end up squandering all your brand-name capital in one massive buyout of your previously good reputation. That's just fine really, as long as you plan on cashing out and leaving the market. However, for a company who aims to continue down the path it's like selling all your belongings, living ultra rich for a week and then commiting suicide because everyone thinks you screwed up.

That's why i think we can't simply answer if we are disappointed at Blizzard. The way i see it, there is two Blizzards. The guys who make awesome games because they love playing games themselves and the guys who are only intersested in milking every franchise dry as fast as possible. I'm sorry but also hopeful for the first ones, totally distrustful towards the second ones.

[Eligor]

That's why i think we can't simply answer if we are disappointed at Blizzard. The way i see it, there is two Blizzards. The guys who make awesome games because they love playing games themselves and the guys who are only intersested in milking every franchise dry as fast as possible. I'm sorry but also hopeful for the first ones, totally distrustful towards the second ones.

Couldn't be said better.