Has Blizzard Destroyed 17 years of Good Faith in Two Days?

This gameplayer article explores the fallout of Blizzcon and looks at the way, and reasons why Blizzard has done a disservice to their hardcore fans.

"For a company who has repeatedly done so many things right in its 15 year + history, however, Blizzard has recently made a large withdrawal at the goodwill bank."

[SlappingOysters]

You have to wonder whether this is at all the influence of Activision. Obviously they need to toe the company line and pretend everything is great... but maybe it is not

[JsonHenry]

Why would anyone care? If they released two expansion packs after the game no one would be b1tching about it..

So they are releasing (basically) three hybrid campaign/expansion games about a year or so apart that will give you more depth, more gameplay, and a more varied online experience?

WHO IS COMPLAINING?!

[Barbapapa123]

blizzard usually makes good expansion and who knows, maybe they could release expansions at 30$ or lower like what Sins did at 10 bucks a pop

[Ghoul]

bs article and the usual whiny gamer.

Blizzard still is one of the best gamedevelopers to date.

Looking at Starcraft 2
World of Warcraft Wotlk
Diablo3
and coming up warcraft 4

i can only show my purest respekt.
One Dev. making 4 AAA Games simultaniuosly and every single one is incredible.

Stop complaining just out of the sole purpose of whining.

oh btw, once again the only bad part is the hardcorefan. It's allways the same the "hardcore Fans" demand that a company only please THEM, if they dare to reach out to other audiences or spreaden theyre product range, the "hardcore" fan enrages, whines, and rants around.

i wonder how long it will take till the first obsessed fan goes on a killing spree. :(

gaming has changed....

[Hooby]

While I still think blizzard is one of the best game producers todays, they do look to be moving towards the money mo0re than what they were known for.

To Ghoul, I daresay if you've been a blizz fan since the days of wc2 through wc3 (includes diablo 1 & 2, sc,sc:BW), and NOT just recent games, you might just notice how much more blizzard is doing seemingly for the sake of money as opposed to the sake of the game. I sure notice it. I only hope it doesn't go too far, but...I feel blizzard will peak within the next few years.

[JsonHenry]

I don't care if they want to make more games so they can make more money. As long as what I pay for is solid gold like everything else they sell us then I will be a happy fool to part with his money.

[WeZz]

I agree with Hooby. I've noticed them moving towards the money milking schemes. And I have to add they're getting better at it!

-they keep updating wow with patches to reshuffle characters' moves so players eventually have to re balance their characters overtime.

-SOOO many barriers to actually complete the game.u can't even finish the story without having 25 man party to finish Ilidin.

- no way points, or quest helper. to make u aimlessly run around and waste more time.

- and not to mention the biggest of them all. The subscription fee to play wow! I could have purchased atleast 5 other GOOD games with the same amount i spent on wow. and i'm sure alot have payed even more. but its just pathetic to pay for something that has been free for years.

I originally thought I was going to try each class when i first got wow. but I noticed my life going to waste on just one character let alone trying out the others. and this is only wow. now they want to charge for battle net. and split WC4 and SC2 to 3 parts each. pfft its sad to see good talent go down this path.

[Ghoul]

well since im gaming for over 20 years i know (and love) every single blizard game ever made, and im not that concerned about the company as most of you.

well see i dont understand people paying for L!VE but point fingers at blizzard ??? hypocrits ?

[orakga]

BUT!

If history has taught us anything, it's that once a company begins to prioritize money over service, its service will begin to falter. (EA, Rockstar and Squaresoft being prime examples)

I bet you, SC2 will not be as successful as SC1, and in a couple of years they will be scratching their heads and claim that "people do not want to play RTSs anymore, and that's why SC2 failed".

And they'll deny that the real cause was the 1) quality of the product (latest gameplay videos aren't really impressive) and 2) cut-throat pricing of games.

[WeZz]

I'm not sure if ur last comment was meant for me but thats exactly why I've never purchased an x360. mainly the subscription fee and the RROD.

[thereapersson]

Enough said.

Find other ways to make money, but don't f*cking touch Battle.net.

[Jdoki]

I'm taking the wait and see approach.

Until we know release dates and pricing I'm not going to judge.

Blizz is a company that makes quality games, in fact not just quality games, but genre defining world class games. Diablo is still seen as genre defining, every release in the genre is still compared to Diablo.

Every MMO is compared to WoW, and the number of subscribers speaks for itself.

Starcraft is practically a national sport in Korea.

If Blizz ahve decided SC2 needs to be in three parts then I'm sure they have good reason for it, beyond money grabbing - but we will have to wait and see.

As for BlizzCon being a pay per view event, that's not impressive but not unsurprising either.

Realistically and logistically how could Blizz do a better job of trying to cater for it's millions of fans at a live event. Few other developers/publishers do such events like this, so shouldn't we be criticising other developers for NOT catering to their fanbase rather than bashing Blizz for what is DOES provide (even if it is only to a lucky few).

[McLuvn]

It's simple, those who whine about cost should switch hobbies.

[Leord]

I didn't really want to contribute to heating this up any further, but I just got to:

This is a useless rant, and the level of quality of the photoshop skills just really set the bar for the whole article.

[MK_Red]

Well, I worshipped Bliz in 90s and still consider StarCraft and WarCraft 2 to be the best RTS games of all time but after WC3 and WOW, I lost faith.
After StarCraft 2 became a trilogy where you have to pay to play each campaign instead of having them all in one game just like original, I now hate Blizzard. I know they said that the campaigns got to big and other stuff but to me, the great Blizzard is dead and all that remains now is the money mongering machine known as Activision Blizzard. BTW, I'll still be getting all 3 SC2s and D3 because let's face it, at least Blizzard's games are still awesome.

[Gun_Senshi]

MK_Red. We always agree with each other.

I used to LOVE Blizzard. Since WoW, Blizzard is sh!t.

WoW was a downgrade to all MMO ever before and its a very very very bad MMO. Its just downgrade version and made EASY TO PLAY and thus got mass appeal and new people in MMO. Just like what the Wii is doing. Go ask anyone who plays WoW if they know whats Ultima Online or Everquest. Go ask anyone who play WoW if they can get past the Tutorial in EvE online. Most people cannot do that its a real mmo with complexity not super easy and simple.

As you know MK, I was hyped for Diablo 3, now i expect it to be a turd. Removing customizing of Attributes i just now...BULLSH!T. Less WoW More Diablo. WoW sucks greatly and its 12mil are only idiot fanbois and girls that don't know better.

WoW money and mass appeal went up their head, just like Wii is doing to Nintendo.

[emazzuca]

"Oh, the media monkies and their junky junkies will invite you to their plastic pantomine... throw their invites away"

Those who have been playing blizzard games from day one, can see the change, Blizzard always stood for the people and the games first. With the Millions now rolling in from WoW, and the merger from Activision, clearly , capital is the number one objective, and now Blizzard will be the new microsoft, (by trying to figure out how to make the consumer pay for everything)

Blizzard is no more, Activision Blizzard is the new corporate money making machine, and will stop at nothing.

"Like fools, we clung to the old hatreds and fought as we had for generations.

Until the day the sky rained fire and a new enemy came upon us."

[moe84]

Q Q Q Q,

Q Q Q Q,

Quit QQing, Quit QQing, Quit QQing

Want to talk about let down companies? Why not start from the beginning? Nintendo? Square/Enix? Microsoft? MICROSOFT? EA? Most game developers for the 360 who seem to not be able to fix frame-rate issues with a single console game. Come on, it can't be that hard. Can it? Arguably Sony, and backwards compatibility with the 60gig, but not so much on the others(great marketing ploy imo, but still)?

[Timesplitter14]

Actually EA was at the very bottom but recently it's coming back up with Crysis and Dead Space

[war340k]

I have to disagree with you on Crysis. Crysis was great, because EA did not impose their "wonderful business methods" on Crytek which helped make the game great. I was surprised EA decided to make the production of Crysis a joint venture instead of "convincing" Crytek to join EA's HUGE HOST of developer companies which EA has total control over. Anyhow, the article is valid. I'm surprised it did not mention that there would be charges for "elite" features on battle.net (which makes me think Blizzard is appealing to elitist now). I only hope regular members who don't spend online credit can still achieve the same features that the elitist pigs gain. In the meantime, I will continue to observ and judge Blizzard as the company feeds crud/goop to the masses of pigs while milking them out of their money :P................Oh yeah buy the first Starcraft 2 episode and go get a torrent for the other two versions of the game. That should save everyone $100 which can be used for gas instead.

[Pain]

just watch.

[Tyrael]

I just hope they don't do the same thing to the diablo series

[QQcrybaby]

lol a qq article. qq more.