Blizzard Entertainment seeks an outgoing, energetic, and highly self-motivated community representative to partner with a franchise community team supporting Blizzard All-Stars. We are looking for an individual with experience developing programs designed to build and engage people around entertainment products via forums and other social channels. If you are an experienced writer familiar with gaming community dynamics, and are able to consistently offer attentive, high-quality customer engagement in a fast-paced environment, we’re looking for you!
The ideal community representative would be creative, self-motivated, conscientious, and detail-oriented, with superior spoken and written communication skills. He or she would also be intimately familiar with game-forum dynamics, social media platforms, and various online game genres, and excel at collaborating with multiple internal teams to complete high-level projects.
Responsibilities Consistently engage with the player community on Blizzard and external social channels. Generate high-quality, creative editorial content. Collaborate with and bridge between multiple internal teams on a wide range of projects. Compose community feedback reports weekly. Assist in the moderation of Blizzard and external social channels. Actively support Blizzard’s presence at industry fairs and events, including BlizzCon. Help develop engagement programs that support community growth around our games.
Requirements An exceptional understanding of major social media platforms Extensive community management, forum moderation, or equivalent experience Able to consistently execute superb independent judgment, organize thoughts, and make decisions under time constraints and a full workload Superior communication skills Strong customer service skills and a professional attitude Knowledge of Blizzard Entertainment games Diligence to consistently follow up on and propose solutions for open issues A passion for gaming and gaming communities Proficiency with Microsoft Office Suite Able to work late shifts, weekends, and holidays
Pluses Public relations, marketing, and/or customer service experience Staff experience on a game website or Blizzard fan site Solid understanding of how to modify messaging in accordance to media platform Video and / or graphic arts capabilities
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. and its affiliated companies is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer.
edit: mod please edit the title and add in "Community Representative" as the position. It matters a lot because it shows that they must have completed the back end of the game and transitioning into the front end.
Pretty big news but does it seem like Blizzard has missed the boat on this?
The MOBA market is saturated with content. Different games that target different audiences and different IPs. The biggest have clear revenue streams and are profitable (DOTA2 is profitable, right?).
On September 26 2013 12:42 Bigtony wrote: Pretty big news but does it seem like Blizzard has missed the boat on this?
The MOBA market is saturated with content. Different games that target different audiences and different IPs. The biggest have clear revenue streams and are profitable (DOTA2 is profitable, right?).
Dota2 is definitely profitable even down to the workshop contributors(user generated contents network for Steam) and even if its not, you could consider how much promotion it gave to the steam network as a whole as a huge profit. LoL is even more profitable because you have to unlock champions to get the full experience, they did put a lot of those profit back into their proscene though. However outside of these 2 big names, nothing else has really make a name for itself(may be HoN but its dead now)
LoL and DOTA2 are already well established and have ENORMOUS market shares. This is a waste of time on a project that's going to die off extremely quickly if it ever gets going at all.
Considering Blizzard All-starts was announced in 2010 (right?) as what seemed to just be pretty much a UMS in SC2, I thought they had dropped the idea. Because with primarely LoL and Dota - but still also HoN - this market seems to be a hard one to crack.
I play Dota2, and ofc I'll give All-stars a shot... But I can't see them cracking the market here
On September 26 2013 12:57 Talack wrote: Why are they wasting money on this....
LoL and DOTA2 are already well established and have ENORMOUS market shares. This is a waste of time on a project that's going to die off extremely quickly if it ever gets going at all.
the potential payoff is huge, and they made the engines/tools that spawned this genre lol. When you consider how much of their existing fanbase plays these games, their odds of becoming a giant are pretty high. At least if they make a decent game, and support it long term (which is what they're great at doing).
Honestly, Valve/Riot done half the work for them, by figuring out incredibly successful monetization models. It's kind of a no-brainer to try - they have the funds, after all.
Too bad I don't want to move to Irvine. This would be right up my alley and I already have a lot of projects on the go and this a full-time job. Good luck to those who apply though!
On September 26 2013 13:00 Mentalizor wrote: Considering Blizzard All-starts was announced in 2010 (right?) as what seemed to just be pretty much a UMS in SC2, I thought they had dropped the idea. Because with primarely LoL and Dota - but still also HoN - this market seems to be a hard one to crack.
I play Dota2, and ofc I'll give All-stars a shot... But I can't see them cracking the market here
I guess some WoW/SC2 themed heroes will attract a fair amount of players in the beginning. But again, can they make an interesting gameplay to sustain and grow, or is it gonna be the repeat of sc2 story.
Yeah, the thought of playing all the good ol' Blizzard copyright characters is amazing.
Im not a LoL player, but as far as Dota is concerned: I think the game evolved in a unique way (much like to BW), that you just cant replicate anywhere else. Its like the stars aligned perfectly for this game to become what it has up to now, and its still ever changing.
This Blizzard ARTS may not live up to these standards, but the thought alone of playing Thrall or Cairne Bloodhoof just makes me all excited with nostalgia again.
I remember seeing a preview of blizz all stars a while back, dont know how much has changed, but It looked very bland. Everything was super simplified. The items were hugely reduced (there were like 8 items or so), they said things like armour is bad, attack speed is bad (wtf?) ,towers were literally dummies, and recipes are too hard to understand, and I think there was no last hitting either....dont remember it was a long time.
In effect what I got out of that preview was that all the fun of the game was literally sucked out, on the pretext of making it more friendly, easier to play, and less pressurizing.
Will probably try it out, but just not too excited for it.
On September 26 2013 13:52 dartoo wrote: I thought they had abandoned this.
I remember seeing a preview of blizz all stars a while back, dont know how much has changed, but It looked very bland. Everything was super simplified. The items were hugely reduced (there were like 8 items or so), they said things like armour is bad, attack speed is bad (wtf?) ,towers were literally dummies, and recipes are too hard to understand, and I think there was no last hitting either....dont remember it was a long time.
In effect what I got out of that preview was that all the fun of the game was literally sucked out, on the pretext of making it more friendly, easier to play, and less pressurizing.
Will probably try it out, but just not too excited for it.
This is the story of every single blizzard game after vanilla wow
I always had the feeling they were making Blizzard All-Stars as more of a 'for fun' game vs a competitive MOBA. I could be wrong, but I never got the idea that they wanted to really break into the scene. I know they obviously want to profit from it, and they probably figure a lot of their fans are willing to at least play it a bit...Illidan vs Kerrigan! They have a gimmick because they get to use their world and all of their characters in ways we haven't really seen before. I don't think it makes a dent in the market if they take it too seriously and try to throw competitive support behind it :\
edit: I don't know much about this game, though sooo, I may have missed their intentions if known.
On September 26 2013 13:10 FinestHour wrote: the thing is everyone thought hearthstone was going to be a big joke now people say its as good as magic the gathering
who can really tell with blizzardo their only enemy to their products is themselves
I laughed when I heard about Hearthstone and wrote it off as something to fill space between major releases. And it might have been, that's all starcraft was when it started. Nonetheless it's becoming big in its genre.
But I don't know, if they get as cross-eyed with their objectives as they did with sc2 they'll be lucky to have half the success with two other titles to compete with.
Even getting half the popularity of Dota 2 or League of Legends makes it an incredibly profitable, blockbuster release. Their reputation for games that are fun to play, and somewhat their reputation for issuing consistent play experience patches, adds to players that might want to try it out. The esports scene might be crowded, but there's definitely room to make money and sell fun games out in the MOBA/A-RTS field.
I wish they'd focus on things like hearthstone, but I guess it's just like the old MMO bubble they started, everyone had to make a MMO. It's crazy easy to make money off a dota clone right now even if you gain no traction at all, there's no reason not to do it. It's the "safe" bet, kinda like making a cover based modern era fps for a console.
On September 26 2013 13:00 Mentalizor wrote: Considering Blizzard All-starts was announced in 2010 (right?) as what seemed to just be pretty much a UMS in SC2, I thought they had dropped the idea. Because with primarely LoL and Dota - but still also HoN - this market seems to be a hard one to crack.
I play Dota2, and ofc I'll give All-stars a shot... But I can't see them cracking the market here
They were originally planning to have an SC2 dota, scrapped the idea for the blizzard all stars, had some issues with the name trademark, and largely benched the idea due to all the current MOBA games coming out and taking over most of the market. HoN, LoL, and Dota 2 being the largest.
That being said, I assume this game won't be coming out for at least 2 years when those games popularity starts to dwindle so blizzard can cash in on the people who got bored of the other games, but still like the genre. This correlates with their currents time frame of projects; Diablo expansion(s), hearthstone, the final sc2 exp, and who knows whats going on with 'Titan'.
I don't see them cracking the market on this one either. Bet someone at Blizz is just kicking themselves for not jumping on DotA when they had the chance.
That said, I'll give it a try when it comes out, probably.
On September 26 2013 12:57 Talack wrote: Why are they wasting money on this....
LoL and DOTA2 are already well established and have ENORMOUS market shares. This is a waste of time on a project that's going to die off extremely quickly if it ever gets going at all.
Well, you know, Blizzard doesn't have a sense of the market at all, continually wasting money on projects that could never possibly become successes. I remember back in the day when they wasted a lot of money and manpower on a WarCraft-themed project that was doomed to fail, trying to break into a new genre that you couldn't possibly break into. There was a couple of really well established games in that genre as well, one of them having an economy the same size as Russia's, iirc. Like, total dominance. Then, two years into that games' dominance, Blizzard announced that they're going to make a WC3-spinoff game in the genre. They had some good ideas, though, so maybe, maybe if the game was good to go at the announcement, they might have been able to grab some marketshares, but in true Blizzard tradition, they kept postponing, postponing and post-fricking-poning it forever, so that there were actually competitors making clones of the game even before it was released. It was an economic and PR-related nightmare to watch and they're all just probably trying to forget it or possibly actively repress the memory of their biggest failure to date. But if you dig back into the dusty bins of the internet, you may find mention of a game named World of WarCraft in a footnote in some history of MMO's article.
The other game was of course EverQuest, which had the world's 77th largest economy at one point. It was released in 1999, and WoW went from announcement in 2001 to release in 2004
I think there might be a couple of reasons why they are making this into a full game. Sure, it's hard to image All-stars will make a dent in LoL/dota2 but Blizzard has access to all the heroes from the Blizzard universe and that could be enough to get it going. Even if D3 failed as a game it still sold well and Hearthstone seems to have gotten a lot of attention so it seems people are still very interested in Blizzard games, even if Blizzard is now generally considered to be "in a slump".
It could also make a good platform for Blizzard to test out the f2p model. Seems pretty likely that Allstars will be a free game and that could pave the way for WoW and maybe even SC2 eventually.
It's amazing to me how long they've been able to ride out the successes of the past. I keep thinking it will dry up, but they continue to make them monies.
I think people in this thread are overestimating how much a LoL/dota2 player would value blizzard characters as heroes. It's not the "story" of the heroes in those games that draw players too them, and I have a hard time imagining a blizzard dota becoming profitable off of it solely using it's blizzard characters to draw people in. Fans of LoL/dota2 are far more concerned with game mechanics and aesthetics than back story.
On September 26 2013 15:31 DonKey_ wrote: I think people in this thread are overestimating how much a LoL/dota2 player would value blizzard characters as heroes. It's not the "story" of the heroes in those games that draw players too them, and I have a hard time imagining a blizzard dota becoming profitable off of it solely using it's blizzard characters to draw people in. Fans of LoL/dota2 are far more concerned with game mechanics and aesthetics than back story.
I was actually thinking something similar, that MOBA fans are probably younger than those that might have nostalgia for the aging Blizzard IP characters. I'm sure Blizzard has their marketing and demographics aids to tell them one way or another though.
I knew Hearthstone would be insanely popular from the start. This though? I don't see what Blizzard can possibly offer that LoL isn't already offering. As a person who plays Dota 2 with a lot of LOL playing friends, I know just how hard it is to make people move from LOL. Dota has legitimacy as the older game, has valve behind it, massive tournaments and so on, yet it's almost impossible to make LOL players go for it. Blizzard All-Stars will probably have an even harder time.
I admit I was skeptical of Hearthstone. And it turns out, it actually does suck as much as I thought it did! The game is horribly designed, and so much more so than SC2, relies on chance. MTG has much more depth than HS, which helps to even out it's dice-heavy mechanic. Scrolls (Mojang's online card battle game w/e) has a tad more depth, but is pretty similar to that of Hearthstone.
Now, despite the game being pretty bad, tons of people are interested and want to play it. And because people are interested, more people get the idea that it's fun and awesome and then THEY want to play it. But, I think one of the key factors that helped Hearthstone out here was that it was made by Blizzard. It's not significant because specifically Blizzard made the game, it's significant because Blizzard is an online-computer game company with a reputation in video games. Wizards of the Coast are a bunch of fantasy roll-playing guys. There's a considerable difference between the two companies and the user-base of each.
But when comparing Blizz to Riot/Valve, they are just another computer game company; just another fish. They have the exact same user-base and have heavy overlap in community. People aren't going to spontaneously be interested in a game that they normally wouldn't be interested in because they are the exact same. If Apple made a new car, there'd be SO MUCH SPONTANEOUS HYPE around that vehicle. It'd be insane, even if the thing was a total piece of shit. Eventually, when the car came out, people would just find out it was a total piece of shit (or they would lie to themselves and pretend it wasn't a total piece of shit like they do with all other Apple products).
Blizzard's All-Stars game will have to be amazing, or at least have something incredibly well-done for any LoL/Dota 2 players to actually convert over. Will Blizzard come out ahead with this thing? Probably, but they would have been better off investing in something that hasn't been completely dominated yet.
This post might not have direct relevance to the OP/topic, but it's such a good one that it needed to be posted. Also 666th post. So it's obviously a good one.
The saddest part is that they have the cash to be creative and try new things, and are basically just releasing shitty expansions for the die hard fans. Hire and throw money at some of those cats on the indy market and keep the ball rolling. We don't go to the moon anymore and it's our generation to blame. Regardless, any 'moba' is just a poor copy of a brilliant little custom w3 game from the 90s. LoL has a fanbase because of smart marketing, social awareness and cool art.
And now a poem If this game sees the light of day; many will play; few will stay. The future looks gray. LoL is gay.
On September 26 2013 15:26 screamingpalm wrote: It's amazing to me how long they've been able to ride out the successes of the past. I keep thinking it will dry up, but they continue to make them monies.
Their franchise make their profits a bit higher than regular AAA games, but quality-wise their games are fine. It doesn't seem like they're making money out of thin air. Although they could do a better job with SC2 and D3. Can't blame them really, you can't expect someone to make legendary games forever.
On September 26 2013 15:26 screamingpalm wrote: It's amazing to me how long they've been able to ride out the successes of the past. I keep thinking it will dry up, but they continue to make them monies.
My fear is that they deliver another half done game and just go for the $$. Plz resist Blizz!
interesting. Maybe they'll pull another hearthstone, we never know. I personally prefer a full fantasy setting instead of a mix of scifi etc in there, so I doubt I'll take the bait.
As much as I think LoL and Dota2 are way too big for anyone else to step into that market right now, I'll try this out eagerly. I do want to play all the SC/Diablo/WC characters in a MOBA context, call me a fanboi
In 2003 everyone thought that Everquest was too big and that World of Warcraft would not compete.
This game will have Blizzard's name on it and therefore it will dominate the market. Hundreds of thousands of people who have never even heard of DOTA will play this. Just like many people who have never heard of mtg will play Hearthstone.
On September 26 2013 19:13 B.I.G. wrote: How awesome would it be if you could play as diablo in blizzard dota
Which one? The teenage boy one? The "I drink 5 protein shakes a day" one? or the "mom I just discovered who I am" or otherwise known as "transvestite" one?
I don't see this being anything more than a 2-month fad. They already drove all their good characters into the fucking ground. Playing as Illidan, Arthas Kerrigan Tyrael means nothing to me now.
I'm gonna give blizzard a fighting chance... The actual game of dota hasn't really changed that much since the days of warcraft 3: reign of chaos. If they did something genius and added actual extra (or different) elements to the game, it might be the shit.
dota and LoL have grown a lot because of just being there, hyping their game, making it into e-sports, and just pushing a lot of money on community stuff. It's great. But the actual game hasn't changed much at all the last 10-15 years. Blizzard might, just might, have an ace up their sleeve. Or they may just be able to recreate everything from A to Z slightly better and win on that.
In Internet slang, a troll (/ˈtroʊl/, /ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,[1] by posting inflammatory,[2] extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community
This is blizzard, meaning there are many people that will flock from other blizzard games and act like this is the first moba ever. It will definitely get a lot of players in the beginning. Then it will die cause it's ridiculously bad.
On September 26 2013 19:11 hzflank wrote: In 2003 everyone thought that Everquest was too big and that World of Warcraft would not compete.
This game will have Blizzard's name on it and therefore it will dominate the market. Hundreds of thousands of people who have never even heard of DOTA will play this. Just like many people who have never heard of mtg will play Hearthstone.
I'd be surprised if anyone who knows what Blizzard is hasn't heard of LoL. In fact, anyone who knows that you can play games on a computer has heard about lol. And probaby tried it as well.
Hopefully they make blizzard all-stars fundamentally different from Dota/LoL. I love Dota and used to play a lot of LoL, but I'd like for Blizzard to leave the "3 lanes, 5 heroes, auto creeps you have to last hit, bases on bottom left and top right, etc" formula and at least try to innovate.
Can't wait to throw some hammers into my opponents face with Muradin. And I actually liked some of the changes they had planned in order to be different from Dota2 and LoL. Then the scifi setting and units and it might easily become a think people play when they have an LoL Dota2 overload.
In the end they just need to make a closed beta and sell keys for 400 dollar.
Not sure why so many people are questioning Blizzard's decision to come out with their own MOBA.
Do you really think they are oblivious about LoL and DotA 2 and can't make a calculated business-decision on this? Every thought you have about this went tenfold through their minds. They're not just making a gut-decision, this is closely calculated by them.
On September 26 2013 19:11 hzflank wrote: In 2003 everyone thought that Everquest was too big and that World of Warcraft would not compete.
This game will have Blizzard's name on it and therefore it will dominate the market. Hundreds of thousands of people who have never even heard of DOTA will play this. Just like many people who have never heard of mtg will play Hearthstone.
I'd be surprised if anyone who knows what Blizzard is hasn't heard of LoL. In fact, anyone who knows that you can play games on a computer has heard about lol. And probaby tried it as well.
Yeah I agree. People need to stop thinking that Blizzard is god's gift to earth. It's a good company but they aren't THE BEST WTF SO GOOD. Especially when you see how (apparently?) bad D3 was and how people have had misgivings about SC2 for quite a while now.
Think it will be a huge succes, and eventually surpase both lol and dota. Blizzard is late to the party but that also gives them an advantage, they can build up a new game from the ground with all the latest technologys and learn from the faults in dota and lol, once it has come out it should be ahead of both lol and dota. Not only is blizzard the best, they are also the biggest. They have more monney for the development and they have a huge fanbase of players wich will try out the game no matter which other similar games are out. Agree though that d3 was not their best.
I think if they fire david kim and replace him with a more sensible person, the sc2 scene will see an upswing in users.
too little too late. people are moving to other games fast.. its just getting too much to keep up with this game sometimes. fun for a casual game or 2 no doubt.
On September 26 2013 21:30 lessQQmorePEWPEW wrote: I think if they fire david kim and replace him with a more sensible person, the sc2 scene will see an upswing in users.
too little too late. people are moving to other games fast.. its just getting too much to keep up with this game sometimes. fun for a casual game or 2 no doubt.
playing captains draft dota 2 atm xD
thx nice to know xD ..
well im excited for the new blizzdota, since its free2play why not try it
On September 26 2013 14:06 robopork wrote: I laughed when I heard about Hearthstone and wrote it off as something to fill space between major releases. And it might have been, that's all starcraft was when it started. Nonetheless it's becoming big in its genre..
Yep I agree with this sentiment. I mocked hearthstone quite a bit when I first heard about their big reveal being a 'card game', but it's turned out to be awesome and one of the most highly sought after beta tests ever.
The last blizzard game that hasn't been a disappointment for me is from 2007(TBC). I don't think this will be any different. The company which made epic games doesn't exist anymore...
On September 26 2013 21:23 Rassy wrote: Think it will be a huge succes, and eventually surpase both lol and dota. Blizzard is late to the party but that also gives them an advantage, they can build up a new game from the ground with all the latest technologys and learn from the faults in dota and lol, once it has come out it should be ahead of both lol and dota. Not only is blizzard the best, they are also the biggest. They have more monney for the development and they have a huge fanbase of players wich will try out the game no matter which other similar games are out. Agree though that d3 was not their best.
I'm sorry, that's just not true anymore. Blizzard isn't what it used to be, every player who was around ten years ago will tell you that. The fact is, they don't learn from their mistakes. Every new game is all about involving the community and facilitating interaction between players (Valve has Steam, pretty self-explanatory, the interface of HoN was strongly reminiscent of the old BNet, I haven't played LoL but I'm sure it's decent) while Blizzard effectively killed the social aspect of SC2 when they came up with BNet 2.0. Even in e-sport... While they originally stepped up their game and poured a lot of money into it and created a great environment, they are starting to make bad decisions. They want to monopolize the e-sport market and be responsible for every SC2 tournament out there, which will cause other gaming organizations to steer away from SC2 and slowly choke the scene and the game.
If you truly think All-Stars will beat LoL, I'm afraid you might be a little deluded. LoL has what, 30 million players? And I don't think the numbers are even starting to dwindle, quite the opposite in fact. Every stream keeps gathering more and more viewers (around 400k+ viewers for the Riot Stream nowadays) and SC2 doesn't come close to that at all. To me, it's pretty clear that LoL is here to stay. It will take something completely amazing to dethrone it.
About the little off-topic here: I am hyped for Hearthstone though, it looks pretty cool. But I'm afraid I will be disappointed soon enough, once again. At this point, I'm desperately looking for a new video game company that will make me dream the way Blizzard did ten years ago. Not going well so far.
Edit : In fact, in order to see exactly how hard it will be to beat LoL, just look at Dota 2. They had Valve, the original trademark of the game, the well-known game maker IceFrog and the insanely popular Steam platform. LoL still blew it out of the water. So, yeah.
On September 26 2013 19:13 B.I.G. wrote: How awesome would it be if you could play as diablo in blizzard dota
Which one? The teenage boy one? The "I drink 5 protein shakes a day" one? or the "mom I just discovered who I am" or otherwise known as "transvestite" one?
I still shiver at the thought of sheablo. I still can't imagine what kind of evil drug they must have been amoking to come up with this disgustingly disturbing freak. I also agree that they ruined a lot id their best characters. Fortunately I never played wow so I won't have any memories of violation when playing dudes like illidan.
Apart from that there are still chars that found safety in death such as fenix.
On September 26 2013 16:23 papaz wrote: Blizzard is going to crush LoL and Dota2 (ok maybe not Dota2 client).
Come on guys, who can resist characters like Kerrigan, Thrall, Tyrael, Zeratul, Nova, Lich King, Sylvanas, Illidan and much more!!
I couldn't resist each of them individually, but as an ensemble I can very well.
Exactly, putting all the big name characters from all the franchises would be weird, and they wouldn't really even BE those characters, they wouldn't act like them, or have their motivations, they would be your little puppets that you can make team up in ways they never would, characters are defined by their actions and personalities, not just what they look like and how powerful they are.
Also the heroes will all be of approximately the same power level give or take for carries etc being stronger in late game which wouldn't make sense given how different they should be if they were in fact those characters. Just wait till you see decard cain kill illidan...
On September 26 2013 19:13 B.I.G. wrote: How awesome would it be if you could play as diablo in blizzard dota
Which one? The teenage boy one? The "I drink 5 protein shakes a day" one? or the "mom I just discovered who I am" or otherwise known as "transvestite" one?
I still shiver at the thought of sheablo. I still can't imagine what kind of evil drug they must have been amoking to come up with this disgustingly disturbing freak. I also agree that they ruined a lot id their best characters. Fortunately I never played wow so I won't have any memories of violation when playing dudes like illidan.
Apart from that there are still chars that found safety in death such as fenix.
Several skin Diablo, all with the same voice, just for amusement factor.
I want some Lost Vikings in this game. The guy with the shield specifically.
Edit : In fact, in order to see exactly how hard it will be to beat LoL, just look at Dota 2. They had Valve, the original trademark of the game, the well-known game maker IceFrog and the insanely popular Steam platform. LoL still blew it out of the water. So, yeah.
LoL had a four year head start since it was released in '09 and Dota 2 was released just this summer. LoL had already been released for two years before Dota 2 was even unveiled at the first International. Original trademark, IceFrog, and Steam don't mean anything when the game isn't public. Despite that, I think Dota 2 has been doing very well since it's release. It's on the rise and will be a strong competitor to LoL.
On September 26 2013 13:10 FinestHour wrote: the thing is everyone thought hearthstone was going to be a big joke now people say its as good as magic the gathering
who can really tell with blizzardo their only enemy to their products is themselves
The WoW TCG has been better than MTG for years, especially when it comes to limited (Draft, Sealed)
It's a very similar concept but with much, much less rage inducing mana screw thanks to the quest system.
Seriously, losing a tournament because you have a starting hand with 0-1 or 6-7 mana is absolutely ridiculous. I'm surprised MTG hasn't moved past that model yet, the only reason it's still the top dog is because it started the top dog.
Edit : In fact, in order to see exactly how hard it will be to beat LoL, just look at Dota 2. They had Valve, the original trademark of the game, the well-known game maker IceFrog and the insanely popular Steam platform. LoL still blew it out of the water. So, yeah.
LoL had a four year head start since it was released in '09 and Dota 2 was released just this summer. LoL had already been released for two years before Dota 2 was even unveiled at the first International. Original trademark, IceFrog, and Steam don't mean anything when the game isn't public. Despite that, I think Dota 2 has been doing very well since it's release. It's on the rise and will be a strong competitor to LoL.
Dota 2 was released this summer, yes, but it had been in beta for like a whole year. Everyone and their mother had a chance to play Dota 2 before it officially came out, and TI was already happening in beta. On a factual standpoint, Dota 2 was released over a year ago.
Your point still stands, LoL had a head start, but even so I don't see Dota 2 catching up to LoL. The game is just way, way ahead. Dota 2 is doing very well though, usually about ~500k players online during peaks, and always at least 120-150k, which is pretty much the peak for HoN (the third competitor). I expect the player base to keep growing, but I doubt it will ever go above 10-15 millions, which is still only half of LoL (as of now, it's 6 millions player per month, 500k online at peaks against 30 million and at least 2 million players at peaks).
It's not really about Dota 2 being bad, it's just that 30 million players is a HUGE number.
Edit : In fact, in order to see exactly how hard it will be to beat LoL, just look at Dota 2. They had Valve, the original trademark of the game, the well-known game maker IceFrog and the insanely popular Steam platform. LoL still blew it out of the water. So, yeah.
LoL had a four year head start since it was released in '09 and Dota 2 was released just this summer. LoL had already been released for two years before Dota 2 was even unveiled at the first International. Original trademark, IceFrog, and Steam don't mean anything when the game isn't public. Despite that, I think Dota 2 has been doing very well since it's release. It's on the rise and will be a strong competitor to LoL.
Dota 2 was released this summer, yes, but it had been in beta for like a whole year. Everyone and their mother had a chance to play Dota 2 before it officially came out, and TI was already happening in beta. On a factual standpoint, Dota 2 was released over a year ago.
Your point still stands, LoL had a head start, but even so I don't see Dota 2 catching up to LoL. The game is just way, way ahead. Dota 2 is doing very well though, usually about ~500k players online during peaks, and always at least 120-150k, which is pretty much the peak for HoN (the third competitor). I expect the player base to keep growing, but I doubt it will ever go above 10-15 millions, which is still only half of LoL (as of now, it's 6 millions player per month, 500k online at peaks against 30 million and at least 2 million players at peaks).
It's not really about Dota 2 being bad, it's just that 30 million players is a HUGE number.
I don't think Dota 2 will catch up in terms of players. But whatever the strengths of Dota 2 are, Blizzard will have a hard time matching it, just as it will have a hard time LoL's sheer numbers.
Blizzard is like the Windows phone trying to compete with Apple and Android.
LoL vs Dota is a matter of preference, like SF vs MvC. Both games can co-exist in the genre appealing to different crowds, and neither will "kill" the other. Dota vs HoN, however, can be seen as a more direct competition, as the games are similar in a lot of ways.
By the direction Blizzard has been taking on recent games (e.g. Hearthstone), I would assume Blizzard All-Stars will tend to be more competition to LoL than Dota/HoN.
I'm too rather skeptical about the success of this game. Well, skeptical... I predict that it will stand out of the "other MOBA" crowd, just barely though and it will never reach the height of Dota 2 / LoL. I don't have much faith behind the team that worked on it, being mainly SC2 team which just IMO didn't make a very good job on SC2, where they basically didn't make any big changes at all and yet managed to screw up the gameplay.
While there is always a chance, that they will come up with something absolutely mindblowing, think about it. Even given how slim that chance is, the truth is that in the end it will most likely only end up making Dota 2 and LoL better. How? Well one of the reasons WoW held up for so long and kept things fresh, was because of copying succesful ideas from other MMO's. Now given the fact that LoL is Riot's bread and butter, and Valve probably wouldn't want to stay behind either... if Blizzard All-stars really comes with something revolutional I'd give it about half a year to see almost that exact thingy in LoL and Dota in some form.
Edit : In fact, in order to see exactly how hard it will be to beat LoL, just look at Dota 2. They had Valve, the original trademark of the game, the well-known game maker IceFrog and the insanely popular Steam platform. LoL still blew it out of the water. So, yeah.
LoL had a four year head start since it was released in '09 and Dota 2 was released just this summer. LoL had already been released for two years before Dota 2 was even unveiled at the first International. Original trademark, IceFrog, and Steam don't mean anything when the game isn't public. Despite that, I think Dota 2 has been doing very well since it's release. It's on the rise and will be a strong competitor to LoL.
Dota 2 was released this summer, yes, but it had been in beta for like a whole year. Everyone and their mother had a chance to play Dota 2 before it officially came out, and TI was already happening in beta. On a factual standpoint, Dota 2 was released over a year ago.
Your point still stands, LoL had a head start, but even so I don't see Dota 2 catching up to LoL. The game is just way, way ahead. Dota 2 is doing very well though, usually about ~500k players online during peaks, and always at least 120-150k, which is pretty much the peak for HoN (the third competitor). I expect the player base to keep growing, but I doubt it will ever go above 10-15 millions, which is still only half of LoL (as of now, it's 6 millions player per month, 500k online at peaks against 30 million and at least 2 million players at peaks).
It's not really about Dota 2 being bad, it's just that 30 million players is a HUGE number.
I don't think Dota 2 will catch up in terms of players. But whatever the strengths of Dota 2 are, Blizzard will have a hard time matching it, just as it will have a hard time LoL's sheer numbers.
Blizzard is like the Windows phone trying to compete with Apple and Android.
Blizzard is like the Windows phone trying to compete with Apple and Android.[/QUOTE]
Wait a few years and you will be suprised by both blizzard and the windows phone:p Nice comparison though, you could be right but i have faith in blizzard and microsoft.
bullshit. we've all seen what blizzard do with balance and esports. lol is king in Asia. they might take over dota2 in the west if its ftp, balanced, and they support esports
On September 26 2013 12:57 Talack wrote: Why are they wasting money on this....
LoL and DOTA2 are already well established and have ENORMOUS market shares. This is a waste of time on a project that's going to die off extremely quickly if it ever gets going at all.
everquest had a pretty big market share when they released WoW
On September 26 2013 12:57 Talack wrote: Why are they wasting money on this....
LoL and DOTA2 are already well established and have ENORMOUS market shares. This is a waste of time on a project that's going to die off extremely quickly if it ever gets going at all.
everquest had a pretty big market share when they released WoW
EQ was dying when WoW was released.
Most people left at the 2001-2002 era (post-luclin)
On September 26 2013 12:57 Talack wrote: Why are they wasting money on this....
LoL and DOTA2 are already well established and have ENORMOUS market shares. This is a waste of time on a project that's going to die off extremely quickly if it ever gets going at all.
everquest had a pretty big market share when they released WoW
EQ was dying when WoW was released.
Most people left at the 2001-2002 era (post-luclin)
i meant EQ 2, but i guess they released not long before wow anyways
my point is that someone always has a major market share before someone else takes it
Blizzard can make this happen, the ideas from he fairly old vid are great and actually take away all the "unfunny" stuff from the Dota gameplay (lasthitting, 1000+ items, lame early game etc...)
On September 26 2013 19:30 NicksonReyes wrote: Watch them make a better MOBA than LoL/Dota 2 and suck at the ESPORTS part.
I'm pretty sure this isnt going to be about e-sports at all, they are going for the casual audience, much like s2's new game.
I highly doubt they are not going to push hard into the e-sports scene with this game since they totally scrapped titan because blizzard didn't want to put out anything that couldn't nurture an e-sports environment.
On September 26 2013 19:30 NicksonReyes wrote: Watch them make a better MOBA than LoL/Dota 2 and suck at the ESPORTS part.
I'm pretty sure this isnt going to be about e-sports at all, they are going for the casual audience, much like s2's new game.
I highly doubt they are not going to push hard into the e-sports scene with this game since they totally scrapped titan because blizzard didn't want to put out anything that couldn't nurture an e-sports environment.
On September 26 2013 19:30 NicksonReyes wrote: Watch them make a better MOBA than LoL/Dota 2 and suck at the ESPORTS part.
I'm pretty sure this isnt going to be about e-sports at all, they are going for the casual audience, much like s2's new game.
I highly doubt they are not going to push hard into the e-sports scene with this game since they totally scrapped titan because blizzard didn't want to put out anything that couldn't nurture an e-sports environment.
That's not the reason.
Hmmm...perhaps not, that is one of the rumors though and it makes sense, but since you seem to know exactly why, care to enlighten us all?
On September 26 2013 19:30 NicksonReyes wrote: Watch them make a better MOBA than LoL/Dota 2 and suck at the ESPORTS part.
I'm pretty sure this isnt going to be about e-sports at all, they are going for the casual audience, much like s2's new game.
I highly doubt they are not going to push hard into the e-sports scene with this game since they totally scrapped titan because blizzard didn't want to put out anything that couldn't nurture an e-sports environment.
That's not the reason.
Hmmm...perhaps not, that is one of the rumors though and it makes sense, but since you seem to know exactly why, care to enlighten us all?
why would blizzard -only- want to make "esports" games? how does it make sense at all? please explain, you seem to know. Titan was most likely delayed becuase they'd been working on it for years and decided the technology they were building it on was out of date, they've said a bunch of times the game still exists and people are still working on it- many just got moved to other projects/teams while they refocus it. Source
According to interviews with mike morhaime they really wanna push esports with Blizzard all-stars, they've also confirmed dozens of times that it'll be f2p.
Q: E-sports have become incredibly popular and Starcraft has become immense, particularly in South Korea. Do you see Blizzard doing more in e-sports with other titles?
Mike Morhaime: It depends on the title. When it comes to e-sports Starcraft is in a category of its own. The game is so fun to watch, it's so well balanced and the strategies are so deep. There are other opportunities - we're working on Blizzard All-Stars which has the potential to be a fun spectator sport and fun to play. We're ready to support it as an e-sport.
As a Dota player, I'd like to write this off as a failure before it starts, but I was ready to do that with Hearthstone as well, and look at me now.
While that Hearthstone argument seems solid, you need to take into consideration, that all the current Blizzard games, to which Hearthstone is no exception, were operating in market positions with basically 0 competition (at their level) at all. No one else makes AAA, franchise backed RTS anymore as well as no one makes franchise backed AAA ARPG's and TCG's. The actual real quality of these games had thus been somewhat obscured because of the lack of real substitues to compare with. This won't be the case of Blizzard All-stars as it will enter a market that is dominated by competition.
Plus Hearthstone was a project that was basically a culmination of thoroughly spontaneous ideas and a whole new dedicated team was put together for it. "Look we have these brilliant ideas let's put them together and release it". All-stars is different, it's kinda forced project ("Look there's those MOBA's which are insanely popular, let's make one ourselves") that doesn't really allow people to be spontaneous in their own ways. I compose music and people tell me it's really good and one time a friend asks me to compose a metal song, which eventually turned out pretty bad, even though I like metal. I was just forced into making something i could and at the same time couldn't make the way I wanted it.
On September 26 2013 13:00 Mentalizor wrote: Considering Blizzard All-starts was announced in 2010 (right?) as what seemed to just be pretty much a UMS in SC2, I thought they had dropped the idea. Because with primarely LoL and Dota - but still also HoN - this market seems to be a hard one to crack.
I play Dota2, and ofc I'll give All-stars a shot... But I can't see them cracking the market here
Maybe it was intended to be a little UMS in the beginning. I think they are going to make it a 'thing' now, they probably looked at the TI3 compendium literally printing money and came in their collective pants.
On September 26 2013 12:42 Bigtony wrote: Pretty big news but does it seem like Blizzard has missed the boat on this?
The MOBA market is saturated with content. Different games that target different audiences and different IPs. The biggest have clear revenue streams and are profitable (DOTA2 is profitable, right?).
I don't know about saturated. There is Dota2 and LoL, with a sprinkle of HoN. I don't think you should underestimate the pull Blizzard has and the desire for Blizzard fans to play Dota2/LoL but as Raynor/Kerrigan/Arthas/etc.
On September 26 2013 12:42 Bigtony wrote: Pretty big news but does it seem like Blizzard has missed the boat on this?
The MOBA market is saturated with content. Different games that target different audiences and different IPs. The biggest have clear revenue streams and are profitable (DOTA2 is profitable, right?).
I don't know about saturated. There is Dota2 and LoL, with a sprinkle of HoN. I don't think you should underestimate the pull Blizzard has and the desire for Blizzard fans to play Dota2/LoL but as Raynor/Kerrigan/Arthas/etc.
On September 28 2013 09:05 poor newb wrote: they would have success if they made it back when they announced it years ago, now is just a waste of time, no one wants another LoL/Dota2/HoN clone
unless they add something completely revolutionary, but blizzard is incapable of doing that anymore
That's true. But let's not underestimate the shining star of Blizzard's past. They can still attract a lot of people with their history and marketing capabilities. If they manage to steal the best parts from the other developers and don't fuck it all up with their ridiculously bad E-Sports approach like WCS, this might still get a decent player base.
EPT
