EPTThat being said d4 went more oldschool with the presentation compared to d3 so far, so I might be totally wrong.
The Games Industry And ATVI - Page 40
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Archeon
3260 Posts
That being said d4 went more oldschool with the presentation compared to d3 so far, so I might be totally wrong. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17488 Posts
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Excalibur_Z
United States12240 Posts
On April 22 2021 08:21 Manit0u wrote: D4 went more oldschool because people were complaining a lot and, to be frank, systems introduced in D3 were garbage. I don't think they can wait a couple more years though as they're bleeding hard and D2R alone won't save them. And I prefer my ARPG less MMO-like, if I want to do multiplayer I do it with friends and not some random anons. I have a lot of respect for the salvation of D3 and the bold decisions that Josh Mosqueira made in the expansion. D3's original release was actually quite fun for the first Normal-difficulty run-through, despite the bizarre story. The flexible skill system was very good, and the upgradeable crafting system was also pretty interesting. Where D3 really failed was the so-called "endgame grind", where Inferno difficulty hit like an absolute brick wall, and the race was on to find marginally higher ilvl gear offering slightly higher numbers on hopefully-favorable Rare affixes in the hopes that you could survive the next act and grind that for 20 hours (or pay up at the auction house) until you were prepared to try the act after that. It felt like endgame WoW and did not translate to a fun experience whatsoever. D3:RoS really transformed the game for the better. The Rift system made the game less boring, avoiding the "Burning Steppes" problem that D2 had, and introduced variety not only in terrain but in monsters and Rift Bosses. More importantly, the loot system overhaul embraced the idea of mudflation and leaned into it hard such that the treadmill felt like a gradual difficulty curve rather than Inferno's hard stops. In spite of its repetitive nature, D3:RoS really saved the game and made it something to play in spurts every few months, introducing new gimmicks with each season to keep things a little fresher. I don't know what D4 has in store, but I was less than thrilled reading David Kim's initial community teaser posts. I don't want more D3 (or D3:RoS) flavor because I feel that dumbs the game down into "builds", similar to how PoE operates. D2 was okay but devolved into 3-minute boss rushes. I'm not so sure that the answer lies in the middle, either... maybe on a new stratum altogether. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7001 Posts
On April 22 2021 06:24 Archeon wrote: I assume that they'll release d4 a few years after d2. And they are trying a bunch of new stuff with d4 including making it more MMO-like (no judgement), so they might target people more who are a bit tired of the already existing games and want something new and shiny. D2 and arguably PoE are more for the oldschool people. That being said d4 went more oldschool with the presentation compared to d3 so far, so I might be totally wrong. There are quite a few ARPG (with MMO flavor) to be released in the next 12-18 month. I think when you start new, most people prefer D4 before something else. But if people are already engaged in another game, switching to D4 is rather unlikely ARPG: - Magic - Last Epoch - PoE 2 - The Ascent ARPG-MMO - Lost Ark - Project TL - Corepunk | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17079 Posts
On April 21 2021 04:06 thePunGun wrote: Wow, David Kim left Blizzard last Thursday and Jeff Kaplan's leaving less than a week later...the old Blizzard is no more... I'm hearing the voice of the adjutant in my head saying: "downgrade complete!" T.T if Pardo , Metzen, Morhaime, Sigaty et al were pumping out awesome game after awesome game I might agree with this. If Bungie's Destiny2 went from "good" to "great" I also might agree. None of this is happening. Frost Giant does not even have a concept for a game. What has Greg Black produced since leaving Blizzard's RTS team how many years ago? ATVI is able to attract and retain super talented people during the apex of their careers. ATVI's management team applies enough pressure and offers enough incentive to motivate these talented people into producing some of the greatest games in the history of the industry. If game making is awesome and ATVI is wrecking the enjoyable labour of game making ...then why isn't Metzen making games? If guys like Pardo, Morhaime, Metzen continue being at the top of studios that make several great games then I'll adjust my analysis accordingly. As of now, they've produced nothing and they've been out of ATVI a combined 15 years. 15 years and we don't even have a tech demo. My analysis is based on incomplete data. I can't account for the huge # of people leaving a company that has a head count over 9,000 So, I ask this open question: other than Respawn Entertainment, are there any success stories that started with the developer or dev-team leaving ATVI to do their own thing? | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On April 22 2021 23:19 JimmyJRaynor wrote: if Pardo , Metzen, Morhaime, Sigaty et al were pumping out awesome game after awesome game I might agree with this. If Bungie's Destiny2 went from "good" to "great" I also might agree. None of this is happening. Frost Giant does not even have a concept for a game. What has Greg Black produced since leaving Blizzard's RTS team how many years ago? ATVI is able to attract and retain super talented people during the apex of their careers. ATVI's management team applies enough pressure and offers enough incentive to motivate these talented people into producing some of the greatest games in the history of the industry. If game making is awesome and ATVI is wrecking the enjoyable labour of game making ...then why isn't Metzen making games? If guys like Pardo, Morhaime, Metzen continue being at the top of studios that make several great games then I'll adjust my analysis accordingly. As of now, they've produced nothing and they've been out of ATVI a combined 15 years. 15 years and we don't even have a tech demo. My analysis is based on incomplete data. I can't account for the huge # of people leaving a company that has a head count over 9,000 So, I ask this open question: other than Respawn Entertainment, are there any success stories that started with the developer or dev-team leaving ATVI to do their own thing? At the same time what has Blizzard produced so great and epic that we can go against the downgrade statement? It doesn't seem like Blizzard is producing great content ATM. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17079 Posts
They're still sitting at 30 million monthly active users in 2021. So I'd say that under ATVI over the past 13 years... Blizzard has done well. I'd say the content they're adding to their franchises is doing a decent job holding onto their massive player base. Long term engagement is objective proof of quality. What we can say is... what Blizzard produced until ATVI 10 years ago was fantastic. Blizzard retains a user base of 30 million and they made almost $2 Billion last year. That is 2 Billion with a "B". Pardo, Metzen, Morhaime, et al are all around 50 and they all have family obligations and giant piles of money. I'd be shocked if any of these guys will ever put forth the effort they did 5, 10 or 20 years ago into their chosen profession. They cashed out. Good for them; they made some great games. Its time for everyone to move on. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17079 Posts
They cashed out. Good for them; they made some great games. Its time for everyone to move on. those guys are once in a lifetime type talents; they will be extremely hard to replace. If any one can pull that off . it's Bobby Kotick. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17488 Posts
On April 23 2021 02:18 JimmyJRaynor wrote: 30+ million players and 1.9 billion in revenue indicate somebody is doing something right. those guys are once in a lifetime type talents; they will be extremely hard to replace. If any one can pull that off . it's Bobby Kotick. What are you even talking about? WoW was peaking when ATVI merger happened and 2 years later all it does is go down in numbers (currently sitting at below 40% of what it was in 2010). Long term player retention my ass. Even hardcore fans who made their careers out of WoW like Asmongold are saying it's no longer viable and are looking to abandon ship. I really have no idea why are you simping so hard for Kotick and ATVI. Blizzard under ATVI was underwhelming at most and all that's keeping this company afloat are titles that are just garbage being recycled over and over (Candy Crush and CoD). I'm not sure if whatever Blizzard's putting out is even breaking even at this point seeing how their biggest earners in WoW and Hearthstone are constantly bleeding players (Hearthstone is down over 50% players in the last 2 years), Overwatch seems to have stabilized a bit in player counts but you still have to take into account it's below 20% of what it was at its peak. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26167 Posts
On April 23 2021 02:18 JimmyJRaynor wrote: 30+ million players and 1.9 billion in revenue indicate somebody is doing something right. those guys are once in a lifetime type talents; they will be extremely hard to replace. If any one can pull that off . it's Bobby Kotick. If I bought the Beatle’s back catalogue I’d have a licence to print money in perpetuity, but if my record label didn’t blood much new talent for years I’d be hard pressed to consider that a great success. Kotick does have some strengths, as well as weaknesses. Or if not a weakness a conscious decision to go forth in a particular direction. He’s clearly good at managing and extracting money out of mega franchises that suit annual releases and increasingly that are monetised way beyond sales. He’s not great at diversifying beyond this model and making space for new IPs that don’t fit this model, even to a needless degree of reputational damage (Warcraft Reforged) It’s a perfectly legitimate way to run a games publisher but it doesn’t dovetail at all well with Blizzard’s traditional strengths and culture. Instead of letting Blizzard be Blizzard they’ve been trying to cram a square into a circle-shaped hole. It worked for a while but we’re seeing how that goes long term with the exit of talent and few exciting projects on the horizon. It doesn’t even take hindsight to see the problems there, but Activision should have just thrown money and buying WoW out than the whole studio, it’s clearly the jigsaw piece that fits their model. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17079 Posts
On April 23 2021 05:19 WombaT wrote: It doesn’t even take hindsight to see the problems there, but Activision should have just thrown money and buying WoW out than the whole studio, it’s clearly the jigsaw piece that fits their model. I applaud ATVI's ambition with SC2 and the RTS genre. They tried to hit a home run. They put bigger resources behind SC2 than any other publisher ever put behind any RTS game. I admire ambitious attempts.. even when they do not succeed completely. ATVI was the first company to put 3 companies on its flagship FPS CoD. This gives each company 3 years to make a game. Many publishers like EA has annualized titles with 1 studio pumping out 1 game per year. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7001 Posts
Since then, all they do is milking their IPs with some decent succes (WoW, Hearthstone) while destroying their other IPs (Heroes, Warcraft, Diablo). SC1 and SC2 slowly bleeding out. Every dog could have managed that. I think with better management of these games, Blizzard could still be great. Small amounts of cash could have gone a long way, but they prefered to damage their reputation irreparably. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
On April 23 2021 16:34 Harris1st wrote: Their last big release was Overwatch back in 2016 Since then, all they do is milking their IPs with some decent succes (WoW, Hearthstone) while destroying their other IPs (Heroes, Warcraft, Diablo). SC1 and SC2 slowly bleeding out. Every dog could have managed that. I think with better management of these games, Blizzard could still be great. Small amounts of cash could have gone a long way, but they prefered to damage their reputation irreparably. Exactly my thoughts. The last time I heard about Blizzard was that there are fears that Kaplan leaving before Overwatch 2 is released may be similar to BioWare staff leaving before Anthem was released. | ||
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deacon.frost
Czech Republic12129 Posts
CD Projekt refunded 30K copies of Cyberpunk 2077 out of 13M Fuck, so the message i read from this is - hey, let's sell broken games, players don't care and will wait. Damn. Now I'm sad  | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26167 Posts
On April 23 2021 20:20 deacon.frost wrote: https://www.polygon.com/2021/4/22/22398340/cd-projekt-red-april-2021-investors-call-refund-details-costs Fuck, so the message i read from this is - hey, let's sell broken games, players don't care and will wait. Damn. Now I'm sad I mean presumably quite a lot of refunds were processed by store fronts and not directly to CDPR. Wonder what the numbers of those look like. If I buy something and keep the receipt, I mean I’ll generally take it back to the store to process it rather than directly to the manufacturer. If a store chain has the hassle of dealing with countless returns for refunds from a product line, they’re likely not going to be too happy with the manufacturer for creating additional work and damaging their reputation. To that effect it being pulled from the PS4 store and still being pulled is indicative of either a lot of refund requests, or the possibility of them in future, and it’s still not back up. I’d imagine a pretty chunky cohort would be consumers who were cynical about the hype train to begin with, who didn’t have many technical issues and found the game fine for their tastes. I mean so many problems would be mitigated if folks took the bloody sensible step after disappointing launch after disappointing launch not to pre-order things. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17488 Posts
On April 23 2021 02:18 JimmyJRaynor wrote: 30+ million players and 1.9 billion in revenue indicate somebody is doing something right. I just wanted to point out that Genshin Impact reached 1 billion in revenue in 6 months and their average monthly player counts went up from 15m to 30m during last 6 months. This is single and new IP. Compared to that ATVI looks pretty bad. Also note that the company that made and published this was founded by 3 students and employs only 2.4k people. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7001 Posts
On April 23 2021 22:11 Manit0u wrote: I just wanted to point out that Genshin Impact reached 1 billion in revenue in 6 months and their average monthly player counts went up from 15m to 30m during last 6 months. This is single and new IP. Compared to that ATVI looks pretty bad. Also note that the company that made and published this was founded by 3 students and employs only 2.4k people. That's hardly a fair comparison. Every now and then one game cracks the lottery (PUBG, Fortnite, Genshin, ...). But that is not something that can be expected. | ||
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Blitzkrieg0
United States13132 Posts
On April 23 2021 22:15 Harris1st wrote: That's hardly a fair comparison. Every now and then one game cracks the lottery (PUBG, Fortnite, Genshin, ...). But that is not something that can be expected. This type of thinking is exactly the problem though. Do you think Blizzard won the lottery a few times with their diablo, starcraft, and warcraft universes or do you think something changed at the company? At some point you stop innovating and rest on your laurels because you're printing money and Blizzard is well past that point now. There are so many games and genres that spawned out of custom maps in brood war and warcraft map editors. Can you imagine Blizzard making/progressing DotA instead of Valve? In some ways, it is for the best because the competition between HoN, DotA2, and LoL is what progressed the genre forward. | ||
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Harris1st
Germany7001 Posts
On April 23 2021 22:33 Blitzkrieg0 wrote: This type of thinking is exactly the problem though. Do you think Blizzard won the lottery a few times with their diablo, starcraft, and warcraft universes or do you think something changed at the company? At some point you stop innovating and rest on your laurels because you're printing money and Blizzard is well past that point now. There are so many games and genres that spawned out of custom maps in brood war and warcraft map editors. Can you imagine Blizzard making/progressing DotA instead of Valve? In some ways, it is for the best because the competition between HoN, DotA2, and LoL is what progressed the genre forward. Good point. I guess past-Blizzard bought a lot of tickets to increase the chance of winning  By that I mean ofc it's not just by chance. Past-Blizzard did a lot of things right. And they could have done even more so if they would have listened more to their community, mapmakes, modders. I'm not totally in the loop but I think they did listen to the Diablo community regarding skills and itemization in D4? Definitely a step in the right direction but still a long way to go | ||
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