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On July 10 2010 03:11 JWD wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2010 03:06 WolfStar wrote:Well the whole thing worked out to be a very nice piece of marketing  the amount of news coverage they got and now they get to look good to the community too as they follow our advice.... Yeah Blizz looks really good for coming up with a shitty idea, sitting back while everyone protested, and then giving in with a very unapologetic announcement. Fantastic PR for them. I suppose if Blizzard released SC2 as an atrociously unbalanced game and then fixed it with a patch that'd be a publicity stunt too? Or what if they wrote a letter degrading all of their fans as worthless lowlifes, and then retracted it? What about something nastier, like secretly including a trojan with SC2 that they later disabled? Now that would really generate some press.
To the mainstream media, they are "World of Warcraft" developer. They get a huge PR boost from this now since they are the World of Warcraft dev who listens to and loves their fans.
Posted on another fourm:
+ Show Spoiler +
Do you think Blizzard is THAT out of touch with their fans to know what they are doing? Pretty much every Blizz employee plays World of Warcraft, and dozens of them were fans of Blizzard games before they joined. There is 0 chance they are THAT out of touch with their playerbase, it's just not possible.
There are 2 likely scenarios for this whole event
1) Activision made them do it. They listened. Now they are taking a stand and they use Mike because it's likely he can't get fired by Activision (I don't know their corporate structure)
2) Blizzard / Activision made this decision knowing the huge uproar it would cause, to get media attention. Then they would say they love the community and would not implement the changes for us, making them look awesome.
Please consider:
1) They pushed to provide feedback in two consolidated threads. This lets media outlets realize the huge impact it's having.
2) They announced it without asking the community, knowing we wouldn't like it.
3) The changes were never implemented on the phase 2 bnet forums. It's a simple change that takes 5 seconds, changing the string displayed on the forum.
4) They backed out, really fast.
5) The game is so near launch, and they want hype.
Also consider Activision Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 hype machine, also known as the "terrorist level."
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I don't think it was a PR stunt. But it's good to see that blizzard still cares enough to listen to the community and aren't so set in their ways that they're unable to adapt.
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awesome.. i was thinking earlier of how there isn't a single thing i don't like about Blizzard besides this and now its gone.
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im not sold on it yet, they didn't draw a line in the sand... they just sort of "ok we wont do it for now".
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I don't think its so much them listening to the internet as much as people on the internet starting to e-stalk their employees >_>
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LAN and Region unclock next ???
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blizzard did the right thing
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United Kingdom16710 Posts
dont you see they had no real intention to carry out this change? of course they knew it would be met with fervent opposition i mean who wants to lose anonymity on the internet? this was all a clever ruse to divert people's anger away from the broken thing that is bnet2.0 and focus it on something else. now by seemingly 'listening' to the community and reversing this, they seem like the good guys. please dont tell me you guys are buying this.
then again im not a world class cynic for nothing...
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awesome! go community
their experiment failed quickly, thank god
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fantastic news, it would have been devastating if they actually implemented this.
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On July 10 2010 02:08 Liquid`Jinro wrote:Amazing I actually wasn't sure they could be convinced to change this one, but I'm glad I was wrong.
Huzzah! This calls for a bro-fist marathon, methinks.
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Staying with Real ID is the way to go. This whole person ID think kind of freaked me out. Always good to see Blizzard listening to their gamer base.
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On July 10 2010 03:23 Telcontar wrote:
dont you see they had no real intention to carry out this change? of course they knew it would be met with fervent opposition i mean who wants to lose anonymity on the internet? this was all a clever ruse to divert people's anger away from the broken thing that is bnet2.0 and focus it on something else. now by seemingly 'listening' to the community and reversing this, they seem like the good guys. please dont tell me you guys are buying this.
then again im not a world class cynic for nothing...
No, you are a world class cynic, and a healthy dose of paranoid too. This was most likely one designer or executive's pet feature, and I doubt ANYONE else wanted it or ever will.
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To all of those theorizing about it being a marketing plot and a PR stunt:
I honestly don't care either way. Whether it was a stunt, activision forced agenda that blizzard took a stand on, or an honest miscalculation that was redacted after the uproar. All I care about is real id is remaining, at least for the moment, what it should be - completely optional.
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On July 10 2010 03:17 PokePill wrote:+ Show Spoiler +
Do you think Blizzard is THAT out of touch with their fans to know what they are doing? Pretty much every Blizz employee plays World of Warcraft, and dozens of them were fans of Blizzard games before they joined. There is 0 chance they are THAT out of touch with their playerbase, it's just not possible.
There are 2 likely scenarios for this whole event
1) Activision made them do it. They listened. Now they are taking a stand and they use Mike because it's likely he can't get fired by Activision (I don't know their corporate structure)
2) Blizzard / Activision made this decision knowing the huge uproar it would cause, to get media attention. Then they would say they love the community and would not implement the changes for us, making them look awesome.
Please consider:
1) They pushed to provide feedback in two consolidated threads. This lets media outlets realize the huge impact it's having.
2) They announced it without asking the community, knowing we wouldn't like it.
3) The changes were never implemented on the phase 2 bnet forums. It's a simple change that takes 5 seconds, changing the string displayed on the forum.
4) They backed out, really fast.
5) The game is so near launch, and they want hype.
Also consider Activision Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 hype machine, also known as the "terrorist level."
I can't agree with that person's "consideration" points, because he/she ignores that Blizzard said the forums were going to be new and not retroactive, which completely destroys #3 as something that takes 5 seconds, and ignores the fact Blizzard does a few things without asking the community beforehand. Blizzard also probably really does want better forum posting, and consolidating the major issue can also be seen as a way to prevent a ton of angry mobs from making massive amounts of redundant threads.
Also, backing out really fast is also probably expected when they haven't really invested much into it and the feedback is horrible.
While I'm sure PR is something they realized and took advantage of, it's probably not as easy as "They just wanted PR" or "They just made a stupid mistake and consumers won."
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United States12607 Posts
On July 10 2010 03:17 PokePill wrote:Show nested quote +On July 10 2010 03:11 JWD wrote:On July 10 2010 03:06 WolfStar wrote:Well the whole thing worked out to be a very nice piece of marketing the amount of news coverage they got and now they get to look good to the community too as they follow our advice.... Yeah Blizz looks really good for coming up with a shitty idea, sitting back while everyone protested, and then giving in with a very unapologetic announcement. Fantastic PR for them. I suppose if Blizzard released SC2 as an atrociously unbalanced game and then fixed it with a patch that'd be a publicity stunt too? Or what if they wrote a letter degrading all of their fans as worthless lowlifes, and then retracted it? What about something nastier, like secretly including a trojan with SC2 that they later disabled? Now that would really generate some press. To the mainstream media, they are "World of Warcraft" developer. They get a huge PR boost from this now since they are the World of Warcraft dev who listens to and loves their fans. Posted on another fourm: + Show Spoiler +
Do you think Blizzard is THAT out of touch with their fans to know what they are doing? Pretty much every Blizz employee plays World of Warcraft, and dozens of them were fans of Blizzard games before they joined. There is 0 chance they are THAT out of touch with their playerbase, it's just not possible.
There are 2 likely scenarios for this whole event
1) Activision made them do it. They listened. Now they are taking a stand and they use Mike because it's likely he can't get fired by Activision (I don't know their corporate structure)
2) Blizzard / Activision made this decision knowing the huge uproar it would cause, to get media attention. Then they would say they love the community and would not implement the changes for us, making them look awesome.
Please consider:
1) They pushed to provide feedback in two consolidated threads. This lets media outlets realize the huge impact it's having.
2) They announced it without asking the community, knowing we wouldn't like it.
3) The changes were never implemented on the phase 2 bnet forums. It's a simple change that takes 5 seconds, changing the string displayed on the forum.
4) They backed out, really fast.
5) The game is so near launch, and they want hype.
Also consider Activision Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare 2 hype machine, also known as the "terrorist level."
I don't see how Blizzard making an awful mistake can possibly be a "PR boost" for them. Dumb gaffes don't help your brand. Are you really suggesting that it was worth it for Blizzard to embarrass itself and upset its core customer base to get some non-gamer types to read "World of Warcraft" and "StarCraft 2" a couple times on the frontpage of CNN.com?
And how mindless do you think WoW fans are that they could possibly like Blizzard more for simply fixing its own stupid mistake? Like, do you like Blizzard more now? Who thinks that way?
1) Consolidating feedback was the only way for Blizz to control the deluge of complaints, TL did the same thing. (MAYBE TL IS IN ON THE PLOY TOO???)
2) When has Blizzard ever asked the gaming community before making changes it knows we won't like.
3) Wasn't Real ID always planned to be implemented in the future? Why should Blizzard have implemented Real ID on its "phase 2" B.Net forums?
4) That's what happens when you create an embarrassing shitstorm and you want to end it. Furthermore if Blizzard just wanted the PR, why wouldn't it let the saga continue? MORE forum posts, MORE complaints, MORE news stories about how Blizz has its head up its ass! Perfect!
5) Ok...that cuts both ways: why would Blizz intentionally send its customers on tilt at this crucial time?
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United States5162 Posts
LOL @ conspiracy theorists.
Blizzard doesn't need PR, especially this kind. 'Any attention is good attention' does not apply to Blizzard since they're already a well known company. A rise an awareness has to make up for the bad PR, and Blizzard can't expand awareness much more than it already had.
Some people at Blizzard legitimately thought this was a good idea or they wouldn't have done it. That, combined with the many other poor decisions they've made, worries me most of all.
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Mission Accomplished. Now we turn our fanboy rage to chatrooms!
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EPT
