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On October 13 2011 08:47 familyguy123 wrote:Show nested quote +
If I buy a ball and play football with it, do I have to pay monthly fee to Nike for using it? Would Nike require half my ad revenue on any games played with it?
+ Show Spoiler +.... the answer to that question is obviously no, but this is so incredibly off key i don't know where to start. first, you don't need to pay for the use of nike's football beyond the initial cost, and neither do you for sc2. there's no parallel, unless youre describing the use of nike footballs in NFL or other revenue-generating games, in which case i would assume the answer is yes. i know for a fact Spalding charges the NBA and if Nike were to have a monopoly (which I'm not sure it does...) it would charge them too.
but even if that weren't the case, it's not because nike is fulfilling some moral or legal obligation to football fans or players. it's just plain unenforceable. were it to be the case nike could ENFORCE this (like blizzard could enforce playing fees), then you can be sure as hell they would too, if it made business sense for them.
the only reason why blizzard doesn't for sc2 (even though it set a precedent with WoW) is that its a different business model. WoW is for the addicted and compulsive player, sc2 is going to be an eSport and needs a wide audience to gain traction in terms of tournament viewership, along with which comes more copies sold / ad revenues.
you can be sure as hell if sc2 were the same combination of addicting / unsuitable for mass viewership as WoW, theyd follow a subscriber model too.. but they don't. it's never about their moral obligation to you, and neither is it with Nike. in fact, if you want to talk moral obligation, hell LEGAL obligation, Blizzard is legally and morally obligated to maximize its shareholders' profits. + Show Spoiler +that obligation to those whose livelihoods depend on it (i.e. blizzard employees with stock options), or the equity owners who took risk in ownership of the business, ought to be compensated first and foremost. unless of course, pissing you off clashes with the customers' preferences in a way that threatens its own bottomline, but its never about you NOR SHOULD it be
If you start liquidating all the company assets that too would increase the short term profits for the shareholders, but in the long term would be devastating for the company. In the same way, burning your clients goodwill by milking respected franchises dry would eventually ruin the company. However, by that time the higher management would have cached their options and left, only the shareholders would pay the bill. Would this be the responsible and moral way of conducting business or should we look beyond the next quarter profits?
I think you can look all around you and see where this business model leads.
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On October 13 2011 07:59 Toadvine wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 06:04 Tehs Tehklz wrote:
Then find a new game - a better game - for which to host tournaments. Go ahead. Do it right now. I'll wait here and you let me know when you find one. People are already doing it. LoL often gets more stream viewers than SC2 at events, and one could argue it's not even especially competitive at the moment. You think the E-sports scene can't live without SC2, especially with Dota2 coming out? Don't be ridiculous. If Riot and Valve support their games better for tournament play, and their games are popular enough, then they will easily eclipse SC2. You acting as if this is impossible is beyond hilarious.
Well, we don't know how this will even turn out. There have been other ventures like LoL and DotA 2 in the past where the developers throw themselves at the competitive scene only to fade in failure in the near future.
Imo, Blizzard is playing this safe and correctly. They're giving themselves plenty of breathing room and waiting to spend valuable development time on features they KNOW will sell, while focusing on the game fundamentals. It's a smart strategy and different from the Riot/Valve "guns blazing" one.
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On October 13 2011 09:00 jinorazi wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 08:19 aksfjh wrote:On October 13 2011 07:53 jinorazi wrote:On October 13 2011 07:45 Kipsate wrote:On October 13 2011 07:36 jinorazi wrote:On October 13 2011 06:11 Plansix wrote:On October 13 2011 04:07 jinorazi wrote:On October 13 2011 03:44 Plansix wrote:On October 13 2011 03:12 jinorazi wrote:On October 13 2011 02:58 Plansix wrote:
[quote]
They will always be concerned with the bottom line. They are a business first and formost and that is was a responsable business does.
Well, you see, Blizzard employees people and provides a high quality product compaired to rest of the industry. It takes a lot of money and time to make the products they provide. If they arn't making money, they need to pull people off of supporting their game and work on cranking out a new product.
If you look at a lot(but not all) RTS games, you don't hear about balance patches nearly a full year after release. Blizzard is the exception to that rule and supports game years after release. They are still release patchs for Diablo 2, for god sakes. That game is over a decade old.
i'm sorry if i sounded like an ignorant douche to be lectured about the obvious. i'm glad blizzard keeps up with the old games, and frankly, its because people still play it and it doesn't exactly compare to say, games like age of empires 2 which no one plays anymore, there is no need for maintaining it. granted, blizzard dont need to but they do because, perhaps, they care - about their image or about their customers. i'm just sayin, with the release of sc2, my view towards them did change a bit for the worse but that doesn't mean i hate em by any means. it just feels unfortunate but in the end its just business so it is what is but can't help myself to say something when people are chanting for paid name change - and blizzard is more than happy to do so. its something like this that bothers me. The reason for the paid name change it to keep people from changing their name over and over. It makes it more difficult for other players to report people when they can't do so by simply saying "player X is an ass-hat". It has other benfits as well, but mostly it keeps people locked to one idenity and allows them to address cheating/harrassment. Xbox live does the same thing, for the sole reason that a pay-wall prevents people constently switching their names. And I don't feel you're are ignorant. I do think people hold Blizzard to an unreasonable standard. They have shown time and time again that they do care about the community, want SC2 to explode and are willing to support tournments all over the world. Esports is huge, people are making a living playing Starcraft and compeating in huge tournments. Everything is amazing and no one is happy. blizzard's claim (and advocates) regarding paid name change along with lack of LAN and no cross region play has been debunked by the community by providing better alternatives and more reasonable motive behind why blizzard did what they did with sc2. (id like to keep this short, explaining those will create a long post, pm if you'd like to hear those) Wait, I am confused. You stay that their claims have been debunked by the community providing alternatives. So the community has said "It would be better THIS way" and that makes Blizzards reasoning invalid. How the hell does that work exactly? I go into buy milk and they say it is $2 and I inform them "Look, Ive done the math and I know why our charging $2. Let me provide the reasonable alternative of $1, because what you are looking for isn't acceptable". That doesn't sound like something that would fly in the real world. I would never argue that they don't want money and I am sure there is a bit of "Yeah, well we know they want this to be free, but we are charging for it." But still, I want money, so do they. They arn't charging me monthly or expecting me to pay per game. as you've said, people will abuse the system if it were allowed, however there is absolutely no need to charge money for name change. allow one free name change per month or per season, a reasonable timeframe. people will BM, pretend to be other players, hack/cheat, whatever and all that will be done by the minority. why should everyone else pay for name change when it should be free (as it always has been pre-wow)? unlimited name change did no harm in the past, why all of a sudden does it cause harm now? blizzard will do what they want and no ordinary person have control over it. i'm just sayin, why try to have the cake and eat it too? thats how i see it in my eyes and i'm just stating my opinion(shared with others) that it shouldn't be that way. From a business point of view, if there is demand for a name change and people are willing to pay for it.. Then why should you have it be free? exactly. thats my point, i dislike the fact that people are willing to pay extra for things that i feel, should be included as it has in the past. and its a little glimpse of hope from me that blizzard will look past such thing and give something back to the community. Millions of people play SC2 literally dozens of hours a month. They paid a 1 time fee of $50-60 for that HUGE chunk of time, and for an experience that is always being worked on by a design team. To contrast, people spent $50-60 on Portal 2, a game that people likely never even played for more than 20 hours. You can argue that things like name changes should be free, but you're already getting a LOT out of a game that you paid very little for considering how much time is invested. Don't get mad when they try to capitalize on the great deal you're getting. i'm not sure where you're getting at, since starcraft is "more bang for the buck", its ok to pay more for extra features? might as well charge monthly fee to maintain their servers, right? you talk as if they had no idea they would continue to work on the game long after its release, and they forgot to include that extra cost with the final retail cost of the game. sc2 isn't complete, game wise and battle.net wise. there's still flaws and more features to be introduced. while you might be happy with the current state, i see a lot more room to grow and i expect to see them in the upcoming future. in the end (last expansion), getting a sc2 account will be close to $100(original + 2 expansions) unless some new rates are introduced (battlechest). but for those of us right now, we've spent 60 for original game and spend $20-$30(no idea how much they'll be, not free obviously) for each expansion.
It is unreasonable to expect a modern company to support a game after launch without some way for them to continue to receive income. People who do are, frankly, insane. My firm commonly refuses to offer legal advice pasted after a case is resolved. Our clients do not like it and expect to receive support after the case is over, but that is not how our firm works.
Also $100 is a small price to pay for the amount of support and entertainment I have and will received through SC2. It is the best $60 I have spent in about 5 years. And they aren't nickle and dimeing us as much as they could. They could charge for maps or per season. I am sure there a bunch of suits at Activision who are pushing for this all the time and Blizzard just won't do it.
Once again, we got a great game, massive support for Esports. We have people flying all over the world to play SC2 in front of huge, screaming crowds. Everything is amazing and no one is happy because Blizzard is making money and won't give us the ability to pirate their game...I mean LAN.
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I don't really understand why people think that Blizzard has to support eSports for their game to be a successful eSport. Capcom quite blatantly doesn't support Street Fighter or Marvel other than releasing costume DLC to nickel and dime consumers to death and those games are still wildly popular. Simply because they're the best current games in their genre. I really don't see any upcoming RTS game unseating StarCraft 2 to be perfectly honest, so as far as satisfying the RTS eSports enthusiasts it's either StarCraft or nothing. I can't really see any of the people who enjoy StarCraft giving up on it in favor of LoL/Dota 2 either because they're entirely different genres. Personally I watch SC for the fast paced action, quick decision making, and strategy. I don't really get that out of LoL/Dota 2.
We want eSports to be huge don't we? StarCraft has secured it's niche in the RTS eSports scene, Capcom pretty much has the fighting game scene locked down with it's games, I have no idea what's going on with shooters atm, and Dota 2 / LoL can battle it out over the moba (or whatever it's called) niche.
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On October 13 2011 09:04 aksfjh wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 07:59 Toadvine wrote:On October 13 2011 06:04 Tehs Tehklz wrote:
Then find a new game - a better game - for which to host tournaments. Go ahead. Do it right now. I'll wait here and you let me know when you find one. People are already doing it. LoL often gets more stream viewers than SC2 at events, and one could argue it's not even especially competitive at the moment. You think the E-sports scene can't live without SC2, especially with Dota2 coming out? Don't be ridiculous. If Riot and Valve support their games better for tournament play, and their games are popular enough, then they will easily eclipse SC2. You acting as if this is impossible is beyond hilarious. Well, we don't know how this will even turn out. There have been other ventures like LoL and DotA 2 in the past where the developers throw themselves at the competitive scene only to fade in failure in the near future. Imo, Blizzard is playing this safe and correctly. They're giving themselves plenty of breathing room and waiting to spend valuable development time on features they KNOW will sell, while focusing on the game fundamentals. It's a smart strategy and different from the Riot/Valve "guns blazing" one.
When you say "game fundamentals" and "features that will sell", you mean the single-player campaign, right? Because that's the only thing I see them really focusing on. I'm not saying it's not a smart way of going about things. However, if a game like Dota2 can be just as competitive and successful spectator-wise as SC2, while providing a better platform for competitive play and tournament hosting, then it will easily surpass SC2. My point was, as much as many posters on this forum would like to believe it, E-sports can live on without SC2 just fine.
Besides, to be completely frank, Blizzard has seriously dropped the ball in regards to B.Net0.2 and Multiplayer design. Design-wise, SC2 with B.Net0.2 is a clear downgrade from BW and the original B.Net, save for graphics and interface. It's really just not that good. If not for the BW legacy and community, it would barely have seen any competitive play at all, I imagine. I know I wouldn't have watched 1 base all-ins on awful maps for 6 months if not for the perception that it's Starcraft after all, and things will improve eventually. And even now we're over a year past release and nearly 2/3rds of Code S are Terran.
I mean, if they seriously supported SC2 as a competitive game, I would have accepted them taking a chunk of tournament ad revenue. But right now, they're doing fuck all, and unfairly profitting from the hard work of others, in a fledgling and fragile industry. It's just a dick move, and if anyone was under any illusion of them caring about e-sports, this should dispel them entirely.
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My god, the absence of logic in this thread is astounding, it's in their interest for the scene to grow, if the cut was too substantial they'd be shooting themselves in the foot because they want the scene to prosper. If the SC2 scene doesn't grow then they are just as much if not more at a loss than we are, since it is their livelihood.
But more importantly, they have every single right to expect some form of compensation for you know, making and balancing the game. There hasn't been a single RTS game in the past two decades that has come even close to the level of perfection of the StarCraft games, it is insanely hard to make a game this balanced with this level of dynamicness/potential for creativity. We owe them one and frankly it's just plain ignorant and disrespectful to suggest that they don't deserve a cut for making such a brilliant game; its brilliance is the whole reason you are even posting on this website for pete's sake.
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Hmm. I was under the impression that because of bnet, their constant patches, the replays, that the ga0me was in fact designed FOR esports. I don't know. Am I wrong?
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On October 13 2011 10:04 Toadvine wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 09:04 aksfjh wrote:On October 13 2011 07:59 Toadvine wrote:On October 13 2011 06:04 Tehs Tehklz wrote:
Then find a new game - a better game - for which to host tournaments. Go ahead. Do it right now. I'll wait here and you let me know when you find one. People are already doing it. LoL often gets more stream viewers than SC2 at events, and one could argue it's not even especially competitive at the moment. You think the E-sports scene can't live without SC2, especially with Dota2 coming out? Don't be ridiculous. If Riot and Valve support their games better for tournament play, and their games are popular enough, then they will easily eclipse SC2. You acting as if this is impossible is beyond hilarious. Well, we don't know how this will even turn out. There have been other ventures like LoL and DotA 2 in the past where the developers throw themselves at the competitive scene only to fade in failure in the near future. Imo, Blizzard is playing this safe and correctly. They're giving themselves plenty of breathing room and waiting to spend valuable development time on features they KNOW will sell, while focusing on the game fundamentals. It's a smart strategy and different from the Riot/Valve "guns blazing" one. When you say "game fundamentals" and "features that will sell", you mean the single-player campaign, right? Because that's the only thing I see them really focusing on. I'm not saying it's not a smart way of going about things. However, if a game like Dota2 can be just as competitive and successful spectator-wise as SC2, while providing a better platform for competitive play and tournament hosting, then it will easily surpass SC2. My point was, as much as many posters on this forum would like to believe it, E-sports can live on without SC2 just fine. Besides, to be completely frank, Blizzard has seriously dropped the ball in regards to B.Net0.2 and Multiplayer design. Design-wise, SC2 with B.Net0.2 is a clear downgrade from BW and the original B.Net, save for graphics and interface. It's really just not that good. If not for the BW legacy and community, it would barely have seen any competitive play at all, I imagine. I know I wouldn't have watched 1 base all-ins on awful maps for 6 months if not for the perception that it's Starcraft after all, and things will improve eventually. And even now we're over a year past release and nearly 2/3rds of Code S are Terran. I mean, if they seriously supported SC2 as a competitive game, I would have accepted them taking a chunk of tournament ad revenue. But right now, they're doing fuck all, and unfairly profitting from the hard work of others, in a fledgling and fragile industry. It's just a dick move, and if anyone was under any illusion of them caring about e-sports, this should dispel them entirely.
XD
When you use pointed phrases like "BNET 0.2" we all see that you're just another "entitled" Blizzard basher. Even so, I'll address this point trying to clarify it for you. The original Battle.net was basically an IRC server with an interface for game negotiation. Compared to the new B.net, it was rather crude in terms of security and malleability. This new system seems to be designed from the ground up, giving friends the ability to communicate and interact across the most played PC games of this decade. Not only that, but it allows them to add features that would have NEVER been possible in the old system. Achievements, reliable stats, leagues/divisions, reliable matchmaking, and more that have yet to be imagined are things that the old system would have been hard pressed to incorporate. Just because 2-3 "features" disappeared because of this fundamental change in infrastructure doesn't mean that suddenly Blizzard doesn't care about esports and is taking a step back. They've laid the groundwork for extreme customization on their end, and we're likely to see many of those features you deem important to make it back in.
If you want to complain about the Code S Terrans, go to gomtv.net and complain about their tournament structure, since that is the biggest contributor to the sick skew and performance of competitors.
Also, I was pointing out that we don't KNOW if DotA 2 is/will be as popular. It's not even out yet and hasn't withstood the test of multiple events. Even LoL saw some numbers drop off recently. I know there are a lot of people turned off of DotA/LoL because of the whole 30 minute pregame veto nonsense, but there are also a lot of people who enjoy the genre. Those 2 big forces will battle it out over the next 3-12 months, as well as an overall evaluation of it's rewatchability.
The single player part is to maintain attention to WoL. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot by releasing irrelevant material that everybody will pine/lament over while there is an extremely competitive game in front of them? They're better off giving teasers of single player adventures, giving us a glimpse of an aspect that almost all of the SC2 playerbase will play (and is probably more finished) instead of sharing extremely experimental ideas that are likely NOT to make the cut.
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I think its completely fair that they get some kind of compensation when a company uses their product as a means to make revenue.
I'm glad they do also, more income for blizzard which means more manpower in the SC2 headquarters which means more available time to get shit done and implemented in the game.
The OP raised the concern of an rts that doesn't take a chunk of the revenue swooping in and replacing SCII in all the tournaments and I think that is a silly idea. SC2 has a dedicated and established scene and following. No other rts is going to be able to conjure up a crowd large enough that a tournament could justify replacing SC2 with that rts.
People might look to riot in comparison and how they are pumping money in to the tournament scene for League of Legends. But that game is different in the sense that LoL players will continue to pump money into the game since their revenue source is based around microtransactions. As opposed to blizzard which has already gotten the majority of the money from sc2 in the initial game purchases. They don't have the same incentive as riot does to keep players interested in their game. They certainly have a reason to keep players playing, but it is not the same as League of Legends in the sense that Riot gets money when LoL players continue to play
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It's good that Blizzard takes a financial claim in bigger tournaments. The serious remains, the scammers go away.
And if it is 50% of ad revenue, it's no big deal. A big tournament doesn't have the big money for supporting the event in ads. They have sponsors, or membership fees etc.
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On October 13 2011 07:59 Toadvine wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 06:04 Tehs Tehklz wrote:
Then find a new game - a better game - for which to host tournaments. Go ahead. Do it right now. I'll wait here and you let me know when you find one. People are already doing it. LoL often gets more stream viewers than SC2 at events, and one could argue it's not even especially competitive at the moment. You think the E-sports scene can't live without SC2, especially with Dota2 coming out? Don't be ridiculous. If Riot and Valve support their games better for tournament play, and their games are popular enough, then they will easily eclipse SC2. You acting as if this is impossible is beyond hilarious.
"Acting as if this is impossible"...? I never said that. I don't give a crap if LoL or DotA "eclipse" SC2. That is a whole different genre of games. That is baseball and SC2 is football. Their success is not mutually exclusive. They could be on prime time TV for all I care, I still wouldn't watch them because all those DotA games are terrible (the worst parts of MMO combat combined with the bad parts of RTS control? Ugh.) and, judging by the 3-hour bitch-fit that TL threw when IPL put LoL on, I'd say there are lots of people who agree. DotA succeeding doesn't mean SC2 fails. There are plenty of RTS fans who are always going to watch the best RTS. If you find one that is better than SC2 and whose company does more to promote it than Blizzard, let me know.
To sum up: I'm talking about AFL versus NFL and you bring up the MLB. Who gives a crap about the MLB? That is not even relevant to the discussion.
On October 13 2011 10:04 Toadvine wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 09:04 aksfjh wrote:On October 13 2011 07:59 Toadvine wrote:On October 13 2011 06:04 Tehs Tehklz wrote:
Then find a new game - a better game - for which to host tournaments. Go ahead. Do it right now. I'll wait here and you let me know when you find one. People are already doing it. LoL often gets more stream viewers than SC2 at events, and one could argue it's not even especially competitive at the moment. You think the E-sports scene can't live without SC2, especially with Dota2 coming out? Don't be ridiculous. If Riot and Valve support their games better for tournament play, and their games are popular enough, then they will easily eclipse SC2. You acting as if this is impossible is beyond hilarious. Well, we don't know how this will even turn out. There have been other ventures like LoL and DotA 2 in the past where the developers throw themselves at the competitive scene only to fade in failure in the near future. Imo, Blizzard is playing this safe and correctly. They're giving themselves plenty of breathing room and waiting to spend valuable development time on features they KNOW will sell, while focusing on the game fundamentals. It's a smart strategy and different from the Riot/Valve "guns blazing" one. When you say "game fundamentals" and "features that will sell", you mean the single-player campaign, right? Because that's the only thing I see them really focusing on. I'm not saying it's not a smart way of going about things. However, if a game like Dota2 can be just as competitive and successful spectator-wise as SC2, while providing a better platform for competitive play and tournament hosting, then it will easily surpass SC2. My point was, as much as many posters on this forum would like to believe it, E-sports can live on without SC2 just fine. Besides, to be completely frank, Blizzard has seriously dropped the ball in regards to B.Net0.2 and Multiplayer design. Design-wise, SC2 with B.Net0.2 is a clear downgrade from BW and the original B.Net, save for graphics and interface. It's really just not that good. If not for the BW legacy and community, it would barely have seen any competitive play at all, I imagine. I know I wouldn't have watched 1 base all-ins on awful maps for 6 months if not for the perception that it's Starcraft after all, and things will improve eventually. And even now we're over a year past release and nearly 2/3rds of Code S are Terran. I mean, if they seriously supported SC2 as a competitive game, I would have accepted them taking a chunk of tournament ad revenue. But right now, they're doing fuck all, and unfairly profitting from the hard work of others, in a fledgling and fragile industry. It's just a dick move, and if anyone was under any illusion of them caring about e-sports, this should dispel them entirely.
Again, you keep talking about "esports" as if every game is the same. All genres were not created equal and just because you like watching RTS games doesn't mean you like watching fighting games or shooters or crappy RTS mods. When someone develops an RTS game better than Blizzard does, then Blizzard should worry about getting their game into tournaments, as Riot is paying LoL's way into events with DotA 2 on the horizon.
What do you think requires more hard work: running a tournament or developing a video game?
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This is a very good point to bring up, I wish that someone had some answers for it, I really can't sit and read the 10+ pages of this thread  but I'm sure that it'll pop up somewhere.
Chances are it's not too big of a cut, but still I know that they are taking something, I mean they have to... I think that they want eSports to thrive just as much as the rest of us, so the probably calculate the correct amount so it doesn't interfere with anything that MLG or anything like it does.
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Apple has this same problem right now. They have over 60 billion dollars in cash from last years "profit" (not revenue) alone and do not know what to do with it.
Companies don't make as much profit as you guys think to. For example, Apple makes 3.3 dollars for every 100 dollars that they recieve from sales (i.e: for every 100 dollars that you spend on an apple product, apple profits 3.3 dollars from it). As per their 2010 financial report.
Saying that blizzard spent 180 million developing sc2 and they are making billions off the sale is probably not true at all, they probably make a profit of 5-10 dollars per game sold at best.
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On October 12 2011 21:32 xBillehx wrote:Show nested quote +On October 12 2011 20:52 Tonem wrote:This is the best source I could find.. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=247210On July 24 2011 23:25 TotalBiscuit wrote:
This is what I know. Yes, you can go over $5k with special dispensation from Blizzard. However, it is policy for them to then require 50% of your ad revenue. I know of several large tournaments that have had to do this. If SHOUTcraft Invitational were to do this, it would mean less money getting into the hands of players, which is completely against what the tournament is all about. It makes no sense for SCI to do this, rather than just run more than one event. Should include Kennigit's response as he closed the thread tbh: Show nested quote +On July 25 2011 05:26 Kennigit wrote:
This isn't entirely accurate, and as far as i'm aware most tournament organizers are under NDA once they go over 5K so you won't get a proper explanation....its not as money grubbing as the OP makes it out to be. Closing, unless TB actually isn't under NDA (you can PM me).
Kennigits response would suggest that it's a case-by-case basis and they want to keep people hush on it. Guys like MLG/GSL and such probably get much more leeway.
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On October 13 2011 10:13 BarbieHsu wrote:
Hmm. I was under the impression that because of bnet, their constant patches, the replays, that the ga0me was in fact designed FOR esports. I don't know. Am I wrong?
If it was designed for competitive play there'd be LAN and little to no patching. Patching undermines Blizzard's ability to balance the game. If they were wrong then why can't they be wrong now? And no, I don't care about piracy arguments regarding LAN since someone will probably mention it.
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On October 13 2011 11:17 branflakes14 wrote:
If it was designed for competitive play there'd be LAN and little to no patching. Patching undermines Blizzard's ability to balance the game. If they were wrong then why can't they be wrong now?
So THAT's what Blizzard was doing wrong. Who would've thought that mistake free development is the key to success? Take note guys - being perfect is all it takes to make a true competitive game.
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On October 13 2011 11:29 Warblade! wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 11:17 branflakes14 wrote:
If it was designed for competitive play there'd be LAN and little to no patching. Patching undermines Blizzard's ability to balance the game. If they were wrong then why can't they be wrong now? So THAT's what Blizzard was doing wrong. Who would've thought that mistake free development is the key to success? Take note guys - being perfect is all it takes to make a true competitive game.
He's also assuming that the community is somewhat competent at working problems out, and I don't see that being the case at all. Maybe in the Brood War days, but now everyone prefers complaining over playing. I don't think Blizzard can really afford to stop patching.
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Can anyone find a source, more or less, or ask blizzard directly?
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On October 13 2011 08:28 qyk05328 wrote:Show nested quote +On October 13 2011 08:19 aksfjh wrote:On October 13 2011 07:53 jinorazi wrote:On October 13 2011 07:45 Kipsate wrote:On October 13 2011 07:36 jinorazi wrote:On October 13 2011 06:11 Plansix wrote:On October 13 2011 04:07 jinorazi wrote:On October 13 2011 03:44 Plansix wrote:On October 13 2011 03:12 jinorazi wrote:On October 13 2011 02:58 Plansix wrote:
[quote]
They will always be concerned with the bottom line. They are a business first and formost and that is was a responsable business does.
Well, you see, Blizzard employees people and provides a high quality product compaired to rest of the industry. It takes a lot of money and time to make the products they provide. If they arn't making money, they need to pull people off of supporting their game and work on cranking out a new product.
If you look at a lot(but not all) RTS games, you don't hear about balance patches nearly a full year after release. Blizzard is the exception to that rule and supports game years after release. They are still release patchs for Diablo 2, for god sakes. That game is over a decade old.
i'm sorry if i sounded like an ignorant douche to be lectured about the obvious. i'm glad blizzard keeps up with the old games, and frankly, its because people still play it and it doesn't exactly compare to say, games like age of empires 2 which no one plays anymore, there is no need for maintaining it. granted, blizzard dont need to but they do because, perhaps, they care - about their image or about their customers. i'm just sayin, with the release of sc2, my view towards them did change a bit for the worse but that doesn't mean i hate em by any means. it just feels unfortunate but in the end its just business so it is what is but can't help myself to say something when people are chanting for paid name change - and blizzard is more than happy to do so. its something like this that bothers me. The reason for the paid name change it to keep people from changing their name over and over. It makes it more difficult for other players to report people when they can't do so by simply saying "player X is an ass-hat". It has other benfits as well, but mostly it keeps people locked to one idenity and allows them to address cheating/harrassment. Xbox live does the same thing, for the sole reason that a pay-wall prevents people constently switching their names. And I don't feel you're are ignorant. I do think people hold Blizzard to an unreasonable standard. They have shown time and time again that they do care about the community, want SC2 to explode and are willing to support tournments all over the world. Esports is huge, people are making a living playing Starcraft and compeating in huge tournments. Everything is amazing and no one is happy. blizzard's claim (and advocates) regarding paid name change along with lack of LAN and no cross region play has been debunked by the community by providing better alternatives and more reasonable motive behind why blizzard did what they did with sc2. (id like to keep this short, explaining those will create a long post, pm if you'd like to hear those) Wait, I am confused. You stay that their claims have been debunked by the community providing alternatives. So the community has said "It would be better THIS way" and that makes Blizzards reasoning invalid. How the hell does that work exactly? I go into buy milk and they say it is $2 and I inform them "Look, Ive done the math and I know why our charging $2. Let me provide the reasonable alternative of $1, because what you are looking for isn't acceptable". That doesn't sound like something that would fly in the real world. I would never argue that they don't want money and I am sure there is a bit of "Yeah, well we know they want this to be free, but we are charging for it." But still, I want money, so do they. They arn't charging me monthly or expecting me to pay per game. as you've said, people will abuse the system if it were allowed, however there is absolutely no need to charge money for name change. allow one free name change per month or per season, a reasonable timeframe. people will BM, pretend to be other players, hack/cheat, whatever and all that will be done by the minority. why should everyone else pay for name change when it should be free (as it always has been pre-wow)? unlimited name change did no harm in the past, why all of a sudden does it cause harm now? blizzard will do what they want and no ordinary person have control over it. i'm just sayin, why try to have the cake and eat it too? thats how i see it in my eyes and i'm just stating my opinion(shared with others) that it shouldn't be that way. From a business point of view, if there is demand for a name change and people are willing to pay for it.. Then why should you have it be free? exactly. thats my point, i dislike the fact that people are willing to pay extra for things that i feel, should be included as it has in the past. and its a little glimpse of hope from me that blizzard will look past such thing and give something back to the community. Millions of people play SC2 literally dozens of hours a month. They paid a 1 time fee of $50-60 for that HUGE chunk of time, and for an experience that is always being worked on by a design team. To contrast, people spent $50-60 on Portal 2, a game that people likely never even played for more than 20 hours. You can argue that things like name changes should be free, but you're already getting a LOT out of a game that you paid very little for considering how much time is invested. Don't get mad when they try to capitalize on the great deal you're getting. If I buy a ball and play football with it, do I have to pay monthly fee to Nike for using it? Would Nike require half my ad revenue on any games played with it?
1) You aren't charged a monthly fee to play SC2.
2) Who the hell is willing to pay to watch you play football?
The context here has a lower limit. You can host a thousand bronze-silver-gold weeklies with a prize pool of $50 each, and Blizzard's not going to take any of your revenue off it.
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