UI still sub-par 2 years later. Why don't we care? - Page 22

On February 04 2012 22:21 Technique wrote:

Thing is... even now they are by far the best out there.

On February 04 2012 17:59 Honeybadger wrote:


It's not even blizzard's fault, I'd say. I couldn't, in all honesty, say that Dustin Browder and David Kim want to do anything other than give the players what they want. I can't believe that Dustin Browder wouldn't think that the automated tourney or LAN option would be anything but awesome. The problem is the corporate shift (no wingnuttery here, this is documented and supported by economists) has gone from customer satisfaction based to shareholder based. Shareholders are short-sighted, fickle, and have no interest in the company beyond the financial gain it brings. Vivendi gobbled up activision, who bought blizzard, purely because they wanted the company with the name that lays the golden eggs.

So we now have a great company, blizzard, filled with great people who love games, with a fucking shock collar around its neck that is the shareholders. This short-sighted attitude has forced blizzard to be completely unable to invest the time into improving the UI that they would like, because time is money, and time that isn't spent on expansions, MMO's, or sequels, a-la things that stupid shareholders know will bring them profits, is too risky for them to allow. We all know and love the Blizzard of olden days, where customer satisfaction was what they wanted. They made games how they wanted them, supported them heavily, and had, for a time, a sterling reputation for being one of, if not the best game developer on earth. And now we see that beautiful company being strapped to an egg-laying machine and slowly choked to death by the shareholders.

Valve has managed to avoid it because they have no parent company, and just don't engage in such shiesty corporate practices. They are, as far as I can tell, adhering to the method that actually works, i.e. long term financial gains. "Long term" is a word missing from the current corporate air. They don't struggle like blizz because they don't have vivendi/activision looming over their shoulders, so they can do things the way I'm sure blizz would like to go back to doing. It's that "long term" idea that has shown time and time again to be successful. If you don't rip off your customers, and treat them decently, they will return. People know when they're being ripped off. Valve constantly takes our money, like any good corporation should, but does it in ways that benefit us directly, like offering steep sales all the time, doing wish-list sales and the like. They support everything they make, they make sure the thriving communities they make (gmod, counter strike, team fortress, the thousands of havok and source mods) have all the tools that the devs themselves have, because there can only be good that comes from collaboration. Counter strike was a mod. Valve loved it so much they bought it, hired the developers, and continue to support it to this day, even working on a sequel.

I just can't speak highly enough of Valve. Their headquarters is 20 minutes away from my house, and I jokingly sent Gabe a christmas card in 2010. He mailed me back a handwritten thank you. Class act.

Anybody who had his entire source engine leaked to pirates early, and comes back with this kind of statement, has earned my respect:



This is how human nature works, and he's just told us how to make pirates redundant.