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*Reads AMA, thinks of Queen patch*
It's all starting to make sense!
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On June 07 2013 00:50 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:40 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:29 Aberu wrote:On June 07 2013 00:11 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. There is a rule in business staitng the customer is always right.Saying that people who buy your products are wrong and you are better than them is a bit of dangerous for the company.Also listening to the community seems to be working flawlessly for other games develpes such as riot,valve or the dudes behind world of tanks.Why can't blizzard do the same?We're not half as toxic as other communities,most of us have been long time fans aka buyers of blizzard games and when a topic gets like a 100 pages on the forum its most likely a serious issue. That rule is based on how you treat the customers. You treat them AS IF they are right. If "the customer is always right" means "you give every single customer exactly what they want" then every restaurant in the world would have 50 page long menus and be unfeasible to run. Source: Restaurant manager. That saying is fucking ridiculous. You treat them courteously and nicely as if they are right, and you apologize humbly and try to make it up to them if something goes wrong. You treat complaints as 10 times important as compliments. That's the meaning behind that phrase, so tired of people getting this wrong. Or let's apply the customer is always right mindset to games. A new patch every week taht dramatically changes multiple heroes, at many times the labor cost to the development team. Do you think the game would be as popular if they did that every time some SonGoku447UltraZ complained that his favorite hero wasn't OP enough? Gimme a break. i was reffering mostly to serious issues like the ones that cause 100 pages long threads.The issues do not include nerfing heroes but more serious topics such the free to play online features which they have implemented,lack of lan,more customization options such as skins etc etc.Nerfing a hero or race does not raise a 200k pettion like the lack of lan has Also your example with the restaurant is a bit flawed in this context.if a restauran towner receives 100 complains regarding a certaina spect he will most likely change it as he will lose clients.Also I seriously never heard of anyone complaining about restaurants not having 50 page long menus lol.The basic idea is that having such a hardcore fanbase we are most likely different from Songoku44utraz and know what we want(theoretically) and maybe we actually want the good of the game and do not complain for te sake of complaining  Free to play is not an option for Blizzard for SC2. It would cost them millions of dollars to create a business model to justify the development cost, create a pricing structure for the content and then sell that content world wide. It has taken Riot years to create that. Also, why would Blizzard chase after Riots success? That is what tons of companies did for WoW and failed. There is no reason for Blizzard to change their plans just because someone else is making money on another game. The demands for F2P are being made by people who don’t understand how the industry works or just assume that F2P is easy. And a lot of people being outraged or upset about something on the internet it not good feedback or a reason to change things. A 100 page thread means that enough people posted world wide to make the thread 100 pages. At 20 posts a page or so, that is around 20,000 posts. At maximum that is 20K people (which is unlikely) world wide that decided to post about that thing. That is like getting 20K likes on facebook, which isn’t super meaningful. Just because a lot of people are willing to post about something doesn’t mean its important. It just means they were willing to take 1-5 minutes to post something.
I disagree with you on that.Blizzard does not need to copy ad litteram the lol model but instead they can find ways of implementing f2p in sc2 while still making a profit.They have made steps in this direction with the recent spawning feature which will basicly allow players who do not own the game to play certain feature such as team maps and custom maps(which are by fr what most casua players play).I personally believe it is a step in the right direction which could have been done form the beggining considering bw already had such a feature.
Regarding the 100 page thread thingy if its constructive criticism why not allow it.it doesnt hurt at all and maybe they can get some positive feedback.after all its free.
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Enjoyed this shit, contrary to most people in this thread it looks like.
I didn't take all the "X people are douchebags" too seriously, it was interesting mostly for the Titan stuff and all that.
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"I didn't take it as seriously as other people did just because video games were never a passion of mine, but it was one of the best places to work."
Hrmm, not sure I care an awful lot about this guy's opinion after reading that little gem of a comment off his reddit Q & A
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I am missing a bit of an "intro" in the OP to give me a hint on what the quoted comments are about ...
On June 06 2013 23:46 Plansix wrote:
Ok, people need to take this all with a huge grain of salt. First off, the guys name is "BlizzardThrowaway", so that give you a good idea of his intent. The guy was let go from Blizzard, worked in QA, tech support and other areas of the company. Quality assurance, or testing, is the lowest level of game development. People who work there are not involved with the primary decisions as to how games are made and would not have access to a lot of areas of the company. They may hear stuff, but they are not part of the meetings or involved with the decision making itself, so his claims "that Blizzard did this thing for this reason" are likely his own personal opinion.
The guy is clearly grumpy he got let go and doesn't care if he gets rehired at another company. A lot of the stuff he is saying sounds like he is telling the community exactly what they want to hear about Blizzard, which may or may not be true.
Not saying people shouldn't listen to him, but remember that he may have other motivations to the AMA than just telling people about his time at Blizzard.
Maybe because of NOT working directly at the core he can see problems easier and any constructive criticism gets ignored / overruled by the "big guns"? That has been my feeling since I came to the conclusion that the game has HUGE problems which are not centered around one or two units but rather about the general unit handling and production (which is considered as "done" or "perfect" and thus nothing will be changed there).
On June 07 2013 00:10 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. This is so true. My firm does not let us read new articles about us at work either, because the comments are soul crushing and terrible. I have no doubt that Blizzard tells their programmers and non-community oriented employees to limit their time of the forums, just for their own mental well-being
Now that is a stupid way of going about business. They need a SPECIALIST who stalks the forum for ideas and criticism ... someone not connected to the design process so he is as objective as possible. If he comes across a gem in the sea of drivel he simply notifies his superiors and they need to be objective enough to judge the post / thread / idea. This way you still have the connection to the fans while not burdening your devs with going through the massive amount of written nonsense to find something good.
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This would be like a lowly lab technician attacking the senior scientists and executives for perceived grievances. Some complaints may be mildly accurate but there is no way this individual has a comprehensive and fair understanding of behind-the-scenes at Blizzard. He only has his lowly perspective which more likely than not misses a lot.
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People saying it's a bitter person ranting about losing his/her job have not read the AMA. These answers were directed toward the sc2 department specifically. There were other answers regarding Mike Morhaime and the WoW department and they were positive.
Also, his/her response to the question, "Are you at all bitter about being laid off?"
"Bittersweet, really. It was shitty that it happened, but it also allowed me to do some things I wouldn't have been able to if I had still been working there. I miss working there at times, but I had a good run."
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On June 07 2013 00:33 Ysellian wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:14 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:08 Ysellian wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. Any expert in any field will always look down on community feedback and suggestions by people not involved in their industry. Not saying that it's a good thing to do, but it happens in all industries because many things the community want or suggest are just borderline retarded. I'll give an example from my own field of work. At my last job people kept on ranting about wanting less traffic congestion, more parking spaces AND more room for children to play. Those things do NOT go along. Get this stuff out of your head.Game devs in other successfull game such as lol and world of tanks are constantly communicating with the people on the general discussion forum,receiving input and community suggestion.Yes they do receive a lot of trashtalk but its part of the job. The idea of close interraction with community is vital to any gaming company especially in the field of esports.We are not living in 1998 anymore when blizzard had a monopoly.Also we are resonable individuals with many specific concerns.If they wanted to they can communicate with us in a humane language. Valve don't communicate (Seriously Half Life 2: Episode 3 ever happening Gabe?) and it's worked out for them just fine. Close interaction with the community is hardly necessary, you talk to figure heads or have people gather information to give you a general consensus of what the community wants, but someone who has been in the industry as long as Dustin for example will still know his shit better than most people.
Dustin Browder may have been in the industry a long time, but really which of the games he's worked on have been any good? Red Alert 2? Battle for Middle Earth? Eh... very questionable. Just because you've been in the industry a long time doesn't mean you know it all or that suggestions are useless. And Valve at least puts on the impression that community concerns are at least looked into. Valve games and their system is constantly patched with changes to enhance the community. Let's be honest, Valve and Steam have definitely had problems in the past but they are clearly interested in community input and interaction. With Blizzard we get Bnet 2.0 a long with a whole slew of steps backwards compared to the past.
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On June 07 2013 01:00 theking1 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:50 Plansix wrote:On June 07 2013 00:40 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:29 Aberu wrote:On June 07 2013 00:11 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. There is a rule in business staitng the customer is always right.Saying that people who buy your products are wrong and you are better than them is a bit of dangerous for the company.Also listening to the community seems to be working flawlessly for other games develpes such as riot,valve or the dudes behind world of tanks.Why can't blizzard do the same?We're not half as toxic as other communities,most of us have been long time fans aka buyers of blizzard games and when a topic gets like a 100 pages on the forum its most likely a serious issue. That rule is based on how you treat the customers. You treat them AS IF they are right. If "the customer is always right" means "you give every single customer exactly what they want" then every restaurant in the world would have 50 page long menus and be unfeasible to run. Source: Restaurant manager. That saying is fucking ridiculous. You treat them courteously and nicely as if they are right, and you apologize humbly and try to make it up to them if something goes wrong. You treat complaints as 10 times important as compliments. That's the meaning behind that phrase, so tired of people getting this wrong. Or let's apply the customer is always right mindset to games. A new patch every week taht dramatically changes multiple heroes, at many times the labor cost to the development team. Do you think the game would be as popular if they did that every time some SonGoku447UltraZ complained that his favorite hero wasn't OP enough? Gimme a break. i was reffering mostly to serious issues like the ones that cause 100 pages long threads.The issues do not include nerfing heroes but more serious topics such the free to play online features which they have implemented,lack of lan,more customization options such as skins etc etc.Nerfing a hero or race does not raise a 200k pettion like the lack of lan has Also your example with the restaurant is a bit flawed in this context.if a restauran towner receives 100 complains regarding a certaina spect he will most likely change it as he will lose clients.Also I seriously never heard of anyone complaining about restaurants not having 50 page long menus lol.The basic idea is that having such a hardcore fanbase we are most likely different from Songoku44utraz and know what we want(theoretically) and maybe we actually want the good of the game and do not complain for te sake of complaining Free to play is not an option for Blizzard for SC2. It would cost them millions of dollars to create a business model to justify the development cost, create a pricing structure for the content and then sell that content world wide. It has taken Riot years to create that. Also, why would Blizzard chase after Riots success? That is what tons of companies did for WoW and failed. There is no reason for Blizzard to change their plans just because someone else is making money on another game. The demands for F2P are being made by people who don’t understand how the industry works or just assume that F2P is easy. And a lot of people being outraged or upset about something on the internet it not good feedback or a reason to change things. A 100 page thread means that enough people posted world wide to make the thread 100 pages. At 20 posts a page or so, that is around 20,000 posts. At maximum that is 20K people (which is unlikely) world wide that decided to post about that thing. That is like getting 20K likes on facebook, which isn’t super meaningful. Just because a lot of people are willing to post about something doesn’t mean its important. It just means they were willing to take 1-5 minutes to post something. I disagree with you on that.Blizzard does not need to copy ad litteram the lol model but instead they can find ways of implementing f2p in sc2 while still making a profit.They have made steps in this direction with the recent spawning feature which will basicly allow players who do not own the game to play certain feature such as team maps and custom maps(which are by fr what most casua players play).I personally believe it is a step in the right direction which could have been done form the beggining considering bw already had such a feature. Regarding the 100 page thread thingy if its constructive criticism why not allow it.it doesnt hurt at all and maybe they can get some positive feedback.after all its free.
I think you underestimate how hateful and harmful reading the comments or forums can be for someone making games or anything, really. There are endless discussions among professionals in public fields(casters, writers, producers, developers) and they all say the same thing:
"Don't read the comments"
Caster, content producers and game developers are not robots. They cannot simply shut of their emotions and ignore everything they read. That is not how people work. Even if there are gems of good advice, there are other ways to get that advice than subjecting yourself to the hate and bile of the internet.
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blizzard hires diamond players to assist the sc2 team -> huge uproar because blizzard listens to a diamond guy
blizzard doesn't listen to a guy who doesn't even like computer games -> uproar because blizzard didnt listen
:'(
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On June 07 2013 01:09 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 01:00 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:50 Plansix wrote:On June 07 2013 00:40 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:29 Aberu wrote:On June 07 2013 00:11 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. There is a rule in business staitng the customer is always right.Saying that people who buy your products are wrong and you are better than them is a bit of dangerous for the company.Also listening to the community seems to be working flawlessly for other games develpes such as riot,valve or the dudes behind world of tanks.Why can't blizzard do the same?We're not half as toxic as other communities,most of us have been long time fans aka buyers of blizzard games and when a topic gets like a 100 pages on the forum its most likely a serious issue. That rule is based on how you treat the customers. You treat them AS IF they are right. If "the customer is always right" means "you give every single customer exactly what they want" then every restaurant in the world would have 50 page long menus and be unfeasible to run. Source: Restaurant manager. That saying is fucking ridiculous. You treat them courteously and nicely as if they are right, and you apologize humbly and try to make it up to them if something goes wrong. You treat complaints as 10 times important as compliments. That's the meaning behind that phrase, so tired of people getting this wrong. Or let's apply the customer is always right mindset to games. A new patch every week taht dramatically changes multiple heroes, at many times the labor cost to the development team. Do you think the game would be as popular if they did that every time some SonGoku447UltraZ complained that his favorite hero wasn't OP enough? Gimme a break. i was reffering mostly to serious issues like the ones that cause 100 pages long threads.The issues do not include nerfing heroes but more serious topics such the free to play online features which they have implemented,lack of lan,more customization options such as skins etc etc.Nerfing a hero or race does not raise a 200k pettion like the lack of lan has Also your example with the restaurant is a bit flawed in this context.if a restauran towner receives 100 complains regarding a certaina spect he will most likely change it as he will lose clients.Also I seriously never heard of anyone complaining about restaurants not having 50 page long menus lol.The basic idea is that having such a hardcore fanbase we are most likely different from Songoku44utraz and know what we want(theoretically) and maybe we actually want the good of the game and do not complain for te sake of complaining Free to play is not an option for Blizzard for SC2. It would cost them millions of dollars to create a business model to justify the development cost, create a pricing structure for the content and then sell that content world wide. It has taken Riot years to create that. Also, why would Blizzard chase after Riots success? That is what tons of companies did for WoW and failed. There is no reason for Blizzard to change their plans just because someone else is making money on another game. The demands for F2P are being made by people who don’t understand how the industry works or just assume that F2P is easy. And a lot of people being outraged or upset about something on the internet it not good feedback or a reason to change things. A 100 page thread means that enough people posted world wide to make the thread 100 pages. At 20 posts a page or so, that is around 20,000 posts. At maximum that is 20K people (which is unlikely) world wide that decided to post about that thing. That is like getting 20K likes on facebook, which isn’t super meaningful. Just because a lot of people are willing to post about something doesn’t mean its important. It just means they were willing to take 1-5 minutes to post something. I disagree with you on that.Blizzard does not need to copy ad litteram the lol model but instead they can find ways of implementing f2p in sc2 while still making a profit.They have made steps in this direction with the recent spawning feature which will basicly allow players who do not own the game to play certain feature such as team maps and custom maps(which are by fr what most casua players play).I personally believe it is a step in the right direction which could have been done form the beggining considering bw already had such a feature. Regarding the 100 page thread thingy if its constructive criticism why not allow it.it doesnt hurt at all and maybe they can get some positive feedback.after all its free. I think you underestimate how hateful and harmful reading the comments or forums can be for someone making games or anything, really. There are endless discussions among professionals in public fields(casters, writers, producers, developers) and they all say the same thing: "Don't read the comments" Caster, content producers and game developers are not robots. They cannot simply shut of their emotions and ignore everything they read. That is not how people work. Even if there are gems of good advice, there are other ways to get that advice than subjecting yourself to the hate and bile of the internet.
It's not THAT bad. Generally speaking, if something is loved by the majority then you don't get a flood of hurtful comments on your forums. For instance, the LoL forums seem to be far more positive than negative.
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Bosnia-Herzegovina72 Posts
Pretty entertaining.
The sc2 dev portrayal matches up quite nicely with the state of the game.
Not sure why some nerds here shove the notion of bitterness though..
The person seems quite reasonable and brings up positive and negative stuff, but i guess some people are used to buying the idyllic employee talk.
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this very much pisses me off about how right i was that many of the star2 devs had their heads up their asses.
maybe theyll get their shit together, i sure hope so for the esports sake
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Imo, the experience that he/she wrote happens in a lot of companies. Overall, the tone seems like he/she enjoyed the time at Blizz, even if he/she is at the "lower" ranks.
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On June 07 2013 01:04 Rabiator wrote:I am missing a bit of an "intro" in the OP to give me a hint on what the quoted comments are about ... Show nested quote +On June 06 2013 23:46 Plansix wrote:
Ok, people need to take this all with a huge grain of salt. First off, the guys name is "BlizzardThrowaway", so that give you a good idea of his intent. The guy was let go from Blizzard, worked in QA, tech support and other areas of the company. Quality assurance, or testing, is the lowest level of game development. People who work there are not involved with the primary decisions as to how games are made and would not have access to a lot of areas of the company. They may hear stuff, but they are not part of the meetings or involved with the decision making itself, so his claims "that Blizzard did this thing for this reason" are likely his own personal opinion.
The guy is clearly grumpy he got let go and doesn't care if he gets rehired at another company. A lot of the stuff he is saying sounds like he is telling the community exactly what they want to hear about Blizzard, which may or may not be true.
Not saying people shouldn't listen to him, but remember that he may have other motivations to the AMA than just telling people about his time at Blizzard. Maybe because of NOT working directly at the core he can see problems easier and any constructive criticism gets ignored / overruled by the "big guns"? That has been my feeling since I came to the conclusion that the game has HUGE problems which are not centered around one or two units but rather about the general unit handling and production (which is considered as "done" or "perfect" and thus nothing will be changed there). Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 00:10 Plansix wrote:On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. This is so true. My firm does not let us read new articles about us at work either, because the comments are soul crushing and terrible. I have no doubt that Blizzard tells their programmers and non-community oriented employees to limit their time of the forums, just for their own mental well-being Now that is a stupid way of going about business. They need a SPECIALIST who stalks the forum for ideas and criticism ... someone not connected to the design process so he is as objective as possible. If he comes across a gem in the sea of drivel he simply notifies his superiors and they need to be objective enough to judge the post / thread / idea. This way you still have the connection to the fans while not burdening your devs with going through the massive amount of written nonsense to find something good.
Rabiator, you don't know anything about my firm and we are very successful. I am a paralegal and I am told not to read articles about my firm because it is a waste of my time. Of course someone else reads them, but not the support staff or general counsels. Why? Because they are filled with incorrect information that does nothing but detract from our work flow. Of course I read them at some point, but on my own time.
As for the other stuff, you are entitled to your opinion. I follow a lot of games and development of them and I have a different opinion. I don't think this person was involved with many of the decisions that they reference, or development of SC2, because someone in QA wouldn't be. That and the fact that she also states that she "was not passionate about video games" and was terminated leads me to think she didn't really enjoy the work. I take it all with a huge grain of salt.
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On June 07 2013 01:14 Batcha wrote:
Pretty entertaining.
The sc2 dev portrayal matches up quite nicely with the state of the game.
Not sure why some nerds here shove the notion of bitterness though..
The person seems quite reasonable and brings up positive and negative stuff, but i guess some people are used to buying the idyllic employee talk.
And what's the state of the game exactly? Your race isn't doing well enough for you?
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TLADT24920 Posts
A couple of interesting things that I found and to address some of what was mentioned in this thread:
+ Show Spoiler +
#1:
[–]argole 6 points 11 hours ago
Are you at all bitter about being laid off?
[–]BlizzardThrowaway[S] 17 points 9 hours ago
Bittersweet, really. It was shitty that it happened, but it also allowed me to do some things I wouldn't have been able to if I had still been working there. I miss working there at times, but I had a good run.
#2:
[–]soooeasyjoe 464 points 10 hours ago
May I hear one of the highly revered game master jokes?
[–]BlizzardThrowaway[S] 1839 points 10 hours ago
How many GM's does it take to change a light bulb?
None, it's working as intended.
#3:
[–]ozagon 1 point 9 hours ago
How well, or badly, do devs in big-name gaming companies really get paid. What about unpaid overtime and conditions/benefits in general. Based on all of this, would you recommend the gaming industry to devs currently in school/training?
[–]BlizzardThrowaway[S] 5 points 9 hours ago
If you can get in with a decent company, you should make decent money. Devs at Blizzard get paid a lot. The Cinematics team is on par salary wise with movie studios.
#4:
[–]TronSpecial 1 point 9 hours ago
Thanks for doing this Ama. I dropped out of college because of WoW.
Will Blizzard help me pay my student loans?
What was the Blizzard's reaction to South Parks WoW episode?
[–]BlizzardThrowaway[S] 3 points 8 hours ago
Blizzard actually worked with the South Park creators for that episode.
#5:
[–]MarcoSamson 132 points 12 hours ago
I recall chatting with the "glitter throwing Gnome" GM! And IIRC, I think I gave them a perfect score everywhere on the little survey that they prompted us to fill in after each intervention.
Thanks for the answer, and thanks for doing this AMA!
[–]BlizzardThrowaway[S] 376 points 11 hours ago
No prob! Also, a thing to note about that scoring system...it's pretty fucked up on the internal side. For example: Let's say you really liked your GM, but weren't TOTALLY satisfied enough to give the experience all 5's, so instead you give them all 4's, or maybe some 4's and 5's. Well GMs are graded on how many "perfect survey scores" they get, and are rated with a 1 or 0 point system. Basically if you get all 5's, you get 1 point, and anything else is a 0. Pretty fucked up right? Well if you get too low of an average score per quarter, you have the potential to lose your job. Yeah...and they think this is an improved rating system.
Good AMA! Wish she answered more questions, definitely chose what to answer lol
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On June 07 2013 01:09 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2013 01:00 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:50 Plansix wrote:On June 07 2013 00:40 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:29 Aberu wrote:On June 07 2013 00:11 theking1 wrote:On June 07 2013 00:06 Gowerly wrote:On June 06 2013 23:55 HeeroFX wrote:
I think we knew the sc devs were dicks when they refused to give listen to the community wants and suggestions. To be fair have you seen some of the suggestions the community has? Some places (a couple where I have worked) don't even allow the devs on their forums because a) it's soul destroying and b) because the suggestions are largely bad at best and insane at worst It's ok to listen to a subset of the community, generally the top level players, as they understand things the most. Outside of that, though, you're all crazy. There is a rule in business staitng the customer is always right.Saying that people who buy your products are wrong and you are better than them is a bit of dangerous for the company.Also listening to the community seems to be working flawlessly for other games develpes such as riot,valve or the dudes behind world of tanks.Why can't blizzard do the same?We're not half as toxic as other communities,most of us have been long time fans aka buyers of blizzard games and when a topic gets like a 100 pages on the forum its most likely a serious issue. That rule is based on how you treat the customers. You treat them AS IF they are right. If "the customer is always right" means "you give every single customer exactly what they want" then every restaurant in the world would have 50 page long menus and be unfeasible to run. Source: Restaurant manager. That saying is fucking ridiculous. You treat them courteously and nicely as if they are right, and you apologize humbly and try to make it up to them if something goes wrong. You treat complaints as 10 times important as compliments. That's the meaning behind that phrase, so tired of people getting this wrong. Or let's apply the customer is always right mindset to games. A new patch every week taht dramatically changes multiple heroes, at many times the labor cost to the development team. Do you think the game would be as popular if they did that every time some SonGoku447UltraZ complained that his favorite hero wasn't OP enough? Gimme a break. i was reffering mostly to serious issues like the ones that cause 100 pages long threads.The issues do not include nerfing heroes but more serious topics such the free to play online features which they have implemented,lack of lan,more customization options such as skins etc etc.Nerfing a hero or race does not raise a 200k pettion like the lack of lan has Also your example with the restaurant is a bit flawed in this context.if a restauran towner receives 100 complains regarding a certaina spect he will most likely change it as he will lose clients.Also I seriously never heard of anyone complaining about restaurants not having 50 page long menus lol.The basic idea is that having such a hardcore fanbase we are most likely different from Songoku44utraz and know what we want(theoretically) and maybe we actually want the good of the game and do not complain for te sake of complaining Free to play is not an option for Blizzard for SC2. It would cost them millions of dollars to create a business model to justify the development cost, create a pricing structure for the content and then sell that content world wide. It has taken Riot years to create that. Also, why would Blizzard chase after Riots success? That is what tons of companies did for WoW and failed. There is no reason for Blizzard to change their plans just because someone else is making money on another game. The demands for F2P are being made by people who don’t understand how the industry works or just assume that F2P is easy. And a lot of people being outraged or upset about something on the internet it not good feedback or a reason to change things. A 100 page thread means that enough people posted world wide to make the thread 100 pages. At 20 posts a page or so, that is around 20,000 posts. At maximum that is 20K people (which is unlikely) world wide that decided to post about that thing. That is like getting 20K likes on facebook, which isn’t super meaningful. Just because a lot of people are willing to post about something doesn’t mean its important. It just means they were willing to take 1-5 minutes to post something. I disagree with you on that.Blizzard does not need to copy ad litteram the lol model but instead they can find ways of implementing f2p in sc2 while still making a profit.They have made steps in this direction with the recent spawning feature which will basicly allow players who do not own the game to play certain feature such as team maps and custom maps(which are by fr what most casua players play).I personally believe it is a step in the right direction which could have been done form the beggining considering bw already had such a feature. Regarding the 100 page thread thingy if its constructive criticism why not allow it.it doesnt hurt at all and maybe they can get some positive feedback.after all its free. I think you underestimate how hateful and harmful reading the comments or forums can be for someone making games or anything, really. There are endless discussions among professionals in public fields(casters, writers, producers, developers) and they all say the same thing: "Don't read the comments" Caster, content producers and game developers are not robots. They cannot simply shut of their emotions and ignore everything they read. That is not how people work. Even if there are gems of good advice, there are other ways to get that advice than subjecting yourself to the hate and bile of the internet.
That's the worst mind set you can possibly have as someone whose career is built off of the public's perception and reception. As others have mentioned, Riot does a good job of at least reading the comments. They don't need to listen to any of them, but at least give the impression that you care in some way, shape or form. Simply ignoring your audience while saying "haters gonna hate" is going to get them nowhere except behind the companies like Riot which at least give the impression of valuing customer opinions.
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On June 07 2013 01:14 Batcha wrote:
Pretty entertaining.
The sc2 dev portrayal matches up quite nicely with the state of the game.
Not sure why some nerds here shove the notion of bitterness though..
The person seems quite reasonable and brings up positive and negative stuff, but i guess some people are used to buying the idyllic employee talk.
He did just lose his job though, surely he is a little bitter with what went down right?
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On June 07 2013 00:09 Gorlin wrote:Show nested quote +On June 06 2013 23:32 Assirra wrote:
This honestly just smells like a fired person venting about his previous employer. Agreed, I really don't think anyone should take what he wrote to heart.
Unfortunately I agree as well. I wish there was some kind of happy medium between the fluffy AMA with the SC devs and this clearly unhappy (former) employee.
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