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On August 22 2013 06:19 Scareb wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 05:38 Noocta wrote: Blizzard is a multi thousand employees firm on multiple continents with a classic hierarchy. Valve is a 200/300 ish size firm running a horizontal hierarchy system in a single office.
And people expect them to work the same ? Do someone here have a single idea how management works ? If a company has a good management, it should work both ways. That's why you have head of departments etc. Of course it's harder to manage 4.700 employees then 400 but on the other hand, the people responsible for Diablo 3 have nothing to do with the people working for the eSports department. Good interviews. Hope eSports keeps growing from year to year as it did the last three years!
Are the people responsible for Diablo 3 still working at Blizzard?
If so, I've lost all hope for Blizzard. I've worked in quite a few different fields in my life, and if I ever performed as poorly as the team that made Diablo 3 did, I would have been fired by even the most incompetent boss I worked for. I bought that game despite the bad reviews, thinking it couldn't be that bad, that the problems people had were mostly in multiplayer, and that I'd enjoy at least one play through (I really enjoyed D2 single player, played it through a couple of times, only planned on playing D3 in single player). And I hated it, got mid way through Act 2, raged, and uninstalled the game. At least it was a Christmas gift...
Back on topic, you are correct. As Sun Tzu stated: "Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization." If Valve is working better than Blizzard due to size, what we can learn from that is that Blizzard is poorly managed and Valve is well managed.
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On August 22 2013 14:15 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 06:19 Scareb wrote:On August 22 2013 05:38 Noocta wrote: Blizzard is a multi thousand employees firm on multiple continents with a classic hierarchy. Valve is a 200/300 ish size firm running a horizontal hierarchy system in a single office.
And people expect them to work the same ? Do someone here have a single idea how management works ? If a company has a good management, it should work both ways. That's why you have head of departments etc. Of course it's harder to manage 4.700 employees then 400 but on the other hand, the people responsible for Diablo 3 have nothing to do with the people working for the eSports department. Good interviews. Hope eSports keeps growing from year to year as it did the last three years! Are the people responsible for Diablo 3 still working at Blizzard? If so, I've lost all hope for Blizzard. I've worked in quite a few different fields in my life, and if I ever performed as poorly as the team that made Diablo 3 did, I would have been fired by even the most incompetent boss I worked for. I bought that game despite the bad reviews, thinking it couldn't be that bad, that the problems people had were mostly in multiplayer, and that I'd enjoy one play through (I really enjoyed D2 single player, played it through a couple of times, only planned on playing D3 in single player). And I hated it, got mid way through Act 2, and uninstalled the game. Back on topic, you are correct. As Sun Tzu stated: "Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization."
If you were ever a part of a team that released a game which profited hundreds of millions of dollars you would have been fired? What a career you must have where that counts as abject failure!
I do so hope you're aware that in the real world if what you produce makes your employers money hand over fist you're not going to be valued.
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On August 22 2013 14:15 BronzeKnee wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 06:19 Scareb wrote:On August 22 2013 05:38 Noocta wrote: Blizzard is a multi thousand employees firm on multiple continents with a classic hierarchy. Valve is a 200/300 ish size firm running a horizontal hierarchy system in a single office.
And people expect them to work the same ? Do someone here have a single idea how management works ? If a company has a good management, it should work both ways. That's why you have head of departments etc. Of course it's harder to manage 4.700 employees then 400 but on the other hand, the people responsible for Diablo 3 have nothing to do with the people working for the eSports department. Good interviews. Hope eSports keeps growing from year to year as it did the last three years! Are the people responsible for Diablo 3 still working at Blizzard? If so, I've lost all hope for Blizzard. I've worked in quite a few different fields in my life, and if I ever performed as poorly as the team that made Diablo 3 did, I would have been fired by even the most incompetent boss I worked for. I bought that game despite the bad reviews, thinking it couldn't be that bad, that the problems people had were mostly in multiplayer, and that I'd enjoy at least one play through (I really enjoyed D2 single player, played it through a couple of times, only planned on playing D3 in single player). And I hated it, got mid way through Act 2, raged, and uninstalled the game. At least it was a Christmas gift... Back on topic, you are correct. As Sun Tzu stated: "Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization." If Valve is working better than Blizzard due to size, then Blizzard is poorly managed and Valve is well managed. You do know that Diablo 3 was a major success sale wise right? Why would they fire those people that made them all that money.
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On August 22 2013 14:23 silentsod wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 14:15 BronzeKnee wrote:On August 22 2013 06:19 Scareb wrote:On August 22 2013 05:38 Noocta wrote: Blizzard is a multi thousand employees firm on multiple continents with a classic hierarchy. Valve is a 200/300 ish size firm running a horizontal hierarchy system in a single office.
And people expect them to work the same ? Do someone here have a single idea how management works ? If a company has a good management, it should work both ways. That's why you have head of departments etc. Of course it's harder to manage 4.700 employees then 400 but on the other hand, the people responsible for Diablo 3 have nothing to do with the people working for the eSports department. Good interviews. Hope eSports keeps growing from year to year as it did the last three years! Are the people responsible for Diablo 3 still working at Blizzard? If so, I've lost all hope for Blizzard. I've worked in quite a few different fields in my life, and if I ever performed as poorly as the team that made Diablo 3 did, I would have been fired by even the most incompetent boss I worked for. I bought that game despite the bad reviews, thinking it couldn't be that bad, that the problems people had were mostly in multiplayer, and that I'd enjoy one play through (I really enjoyed D2 single player, played it through a couple of times, only planned on playing D3 in single player). And I hated it, got mid way through Act 2, and uninstalled the game. Back on topic, you are correct. As Sun Tzu stated: "Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization." If you were ever a part of a team that released a game which profited hundreds of millions of dollars you would have been fired? What a career you must have where that counts as abject failure! I do so hope you're aware that in the real world if what you produce makes your employers money hand over fist you're not going to be valued.
Many companies with huge profit margins really don't care so long as they make a nice profit. Unfortunately this leads to a disaster like Diablo 3, where the company settles and markets a mediocre product with the excuse (which both of you are using) that so long as it it making money, they are fine. A company that has a reputation of releasing superior products soils it very quickly when they release mediocre products. In fact, releasing mediocre products is first step that many great companies take that ultimately leads to their failure. I'm sure you both can think of brands that killed themselves this way (my favorite company when I was a little gamer, 3dfx, died this way...)
So Diablo 3 was a disaster not because it didn't make money, but because it didn't make as much as it should have, and it certainly didn't do any favors for the genre. It was a mediocre product, and not even close to the standard Blizzard had set with previous releases. A good company would realize this, and the guys who made it, would be making mediocre products at some other company. I certainly hope they are somewhere else today, because Blizzard should only release superior products.
So I hope you guys now understand it is all relative, right? Diablo 3 being a "sales success" likely has more to do with the reputation of Diablo 1 & 2 than it does with the quality of the game.
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this though. this was done well. as much as these people are saying blizzard has messed up, theyre not swearing off the game, theyre not yelling
theyre... being... nice? and trying to show that blizzard is both trying and failing, but mostly trying. its a kind reminder that maybe all of us need help sometimes. no matter how big we seem to be.
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Even though it was from Slasher, I really enjoyed those interviews. Very informative, thank you.
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On August 22 2013 11:35 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 11:29 Seraphic wrote:On August 22 2013 11:24 Plansix wrote:On August 22 2013 11:19 juicyjames wrote:On August 22 2013 11:12 Seraphic wrote: No matter how much the casters spin it, SC2 is slowly being strangled to death because "Regions" isn't Regions for WCS. A Korean winning EU or NA is just down right stupid and I have no idea why Blizzard still allows this to continue. I like to think that Blizzard is waiting for WCS 2014 to make major changes to the format/rules. I refuse to believe they are that oblivious. They have to wait for the season to finish and for the grand finals at Blizzcon before they can make big changes. If they changed the rules now and pulled the rug out from under the players, they would be in a ton of trouble both legally and with the community. Changing WCS this late won't get SC2's viewers back. The moment the hype for HotS went away, SC2 viewers dropped to WoL levels near the end of it's run. Blizzard has to do something extremely drastic to get something going because at this rate they are already losing to DotA 2 in most every possible way. And of course don't even mention LoL because they won't get there. 1 Streamer from LoL beats out a tournament SC2 stream currently. That's not how broadcasting works at all. Its not one game vs another and one will walk out at the end. This isn't highlander Esports. Dota 2 has less viewers for [than?] SC2 for any other event than TI3. Period. The NBA doesn't try to beat out the NFL. The NBA just runs the NBA.
This statement is 100% false. Let us look at the numbers since July 5th. http://www.fuzic.nl/events/overall/peak-desc/ No tournament over 80k peak (don't get me started at the average numbers). Dota 2 has over 100k viewers for every final, the Alienware/Mastercard cup had over ~250k viewers (~150k rus/eng, ~100k chinese) http://www.reddit.com/r/DotA2/comments/1hxzm0/congrats_to_bts_their_alienware_cup_stream_peaks/ and that was just one month ago. Please stop spreading incorrect facts.
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On August 22 2013 04:03 Lunareste wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 02:27 xsnac wrote: i agree with nazgul blizzard : robots that act only by the rules valve : humans
i wonder if blizzard will ever see those interviews Know why Valve doesn't release HL3? Because the moment they do, people are going to shit all over them for the smallest, insignificant things. That's exactly what's happened to Blizz. I don't remember any negative feedback about HL2. Most critics agreed it's the best FPS ever with HL1 being pushed to the second place.
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On August 22 2013 05:38 Noocta wrote: Blizzard is a multi thousand employees firm on multiple continents with a classic hierarchy. Valve is a 200/300 ish size firm running a horizontal hierarchy system in a single office.
And people expect them to work the same ? Do someone here have a single idea how management works ?
Sorry... but from where do you take these numbers.. i remember that i looked up some years ago at blizz and they have less then 1000 employees.
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On August 22 2013 14:26 Assirra wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 14:15 BronzeKnee wrote:On August 22 2013 06:19 Scareb wrote:On August 22 2013 05:38 Noocta wrote: Blizzard is a multi thousand employees firm on multiple continents with a classic hierarchy. Valve is a 200/300 ish size firm running a horizontal hierarchy system in a single office.
And people expect them to work the same ? Do someone here have a single idea how management works ? If a company has a good management, it should work both ways. That's why you have head of departments etc. Of course it's harder to manage 4.700 employees then 400 but on the other hand, the people responsible for Diablo 3 have nothing to do with the people working for the eSports department. Good interviews. Hope eSports keeps growing from year to year as it did the last three years! Are the people responsible for Diablo 3 still working at Blizzard? If so, I've lost all hope for Blizzard. I've worked in quite a few different fields in my life, and if I ever performed as poorly as the team that made Diablo 3 did, I would have been fired by even the most incompetent boss I worked for. I bought that game despite the bad reviews, thinking it couldn't be that bad, that the problems people had were mostly in multiplayer, and that I'd enjoy at least one play through (I really enjoyed D2 single player, played it through a couple of times, only planned on playing D3 in single player). And I hated it, got mid way through Act 2, raged, and uninstalled the game. At least it was a Christmas gift... Back on topic, you are correct. As Sun Tzu stated: "Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization." If Valve is working better than Blizzard due to size, then Blizzard is poorly managed and Valve is well managed. You do know that Diablo 3 was a major success sale wise right? Why would they fire those people that made them all that money.
Any group of Blizzard developers would have made that Diablo 3 money for them.
You honestly believe that there was a chance that Diablo 3 was not going to be a sales success riding on the reputation of its predecessors?
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On August 22 2013 16:14 Reasonable wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 04:03 Lunareste wrote:On August 22 2013 02:27 xsnac wrote: i agree with nazgul blizzard : robots that act only by the rules valve : humans
i wonder if blizzard will ever see those interviews Know why Valve doesn't release HL3? Because the moment they do, people are going to shit all over them for the smallest, insignificant things. That's exactly what's happened to Blizz. I don't remember any negative feedback about HL2. Most critics agreed it's the best FPS ever with HL1 being pushed to the second place.
Spot on.
HL2 has great reviews and won the "game of the decade award" at 2012 VGA awards.
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Blizzard is all about two things nowadays ... CONTROL and MAKING AS MUCH MONEY AS THEY CAN without regard for the consequences. Making games is just a means to an end to them and not something they have a passion for.
Is it true for all the 2,700 Blizzard employees? Or only game designers/programmers? Or maybe only Morhaime? Or maybe you are imagining Blizzard as some single self-concious evil entity? I am kinda interested in narrowing down generalized, pulled-out-of-the-a. statements
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You do know that Diablo 3 was a major success sale wise right? Why would they fire those people that made them all that money.
Two reasons: (1) Sun Tzu said something; (2) that guy ragequitted diablo. Haven't you been reading his message at all? 
A company that has a reputation of releasing superior products soils it very quickly when they release mediocre products. In fact, releasing mediocre products is first step that many great companies take that ultimately leads to their failure.
That's correct, but Blizzard products are still vastly superior to majority of games that were released in the past few years. Aside from some hardcore fans who are mad that not everyone follows SC2 proscene (and some people even dare to watch Dota 2) people are generally happy with Blizzard games.
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On August 22 2013 14:26 Assirra wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 14:15 BronzeKnee wrote:On August 22 2013 06:19 Scareb wrote:On August 22 2013 05:38 Noocta wrote: Blizzard is a multi thousand employees firm on multiple continents with a classic hierarchy. Valve is a 200/300 ish size firm running a horizontal hierarchy system in a single office.
And people expect them to work the same ? Do someone here have a single idea how management works ? If a company has a good management, it should work both ways. That's why you have head of departments etc. Of course it's harder to manage 4.700 employees then 400 but on the other hand, the people responsible for Diablo 3 have nothing to do with the people working for the eSports department. Good interviews. Hope eSports keeps growing from year to year as it did the last three years! Are the people responsible for Diablo 3 still working at Blizzard? If so, I've lost all hope for Blizzard. I've worked in quite a few different fields in my life, and if I ever performed as poorly as the team that made Diablo 3 did, I would have been fired by even the most incompetent boss I worked for. I bought that game despite the bad reviews, thinking it couldn't be that bad, that the problems people had were mostly in multiplayer, and that I'd enjoy at least one play through (I really enjoyed D2 single player, played it through a couple of times, only planned on playing D3 in single player). And I hated it, got mid way through Act 2, raged, and uninstalled the game. At least it was a Christmas gift... Back on topic, you are correct. As Sun Tzu stated: "Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization." If Valve is working better than Blizzard due to size, then Blizzard is poorly managed and Valve is well managed. You do know that Diablo 3 was a major success sale wise right? Why would they fire those people that made them all that money. The question is how many people will buy D4. I won't - and that says a lot about how bad D3 is...
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The question is how many people will buy D4. I won't - and that says a lot about how bad D3 is...
I am no expert but I sincerely believe you overestimate how significant you are
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On August 22 2013 11:35 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 11:29 Seraphic wrote:On August 22 2013 11:24 Plansix wrote:On August 22 2013 11:19 juicyjames wrote:On August 22 2013 11:12 Seraphic wrote: No matter how much the casters spin it, SC2 is slowly being strangled to death because "Regions" isn't Regions for WCS. A Korean winning EU or NA is just down right stupid and I have no idea why Blizzard still allows this to continue. I like to think that Blizzard is waiting for WCS 2014 to make major changes to the format/rules. I refuse to believe they are that oblivious. They have to wait for the season to finish and for the grand finals at Blizzcon before they can make big changes. If they changed the rules now and pulled the rug out from under the players, they would be in a ton of trouble both legally and with the community. Changing WCS this late won't get SC2's viewers back. The moment the hype for HotS went away, SC2 viewers dropped to WoL levels near the end of it's run. Blizzard has to do something extremely drastic to get something going because at this rate they are already losing to DotA 2 in most every possible way. And of course don't even mention LoL because they won't get there. 1 Streamer from LoL beats out a tournament SC2 stream currently. That's not how broadcasting works at all. Its not one game vs another and one will walk out at the end. This isn't highlander Esports. Dota 2 has less viewers for SC2 for any other event than TI3. Period. The NBA doesn't try to beat out the NFL. The NBA just runs the NBA.
Please for the love of god stop comparing sports with a massive global audience of hundreds of millions to competitive video games. You can't compare things so vastly different in scope. NBA and NFL and thousands of other different sports associations can coexist because there is more than enough space for them to do so. There are fringe sports we've barely even heard of that have enough of a following to maintain a healthy professional scene.
Esports titles are all gunning for the same tiny demographic. They're competing for the interest and time of the audience which is not big enough to support one, let alone several, professional scenes. None of SC2, Dota or LoL scenes would be able to stand on their own without developers pumping money into it. That money is generated by players that for the most part have zero interest in the esports aspect of the game they play (and pay/buy cosmetics for).
For all intents and purposes, it is very much Highlander Esports where not even the hypothetical last remaining one is going to live forever, but rather live on life support for a little bit longer than the rest.
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so what do we learn from that...dont spend time on your new game..just throw at in the community and call it open beta. Organize an event with a LOT of money...and everyone will love you.
Already happened some years ago with Painkiller. Lets see how long Valve will take care. Interviews sound like that they will keep sc2 only to save their faces...quite sad. But anyway...thats how esports work. Lets move to the next game.
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Shots fired at Blizzard...*ouch*.
Nazgul speaks the truth though. Good interview.
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On August 22 2013 17:20 cutler wrote: so what do we learn from that...dont spend time on your new game..just throw at in the community and call it open beta. Organize an event with a LOT of money...and everyone will love you.
Already happened some years ago with Painkiller. Lets see how long Valve will take care. Interviews sound like that they will keep sc2 only to save their faces...quite sad. But anyway...thats how esports work. Lets move to the next game.
One major problem for esports is the constantly changing rules of the game, due to those patches, expansions. And new games don't help either, you can't build a sports like legacy for them, so it is usually just one generation thing if the game is extremly good.
That's why I always hate those balance patches in sc2, regardless how bad it seems to be in last couple months.
BW had the potential to continue for years in Korea because the rules of the game didn't change for 10 years, and they already built a legacy around the game and players, but blizzard's attacks on the scene and match fixing scandal pushed it off the main stage.
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LoL keeps on living in its own little world while DotA 2 is competing with StarCraft II. Who would've thought it?
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