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freelosophy · 6 months

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I need to vent #1 - Call of Duty. pt1

Interested in making money on CoD rather than spending it? Good. Then there is only one thing you need. A law degree.

(just a note here, there's not much this has to do with philosophy. If that's what you're here for, I'm sorry to disappoint today. However, this is what I needed to write about today and so I did. I hope you enjoy nonetheless)

"Activision-Blizzard" and "prioritizing revenue over its dedicated fans" come hand in hand to a lot of Call of Duty's audience these days. In case this isn't something known to you, a quick look at Activision's marketing decisions and, in turn, player feedback on these decisions, should make that picture clearer for you. How could such a strategy work if the players don't respond well to it, you ask?

Simple. Because the players that care about the game enough to get involved in community feedback, YouTube videos, Reddit posts, etc., are usually the "hardcore fans" of the franchise. They are the ones that have invested daily hours, some of them throughout several years if not decades, into Call of Duty. But they are also the ones making up only a minority of the games' total player count. Most pockets, ehm.. sorry, I meant players, are the casual type. The 15-year-old play-after-school spend-parents'-money-on-microtransactions type. That is where most of Activision's revenue comes from (source).

I sense another question incoming. "What's wrong with that then?" Well, these people, being the casual players, they are not as good at the game as the hardcore fans are. Now, this basically puts Activision in a position, where catering to players, who are bad, is advantageous from an economic point of view. What could possibly be the result of that? (I know, I'm going overboard with the questions but allow me this surely last one.) Games specifically designed so that you are at an advantage if you are bad at them, and at a disadvantage, when you get good. Kinda counter-intuitive, no? (I had to, sorry.) If you want to know more about how this works and in what areas this makes itself known, tell me in the comments. I'll be more than happy to make a pt2 of this rant. However, back to the topic at hand.

I don't suppose there is anything wrong with this method of theirs. I mean, I very strongly feel that there is but at the same time they are a company. An entity, which purpose, however much one might (dis)like it, is to make money. So.. technically, nothing wrong with this.

What is wrong, however, is how immune to feedback Activision-Blizzard got, in part because of their fans making their disgust in the abovementioned policy known. Loudly and for years at this point.

What is wrong is that there are other policies, more outrageous and potentially even outright criminal, that they've got going in full effect. And nobody makes them do anything about it.

And the one I have noticed today, the one this post was supposed to be centered around (yeah, yeah), is them selling their old games. Selling their old games for full price. Selling games that DO NOT WORK for the intentions for which you bought them or are SO RIDDLED WITH CHEATERS that they might not only be UNPLAYABLE but might also be an actual PRIVACY SAFETY HAZZARD to you.

Now, selling largely multiplayer games that no longer have a player-base big enough for you to actually play their multiplayer, seems an awful thing on its own, nevertheless, it's not criminal yet. But selling games, where it is an everyday occurence to come across multiple different cheaters, who reveal your personal device's IP in the game's public chat? I do not claim to know all the laws but this simply has to be breaking at least one of them, right?

An example of this is Black Ops 3. An eight-year old game that has so many cheaters in it that out of the 5 games I played after I installed it today, there was a cheater in ALL OF THEM. This is a game currently (as of 30.10.2023) being sold for 59.99 Euro on Steam. A game, where you log on, join a lobby, and quite likely get your IP address exposed publicly. 5 times out of 5, in my experience. And Black Ops 3 is of course not the only proverbial culprit, when it comes to this.

How in the mother and father of all that is hell-adjacent is this possible? Which leads me back to my initial thought. If you're someone with a law degree and the willingness to stand up to what's wrong, even when done by a tech giant, this ought to be sure and good money for you. Create online posts, gather witness statements and data from people like me (there are bound to be thousands of us), and consider taking action should you find this issue requires it. Because there just has to be some law saying that selling a seemingly broken product that potentially puts your private information in danger is not legal. Am I crazy for thinking that?

Please, if you are someone fitting said description, I welcome you to go get rich.

PS: all the mights and potentiallies are a help in preventing me from getting sued for defamation or something, which I can totally imagine Activision doing. I feel very strongly what I've written to be true, HOWEVER, I do not know my way around law and all that is said above comes from my experience and my own reasoning. I do not claim any of the information I give to be factual (eeh, I mean at least some of it is but whatever :D), I can only say I firmly believe it. All I am intending to do with this post is to release the tention built up in me from playing Activision's last years' shitty SBMM titles, and to try and make others aware of what I think could potentially ("could" and "potentially", I really got ya there, Acti) be a wrongdoing.

#blog #blogging #tumblog #censorship #call of duty #activision #blizzard #activision blizzard #black ops 3 #i’m outraged #controversial #aweful #rant

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first-impressions-gaming · 7 months

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GAMING RECAP (September 11-18) [Part 1/2]

Unity apologises for "confusion and angst" over fee changes

Unity has apologised following the furore around its disastrous plans to charge developers when people download games made using its technology.

The plans prompted an enormous backlash from developers across the industry, and threw up a multitude of questions around how the new policy would work in practice - answers which Unity belatedly scrambled to work out itself.

This morning, Unity said it was sorry for the "confusion and angst" its changes had caused, and promised it would make unspecified "changes" to its plans.

Spider-Man 2 Will Have Ray Tracing Across All Visual Modes

In an interview with IGN, Insomniac Director of Core Technology Mike Fitzgerald and Project Director Jeannette Lee talked about the tech behind the upcoming open-world game. When the topic of ray tracing (realistic rendering of reflections, lighting, and shadows) came up, Fitzgerald explained that Spider-Man 2 will offer multiple framerate options (30, 40, and 60 frames per second). The 30fps mode will have better graphical fidelity, but if you trade some of that prettier image quality you’ll get a smoother framerate at 60. The 40fps option is for those of us with a 120Hz TV.

“For this game we’re really able to deliver [ray tracing] as a baseline performance mode,” Fitzgerald told IGN. “There’s no mode of this game that has the ray tracing turned off, no need for it. We’ve really figured out how to deliver what we feel like is the right Spider-Man visuals and we want to make sure every player is seeing that.”

Xbox Game Pass Core Reveals All 36 Games Ahead Of Launch

The full list of 36 games for Xbox Live Gold’s replacement, Game Pass Core, has been revealed a day ahead of its launch. Core, essentially an equivalent to Sony’s PlayStation Plus Essential service, is to be the budget incarnation of Game Pass, lacking access to the service’s full library of hundreds of games, but instead offering a curated selection of 36 titles, along with the somehow still toll-gated access to online gaming. But here’s the thing: they’re 36 really decent games.

How Ubisoft Bordeaux Built Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s Golden Age Baghdad

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Assassin's Creed Mirage brings players to 9th Century Baghdad during the city’s Golden Age. More specifically, the year 861 is when protagonist Basim Ibn Is'haq's journey begins in this city, the technological and cultural epicenter of the region at the time.

The Elder Scrolls 6 not coming to PlayStation, confirms Microsoft court document

Microsoft submitted the document (thanks The Verge) as part of its court battle with the US Federal Trade Commission over its proposed $69bn USD acquisition of Activision Blizzard - the same court proceedings that saw Xbox boss Phil Spencer answer an FTC attorney's questions about The Elder Scrolls 6's Xbox exclusivity by saying, "I think we've been a little unclear on what platforms it's launching on, given how far out the game is. It's difficult for us right now to nail down... It's so far out it's hard to understand what the platforms will even be at this point."

Despite Spencer's noncommital answer back in June, Microsoft's newly released court documents make it explicitly clear The Elder Scrolls 6 won't be coming to a PlayStation console.

Immortals of Aveum studio lays off 45% of staff following poor sales

Ascendant Studios, the developer behind the EA published Immortals of Aveum, has laid off almost half of its staff.

Ascendant CEO Bret Robbins shared a post on X, formerly Twitter, stating 45 percent of the team have been let go - a "painfully difficult, but necessary decision that was not made lightly".

#game #gaming #game news #xbox #playstation #nintendo

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gemwire · 2 years

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PlayStation Boss Flew In To Try And Stop Activision Blizzard Deal

Microsoft’s impending deal with Activision Blizzard has certainly been a big “deal” in the gaming industry, and it’s going to treat consumers on Xbox’s side of the console war very nicely. But PlayStation has kind of been throwing its toys out of the pram.

Lashing out at Xbox at every mention of the record-breaking deal – and complaining about any idea that the gaming giant could void “protecting gamers” – Sony has also used every opportunity to keep its own latched to the PlayStation before the deal is finalised. Now, it seems as though the well of Sony’s stress is deeper than we imagined.

PlayStation Boss Jim Ryan Flew To Brussels To Stop Xbox

“We want to guarantee PlayStation gamers continue to have the highest quality gaming experience, and we appreciate the CMA’s focus on protecting gamers.” … Xbox has repeatedly committed to CoD staying multi-platform. … Meanwhile here’s Sony’s version of “protecting gamers.” pic.twitter.com/8DH82DVwEj

— Destin (@DestinLegarie) September 15, 2022

According to sources speaking to Dealreporter, it seems that PlayStation boss Jim Ryan is even more passionate about his concerns for the Xbox deal with Activision Blizzard deal than he let on. And he’s let on a lot.

These sources claim that the Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO went to the EU headquarters in Brussels himself in September. Ryan apparently voiced his concerns about Xbox’s prospective deal with Activision Blizzard, specifically citing its ownership of Call of Duty as a reason that the deal shouldn’t be going ahead.

The same sources indicate that Google has also voiced its disdain for the deal to EU regulators, which is a surprise entry into this battle – especially considering that Google’s gaming offerings have just tanked with the shutting down of Stadia.

Despite Xbox’s pledge to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles for years to come, Ryan still isn’t happy with the way that the deal will turn out. It probably explains why PlayStation is going so hard on its marketing deals with Modern Warfare II. But, of course, it doesn’t stop here.

PlayStation Welcomed The Activision Blizzard Probe

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Microsoft | Activision

This flight isn’t the end of PlayStation’s fight against the Xbox deal, as Microsoft’s gaming rival welcomed the huge probe that took place assessing the deal back at the end of September.

“We want to guarantee PlayStation gamers continue to have the highest quality gaming experience, and we appreciate the CMA’s focus on protecting gamers,” read the response.

The deal is likely to keep going ahead, and right now, it looks as though PlayStation’s hatred for it is only going to dampen itself. Sorry, Sony – you played the stupid game of capitalism, and now you’re getting the stupid capitalist prizes.

The post PlayStation Boss Flew In To Try And Stop Activision Blizzard Deal appeared first on Gemwire. source https://gemwire.gg/en/playstation-boss-flew-in-to-try-and-stop-activision-blizzard-deal/

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askagamedev · 3 years

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What are your thoughts on Activision Blizzard’s situation right now? I don’t remember employees staging walkout for such a high publicity case before. How will things likely change for the industry?

For those who aren't aware, today many employees of Blizzard will be staging a walkout today (July 28th, 2021) at around 10am Pacific Daylight Time. This is the latest in a series of events that started with the California State Department of Fair Employment and Housing bringing a sexual discrimination/harassment lawsuit against Activision-Blizzard. You can read my [original post on the matter by clicking here].

In the time since, a number of things have happened. These were all happening in parallel, so astute readers should not necessarily assume a chain of events here. I have attempted to break them down.

The Open Letter

Activision-Blizzard employees collectively written an open letter to the management with these specific demands:

An end to mandatory forced arbitration to resolve employee disputes (abusers are often protected by the arbitrators)

Better recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and promotion practices to remedy the secret rankings and boys club career tracks

Transparency on things like compensation, equity grants, profit sharing, promotions, etc. so compensation and promotion discrimination is more difficult to hide

A third-party audit of ATVI's reporting structure, HR department, and executive staff to see where the failure points are

As of this morning, the open letter has been signed by over 3200 current and former Blizzard employees. That's a pretty great sign rate considering Blizzard has a total employee count of around 2500 and Activision-Blizzard has around 9500.

The Leadership Statements

There has been a large amount of internal pushback from the employees against the corporate response - both the public statement from Activision-Blizzard and Fran Townsend (Executive in charge of HR). I think that the brass at the top did not realize how deep the corruption ran when they released their initial response to the lawsuit or how angry the employees were now that it became public. Some of the current and former executive leadership wrote statements to the public and/or to the employees. These statements generally boiled down to "this is a real shame, I didn't know and I'm sorry I didn't notice" which generally incensed the employees even more because these were the people in charge of the company when all of the abuse was happening. Claiming ignorance either means they were super out of touch with their own employees or they knew and were too cowardly or complicit to do something about it. Neither is a good look.

The All Hands Meeting

Activision-Blizzard held an all-hands meeting on Friday (July 23rd, 2021) to try to address the issue. The executive leadership spoke about the situation for a while, giving typical corporate type responses and promising to do better. Then they opened the floor to comments and questions and the dam broke. Person after person shared their stories. I suspect it was around this time that the executive leadership realized that the situation ran a real risk of entire organizational collapse if something wasn't done to address the issue quickly.

The Letter from the CEO

After the All Hands Meeting, the message to the brass was received loud and clear. Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision-Blizzard, wrote a [letter to all employees that went out Tuesday, July 27th], committing to:

Investigating each claim

Listening sessions for employees to suggest ways to improve

Immediately evaluating managers and leaders across the Company and terminating anyone who behaved inappropriately

Improved hiring practices

Removal of in-game content that celebrates some of the sexual predator employees, both current and former

All of these lead us to...

Today's Walkout

In the meantime, the employees did some organizing on their own because huge numbers of them refused to tolerate what their leadership said. The World of Warcraft team, for example, put out [their own statement] on the state of current events. Many of the middle and upper managers within the Blizzard org participated and pushed for action and change as well. The Blizzard employees are asking for solidarity today from fans - they are requesting that players all log out from all ATVI games and services during the hours of the walkout.

This employee walkout follows a similar walkout that [happened at Riot Games in May of 2019 for similar reasons]. From what I've been told by employees currently working at Riot, things there have changed for the better in the years since. One hopes that this enormous show of employee solidarity will push for some lasting change.

From My Soapbox

As for my own thoughts on the matter, I really want everyone out there to understand that this is not just an isolated incident. This is not the work of just a few bad actors. This is one of a long line of problems that are built into the system itself. It happened at Ubisoft, at Riot, at Microsoft, at EA, at Bioware, at Gearbox, at Square-Enix, at Capcom, at Bandai-Namco, at Uber, at Facebook, at Google, at Amazon - it happens everywhere. It is still happening. I put out the request for safe employers that my network would be able to feel comfortable working for, and I got three responses all came with the caveat “Well, this only applies to my current team”. Three. This sort of thing absolutely needs a cultural change, and that can only happen if those of us with a modicum of power (e.g. managers, senior devs) start putting ourselves in the uncomfortable positions of recognizing and calling it out at our own personal risk.

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#current events #activision #Blizzard Entertainment #Working in the game industry #warts and all #legal implications #game development hierarchy

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jewfrogs · 2 years

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so do you think its ok for people to be buying and playing activision blizzard games rn too? fucking hypocrites you are lmfao fuck you

sorry do you think my friend heard about riot and went out and bought the game right after. do you think thats what happened. did you read the part of my post where i said hes been playing as long as ive known him (although he started way before that). no i dont think its evil of someone to play a game they have owned for the better part of a decade sorry

#plus i dont want to get into it but there are real questions about the use of boycotting in that situation #and some employees have said it doesnt actually help them. so.#not saying that every employee agrees on that stance there are definitely ones who want a boycott but like. There Is Nuance #ask #anonymous

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mrmallard · 3 years

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My #BoycottBlizzard post has been getting notes lately because California is suing Activision-Blizzard for its toxic work culture. It's cool to see it get notes, but the news itself is incredibly disheartening and the response to these allegations has been piss-poor on Activision-Blizzard's part.

Basically, for anyone unfamiliar with Activision-Blizzard's activities over the past few years, here's a refresher:

In 2019, a Hearthstone player named Blitzchung said "free Hong Kong, liberation of our times" on a tournament livestream. Blitzchung himself is from Hong Kong, and this was just as the protests were kicking off in that country. Not only did he receive a 1 year ban from competitive play, the prize money he won from that tournament was nullified and the two people who were hosting the stream got punished as well (though this was overturned I think).

Subsequently, people began protesting at live Hearthstone events with signs and chants. At least one event at an American college had its stream ended prematurely by Activision-Blizzard to prevent the negative optics of seeing people protest. They demonstrated clearly and repeatedly that between Hong Kong and China, they sided with China.

In 2020, they released a botched remaster of one of Blizzard's most beloved titles called Warcraft 3: Reforged. This is lower stakes than the other examples, but it's recently come out that the team charged with the remaster lacked direction, resources and time to do the pitch justice as it wasn't seen as enough of an earner, and that the Activision side of things didn't help by allocating a pittance and refusing to communicate with the studio when they needed help.

This is significant because not only is it one of the most downvoted game releases on Metacritic of all time - keeping in mind that Metacritic has gaming review pages going back to the Nintendo 64 - but Activision-Blizzard made it so that if you bought Reforged, you could never download the original product through official channels again. If you upgraded to Reforged, you could not downgrade back to the original copy. This sets a dangerous precedent, and it infringes on consumer rights.

2020 was a record-breaking year for Activision-Blizzard. They made 1.2 billion dollars through microtransactions alone - that's not a typo, $1.2 billion - and the CEO of the company, Bobby Kotick, got a $200 million bonus. Within weeks of that bonus, Activision-Blizzard laid off 190 workers just before Christmas.

That's just scratching the surface - that's the big stuff. The next section of the post is about the most recent events, which are shaping up to be a real doozy.

Just about a week ago, Activision-Blizzard was sued by the state of California for fostering an unhealthy workplace environment. There have been dozens of allegations about male staff members making female co-workers uncomfortable with a very frat-bro, sexually inappropriate sort of atmosphere going on at the office. There have also been several people in power who've abused their power to squash criticism and harass people working under them. So my assumption is that they broke California's workplace safety laws.

There's one specific account involving revenge porn that I'm not going to get into, but needless to say, it is not a pleasant account and the people responsible - including one specific abuser - need to be punished. Furthermore, there's at least one confirmed account of a department head or boss abusing his power and making people afraid to speak out in fear of retribution, and he wasn't fired for years despite persistent complaints from Blizzard staff.

So far, there have been at least four statements released by the company addressing these allegations. The first one was made by Bobby Kotick, and it basically just trotted out the company PR line and made people angry. The second statement - which I believe was an internal email - was from an association within Activision-Blizzard which claimed to represent the women working for the company. They sided with the company and prioritised the need to smooth things out for the sake of stability (as opposed to standing with the victims in the wake of these allegations), which made a LOT of employees extremely upset.

The third statement is from Activision-Blizzard's previous CEO. I haven't heard much about it or read it myself, but the headline is of him apologizing for failing to protect the women of Blizzard - maybe he gave it more of a human touch, maybe it's downplaying his own blame in this situation and making a disgusting, cynical PR move. I dunno. And the fourth and last statement came from Bobby Kotick, apologizing for the first statement and calling it tone-deaf. Which, I mean... too little too late y'know. It just means they thought they could get away with it the first time and now they're sorry they got caught.

In response to the first two responses, over 2500 current and former Blizzard employees signed an open letter condemning the response. They called the attempt to downplay the allegations "abhorrent and disgusting", and they've delivered two copies of the letter to management.

Furthermore, Blizzard employees will be striking today - they're gathering by the statue in the centre of their courtyard in a show of solidarity.

And that's all I know up to this point.

I'll admit that I'm not the most reliable source in regards to those four responses. I did see a video talking about the second response and the open letter, but I'm not the most clear on the other three apart from the fact that they exist.

Activision-Blizzard is especially relevant because they're arguably the biggest video game publisher in America right now. Last year in 2020, they made $8 billion in revenue - the gaming industry has seen a massive boom in engagement due to the pandemic, and they've been making money hand over fist. EA, their closest American rival, made $5.5 billion in revenue - meaning that Activision-Blizzard made roughly $2.5 billion more than they did. They are a massive, massive conglomerate.

So to hear about such a widespread culture problem to the degree that they're getting sued by the state of California for it, and to see them downplay the allegations that have gotten them into trouble, and to see such a massive incensed reaction from within the company as they're being treated with less and less humanity with each coming year - it's particularly fucked up, because they are essentially the head of the American video games industry and this sets an example.

If there's anything I wish to impart through this post, it's how malicious this industry really is and how Activision-Blizzard are willing to fuck everyone over for as much revenue as they can. Not just their employees, who they overwork and underpay and refuse to listen to when issues of corruption and abuse arise. They'll also tread all over consumer rights to wring every last drop of revenue out of as many players as possible. I didn't even mention the patent they filed for a microtransaction system that feeds on the same impulsiveness triggers as phone games and slot machines.

Once again, I have to say - fuck Activision-Blizzard. If you can at all afford to do so, I would recommend avoiding the company that refused to act on abuse allegations, infringed on consumer rights by replacing older games with inferior remasters, and who have actively participated in the suppression of human rights by silencing pro-democracy protestors acting on behalf of Hong Kong's freedom.

#activision #blizzard #Activision-Blizzard #gaming #long post

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gummybuddha · 5 years

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Lord of Expectations

Blizzcon is only days away, and everyone is excited about what might potentially become an absolute shit show. Blizzard’s recent plague of controversy involving the banning of Hearthstone player Chung ‘Blitzchung’ Ng Wai, their shitty appeal to the Blizzard community at large, and the embarrassment of having the US government sending a public letter telling Blizzard to kindly go unfuck themselves, was easily enough fuel to ensure that Blizzcon would have been a three-ring circus with Blizzard playing the role of the fucking clowns.

But before you think this was the end of the spectacle, it was just recently discovered that Blizzard will have no open Q&A’s on this years Blizzcon schedule, possibly suggesting we are seeing a Blizzard that is desperately trying to get the public to focus on “just the game.” Now I know what you are thinking. Kyle, why are you being so mean? Why can’t you just focus on the positive, like new WoW expansions or the possibility of Diablo games? Because I can’t help but think of Bobby Kotick getting a shit-eating grin at the idea that he or anyone else at the head of Activision Blizzard is just going to successfully hide from public scrutiny. Just…no…no…

But for the sake of the discussion, I would personally be overjoyed at the idea of a polished up version of Diablo II. Even if it was just touched up enough to run on modern systems, the game is such a classic, that it’s preservation needs no real justification at this point. It’s earned its place in gaming history.

But when people ask me about another Diablo game, a Diablo IV if you will, then I can’t help but destroy their expectations. I can’t help but remind them that until Diablo Immortal drops, Diablo 3 is the worst Diablo game in the series.

I know that seems unrealistically unfair considering Reaper of Souls did so much to fix Diablo 3’s issues and make the game enjoyable. I would even admit that I have played many hours of Reaper of Souls and quickly paid for the Necromancer pack without hesitation, a rare moment of don’t give a fuck for me.

But all of those things don’t hide the fact that at launch, Diablo 3 was an absolute cluster fuck. I have a hard time choosing what was the worst offender for me, the painfully dry story, the utterly neutered imagery, the horrible loot drops, or the fact there was no secret cow level… Ha, sorry, I’m obviously joking. It was the god damn Auction House. You knew it was gonna be the auction house.

I mean just look at that down there. Someone had the fucking nerve to ask another human being for 135 dollars for shitty crafting materials. That’s more than the cost in USD for two fucking copies of Diablo 333333333333!

I don’t think I have to say much more than that. The idea that players would have to pay money for items in a genre focused on item acquisition is ludicrous; even back in 2012. Players were obviously pissed about this aspect and as a result, Blizzard’s official forums were full of posts trying to understand why there was such a poor jump from Diablo 2 to 3. What happened after would be fit for a soap opera. In a rare interview with Blizzard North co-founder David Brevik at Gamescon 2012, David was asked about his thoughts on the game and the community reaction. The interview, done by Diabloii.net, went show that Brevik was not really digging the itemization in Diablo 3 either, pointing out a few key elements that he found rather perplexing. But the drama to unfold was focused on one particular comment Brevik made on how he thought Diablo 3 would affect the overall Legacy of Blizzard North’s work.

This comment quickly found it’s way back to the staff that made Diablo 3, which were shocked about the criticism and mad about the idea that Blizzard North had obviously been an original A-Team, not easily replaced.

It was a rare glimpse into the culture of Blizzard employees at the time. It showed that there was a portion of Blizzard that felt no responsibility for turning their backs on fans and embracing the absurd corporate culture that the game industry was slowly being poisoned by. But the moment was quickly stolen by Diablo 3 lead director Jay Wilson, who simply posted: “Fuck that loser.” A quip that was so outrageous, that it ran on several news sites.

That was years ago. Eventually, Jay ”Fuck that loser “ Wilson was pushed out of the lead role and was replaced by Joshua Mosqueira and Kevin Martens. Reaper of Souls managed to improve upon the game, getting rid of the real money auction house and making loot drops more valuable to the player picking up the items in question.

But even then, with all the improvements, Diablo 3 was still in no way the sequel I was expecting, and I expect Diablo IV to be an even larger departure.

I know that some people will defend Blizzard, saying they had a chance to learn from D3 and even the launch of World of Warcraft: Classic. But although classic WOW proves there is a demand for old school Blizzard games, I doubt it will have any impact on how Blizzard will ultimately approach another Diablo game.

And the recent controversy with China does not assure me that Blizzard is just not moments away from glazing its entire community with jizz over the very idea that players will be opening their wallets again. I don’t think Blizzard has the self-control at this point to make another Diablo game that is not absolutely full of bullshit mechanics designed to print Bobby Kotick another Telsa in his driveway. Want more evidence for that, look at Battle for Azeroth and all its time-gated content, the rep grinds, and systems designed to ensure that you are going to spend 15 dollars a month. But Kyle your playing World of Warcraft. Yes, I am. But that does not mean I can’t be critical of the game. I love large elements of Blizzard’s games, and so far the good has outweighed the bad. But there will be a day where I can’t justify the bullshit. There will be a day that no matter how much I love the worlds that Blizzard has made, I will have to push myself away from the computer and find something else to do. Hopefully, that day is a long time away. But it can be surprising how fast that day comes for certain things you like.

#Blizzcon #Blizzard #diablo #diablo iv #world of warcraft

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raethalis · 5 years

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First things first, let me say that I'd supported this ship for a long, long time but never got around to doing anything with it other than bringing it up with a few folks way back when. So yay!

Secondly, let me also say that this is set in my own little fanfiction setting, which WILL defy what the current canon goes off of. Don't like that? Well it's fan-fiction so there. Still don't like it? Hit that Back Button and forget you ever saw anything. Also bear in mind I'm disregarding almost everything that's happened since Activision bought out Blizzard, so will be sticking to what I was up to when I still played. Expect things to be different and stuff (Like some of the Northrend Conflict still happened, but Malygos wasn't really the one causing it. Other than DW dying and Awbee and Snarlflare growing up, nothing post-WotlK ever happened.). Don't like that either? Fite me. I'm not changing it. So here's the last of my Valentines Day pics, and this time I have a little story to go with it! Here we goooo:

Alexstrasza made her way through a cave in the far reaches of Winterspring, a cave that had in the past been filled with horrible monsters. Over the years they had been culled by various adventurers and heroes, only to be inhabited again by creatures of all sorts who tried to claim them for themselves. In recent times, they had been taken over by the Blue Dragons. It seemed as if some modifications were made to it since then, to better accommodate their size. Fortunate, since this meant she could remain in her natural form while traveling through it - even if she did come very close to taking up most of the passage. By her side walked a black drake, one of Onyxia's. She had been broken free of the curse on her race by Heartwing and his friends, and the drakes most loyal to her soon followed. He was clearly displeased at having been tasked with bringing Alex here however. The sheer cold did not agree with him, and being in such close proximity to a member of a race they had been at war with for so long was... Unnerving at the very least, even if the two here weren't enemies anymore. He had been the one to lead her to the cave where the others had hidden Malgyos after the assassination attempt on him, but why hadn't anyone told her about this? She hadn't been filled in on the plan or even his survival. Like many else, Alex had been led to believe Malygos had perished in the attack. She had to admit, she was just a bit annoyed that Onyxia knew about this but not a close friend of his. Then again, deception and espionage were Onyxia's area of expertise – chances were good she was the one who came up with the plan to sneak Malygos out of his lair before the attack to begin with, or at the very least found out about it on her own. You couldn't keep much hidden from her after all. “C-can I go now?” the black drake stuttered while shivering, immediately after they had reached the end of the tunnel. Alex nodded her head, “Yes, go right ahead...” She had barely finished half of the sentence before the drake had turned to dart out of the frigid cave. After he had left, Alex entered the chamber proper. Malygos was lying in the center of the chamber, fiddling with something in his claws. It looked like a puzzle of sorts, and he was in the middle of solving it. Malygos looked up as she entered, grinning widely when he saw he had company. “Alex!” He exclaimed excitedly, “I wasn't expecting to see you come visit me!” Alex smiled weakly. She was glad to see that Malygos was not only still alive, but still his usual self. He was always the most carefree of the Aspects, to the point he was sometimes described as a whelp that grew up in body if not mind. She was also glad that the nightmares she had been having... That Malygos was indeed not one of those that had come to harm. “Malygos... You're alive. I can't believe it.” she muttered, trying to swallow the worry in her voice. Alex sat herself down nearby. “Back in Northrend. We found your body. I thought you were dead Malygos.” Malygos tilted his head to the side quizzically. “If you thought I was dead, how did you find me here?” “Kalecgos filled me in before I left the continent and had one of Onyxia's drakes show me where you were hiding,” she replied, “But what happened, how did you escape Northrend?” Malygos looked up at the frozen ceiling, thinking back. “Well... I don't know all the details but two of my elite drakes had come to me with urgent news... I figured it had something to do with the unrest brewing among the blue dragons there, but they didn't say what it was about. Just that I had to leave and quickly.” He returned his attention to Alex. “And then they sneaked me out here to the middle of nowhere.” Not knowing all the details huh, Alex thought to herself. Even Malygos was in the dark about this. “Who took your place?” Alex asked. “Excuse me?” “The corpse. Someone had to have taken the fall in your stead. Who was it?” The blue dragon's smile faded, and his head lowered. “Right... One of my dragons stayed behind to take my place. It was a shapeshifting spell, similar to the one the mortal heroes used to infiltrate the Black Dragon's operations some years back.” Malygos shook his head. “Cyagos knew he would die, but he stayed anyway.” “I'm sorry, Malygos. I'm glad you're alright though, that you're safe” Malygos's grin returned and he began to chatter excitedly “I'm glad too, especially since I was so lonely this whole time! Almost nobody came to see me and whenever someone did drop by it was never for long and I was bored and had no idea what was going on and didn't--” Alex put a claw up to Malygos's mouth, interrupting him. “Remember that date you asked me on years ago? I think I'll take you up on that.” she said casually. If dragons could blush, Malygos's face would have been as red as Alex's scales. “How about Feralis this evening? The ruins of Dire Maul are secluded, and almost nobody ever goes there anymore.” “Sure...” Malygos said absentmindedly, taken aback by the sudden proposal. Malygos had tried flirting with Alex before in the past, but she always ignored him. Of course she would, she was married at the time. To be fair, he was married as well – but he wasn't honestly expecting anything to come from it anyway. He was just being... Himself. Now though they were both single, and he similarly hadn't expected her to remember his flirting back then, let alone having any feelings for him now. Alex turned to leave while Malygos was lost in his thoughts, and at the chamber's mouth she turned to look back at him. “Don't forget to change your humanoid form to something else,” she called back to him, “Remember you're supposed to be in hiding” Malygos nodded his head slowly, “Yeah.... Alright” he said in a daze, his thoughts still solidly on what Alex had just said. He wasn't sure how all this would go, if it'd work out at all or not. He always did have a bit of a fondness for Alexstrasza, but now that she was actually returning that affection he wasn't sure what to do or what to think about it. After remaining silent for a few minutes and thinking over what just happened, he returned to the puzzle he was working on. Tonight was going to be interesting, one way or the other. Hopefully it'd work out for the both of them, and somewhere out there he figured there was someone who was hoping to see this happen. A thought that amused him somehow. Well, now it was happening. Time would tell where this would take the two dragons, and maybe... Just maybe, they'd find happiness together.

#alexstrasza #malygos #red dragonflight #blue dragonflight #warcraft #valentines day #fanfiction

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aion-rsa · 2 years

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Link Tank: Seth Rogan Donkey Kong Movie in Devolpment

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

More than a year before Illumination’s Super Mario movie hits theaters; the studio is also planning a Donkey Kong spinoff starring Seth Rogan.

I”t’s fair to say that when the cast of the upcoming Super Mario was revealed it led to a lot of chatter online. For one thing, it’ll be strange that a series of characters from a fantastical Nintendo world will have the voices of some of Hollywood’s biggest stars; it’s sure going to be intriguing when the film lands in the Holiday season of 2022. One of the surprise casting decisions was Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, which naturally means we can expect DK to have a decent amount to say. The most cinematic the character has been in recent-ish history is some outrage at bananas being stolen, so a talking version of the iconic character will be quite a thing.”

Read more at The Mary Sue

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The post Link Tank: Seth Rogan Donkey Kong Movie in Devolpment appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3wpWgNj

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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wyrmforge · 6 years

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I mean when you say the equivalent of "all microtransactions in any form are bad and anyone for them is an asking to be taken advantage of", its kinda accusatory and assumes the other party hasn't taken considersations either, yeah? In any case, I didnt know you were getting so many asks! Sorry about that, I had only seen the original few posts floating around recently and a handful of your responses to other asks on your blog here.

you’re going to fundamentally misunderstand my arguments as long as you’re taking them personally to the degree where your version of my words is “and anyone for them is asking to be taken advantage of”

it’s company entities that i am angry at but i’m not trying overly hard to be polite to those who think the right thing when it comes to dealing with these entities is to play both sides of the fence or apologize for them or worst of all blame other consumers for it so apologies if i’m a bit snippy but i’ve been weathering people sending me asks at high frequency that usually boil down to “yet you participate in lootboxes, curious, i am very intelligent!” for like, a week and a half

its not that long ago that “gamer entitlement” was being flung around left and right to blame consumers for anything and everything they took issue with and to shut down valid conversations so with all due respect im going to be as loud as possible about this cuz its my firm belief that if we keep giving them inches theyre gonna keep jamming miles up our collective bums

furthermore as far as me saying all microtransactions are bad, just look at some other shit ive said in other asks. theres exceptions or whatever and there are certainly ways to do microtransactions that aren’t anti-consumerist as fuck.

but call me cassandra because im going to predict that after this little stumble of battlefront 2 taking it too far too fast we’re going to see a slow drip feed of lootboxes ala overwatch pressed into everything it can fit into and everybody’s gonna treat me like bard the fuckin bowman until suddenly you’re all in the same boat as i am up to your neck in lootboxes asking me why i didnt shoot down activision-blizzard the great fire drake sooner

#tart talks #and yes im getting a lot of asks im quite tired of it i cant iterate my points in enough slightly different ways to satisfy everyone yknow #frankly i dont have the spoons to respond to all of them even tho i wish i cuold #maybe i should just make a video or something but im no super bunnyhop hahaha #when blizzard puts out diablo 4 and its full of lootboxes dont come crying to my doorstep i'm telling you #take your tears to jeff kaplan #Anonymous

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bimbodile · 6 years

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So I just turned in the post-Argus quest to Tyrande and Malfurion

And Jesus Christ it really draws into focus so much of what was wrong with Illidan’s whole Legion arc, and how other characters reacted to it, and how we the players were intended to respond to it. Like, to start, if you were to excise Illidan’s entire pre-Legion character history, everything he does and says would be a lot more digestible, and (more importantly) make a lot more sense. But as it stands the years of lore for the character preceding this single expansion make his arc in Legion essentially an entirely different Illidan altogether, so much so you could literally transpose it on to another character and it would actually make a lot more sense and be a lot more enjoyable. Illidan’s behavior and expressed motivations would work a lot better on a blank slate, or on another character (plot twist: make Maeiv Illidan in Legion), and in that context would be a lot more enjoyable. To have some sort of new character introduced over the course of the expansion (or to flesh out an existing but underused character) and display Machiavellian dedication to the cause, clash with Khadgar and Turalyon, and eventually buddy it up with Velen at the end (again: Maiev, or hey Any Fucking Orc) of the expansion, with literally the exact same behavior and personality, would have been entertaining. All of Illidan’s extra as shit world quest dialogue growled by Maeiv or some up-and-coming Orc that’s Broxigar 2.0? Awesome. It’d be a nice foil to the more light banter most other quest givers (Jala Rivermane excluded leave me alone cow granny) provide, and would convey a sense of urgency and importance of defeating the Legion at any cost. But on Illidan they’re obnoxious, pretentious, and give me a constellation of hives in the shape of the Matrix’s infamous red pill. Illidan’s issues are that he’s been motivated by selfish reasons up to Legion (He actually claims in his goodbye to Malfurion his drive for power was always to stop the Legion but he was a dickhead spoiled brat mage well before they showed up), has been a categorical failure at everything he’s attempted, and has committed acts of tyranny and genocide that would land him a spot in the dock at Nuremberg where his fellow night elves would pretend they don’t have arcane up their ass like he does fel. Illidan claims that he was always motivated by a drive to save Azeroth, but I’m not sure where torturing Broxigar factored in to that, throwing a hissy tantrum and quitting the druids because his brother got more likes on his instagram posts of his sweet vine work, or his shenanigans at the well of eternity that led to the sundering and nearly released Sargeras AND the Old Gods, or absorbing the power of the Skull of Gul’Dan when he could’ve just not done that, or killing Maeiv’s squad and her girlfriend and trying to kill Maeiv, or literally everything he did on Outland that included attempting to murder the greater population by stealing all their water so he could make his own legion while screwing Kael’thas and his posse of blood elves, and do you see where I’m going with this? It all ties into another of Illidan’s big themes: failure Illidan is a serial failure. That isn’t to say he’s some worthless chump, combatively inferior to your average mailbox dancer and so dumb he only has Thalassian under his language skills, but Illidan ultimately fails at every great task he sets out to do, often because of his own selfishness and superiority complex. Some of his schemes are actually highly ambitious and clever. Like, it takes a whole other kind of balls to come up with a plan to make another well of eternity so you can summon your own horde of demons, and he even managed to incorporate gazers into his personal horde before the Legion could manage the feat. But every one of his schemes blows up in his face: Tyrande cucks him, Broxigar and Malfurion and Ronin are actually useful in the War Of The Ancients, the night elves shove him in religion jail for trying to make another well, he fails to drop an entire fucking temple on Maeiv, Arthas chops his dick off at less than a quarter of his FULL POWER!!!, he can’t keep his own posse together because he’s a huge dick (sorry bro being alpha as fuck doesn’t bring back your pee pee besides we all know Kael’thas was the top), and Maeiv globals him which is just sad because he got destroyed so fast he didn’t even trinket or use a single defensive CD. Any way you look at it, Illidan is a serial failure, which makes all of his posturing, peacocking dialogue in Legion extremely bizarre, because he talks like he was stomping the Legion without us when he couldn’t even stomp Shattrath with a single Naaru to back up the defenders (which makes me question angrily how he zapped the prime Naaru but haha blizzard activision games), and it just comes off as flat and about as eye roll inducing as getting artifact power for your first Argus kill (I’m not bitter). All of these things, combined with his inherent selfishness, bizarre claim of fighting the Legion for ten-thousand years when he was actually locked up in Maeiv’s super rad Girls Club getting dicks drawn on his face and being forced to watch Orange Is The New Black (we all know Illidan only watches anime ESPECIALLY Dragon Ball Z Bleach and Naruto), and his explicitly stated circumstances of being in Outland to hide from Kil’Jaeden then try and prepare his asshole for Kil’Jaedan’s burning fist are just way too at odds with the character presented to us in Legion, which should have again been someone else. Personally I’d rather have seen Maeiv thrust into Illidan’s role, finding renewed purpose in hunting down the cosmic chad ulltimately responsible for everyone she was close to dying, or an orc, because the Burning Legion was as calamitous for them as it was for the Draenei (not that Blizzard ever actually acknowledges that because the orcs are MANLY AND NOT GAY AT ALL IT’S JUST NAKED WRESTLING OK!!!), but for some reason they decided Illidan merited not one but two WoW expansions dedicated to him as well as one WC3 expansion where he was extremely influential in the plot as well. Also his farewell to Tyrande made me sigh actual years of my life into oblivion because it was the typical man-places-woman-on-pedestal-as-uncorruptible-emotional-work-horse garbage.

#World of Warcraft #Illidan #Illidan Stormrage #Maeiv Shadowsong #Legion

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sentinelkelly · 7 years

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The Future of Destiny: The Confirmed Sequel and Floating Rumors

Activision’s Cash Flow

Activision Blizzard released their Fourth Quarter 2016 Results today. In human-speak and without trying to confuse you, they made lots of money. In terms of Destiny, Activison stated:

“Full Destiny sequel in 2017 to broaden the franchise’s global reach, which along with follow-on content plans, sets the stage for growth.

In other words, Destiny 2 is still planned for this year. As well as that, Destiny joins Call of Duty and Skylanders in the Top 10 titles on current-gen consoles.

Rumors

Bungie has been very quiet about the sequel. All we know so far is that it’s coming this year on Xbox One & PS4 and the bulk of Bungie’s employees are working on it with the the help of few other studios. That’s it!

Sites such as Kotaku are convinced that it’ll coming to PC and your Guardians won’t transfer due to some guy posting on NeoGAF that his friend worked at Activision and told him some Destiny information. I’m sorry, but is that what constitutes as journalism nowadays: believing some random guy who claims to know an insider without the developer confirming or denying anything? I don’t care how many “Insiders” came to you or “said stuff.” Stop pushing rumors as real news, Kotaku!

Speaking of fake news, this came from Reddit. The following was revealed:

Title: Destiny II: Forge of Hope

Release: November 4th to November 18th.

Platforms: PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox One, Xbox Scorpio (TBA) and PC.

Console Exclusivity will remain with PlayStation but the exclusive period will be reduced to 3 Months.

Will launch with three editions:

Destiny II: Forge of Hope including TBA Preorder Bonus

Destiny II: Forge of Hope including TBA Preorder, Special In-Game cosmetics.

Destiny II: Forge of Hope Including TBA Preorder,Special In-Game cosmetics and a 1:2 Scale of the Exo Strangers Relic of Necessity.

The game has a whole new engine built from the ground up with the ability for Bungie to rapidly create and ad new content to the world of Destiny.

Bungie is scheduling for an event release every 1-2 months centering around a theme similar to Overwatch while also delivering new narrative paths and new game play mechanics.

The sequel will heavily focus on chronological events set after the Fall 2015 Expansion The Taken King. The cabal forces attack the city leaving the civilians and mentors of the tower defenseless. It is the guardians job to fight back the cabal and reclaim the city. While doing so the guardian will discover the long lost stories of Queen Mara Sov and The Exo Strangers motives. The story will culminate with the tower and city fighting back the Cabal empire resulting the guardian defeating the leader of the Cabal in the new Raid.

Bungie is planning to release a substantial content updates for each quarter (Similar to the April Update)

Bungie already have a small team working on the first major expansion to be released in Fall 2018. Details are limited but it is aimed to be centred around the Vex and the Origins of Kabr and Praydeth.

Due to the new engine Bungie had to make the hard decision of previous Characters being left behind.

Characters will have a more customization character creation including facial hair and class themed face paint and tattoos.

Kotaku, the “Destiny 2 is coming to PC and leaving Guardians behind” site, had the nerve to call this “nonsensical.” I mean it is, but yeah... You don’t have the right to debunk anything, Kotaku. This was debunked by two Bungie employees that I know of: Eric Osborne and Issac Pad. Bungie has not mention anything about Destiny 2 in today’s This Week at Bungie.

In conclusion, no one truly knows what to expect with Destiny 2 except for those working on the game. Hell, we don’t even know if something coming in Spring for Destiny 1. Bungie is basically telling all Guardians to be patient and take everything you see/read with a grain of salt. Even this post, I guess.

#destiny #destiny the game #destiny 2 #destiny 2 rumors #destiny 2 leaks #bungie #activision

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smarthuiyuan · 4 years

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Interesting stuff

Honestly, part of me always felt that, in retrospect, classic wow gold could end up being an obvious money grab with a depraved company without maintenance for the customer experience, but I had hope that they would somehow do it correctly. But no, they are doing nothing to prevent the various things that are plaguing it. Probably hiding behind the shield of"#no varies" while they do that, too.

Interesting stuff. I first started playing WoW in May 2019 and played for about 6 months until I lost interest. The N'Zoth expansion was so boring--just endless grinding and lore that made no sense to me, and my efforts to catch up to this lore by reading online only made me more and more confounded. So I eventually just quit playing. It's a shame, since portions of WOW Classic were very enjoyable and well executed, but it seems the expansion packs just becoming worse and worse. I suppose it's hard to maintain creative energy for 20 years on precisely the same world, especially when you have to focus the narrative on tensions and increased stakes for gameplay, but Blizzard has done an awful job of it IMO.

Try again in the winter. There's a totally new expansion (not just a patch like Visions of N'zoth) coming out that might be a lot better. Fight For Azeroth was just a enormous bumblefuck. Blizzard realized way too late in the development cycle that the Azerite gear system was poor and basically put WOW Classic on life support for the majority of the growth to work on Rise of Azshara and Visions of N'zoth. Problem was, those stains had basically nothing to build off of.

So far, the changes it is bringing are huge, it is introducing some really promising new components, and also the Covenants which are going to be the next"thing" after Azerite is apparently nothing similar to it. Time will tell if it'll be a massive improvement over BFA, but I typically encourage individuals to keep an open mind. Just in general. Blizzard is apparently scrambling to course right after the disaster that was the past couple of years. Being cynical constantly and assuming the worst doesn't really improve your life at all.

I am so sorry. I started playing WoW in 2012 and while the cracks were showing, most of it was incredibly good and I was happy playing until the newest growth. As a enthusiastic fan of the WoW lore, I concur it is incredibly confusing to get into unless you've got a friend to describe it to you or something, and a lot of the arguably excellent lore has been phased from WOW Classic, anyways. It's sad that you started in the latest expansion as well as you realize the principal problem. They focus on what is big and bombastic rather than on that which makes sense. The stakes are raised so large that there aren't any longer stakes.

They supposedly wish to enhance the brand new player experience by forcing them into a new beginning zone and then into the BfA questing zones, but I have my doubts about being easier to understand... I do not mind grinding, however I feel like the reward must feel meaningful and continue for quite some time. So that just is not happening in contemporary WoW. While I do like WOW Classic more, it is hard to recommend it to individuals on a big post about the horrible customer support, lol. Thank you for leaving your ideas!

To be honest, the entire WOW Classic community is such a contradictory mess. 90 percent of the forum threads are all complaints and sniping at each other or Blizzard/Activision and also the subreddit is not that far better. I would not argue that the customer service was great or they haven't badly mishandled things (ex. The Blitzchung jumble, a handful of changes made for cheap wow gold classic ) but they also need to deal with a playerbase that can be incredibly entitled and poisonous.

#cheap wow gold classic

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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As Riot bids to take on Blizzard and Valve, the studio faces challenges of its own making • Eurogamer.net

For a good decade, Blizzard Entertainment has been the undisputed champion of developing and publishing prestige PC games. Warcraft, World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Overwatch, Diablo, and Hearthstone (we can maybe skip Heroes of the Storm, sorry) have sat at more or less the top of their respective genres for years. In some cases, decades. Blizzard was way ahead of the curve in setting up, in Battle.net, a kind of storefront-launcher across its multiple games. It has an annual convention, in BlizzCon, where thousands gather to cosplay as their favourite Blizzard characters and cheer the most minuscule of announcements. Most of all, it’s one of the only developer-publishers whose name carries the same kind of “seal of quality” weight that you could apply to the likes of Nintendo. But things change, and a new challenger approaches. A plucky, independent little studio called Riot Games fancies a pop at the title.

The background here is really quite delicious, too. For the unfamiliar, back in 2002 Blizzard released the popular, influential real-time strategy game Warcraft 3, and then in 2003 some modders came along and made a new mode of their own for it called Defence of the Ancients, a kind of weird tower defense evolution of the RTS (and they actually made it with the official world editor which is why, you’d imagine, Blizzard was so aggressive with its terms and conditions in the recent Warcraft 3: Reforged). After the Defence of the Ancients mod gained huge popularity, rival company Valve bought the rights to it – much to Blizzard’s chagrin – and hired one of the mod’s major developers, the pseudonymous “IceFrog”, to make Dota 2 for them in 2009. Another designer of the mod, Steve “Guinsoo” Feak, who worked on it even before IceFrog, went on to join Riot’s co-founders – a couple of ambitious, business school dorm-buddies called Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck – and made League of Legends.

Marc ‘Tryndamere’ Merrill, co-founder and now co-chairman of Riot Games. Image: via Twitter.

Now, Dota 2 is handing out prizes in the tens of millions to its tournament winners and Valve of course has a near total monopoly on the PC gaming storefront. Riot’s League of Legends is frequently the most-watched game on Twitch, is probably the biggest esport in the world, and probably the biggest game in the world too. As of August 2019, League is averaging peaks of eight million concurrent players worldwide. Meanwhile, at Blizzard, the remaster of Warcraft 3 launched to criticism and controversy, the RTS as a genre is in the worst shape it’s ever been, and the company is still getting over the huge protests from both fans and its own staff for the handling of Ng Wai Chung, or “Blitzchung” – one of its own professional players.

That’s just the background. Riot has since unveiled Legends of Runeterra, a collectable card game that will surely go head-to-head for a share of the audience with Hearthstone. And even more recently it’s shown off Valorant, a highly accomplished – if slightly charmless – tactical, character-and-abilities-based team shooter that forms a delicious triangle with Valve’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Blizzard’s Overwatch. All of a sudden, Blizzard, Riot, and Valve have formed a triad of companies vying for each other’s lunch, each enormously wealthy – Blizzard is now Activision Blizzard, remember – and each with their own subtly different vision. The three are so cross-pollinated Valve can’t resist the urge to reboot its own card game, Artifact, and “Project F”, Riot’s least-detailed tease from their wave of anniversary announcements, is an action RPG that looks an awful lot like a League of Legends universe spin on Diablo. Riot’s untitled fighting game is the only one not already covered by one or both of its main rivals.

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Perhaps unsurprisingly, though, Marc Merrill, now co-chairman at Riot Games, refuses to be drawn into talk of direct competition – or any kind of rivalry – with the other two PC gaming giants. In fact he argues the opposite. “This may sound strange, but we literally don’t think about the world from a business or industry perspective, especially relative to other developers or other titles,” he said, when I put all that lengthy history to him. Instead, Riot’s ambition is simply to “make it better to be a player”.

“It’s not about ‘beating Magic [the Gathering]’ or ‘beating Hearthstone’, or anything like that,” he added, using Riot’s card battler Legends of Runeterra as an example. “Those are incredible games that we’ve all played – I’ve literally played probably close to 6000 games of Hearthstone. But for a certain type of player, we believed – and the team really believed – that there was an opportunity to do things in a way that would carve out its own niche.

“That being said, when we do look at various genres – I’ll just give an example, we’ll say an MMO – the analysis very quickly goes: where are our player expectations? What are they set by? And where would opportunity be? You look at the MMO, you’re like: WoW. They’re 20 years in or 15 years in, right? WoW is still the genre-defining game, the king of the genre, absolutely incredible, such a compelling game across every dimension. So if the team or anybody was going, hey, we want to go build an MMO that was in the same vein as something like WoW, it would have to acknowledge and understand how it would differentiate in a way that would actually be significant and meaningful… but any of the analysis or perspective that’s oriented from that standpoint has nothing to do with the companies.”

Blizzard’s upcoming Overwatch 2 looks to continue the game’s character-first approach. Image Credit: Blizzard.

Perhaps all the talk of rivalry is a little overblown, then – as it often can be, when people talk about this industry. As sumptuous and ironic as all that historical jostling was between the three companies back in the late noughties, the reality is that now, at least between Blizzard and Riot – which probably share the most in common, in terms of games – things seem rosy. Merrill talks glowingly of Blizzard’s development team (“Rob Pardo and the whole team. Chris Metzen. And [Jeff] Kaplan of course is still there and is an amazing developer”), and will only refer to Blizzard as “an incredible company”. He speaks with pride about the “fireside chat” he had with Mike Morhaime, Blizzard’s co-founder, just a couple of months ago, where the two waxed lyrical about shared learnings and community insights and all that. Merrill talks of developing rivalling games or services in terms of “standing on the shoulders of giants,” or “rising tide that lifts all boats”, and even points to Epic’s work with Fortnite as “a great job from a games-as-a-service standpoint” and a “helpful reminder” for Riot to keep “continuing to evolve”.

No “Riot does what Blizzdon’t”, sadly. But whether Riot and co. admit it or not, there is competition there. There are only so many pounds in the bank and hours in the day to dedicate to Overwatch 2 or Valorant, or League of Legends or WoW. People watch one game at a time on Twitch. They practise one game at a time to become an esports pro, and build one outfit at a time for their cosplay. As much as, of course, people juggle games and swap between them, the world of games today and surely in the near future is one of engagement. This is a time of building personalities around favoured slices of pop culture and one where Netflix, famously, cites Fortnite as a major competitor, over HBO or Hulu. Companies want your eyeballs, rather gruesomely, and they want them all to themselves.

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So yes, as Merrill noted himself, the Overwatch League’s tide can drive money to and lift the boat of the League of Legends Championships, through the added exposure of esports to advertisers and markets and whatever else. But what will the Overwatch League’s viewership look like when Valorant launches, with Riot’s esports expertise and broadcasting weight behind it? And what will happen to Counter-Strike’s numbers – which only recently hit a record high – if the top streamers and players switch to playing Valorant on Riot’s lovely, peeker-free servers instead? What will happen to Valorant if they don’t?

That, of course, is all speculation for now. But behind all of that speculation lies an even bigger question, which is whether Riot itself is up to it. It may no longer be right to call the studio “embattled”, but the vast sexual discrimination lawsuit – originally settled for $10m last year, having been opened in the wake of a devastating report on company culture – is now back in dispute again, with California state reckoning it’s worth more in the region of $400million.

As much as Riot would surely like to move on from talking about it, the reality is it probably never will. Endemic sexism is the type of stink that tends to linger, even more than the odd fart on a colleague, and it’s unclear just how different the culture at Riot is, 18 months on from the first report. It’s part of the reason why Angela Roseboro, Riot’s diversity and inclusion czar hired in the wake of the crisis and referred to as “a godsend” by some Rioters, still posts updates on LinkedIn with titles like “Out of Crisis Comes Conviction”. And it’s why women are still very much justified in asking if it’s safe to work at Riot (according to Roseboro’s own anecdotes they still very much are). Riot’s COO, Scott Gelb, was namechecked multiple times in reports and remains at the company, with Roseboro on-side saying “the memes don’t represent the person and leader that I have come to know” and that “from everything I have read, I can tell you that not everything reported in the media is true”, while Riot sources tell the press “it’s difficult to heal and move on when we are faced with the reality that at the end of the day, Riot prefers to pay the women still here for the trouble of continuing to work with alleged abusers.”

Riot has been open about its cultural issues and, to its credit, appears to be tackling it head-on. This image is from a section titled ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ that sits prominently at the top its company website. Image Credit: Riot Games.

The question, beyond the culture itself, is what impact that culture might have on the games Riot makes and indeed its wider community. There’s an easy hypothesis to make: while Riot’s battle to overcome its apparently deep, ingrained “bro culture” played out in public, the company was making fighting games and competitive shooters and, of course, League of Legends, notorious for the toxic experience many have playing it online. Genres and games can’t all be tarnished with one brush, obviously, but MOBAs, “hardcore” shooters, and fighting games can also be fairly named as genres that naturally lend themselves to greater toxicity – or at the very least greater imbalances in their audience. One 2019 study, for instance, suggests the five games in which the highest percentage of players received harassment were Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Overwatch, PUBG and League of Legends. A survey from 2017 suggests female players make up just 10 per cent of the audience of MOBAs as a genre, and seven per cent of the audience of first-person shooters. Of tactical shooters, such as Valorant, that number is even lower, at four per cent. The concern, in other words, is there’s a vicious circularity to it all. A company allegedly dominated by men and a troubling culture making games dominated by men, with troubling cultures. These games need more attention than many others when it comes to managing toxicity among its players, and the question – if you follow that hypothesis – becomes one of whether Riot as a company is up to that.

I’ve already raised concerns about Riot’s plans for handling toxicity with Valorant, specifically in its reliance on the exact same communication system as League of Legends, with some added voice chat thrown in for good measure. Merrill’s attitude seems to suggest that the laissez-faire approach in-game will continue. “I think it’s a really interesting challenge and opportunity around: how do we do that in a way that is really healthy? And in a way that can be embraced rather than be perceived as Riot trying to, you know, create sort of this ‘police state’, or ‘thought police’ – we don’t want to do that. We want to help people learn in an organic, effective way.

When I visited Riot in January, I noticed some of the internal efforts to right the ship. Company computers feature regular, Clippy-style diversity and inclusion pop-ups, for instance, which include reminders to avoid booking meetings up multiple flights of stairs, making video conferencing available where possible, and tips for what to do if you catch yourself interrupting someone. Image Credit: Riot Games.

“When there’s competition – of setting people against each other – some percentage of the time, there’s going to be intensity. And with intensity, some people are going to handle that really well, and other people are going to handle that less well. And that then goes to [Riot’s] question, which is: how do we help people learn how to behave appropriately? How do we improve human dynamics? How do we train sportsmanship? How do we reinforce a positive culture around celebrating your teammates?

“We faced lots of criticism,” Merrill admits. “As an organisation, as entrepreneurs, from the game standpoint. I mean, if you wanted to come find things to criticise Riot for, there’s a laundry list, right? People could talk about how we used to be X and Y [culturally speaking], or, ‘oh, the monetisation is evolving in a certain way,’ and, ‘the community’s toxic.’

“From our perspective – and obviously we’re biased being very close to what we do – I think the League of Legends community is an amazing community. And a lot of the frame of reference people are looking at in terms of [the players] is skewed by the headlines they’ve seen around toxicity. Which is an error on our part where we were talking about, ‘hey, look, we’re incrementally improving something that had bad positioning,’ because we’re trying to say we’re improving toxicity by doing XYZ. That reinforced that we’re thinking something’s bad and we’re making it incrementally better, rather than talking about what’s great. And the reality is it is great. And when you look at the behaviour that happens in online [gaming], it’s just like what would happen on a basketball court.

Having played a few thousand hours of League of Legends I have to disagree with Merrill on the community front. Despite a definite improvement a few years back, games without any toxicity at all are still the overwhelming minority – even if other games may suffer too, and the wider community in person is all happy days. Image Credit: Riot Games.

“The difference is in real life, right, you can go talk to somebody and say, ‘hey!’ You know, or you can shove somebody – you can walk away. In an online game, people oftentimes don’t have the ability to do that, or if you leave the game you get punished, things like this. Which then from our perspective gives us a responsibility where it’s not our fault that humans can be rude or mean to each other, but it’s our problem. So what do we do to help cultivate a positive community?

“And whether it’s things like how we’re doing reform-oriented behaviour, and report cards, and how we introduced the honour system and all these things, there’s a whole lens to look at what Riot’s been doing across community cultivation and think that we’re a global leader in how the internet is going to be managed in the future. We’ve helped give advice to Google and Twitter and a variety of other companies that have actually come and asked us for best practices and expertise around dealing with human behaviour in an online world.

“And so that mindset, in the approach and innovation and the focus on that, is something that is really, really important. And it’s just a really hard problem to solve.

“I think there’s a similar parallel with, you know, our culture and organisationally… it’s incredibly transparent. Developers are incredibly empowered, everybody loves information sharing… there’s a lot of great things to appreciate about how Riot operates. But we’re not going to bat a thousand, especially at scale. And so then we have had some lawsuits – for the first time in the company’s history, right – but with 2500 employees over 13 years. Again, I think there’s lots of lenses with which to look at that.”

Riot’s mysterious ‘Project F’. Image Credit: Riot Games.

To bring it back to that question of internal culture – and its mirror in the battle with toxicity in-game – Merrill’s take is this: “We want to help people learn how to thrive and succeed in these [competitive in-game] environments, because we think that helps generate life skills. I think the same thing through internally [at Riot]. I think we need psychological safety, because we’re a creative company. There are ‘fragile ideas’ – these ideas that need vulnerabilities – and people need to feel safe so they can have the crazy ideas, and they can debate it among their friends and peers and developers and colleagues. These are just all really hard problems to solve. We’re really working hard to try to build a great community, build a good company. I think there’s a lot more we can do. I think there’s a lot more everybody can do.”

As Merrill himself put it, perhaps the rising tide will lift all boats, and the company’s libertarian, reformist approach to both its own culture and that of the community will win out. Applications from women to work at Riot are actually increasing, he tells me – after an initial dip – while applications from senior women at the higher levels of the company rose significantly, which Merrill assumes is because of the way the company tackled the accusations head-on and talked about them openly. The word from employees, as of 2019, is that “real progress” has been made.

It’s likely most Rioters you talk to – at least in the public eye – will say the work is never done, and the company can always improve. That’s certainly the message from Roseboro’s updates and indeed from Merrill himself, and there’s a laundry list of positive steps you can point to Riot taking since the report – social impact funds, community work, and the positive noises employees have made – just the same as there’s the laundry list of problems Merrill pointed out. But as a new world order of PC gaming approaches, with Blizzard tripping up on its own feet and Valve barrelling down the path to techie esoterica, Riot’s greatest problems are still ones of its own making. The solution lies not just in Riot repeating the mantra of always improving, but in whether the company’s leadership actually believes it: that the work really is never done, in both its internal culture and that of its games.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/03/as-riot-bids-to-take-on-blizzard-and-valve-the-studio-faces-challenges-of-its-own-making-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=as-riot-bids-to-take-on-blizzard-and-valve-the-studio-faces-challenges-of-its-own-making-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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