SOE Becomes Daybreak / Russian shutdown

Miele

Lord Nagafen Raider
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Sad day. Blizzard usually sees through this bullshit.
Blizzard has fucked up a lot of shit recently. For recently I mean from 2010 onwards, they are living out of their legacy, product wise they are falling behind, if not in quality (WoD is well done from a technical point of view), definitely in depth (it is shallow).
 

Quaid

Trump's Staff
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7,851
Blizzard is still head and shoulders above 95% of the rest of the gaming industry. Fuck, I can't even come up with another company that even comes close to their range of products + overall quality. MAYBE an argument could be made for Valve.

Even their 'failures' stand toe to toe with their nearest competitors.
 

Malakriss

Golden Baronet of the Realm
12,360
11,760
Lowering the bar does not raise the overall. We're searching through the desert for water and when we find out the oasis is just a mirage we'll eat the sand because there's nothing else. A competent company needs to provide that something else.
 

Ambiturner

Ssraeszha Raider
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Blizzard is still head and shoulders above 95% of the rest of the gaming industry. Fuck, I can't even come up with another company that even comes close to their range of products + overall quality. MAYBE an argument could be made for Valve.

Even their 'failures' stand toe to toe with their nearest competitors.
Rockstar? Bethesda?
 

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,548
7,851
Rockstar? Bethesda?
Meh. Rockstar makes GTA of course, but aside from maybe Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne, the rest of their stuff is pretty 'meh'. Bethesda is more of a publisher, and their two (excellent) in house products are very similar to each other.

Blizzard, on the other hand, makes:

World of Warcraft - the top performing MMORPG for the last decade straight.
Hearthstone - A brand new CCG cash cow that is dominating the market.
Diablo - premiere level ARPG at the forefront of the genre.
StarCraft - One of the only RTS left worth playing.
Heroes of the Storm - high quality and accessible MOBA based on their most popular IPs.
OverWatch - sick ass arena FPS that I'm sure will blow competitors out of the water, as usual.

Nobody comes even close.
 

TecKnoe

Molten Core Raider
3,182
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Meh. Rockstar makes GTA of course, but aside from maybe Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne, the rest of their stuff is pretty 'meh'. Bethesda is more of a publisher, and their two (excellent) in house products are very similar to each other.

Blizzard, on the other hand, makes:

World of Warcraft - the top performing MMORPG for the last decade straight.
Hearthstone - A brand new CCG cash cow that is dominating the market.
Diablo - premiere level ARPG at the forefront of the genre.
StarCraft - One of the only RTS left worth playing.
Heroes of the Storm - high quality and accessible MOBA based on their most popular IPs.
OverWatch - sick ass arena FPS that I'm sure will blow competitors out of the water, as usual.

Nobody comes even close.
its a scary thought that the "best" out there is slowly getting worse and worse by the year, i fear for the gaming industry!
 

gogojira_sl

shitlord
2,202
3
Valve doesn't have the same output and basically just became the Steam company who occasionally shit out weird hardware things like the owl controller. Maybe the HTC Vive thing will be cool.

Blizz is great, Rockstar is great most of the time, and I love Nintendo-made games (Splatoon, bitches).
 

Quaid

Trump's Staff
11,548
7,851
Blizz is great, Rockstar is great most of the time, and I love Nintendo-made games (Splatoon, bitches).
All those great Nintendo IPs, even within the same franchise, are made by a ton of different studios.

Blizzard is the gold standard of game dev, with multiple genre-defining series spanning decades. Maybe us megadorks are finding issues with their products, but to John & Jane Gamer they make the best shit around.
 

gogojira_sl

shitlord
2,202
3
Well, yeah. They're a huge company. I can get more specific and say EAD Tokyo, SPD, Sora, Retro, etc. but that goes for most companies, including Rockstar and Blizzard. Their A-Team developer content.

Edit: And yeah to a lesser extent with Blizz and rockstar, I get that.

Double edit: Megadork here and I still love most of what Blizzard does. Card games and MOBAs really aren't my thing but can't wait for Overwatch.
 

Miele

Lord Nagafen Raider
916
48
Meh. Rockstar makes GTA of course, but aside from maybe Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne, the rest of their stuff is pretty 'meh'. Bethesda is more of a publisher, and their two (excellent) in house products are very similar to each other.

Blizzard, on the other hand, makes:

World of Warcraft - the top performing MMORPG for the last decade straight.
Hearthstone - A brand new CCG cash cow that is dominating the market.
Diablo - premiere level ARPG at the forefront of the genre.
StarCraft - One of the only RTS left worth playing.
Heroes of the Storm - high quality and accessible MOBA based on their most popular IPs.
OverWatch - sick ass arena FPS that I'm sure will blow competitors out of the water, as usual.

Nobody comes even close.
You are 100% right, I'm not disputing their position in the market, theyarethe biggest publisher, they earn a fuckton of cash. I'm arguing about the product quality:

WoW: long debate warning, but in my opinion it's less "good" than it was and age is not the main reason. WoD is a bad expansion, because even super casuals are done with it in 2 or 3 months and casual content is shitty bad (apexis, dungeons, lfr).
Diablo: well, if we ignore that it sucked for months after release, it got some players back, it lacks longevity from a certain point of view. What I find interesting is that Diablo 2 which is a lot older, offered a larger amount of builds and customizations, with much more replayability (due to no respec allowable).
Hearthstone bored me inside a week, too simple gameplay, MtG was a lot better.
SC, HotS: not my type of games, can't comment. Overwatch: it spawned from a canceled project, maybe it'll be fun, still not my kind of game.

TL;DR: I played WoW and Diablo, the latter is stagnant and the former is getting worse and sub numbers tell me I'm not alone with this feeling. Of course my opinion won't change a shit, but MoP > WoD.
 

Kirun

Buzzfeed Editor
<Gold Donor>
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Valve doesn't have the same output and basically just became the Steam company who occasionally shit out weird hardware things like the owl controller. Maybe the HTC Vive thing will be cool.

Blizz is great, Rockstar is great most of the time, and I love Nintendo-made games (Splatoon, bitches).
Most of "Valve's" games were mods as well. Their only original IPs are Half-Life, Portal, and Left 4 Dead. I guess Evolve as well, but I've heard that game is awful.
 

gogojira_sl

shitlord
2,202
3
Most of "Valve's" games were mods as well. Their only original IPs are Half-Life, Portal, and Left 4 Dead. I guess Evolve as well, but I've heard that game is awful.
Funny you say that (and this will further your point) but Turtle Rock made the Left 4 Dead franchise with Valve. Turtle Rock created Evolve, too, but it had nothing to do with Valve's name (it's a 2K product).
 

Dandai

<WoW Guild Officer>
<Gold Donor>
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You are 100% right, I'm not disputing their position in the market, theyarethe biggest publisher, they earn a fuckton of cash. I'm arguing about the product quality:

WoW: long debate warning, but in my opinion it's less "good" than it was and age is not the main reason. WoD is a bad expansion, because even super casuals are done with it in 2 or 3 months and casual content is shitty bad (apexis, dungeons, lfr).
Diablo: well, if we ignore that it sucked for months after release, it got some players back, it lacks longevity from a certain point of view. What I find interesting is that Diablo 2 which is a lot older, offered a larger amount of builds and customizations, with much more replayability (due to no respec allowable).
Hearthstone bored me inside a week, too simple gameplay, MtG was a lot better.
SC, HotS: not my type of games, can't comment. Overwatch: it spawned from a canceled project, maybe it'll be fun, still not my kind of game.

TL;DR: I played WoW and Diablo, the latter is stagnant and the former is getting worse and sub numbers tell me I'm not alone with this feeling. Of course my opinion won't change a shit, but MoP > WoD.
You can shit all over their products all you want, but you can't name a single competitor with more success in any of the respective genres (with the exception of HotS, but even Dota has a fraction of LoL's popularity).
 

zzeris

King Turd of Shit Hill
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I agree that Blizzard is unmatched. They make great games in multiple genres. They don't just throw stuff out unfinished. They listen to their fan base. They are wildly successful because their name is still synonymous with quality. Even if their games have went downhill, no one is doing a better job overall. I can see the criticisms in an MMO based thread but overall, they make great games over and over and over.
 

Malakriss

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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I wager there's a decent percentage of people on this forum who haven't paid money to Blizzard in years except for the D3 expansion. And likely even longer for SOE/Daybreak. Companies are struggling to hook people for the long haul on single games let alone multiple offerings from their franchise.

Bioware and Square got some money out of me, but nothing long term. FF15 might force me to actually buy a console but the prospects beyond that are glim.
 

radditsu

Silver Knight of the Realm
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I wager there's a decent percentage of people on this forum who haven't paid money to Blizzard in years except for the D3 expansion. And likely even longer for SOE/Daybreak. Companies are struggling to hook people for the long haul on single games let alone multiple offerings from their franchise.

Bioware and Square got some money out of me, but nothing long term. FF15 might force me to actually buy a console but the prospects beyond that are glim.
Ff15 is going to get a pc release eventually. Wouldnt bother.
 

Siddar

Bronze Baronet of the Realm
6,355
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Meh. Rockstar makes GTA of course, but aside from maybe Red Dead Redemption and Max Payne, the rest of their stuff is pretty 'meh'. Bethesda is more of a publisher, and their two (excellent) in house products are very similar to each other.

Blizzard, on the other hand, makes:

World of Warcraft - the top performing MMORPG for the last decade straight.
Hearthstone - A brand new CCG cash cow that is dominating the market.
Diablo - premiere level ARPG at the forefront of the genre.
StarCraft - One of the only RTS left worth playing.
Heroes of the Storm - high quality and accessible MOBA based on their most popular IPs.
OverWatch - sick ass arena FPS that I'm sure will blow competitors out of the water, as usual.

Nobody comes even close.
The downside of that list is only one of those games is new IP, that being the one not released yet,

Bliz is dominating the market based upon 90s IP,