I swear the devs not actually playing their own game is one of the biggest problems in the persistent/online/games as service space. Too many times I see the pronoun people are into game dev as a job, not a passion. Not always true though, of course.
These asshats are partly just trying to put an “I worked on WoW” sticker on their google application. At least Ion actually plays (or did anyway). I halfway think this is Kotick’s way to shutdown the game and start assfucking it’s corpse.
This is a problem for sure, but it's also not a problem. See those reviewers that couldn't play Doom and gave it a shit rating, you have to hire people that have specific traits which seem harder and harder to find these days. Rarely do I see people with these traits at companies I've worked for, they are rare and a dying breed. I mainly believe this to be due to people creating products as cheaply as possible and selling them for as much as they can, there is no longer pride in work or a desire to make an excellent product.
Traits needed in an employee for a product to succeed.
1. Competence
- People can fix things all day, but if they don't understand why they are being fixed they can't see any other faults or potential improvements with the fix. They simply make the change being asked for and don't think how it can affect other aspects of the end product.
2. Passion
- If you don't give two shits about what you're doing or creating then you are doomed to make something mediocre or cut corners just to get it done. Especially if all you care about in the world are politics, perceived slights and injustices. This has plagued companies way before the last 10 years and those kinds of people always drag down progress and demoralize other employees.
3. Drive & Pride
- Wanting to make a good product and having the drive to do so is a huge trait which I don't see anymore. Rarely do I see people like me that want to make an excellent product, something that defines a genre. Not some cheaply made piece of garbage that pads the pockets of those at the top and creates tons of problems and work for those at the bottom. The last 5 companies I've worked for didn't care if their product was good or not, just that they were making money. Especially when small changes could make huge impacts on the product.
4. Ability to collaborate and take criticism and open to changes/ideas
- I've met many people who simply cannot take criticism, many were brilliant engineers but their ego could not handle being wrong. Even when shown they were wrong they'd be completely upset about it and go about sabotaging/bringing down the project. Sometimes people simply have better ideas than you, we had some incredible ideas from lower level employees that made great strides in product design. That doesn't mean they are always right, but if you cant' work together with others, concede points and take it lightly then they may not be right for the project.
Seeing what is left at Blizzard it's obvious the cancer has won and they will slowly steer the ship into the rocks. I'd like to be wrong here, but it seems inevitable at this point with the priority of changes taking place and the direction the company has been going since the end of WotLK. It also speaks volumes about the upper management that they're allowing them to continue this course. They're either trying to keep from getting ass rammed by the state, are incompetent and think these types of devs can right the ship or both. My money would be on both seeing all the types of people that have failed to the top at every company I've worked for. Most companies seem completely saturated with these types of employees.
It really sucks seeing them run the game into the ground, and the lack of good games/MMOs in general the last few years. Thousands of games on Steam/Epic/Origin and I can't be bothered to play most of them. Hell, games we played the shit out of in 1999 are STILL at the top of the steam charts because they simply can't come up with new/good ideas. It really is a dark age of gaming.
ptr.wowhead.com
