Wow. Preach isn't gonna be covering WoW anymore - feels kinda seismic. He says it's a bit to do with the recent shit, but mostly the direction of the game. This doesn't include community stuff like RWF and Drama Time, but specifically game stuff.

Good for him. There's only so long you can yell at a brick wall for before he'd go even more bald.

 

This was taken in 2013, for reference, so while it looks malevolent, I have a genuine question.

Did anyone know about how evil Cosby was then? By anyone i mean the general public. While it's being used as a smoking gun, I remember being shocked when the Cosby shit was dropping...

 

You forgot the best part:

 

There were tabloid rumors, and i assume certain people in Hollywood were aware that Cosby could be a creep, but it first became a "thing" in 2014 iirc.

It's hard to say for sure if one of the blizzard folks knew something, or if they called it that just based on the rumors that Cosby liked to party. I could see it going either way.

 

I think Kosak or someone else at Blizz said that message was in reference to Kosak picking up (as in meeting) his wife and a friend's wife.

It insinuates they knew Alex was a manwhore, which isn't a crime until you start touching people who don't want to be touched, which was apparantly happening too.

I think the discrimination angle looks a lot stronger if you're going to go at Blizzard for systemic issues. The leaked messages I think (could be wrong ofc) look bad in hindsight, not sure if they're portraying what people are saying they are though.

Edit; for reference
https://twitter.com/Xelnath/status/1420509194478788613?s=19

 

Yeah fair enough. At best I’m a distant observer on this one and was just linking the two images I saw.

This is just an indication, rather than any kind of proof itself. The proof is in the lived experiences of all those coming forward.

 

JAB sacked:

Blizzard
To all members of the Blizzard Community,

We want to let you know about an important leadership change at Blizzard Entertainment.

Starting today, J. Allen Brack will be stepping down as the leader of the studio, and Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will co-lead Blizzard moving forward.

Jen joined Blizzard in January as executive vice president of development, where she’s been providing senior development leadership and support to the Diablo and Overwatch franchises. Jen is the former head of Vicarious Visions (which is now part of Blizzard Entertainment).

After many years at XBOX, Mike joined the company in 2019 as the executive vice president and general manager of platform and technology, where he’s been overseeing the evolution of Battle.net and our development services organization.

Jen and Mike have more than three decades of gaming industry experience between them. Moving forward, they will share responsibilities over game development and company operations.

Both leaders are deeply committed to all of our employees; to the work ahead to ensure Blizzard is the safest, most welcoming workplace possible for women, and people of any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or background; to upholding and reinforcing our values; and to rebuilding your trust. With their many years of industry experience and deep commitment to integrity and inclusivity, Jen and Mike will lead Blizzard with care, compassion, and a dedication to excellence. You’ll hear more from Jen and Mike soon.

The following is a message from J. Allen Brack:

“I am confident that Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will provide the leadership Blizzard needs to realize its full potential and will accelerate the pace of change. I anticipate they will do so with passion and enthusiasm and that they can be trusted to lead with the highest levels of integrity and commitment to the components of our culture that make Blizzard so special.”

Finally, thank you all for being a part of the Blizzard community, and for your passion and determination for safety and equality for all.

 

Good riddance. But as long as Kotick's still in charge I don't see any positive change coming wrt the consumer experience related stuff. Maybe the workplace environment might be a bit better though.

 

Skip the first bit where he goes over his covid stuff.

I'm taking this with a huge grain of salt (because it all sounds too good to be true), but really cool if this leak is even a little accurate.

Bit of a worry that everyone is just gonna roll 'Black Dragon' though when you can just be any race anyway and get molten eyes etc

 

Hopefully good news,

Microsoft bought Blizzard/Activision for $68 billion.

Them buying out Acti/Blizz is probably the big reset needed to clean house and start making good stuff again. Looks like Kotick will be out too.

Only time will tell though, probably won't hear anything for at least another year.

 

Or everyone realises Bobby wasn't the making game decisions? Lol...

I'd pretty much quit all Blizz games months ago, so this news is only an industry curiosity one for me now.

Unless Phil decides to green light WoW2. Then we can talk.

 

I want another good RTS.

 

I am actually really happy with this news. Microsoft has regained a lot of trust from me over the years, and this is the first time I've felt relatively optimistic about Blizzard since Activision bought it ages ago.

Don't play too many games anymore, but there is a lot of nostalgia here.

 

At most, this will shift the institutional focus of Blizzard away from KPIs and pumping MAUs up. That's not nothing, and it will likely have some positive effect on game design (primarily, this'll mean less cross-promotional "buy shit in hearthstone to get shit in WoW!" type stuff and maybe a lessening of the need to turn WoW into a second job), but it's not the main reason Blizzard's been producing shit for the last several years.

The reason Blizzard's output has been shit is 1) ingrained institutional arrogance and open dismissal of customer feedback, 2) a ludicrously rigid and inflexible bureaucracy around production that makes it nearly impossible to make changes in a timely fashion, and 3) systems designers put in charge of overall game design (specifically in WoW's case, but seemingly also in the case of Hearthstone; not sure about Overwatch though).

#1 is almost certainly influenced by #2, to be clear, but both still exist in a vacuum and need to be addressed. And it's only when all 3 of these are addressed that WoW (Blizzard games in general, but WoW's probably the hardest hit by it all) is gonna be worth a damn again.

 

Personally, Microsoft (Xbox div) to me has always looked like an unwieldy beast at the best of times, struggling to juggle their myriad studios to produce compelling content. This is before they bought All The Studios.

 

Fuck that shit. I want Warcraft 4.

 

If they did WC4, I don't think I'd want another RTS in the similar vain WC or SC. Go full Totar WarCraft.

 

But Blizzard Sez, you play SUrviVal GaMe only. No WC4 foru.

 

Blizz are the clout chasers of the industry - the quality of the game itself determining how much people care about that fact lol

I remember seeing a lot of their devs and ex-devs fawning over Valheim. I wouldn't be surprised if it's very similar to that.