Sorry for the late reply - I was a bit busy and I wanted to make sure I phrase everything properly this time around, because it seems either I did a really bad job previously or you're prone to overinterpreting what I'm saying
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@Power107 - I think your theory is a tad bit too dramatic, so here's mine:
1. The Classic team wants to make Reforged. They figure out what they want to do with the game and they come up with an initial plan.
2. The developers pitch their idea to the executives to get the funding. The executives are interested, the decision process begins. A market research is done, marketing and finance guys discuss the scope of the project with the devs and eventually both sides settle on making the game with a 100$ budget and 200$ estimated income.
3. The assigned budget isn't enough to do everything the developers wanted to do, so some plans are cut. Still, the devs get to work and prototype a version of the game that they think they will be able to do within that budget and show it to people at Blizzcon 2018. It's still good enough to make most people happy.
4. As the development progresses, some things go wrong and it becomes apparent that the 100$ budget is not enough to do everything they've promised at Blizzcon. The developers ask the executives for more money (i.e. time), but for whatever reason they get denied and thus they have to cut some corners (most likely).
5. It's also possible that at some point either Activision stepped in with their cost cutting and/or the preorder numbers didn't line-up with the original projections, making Blizzard not just refuse to increase the budget, but even cut what was already there. The results? Developers had to cut even more stuff.
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And look, I'm not going to blame them for wanting to make a profit. As much as I'd love Blizzard to be some kind of a charity foundation that only cares about making good games and does so even at a loss, that's not feasible - they're a bussiness, they want to make money. That's fair. That said, do I think that they go too far in sacrificing quality for profit? Yes, I do and I really miss the old Blizzard that at least tried to offer their customers decent products in return for their money.
But that Blizzard is long gone.
That said, as easy it is to blame the obvious cause of such state, i.e. corporate greed, I think it's also partially the fault of the broader gaming community. Just think about it. The only reason why companies like Blizzard or EA or whatever are able to get away with releasing bad games is because there's enough people who don't care about quality and still keep giving them money. As I've said, this doesn't mean that the so called triple-A gaming industry isn't obnoxiously greedy - it is, but logically: if their goal is to make money and they can do it more efficiently by screwing their customers by making bad games at low costs, it kinda does make sense that it's exactly what they're doing, doesn't it?
Again, I'm not saying that it's moral, just that it's logical. And that's the Blizzard we have today - one that only cares about cold financial logic. And as much as it sucks for us, it does explain (NOT MORALLY JUSTIFY) what they're doing. Where am I going with this? I'm trying to explain that their actions are logical. From their perspective Reforged made sense. The game went over the budget they wanted to give it, be it because the budget was cut or something went wrong in the development process or the combination of both, and they didn't see a cold, financial reason to give the game a bigger budget, so that it can actually launch in a good shape.
And if they don't care about doing right by the customers or making good games, the lack of that financial incentive was a perfectly valid reason for releasing Reforged in the state it launched in. I'm not saying that it was the right or moral thing to do, I'm not saying I like it, I'm not using it to "defend" them. I'm just describing what I think is the cold, logical reality of this situation. And just because I don't include my personal judgement doesn't mean I'm automatically saying that Blizzard is good. Having a logical reason to do something is not the same as being morally justified to do it.
For example, if I said that "John hit his wife, because he was angry at her", I'm not saying that domestic violence is somehow good. It might be a bit of an extreme example, but I wanted to pick something really obvious. So, in that statement, I'm just describing the situation from a purely logical point of view - I'm not passing judgement, I'm not discussing morals, I'm not expressing my opinion on what happened. I'm just saying "X happened, because Y". That's all. And guess what, just because a certain action had a logical reason, i.e. wasn't irrational, doesn't mean that it was good. Come on.
That's what I was trying to do here - just describe what I think happened with Reforged and what I think what was the logical reasoning for that. I didn't say that either Blizzard or the game were good. And if I defended anything, it was their logic, because hell - I might think people running Blizzard are a bunch of cold, greedy bastards, but I don't think they're stupid. Being able to acknowledge that something isn't pure black isn't being a fanboy or an apologist, it's just not being a mindless hater.
I hope we're finally on the same page and I won't have to repeat this again.
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Excuse me aren't they basically one company? Or, is it like shifting from one part of the company to another?
Subsidiary - Wikipedia. That's what Blizzard is to Activision-Blizzard.
Two wrongs make a right - Wikipedia
It was a nice read, but I only see one instance when this would apply to what I've said. In short, if you're trying to imply that I'm basically saying this: "it's okay that Reforged was bad, because some people would do a bad thing and pirate it" then no, I didn't do that. And here's why:
All I've said is that I don't think Blizzard should consider "pirates" when allocating a budget for their games. Now, let's consider Blizzard's "obligation" to deliver a quality product. This obviously exists in regards to people who buy or might buy that product, so... if Blizzard didn't deliver a good product and disappointed these people then that's a "wrong" on Blizzard's part, but then... These people aren't diehard pirates and considering the game was out for so long and was heavily discounted, they most likely bought it (as I've explained previously, outside of a small number of fringe cases, I don't see any valid justification for not doing so outside of just being a diehard pirate), so it can be argued that they didn't do anything "wrong", so there aren't "two wrongs that make a right" in this case.
Now, for pirates - if you accept the logic that Blizzard shouldn't consider them when allocating a budget for the game, then why should Blizzard have any obligation to please pirates? It's obvious they're not the target audience, the game "isn't made for them". By that logic, even if the pirates end up disappointed, that's not really a "wrong", because Blizzard wasn't trying to satisfy them in the first place. In such case, the only actual "wrong" is people pirating games, so once again we're not a situation where "two wrongs make a right".
It's not completely comparable with intellectual property
You see, the problem is that we're not talking about selling an intellectual property or copyrights. If anything, the whole debate is about licencing rights and Blizzard selling licences to use the game. As far as I know, that's how the transaction is described in the EULA - as a side note, this has to be one of the things that I hate the most about modern gaming.
Anyway, I think for the purpose of my argument, this example was comparable enough as at the fundamental level whether you steal a physical object or a licence, then you're depriving the party that owns that object/licence financial compensation that is legally and morally owed to it. As such, whether you were selling physical goods, services or rights to use your property, if someone took that without paying or getting permission, I don't think anyone would consider this person "spreading the word of mouth" as sufficient compensation for the loss of income.
But fine, I'll give you that - this might not have been the most accurate example, so how about this one: you're organizing a paid event (like a concert of a boxing gala) and someone comes without buying a ticket, when you catch him, he says it's not a big deal, because he was going to praise the event to his friends and post some nice picture of it online with a link to your webpage. Technically, he didn't take anything physical from you or incur any extra costs for you, no IP or copyright was lost...
Digital products aren't like real time products you see. They aren't perishable or consumable...
...also nothing perished or was consumed.
So, would either of you factor people like him when organizing any future events, by for instance paying for a better band to get more people like him to come?
Digital products aren't like real time products you see. They aren't perishable or consumable...
I'm going to quote this again - you're effectively saying that if you use other people's stuff without their permission, that's "okay" as long as you don't damage it in any way? Because that seems to be the logical implication of what you said. For instance, if I came into your home, took your car keys and went on a ride in your car without you even knowing, would you be "okay" with that, as long as I returned your vehicle intact and refilled gasoline to the level it was on before I took your car? After all, nothing perished or was consumed, right?
//that's obviously a bit sarcastic, but the bottom line is the same - it doesn't matter if something perishes or gets consumed: as long as you take or use something that doesn't belong to you without the owner's consent, especially if in the process of doing so you deprive the owner of compensation that he was legally owed, you're commiting a theft. I know
@deepstrasz will argue semantics again
, so - it's often called "misappropriation", which is a type of "theft".
In criminal law, misappropriation is the intentional, illegal use of the property or funds of another person for one's own use or other unauthorized purpose
And:
Since misappropriation is considered a form of theft
Source:
Misappropriation - Wikipedia
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Why don't you tell that to the company you so desperately try to defend here,
or its beyond shit practices with lame arguments like 'deadlines' and 'budgets'.
I've already explained this above, so I'm not going to repeat myself. Nowhere did I say that what Blizzard did was morally good, ergo I didn't defend them in that capacity. All I've said is their actions are logical and make sense, considering their priorities and point of view and I've explained how. The fact that I don't insert my negative feelings for Blizzard into everything I say, don't imply that I don't have them, you know...
P.S. You're referring to my arguments as lame... let's just that's not a good practice in a civilized discussion. If you don't agree with my point of view, provide arguments that disprove it. Calling what I've said "lame" does not in any way disprove it.
saying that crowd-funding is non-existent
all non-paying
people aren't and cannot and will never be fans and don't extend the game
I didn't say that - I'd really appreciate if you read my posts more carefully and didn't put words into my mouth.
I'm happy that in the profile comment you backed out of that question, because - you know, the way I see it - if instead of trying to refute your opponent's arguments, you're resorting to name-calling then that's basically an admission to having lost the discussion debate, so... while I I could take that line and walk away feeling that I've won our not-so-little discussion, I'd prefer to let it resolve naturally
But, just for the sake of clearing this up - I'll adress this one last time: if you go back through my post history, you'll see that I didn't abstain from criticizing Blizzard or Reforged. Heck, if you read between the lines of what I'm saying now, perhaps you'd even find an underlying critique of them as well? Anywho, I was adamant about not liking Reforged, I even refunded my purchase, refrained from buying Blizzard's products until I see positive reviews (I haven't backed out), uploaded a backup 1.31.1 version of W3 (plus returned to it myself) and actively tried to help people solve issues with using it. I think that's more than enough to prove I'm not a "fanboy".
I think you're tripping now, that article has nothing to do with you or your arguments.
As I've said before - my original argument was that Reforged went over its production budget. If that budget was cut then it is only more likely that they went over it. Like, even if you assume that the development went perfect (which is very unlikely considering they were working with an old engine) and they could have made "good" Reforged within the original budget, if that budget was cut then they obviously needed more money than that new budget allowed, i.e. they went over that budget.
If you need numbers to visualize this, let's say their original budget was 100$ and they needed exactly 100$ to turn Reforged into a good game. I'm assuming nothing went wrong and they didn't need the budget to be extended above 100$ (as I've said, it's unlikely, but for the sake of this argument - let's say that they for instance had a solid margin for unforseen problems). Now, Activision comes in and cuts the budget to 80$, the devs still need 100$ to make a good game... 100$ > 80$, isn't it? The last I've checked that's how math works. And if so, even if the problem was just the budget being cut, the logical implication of that is that this cut could have made the devs go over the budget, which was my initial argument.
The problem I have with your budget and deadline arguments is
you use them to defend this company.
That by itself is a fallacy - I'm fine with you not agreeing with what I say, but if the main reason why you disagree with my arguments is that you assume my intentions and you actually do not agree with them, then logically speaking you probably do not have an issue with my arguments, but with my reasons for using said arguments. And that's fine too, but... I think that had you specified that in the beginning, our discussion would be much more productive.
In other words - there's a huge difference between saying "I disagree with WHAT you say" and saying "I disagree with WHY you say it". And now that I know that your issue is the latter, I can properly adress that. First of all, you're assuming my intentions and from my perspective, your assumption is wrong. I don't like Reforged and I'm not a fan of Blizzard's business practices, but that doesn't mean that I will express that in every post or twist my every opinion about Blizzard to make them look bad. That's not my style. I'm all for being fair - I will criticize them when I feel they deserve it, I will "defend" them when I feel certain criticisms are unfair. And in that context, I criticized them for Reforged and a plethora other stuff, which clearly shows that at a moral level I disapprove what they're doing.
The fact that in this discussion I look at things from a different angle, which might sound defensive of Blizzard, doesn't invalidate any of the above.
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Also, some things about
@Sparky123 profile comment I'd like to adress:
Money is a driving force no doubt about it. But reputation, both bad and good is an even more powerful force.
These aren't mutually exclusive - the reason why any company might care about reputation (outside of company owner's ego) is that if your products have a good reputation, they will sell better, ergo you will get more money - i.e. the real driving force behind business.
Intentional or not, reputation bad equals reputation gone.
I'm going to quote this just to show that I can agree with something
And yes, I agree - regaining people's faith and reputation is much, much harder than losing it.
That's why blizzard expanded elsewhere. Actually that's why Activision-Blizzard expanded.
Because it lost most of its audience. The mobile market and live service is all they have now.
The mobile/live service/microtransaction market is rapidly growing and is, in all honesty, probably worth significantly more than the market built on the good will of core gamers. At the end of the day, the two are in a lot of ways mutually exclusive, so it's ultimately a business decision which one you go with.
Some companies like CD Projekt RED choose the former, while others like Activision choose the latter. And in that context, I wouldn't say that they didn't just go to "mobile", because they lost reputation, but that the reputation loss is in some way a consequence of them going to the "mobile" market.
And yes, I'm saying the corporate higher-ups knew that many people won't like their new direction, but chose to go with it anyway, because it's financially viable.
Which from a moral point of view makes it even worse.
