Not to mention the kowtowing to China and the countless other controversies. Same thing with Riot Games with their sexual harassment settlement and 100% being owned by Tencent (a company that operates a mass-surveillance network against ethnic minorities). So funny how everyone forgets about these things when a company releases a product they like.
And then WoW still got kicked out of China. GG Blizzard, GG. God damn Bobby Kotick is a horrible, horrible person. Thinking about dating Bobby Kotick? Don't.
It's not that they "forget about it" they just don't care. People want to enjoy things.
If you were to stay on the high horse and stop consuming products and services made by companies with track records like Actiblizzard, you'd probably end living off the grid in a cave
We arguably live in a golden age of gaming, there are so many goddamn games to play and people still swarm to the one made by companies that fucking killed people and are actively working to milk as much money out of you as possible and to make the hobby you enjoy worse in the long run in favor for short term profits. This is why people don't take you people seriously.
This is capitalism at its finest. I do not have time to care about the people who made this. I do not want to care about them. I am too overworked to have time to find another hobby. I just want to escape by any means necessary with others before I must return to the grind. I understand this feeling completely and don't fault you.
People are generally pretty keen on being on their high horses when it comes to philosophical questions about which company is "good" and how no one should play their games ever because of previous mis-steps
It's pretty unrealistic to expect the vast majority of people who just want to play games with their friends to not play them because of ideological reasons.
You don't have to expect the vast majority of people to see things your way, but you can explain to your friends that it's important to not support Blizzard due to X, Y, or Z, and then you can play Grim Dawn or something instead.
DRM is not a protection. It is a killswitch. Even MMOs can theoretically be DRM-free. So this situation just lays the DRM issue bare. points to GOG, Itchio, ZP, and so on
I could understand forced online for ladder ranking I guess? But that should be opt in. I could understand seamless online/offline since they’re trying to make it seem more like an MMO. But kicking people off or getting hardcore characters killed because your servers go down is something I thought they already learned and yet lol. Nope.
counterpoint: DDOS'ing has been around for a while and is something every mid-sized or bigger online service has to deal with eventually.
If you release an always online product in order to sell your shitty microtransactions and take away control from the player, then you should at least make sure the always online product can stay online and incorporate some DDOS protection.
Every season brings on new unique challenges. The playerbase is nice. And- there are a billion and two different ways to build a character. That was one thing that game did better then any other game- the sheer amount of customization.
Although- I think the complexity also drove away a lot of players too. But, I really enjoyed it.
There are a few different games like PoE that I think are amazing for who they are made for. Eve online, super great for those who wanna do their job… but in SPAAACE. PoE great for people who like way too ridiculous customization in their ARPG. Guild Wars 2 I think is probably the best server example tho. That shit been down for something stupid like 24 hours combined in US+EU (dunno about China) total over 10+ years. Also definitely has its niche in MMO you can pick back up after 6 days, 6 months, or 6 years and you’ll still be good with some minimal effort. Basically the opposite of PoE I feel.
In a single night, lost a FULLY pimped out Golem, A 90% pimped out T4 cruiser. Got pod-killed a few times, and lost YEARS (LITERALLY YEARS!!!) of skill-points.
Then- I said F- that. Never touched it again.
I guess these days, you don’t lose months or years of skill-points when you get podded. But- too late for me.
This is most of the reason why I haven’t bought D4. (Well, that and I got burned real hard by D3 midnight release.) I liked single player games BECAUSE they didn’t require internet access.
Only sometimes? I can't bring myself to buy those games anymore. It's not some lost technology to make a video game work without an internet connection.
But I'll usually be online even if I have the option to be offline. It just means that I know the game will continue to work even if they're not running a server somewhere. The dominant use case is still going to be going online to see their new goofy costumes that I can buy, because it's easier than setting up a private server, and because that's where everyone else is.
Since the Steam Deck I've been prioritizing games that don't require high frequency of online check backs. Or I guess I could use cracks, but I don't want to have to do that.
Looked at it yesterday on ps5. Yeah, nah.. Way too expensive and shouldn't come in 3 different versions.
Blizzard doesn't need the money.. I'll wait until the top version is half the price. The fun with Diablo was playing with mates, and for that price, I don't expect my mates to pay that much either
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