Blizzard is doing pretty damn good with retail WoW if you’re a casual player, and don’t play any PvP.
Their games teams seem to be highly isolated from each other though, which is evidence by every other single game they currently maintain. Also that their employee’s bonuses are segmented by how well their teams game performs.
To me the big drop in noticable internal politics happened somewhere shortly before or around the Overwatch release.
The original design of that game as-released showed a lot of the old design paradigms of Blizzard. But then all post-release direction was the “new” Blizzard, focus on e-sports, numerical balance over gameplay feel, competition over social engagement. The game is an interesting showcase for the fall of Blizzard as a whole in a lot of ways.
I don’t think trust is at issue here. If the game sucks, don’t buy it! There’s millions of other games to play.
There is reason to hope Blizzard will turn around. Bobby Kotick is gone. Microsoft owns the company now. Say what you will about Windows but Microsoft tends to take pretty good care of the gaming franchises they own. I think a lot of AoE fans are pretty happy with how that’s going. I could be wrong though?
No, I’ve been actively boycotting them for many years by now.
I broke my own rule and actually preordered something – Diablo 4. Huge mistake.
The Blizzard that made good games died many years ago.
