Answer? Because it was looking like this little derped-up TF2 clone. Let the “but how dumbed down is it?” speculation start now.
Silly Blizzard interns, get it together already will you? Or is what’s left of real Blizzard working on Warcraft 4? Because if that’s the answer, I’m OK with letting the kids put stuff like Overwatch and HotS together between snacks and nap time.
Hardcore Casual 
Ugg, so bad. Blizzard is quickly becoming just as bad as SOE or EA.
How do you mean?
It’s a cruel burden to know just how many people like stuff that you don’t like.
Ten billion flies can’t be wrong — eat shit today!
If I was a fly, I certainly would.
Pingback: Differing Perspectives | Kill Ten Rats
Pingback: Quote of the Time Interval | In An Age
I can understand why someone could think this might be fun — it probably will be. Other games that are like it are also fun.
But that’s about as far as I understand. Don’t understand why anyone would be excited about it, and don’t understand what it brings to what is possibly the most crowded genre in gaming, if we’re not counting “match 3” mobile games (and I don’t have the time to count every game with Saga in its name).
I don’t know that I’ll play or that I won’t play. I have a gaming friend that likes these games, but she plays on a Mac, so unless that gets immediate support at release, she probably won’t ask me to come try it.
Someone made a good point related to this whole thing: If I told you EA was making a F2P team-based shooter and sent you the gameplay vid of Overwatch, you’d rightly dismiss it as more TF2-me-too garbage that no one asked for.
But certain Blizz blindos eat everything they release up soon as the hype train rolls in, be it a dumbed down card game that lasts for a month with its depth, a poor-mans version of ARAM that at best is going to be a footnote, or the junk shown above. It’s amusing in a blind-charm kind of way.
Makes sense. I read through the comments on the Massively article for this game and realized some of the commenters I thought were trolls just there to bash on everything and mess with people are actually “Blizzard only” online gamers. Or at least, about Blizzard they gush from the moment of the first hype apparently, and everything else gets shit on. Was certainly interesting.
HotS might end up being a game for me, mostly because I hate last hits—did not feel compelled to learn the timing— and that’s why I stopped playing LoL in Seaon 1. Maybe, maybe not, but at least I can understand what that game will do differently, what it will try to bring to the genre.
For this one I’m stumped.
But I bet it will do fine. Mostly because of the large number of gamers that do not read articles or blogs about gaming and have probably forgotten or never knew that TF2 exists.
But hey, I didn’t get why anyone would make an MMO out of an RTS game and bet all my MMO marbles on EQ2 at the time, so what do I know?
I agree with you sometimes SynCaine but you’re a fool if you dismiss Hearthstone with this “lasts for a month” nonsense. Its revenues are already past one third of the size of Magic: The Gathering (approx. $300m last year, Hearthstone $114m so far in 2014). The tournament scene is growing. The playerbase is growing.
Fact is, Blizzard is doing exactly what they did in 1997 with Diablo (CRPG designed to be action-packed and fun, not tedious number wonkery) and in 2004 with WoW (MMORPG designed to be fun and appeal to people who wanted a game not an exercise in masochism).
I understand that you aren’t looking for fun in a game. You’re looking for some sense of personal validation and achievement. But most people aren’t. Most people want their entertainment dollar to buy them entertainment, and their leisure time to be leisurely.
Link to that 114m number? Because the entire online section on their regulatory filing shows 35m in the last 3 months.
Ah, never mind, I see you’ve already written the source off as a “fictional table generator”.
Where did you find a breakdown by game on the SEC filing, though? All I could find was a split between Activision and Blizzard?
Also isn’t that 35m mobile revenue, not online revenue?
Oh my, so you got that 114m from Superfictiondata? Come on now, be better than that.
Online is defined as WoW and all related income per the note under that table. Heathstone isn’t under PC, certainly not console, which leaves us with?
Superdata have a multi million dollar business based on researching and releasing accurate data on this (and other) markets, are lead by someone with a PhD in the topic.
You…really don’t like Blizzard because they changed MC.
Given the choice, I’ll take the experts opionion…
“Accurate data”, Hearthstone in the MMO section.
Please tell me you work for superfiction?
nope.
I have a real job I didn’t need to beg on my blog for..
What’s left of the real Blizzard is working at Riot games, on the sequel to league of legends, alongside what’s left of CCP.
I don’t know anything about former Blizzard employees working at Riot but I do know that the only former CCP employees at Riot where poached for their work on the Alliance Tournament. Only one of them was an actual dev (Soundwave) and he hardly represents the “real” CCP (whatever that is). Since he was hired from the player base and for a long time considered a shill for Goondswarm.
Classic Blizzard innovation
Why do you give LoL a pass for being a casualized clone but not WoW, HotS, Hearthstone or Overwatch?
They took Dota and made enough changes for the average gamer to actually stick around. The tried and true Blizzard approach, where is the innovation or talent?
I don’t speak for anyone else, but I see LoL as the first sequel to Dota, not a ‘dumbed down clone,’ because of Guinsoo’s involvement. To me, there’s a huge difference between making a sequel to your own game, and making a clone.
What change to SR did Riot make to casualize LoL over DoTA1?
They removing denying because it was bad game design (promoted snowballing, among other issues) forced on them by the WC3 engine. They changed various other things to prevent a hyper-carry from being possible, they smoothed out CC, removed dumb ‘gotcha’ stuff like the ‘move and you die’ ult, and have over time balanced to prevent as much as possible complete smashings based on the first five minutes. But again, what did they actually change from DoTA1 in SR that has dumbed down LoL to even be put in the same sentence as MtG compared to Hearthstone?
I’ll give you that ARAM is basically a dumbed down, casual version of a moba, yup, but ARAM is a side-game in LoL, something to mess around in when you aren’t playing the ‘real’ game, and ARAM came much later.
Your right that is what they did, but again what does any of that have to do with talent or innovation instead of just Blizzard style mass market business sense?