briankoontz said:
Blizzard's corporate strategy is to wait for a market to be created, then enter and dominate that market. The market of the specific genre of video game. So World of Warcraft was the market dominator of Everquest, Hearthstone of Magic: The Gathering, Heroes of the Storm (they hope) of League of Legends, and Overwatch (they hope) of Team Fortress 2.
Blizzard no longer seeks to forge new paths or do anything original. They've been on a steady creative decline since their relatively original titles of Warcraft and Diablo.
It's overwhelmingly obvious at this point that if a new multiplayer genre comes along, Blizzard will be right behind with their own interface-mastered hyper-polished version of it to scoop up maximum market share.
Except Warcraft was based on the market created by Dune, Diablo was based on the roguelike genre, and going back even further, The Lost Vikings was based on Lemmings. One can also draw comparison between Blackthorne and the Prince of Persia series (cinematic platformer), and Rock n' Roll Racing with Mario Kart (kart/battle racing).
Aeshi said:
Yeah, but you know the models DOTA uses? The Stock Warcraft ones? Pret-ty sure Blizzard still owns those, and Valve basically ripped the models off whole-sale (or am I supposed to believe Morhpling isn't a copy-paste of a Water Elemental because he's a slightly different colour?), a fact that everyone seems to ignore because Valve can do no wrong.
Yeah, pretty much. I'm quoting it here because while it's Blizzard's M.O. to refine a genre already established, those genres are still set across a wide spectrum. Valve, on the other hand, had pumped out shooter after shooter, most of which are multiplayer-driven (Half-Life and Portal being the exceptions), and almost all of which are based on mods other people have created. So, come DotA 2 - a game that's more or less copy-pasted from previously developed game mechanics, with more or less copy-pasted models, with copy-pasted names of said models except for some slight deviations (Skeleton King became Wraith King, Windrunner became Windranger, etc.) Ironic that the one time Valve creates a game that has nothing to do with shooting, it's a case of them not actually "creating" it at all. Heroes of the Storm is Blizzard's take to enter a well established genre, but its game mecahnics are built from the ground up, with great divergence from the norm (team leveling, multiple battlegrounds, objectives, the specialist class, etc.). DotA 2 however, is basically the same game it was over a decade ago with a slightly prettier paint job and support.
And yet, Valve are the "innovative" ones here... 0_0
