When you love the games but hate the company

[FakeSympathy]

With recent shits going down at Blizzard, I came to realize how much I hate them as a company. I hate how they are kneeling to a certain government, I hate how they ruined Warcraft 3, and their terrible business practices which lead to subscriber drops in WOW. I hate how the CEO is ignoring all of the internal conflicts, and how tone-deaf the execs can be to their fans and employees.

But goddamn, do I love their games. Overwatch is a fun game to play with friends (although can be toxic at times), Starcraft is a classic RTS, and I am already planning on opening up my wallet for diablo 2 resurrected. I understand a lot of people deleted their blizzard account for retaliation, but I don't think I would do that because that would mean I won't get to play the games I enjoy.

It's not just Blizzard, but I have a similar thing going on with other publishers. EA's greedy practice vs my love for Battlefield, Dragon Age, and Mass Effect, Bethesda's "IDGAF about launch state" attitude on their new releases vs my love for Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom and Wolfenstein, and the list goes on

I know I eventually buy their games, but I also feel I'm rewarding these companies for their anti-consumer behaviors, and I'm part of the problem where their monetization schemes keep getting worse every year.

 

[BrawlMan]

You want to help, don't buy their games. That it's all I can recommend. Otherwise, do as you wish. I have no love for Blizzard or activision, so most of their titles mean nothing to me. I didn't play Diablo 1 & 2 to back in the day, that's about it.

As far as games I like some companies I don't, there's Bethesda. But the games I'm talking about, they don't make they only publish. I'm there because of the developers. I love both Evil Within games, but that's because of Shinji Mikami and his company Tango Games. There's also the recent Wolfenstein games from Machine Games. I have no interest in New Blood though. That was less Bethesda and more so Machine Games screwing up and turning their game into an Ubisoft clone.

I also hate WB for what they did to the FEAR franchise. I still like the second game, but even with the shift in change in production team, you can tell there was a drop in quality in terms of gameplay. The first game will always be the best. F3AR was a complete disaster. It had good ideas, but failed on most executions. The only good thing you can say is that it ties up a majority of the loose ends (the ones related to Alma anyway) and that's about it.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

In all honesty I've never really cared about the "love the game but it's published by..." dichotomy. I assume all the big companies share the same shitty practices and the ones that receive any exposure for them are just sloppier than the ones that don't. That and I have no illusions about what power I hold over them for consuming or not.

 

[CriticalGaming]

It's painful for me honestly. Because unlike with Ubisoft, in which I could give two shits about any of their games really, Blizzard was a 20 years legacy for me. From playing Diablo 2, to World of Warcraft and the decade of friendships and adventures I had within that game. Without WoW, my high school and college years would absolutely have been utterly friendless. Without Blizzard I likely would not be the gamer I am today, and hell video gaming probably wouldn't be much part of my life.

Not that a life without gaming would be terrible, who could say, but i don't regret becoming a gamer up to this very day.

It is very saddening, to see that the things that brought me such joy throughout my life only exist at the cost of incredible misery and hardship. What do you do at that point? It is very painful for me and many other people probably to know that all our wonderful memories now have this level of taint upon them. these games couldn't just get made by a group of people who really wanted to make games, they had to be made through a haze of assault and abuse. And i enjoyed the results of that greatly. i feel tainted because of that. I can't retroactively get my money back, my time back, I can't remake those memories in another way. I can't do anything but sit and stew about it.

fucking sucks.

 

[meiam]

If you have a problem with the state that the games are shipped in but keep buying then things aren't going to improve in that regard, you're implicitly saying your okay with the state of the game, that you weight the pros and cons and say the pro outweigh the con. Nowadays there's so many game coming out that its not like you have no choice if you want to play a game.

As far as employee conditions, consumer aren't really the one that should be doing the boycotting, the employee should. Employee are in a position where they're free to quit when they want (I don't think there's any report of game company literally keeping the employee chained in the office at all time). If everyone started boycotting the company revenue would fall and it would have to lay off peoples, up to it failing and then all the employee would lose their job, ie the consumers would take away from the employee the ability to choose to stay at the company or quit. Just like by buying a game in a poor state you make a choice, peoples that stay at a bad companies make a choice. A consumer might not agree with it but its still the employee choice and they have a much better understanding of the working conditions at the company and in the industry than the consumer ever will. I don't see how the consumer taking the decision for the employee that they shouldn't have their job anymore is good for them.

 

[happyninja42]

I know I eventually buy their games, but I also feel I'm rewarding these companies for their anti-consumer behaviors, and I'm part of the problem where their monetization schemes keep getting worse every year.

The shitty thing is, you are. Because frankly these companies don't care about anything other than their profit margins. It's been clearly established that in a lot of ways, the laws just aren't there to regulate these digital product companies, and so they can get away with a lot of shitty stuff, due to the ambiguity of legality and stuff. So the only thing that will actually make them sit up and take notice, is if they don't see the piles of money they were expecting to show up. Which, is ultimately on us, to NOT buy every shiny, sparkly thing they dangle in front of us, simply because we wants it! My precious!!

But, yeah, that's really all we can do, as the old saying goes "speak with your wallet" because frankly, the only thing they know how to listen for, is money.

Employee are in a position where they're free to quit when they want (I don't think there's any report of game company literally keeping the employee chained in the office at all time).

Easier said than done, if you have no guarantee of further employment after boycotting, you now have zero income, in an global economy that is....tumultuous at best.
This is a tale as old as time though, when it comes to labor rights. I've seen it myself with coworkers at shitty businesses. Sure, it sucks that the safety protocols are failing, and the equipment is faulty, and putting us at risk...but Leroy Average has 3 kids a spouse, and medical bills. He can't afford to be righteous, he has to feed his children. So he'll suck it up, accept that this job might maim or kill him as "just one of them things you live with." And go back to working in dangerous conditions. Depending on where you are, and the labor laws, workers might have little to no recourse to actually enact positive change, and only end up hurting themselves.

 

[meiam]

Easier said than done, if you have no guarantee of further employment after boycotting, you now have zero income, in an global economy that is....tumultuous at best.
This is a tale as old as time though, when it comes to labor rights. I've seen it myself with coworkers at shitty businesses. Sure, it sucks that the safety protocols are failing, and the equipment is faulty, and putting us at risk...but Leroy Average has 3 kids a spouse, and medical bills. He can't afford to be righteous, he has to feed his children. So he'll suck it up, accept that this job might maim or kill him as "just one of them things you live with." And go back to working in dangerous conditions. Depending on where you are, and the labor laws, workers might have little to no recourse to actually enact positive change, and only end up hurting themselves.

Then how is the company shutting down/being force to lay off worker a better situation for Leroy Average? If he can't afford to quit his job then he can't afford the company to disappear either. Better for the company to keep existing and he can look for another job while working there or look to pivot to another industry if he can't find anything else.

 

[happyninja42]

Then how is the company shutting down/being force to lay off worker a better situation for Leroy Average? If he can't afford to quit his job then he can't afford the company to disappear either. Better for the company to keep existing and he can look for another job while working there or look to pivot to another industry if he can't find anything else.

On the individual level, the company shutting down due to legal issues ISN'T better for Leroy. I'm just pointing out the human rationalization side of these things. It's easy to say "well just quit working there, problem solved." But it's never that simple for the majority of humanity. They have people depending on them, so having THEM spearhead the effort to stop the company is just doomed to failure. However, if the company is found guilty of criminal behavior, and is shut down, it's highly likely that the employees, as the aggrieved party, could file for a class action suit, and get a nice payout from the seizure of assets. Or it might be part of the court findings, that the company, MUST pay out X amount of money in damages and restitution.

But asking all the Leroys to try and take the fight to a global megacorporation, and think it will amount to anything productive, while 100% guaranteeing they will lose their only source of survival....yeah that's just not a risk most people are willing to take. Especially these days. That's why things like Unions are important, as they potentially have the weight and clout to keep the company in line, and why laws need to be put in place to make sure these digital empires aren't getting away with rape and murder, due to laws that are still written based on the world as it was in 1980.

 

[Ringo]

I love some of Nintendo's older games, but I really dislike how anti-consumer and anti-fan community they are. I haven't given them a cent since the mid 00's, so it's hard for me to say I like their newer games or not. I haven't played them.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

It's painful for me honestly. Because unlike with Ubisoft, in which I could give two shits about any of their games really, Blizzard was a 20 years legacy for me. From playing Diablo 2, to World of Warcraft and the decade of friendships and adventures I had within that game. Without WoW, my high school and college years would absolutely have been utterly friendless. Without Blizzard I likely would not be the gamer I am today, and hell video gaming probably wouldn't be much part of my life.

Not that a life without gaming would be terrible, who could say, but i don't regret becoming a gamer up to this very day.

It is very saddening, to see that the things that brought me such joy throughout my life only exist at the cost of incredible misery and hardship. What do you do at that point? It is very painful for me and many other people probably to know that all our wonderful memories now have this level of taint upon them. these games couldn't just get made by a group of people who really wanted to make games, they had to be made through a haze of assault and abuse. And i enjoyed the results of that greatly. i feel tainted because of that. I can't retroactively get my money back, my time back, I can't remake those memories in another way. I can't do anything but sit and stew about it.

fucking sucks.

You do realize that, as privileged Americans, the modern life we enjoy and often take for granted (with or without games) is built off the backs of much less fortunate souls, in one form or another.

The only solution is revamping the whole system, or more likely experiencing a catastrophic event that will set us all back to square one (or two if we’re lucky). Either that or in the meantime simply going off grid, aiming for total self sufficiency.

 

[CriticalGaming]

You do realize that, as privileged Americans, the modern life we enjoy and often take for granted (with or without games) is built off the backs of much less fortunate souls, in one form or another.

The only solution is revamping the whole system, or more likely experiencing a catastrophic event that will set us all back to square one (or two if we’re lucky).

Yeah I dont think simply making sure people aren't getting molested at the office should be that hardcore of a fucking change.

 

[Piscian]

I'm afraid protesting publishers is a young persons game. mild /s. For the scant few hours of free time I have a week it usually just goes to the highest bidder. I hate EA with a fiery passion, but come october when the mates are clapping at me to pick up Battlefield I'll grit my teeth and buy it anyway.

The funny thing about blizzard is that I havent supported them since like Diablo II. It honestly has nothing to my beliefs they're just the only publisher that still makes you jump through hoops to buy and enjoy their games. I literally can be bothered to fix my battlenet account so fuck'm. I don't know blizzards always doing weird nefarious shit both in staff, in development, and to the public so every time I almost consider buying a Blizzard game I end up not bothering. I'm sure they'll do something stupid to piss me off enough to skip Overwatch 2 as well.

 

[Samtemdo8]

I hate companies for hording so many IPs of games that belonged to now defunct developers.

EA has the Ultima Franchise and they will never let it out of their vaults to make a new Ultima game unless someone buys it for an obscene amount of money.

We could have had reboots of the games by now.

 

[Worgen]

I hated blizzard before it was cool.

Anyway this might as well be called 'EA the thread' cause I don't think any publisher has a stronger catalog of IPs that have been thrown away or ignored or turned into shit... maybe Activision... probably activision.

 

[BrawlMan]

I hated blizzard before it was cool.

Anyway this might as well be called 'EA the thread' cause I don't think any publisher has a stronger catalog of IPs that have been thrown away or ignored or turned into shit... maybe Activision... probably activision.

Speaking of EA....Shadows of the Damned and Bulletstorm. EA screwed over Suda51 so hard of the former's original concept. I still like the end product, but they lied to him and kept fucking with his original vision. The good news is that they gave the rights back to Suda back in 2017, so he can do whatever he wants with it or reboot the game. Bulletstorm, EA was far more kinder to the game and developers themselves, People Can Fly. EA lost the publishing rights, which falls on Gearbox. Fuck them too, but I am glad they bothered putting this game on modern consoles, and added some nice bonuses. And no, I ain't talking about Duke Nukem. We're most likely not gonna get a sequel though.

Burnout and Need for Speed. I've ranted enough on those.


Activison: The Crash Remake Trilogy, Crash 4, and Singularity.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Speaking of EA....Shadows of the Damned and Bulletstorm. EA screwed over Suda51 so hard of the former's original concept. I still like the end product, but they lied to him and kept fucking with his original vision. The good news is that they gave the rights back to Suda back in 2017, so he can do whatever he wants with it or reboot the game. Bulletstorm, EA was far more kinder to the game and developers themselves, People Can Fly. EA lost the publishing rights, which falls on Gearbox. Fuck them too, but I am glad they bothered putting this game on modern consoles, and added some nice bonuses. And no, I ain't talking about Duke Nukem. We're most likely not gonna get a sequel though.

Burnout and Need for Speed. I've ranted enough on those.


Activison: The Crash Remake Trilogy, Crash 4, and Singularity.

Dude Bulletstorm was soooo fucking good. Why do the cool games never get follow ups?

 

[BrawlMan]

Dude Bulletstorm was soooo fucking good. Why do the cool games never get follow ups?

Because everyone was obsessed with competitive COD/Halo style multiplayer. Bulletstorm has a single player, score attack/survival, and the co-op team raid mode style multiplayer. Not much else before the 8th gen ports. This game has one of the best multiplayer modes in gaming that kinda went underappreciated. The good news is that people still play this mode on modern consoles/PC and people actually works in teams and are respectful to one another.

The other follow up problem is that just because you make a game/movie/book/TV series, don't assume it'll be an instant franchise success. Don't end on an obvious sequel hook. At the very least, make an open ending so it can end either way. Grasshopper Studios were smart enough to do that with a majority of their games. So many games in the 6th, 7th, and 8th generation suffered from this. Most forgotten and fallen in the anals of their respective time period(s).

 

[meiam]

Dude Bulletstorm was soooo fucking good. Why do the cool games never get follow ups?

Didn't it bomb pretty hard? You can blame studio for most IP dying but when they bomb I think its pretty resonable to abandon them.

 

[Bedinsis]

I sometimes wish there was a long list of all the transgressions various companies are responsible for, and a list of companies without such transgressions, so that one could know what the "moral alternative" would be.

 

[happyninja42]

I sometimes wish there was a long list of all the transgressions various companies are responsible for, and a list of companies without such transgressions, so that one could know what the "moral alternative" would be.

I'm sure someone out there, some watchdog group or whatever, has compiled that data. Plus, a lot of that has the potential to be public information, if it's a public legal case or complaint, depending on the issue in question. You might not get details, but you could at least know there is a case on the docket for X crime by Y company.