Ex-World of Warcraft developer's thread about China and the gaming industry

blizzard hasn't made a good game for about 15 years now. When I was kid Blizzard produced games like warcraft 2 and Diablo. That all ended when they discovered the cash cow of mmorpg. The last unequivocally old blizzard quality game was frozen throne.

People have a tendency to remember games from their childhood more favorably. World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 were very high quality games. Obviously the business model had to change, we don't live in the 90's shareware world anymore.

> we don't live in the 90's shareware world anymore.

We do more than any other time since the 1990s; the modern F2P + IAP model is pretty much exactly a resurrection of the 1990s shareware model taking full advantage of low-friction online payments.

They're also both 10-15 years old!

The difference being the Shareware was much less obnoxious - you got the first act of Doom or Wolfenstein, and it was fully functional, you could enjoy it as much as you liked, the only impetus was to get more via shareware - modern F2P means that your experience is always hampered - even what you do experience is less than what it could be. Doom E1M1 was complete - you couldn't make the experience better by paying money, but there's always that XP potion or better item in a F2P model.

I disagree, there's often no "full version" of these free to play games to buy. There are a few developers that do the in app purchases to unlock the full version, and it seemed to a more popular business model in the early days of mobile app stores, but now they seem to be drowned in a sea of games that rely on an unending stream of in app purchases that incrementally move you forward.

Shut up youngster! Oh god we're so old...

um, have you heard of Starcraft 2?

Overwatch is a fantastic game.

Quality-wise SC2 was a huge disappointment for many of us.

"At this point, as had been hinted in the last two games, StarCraft’s story has morphed from “war between nuanced characters with their own motives and feelings” to “good heroes vs. evil demons,” which is a real shame."

https://kotaku.com/starcraft-ii-legacy-of-the-void-the-kotak...

>If you have been living in a supply depot for the past 20 years and have never heard of StarCraft, here’s a brief explanation: This is a real-time strategy game, with a top-down perspective.

SC2 actually has an isometric perspective but I wouldn't expect Jason Schreier, of all people, to know the difference.