The way they didn't release a single trailer with footage of the actual game that exists until after it was released is absolutely unforgivable.
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Would you say that Warcraft III: Reforged is the most anti-consumer act ever committed by a large game publisher?
- Thread starter ScOULaris
- Start date
I dunno it seems pretty horrible to me, but Blizzard have pioneered a bunch of consumer hostile stuff that people have lapped up, so seems to me that this was the natural evolution of that.
You was the generation that bought stat boosts and you get what you deserve.
I doubt the backlash to this will even register on Blizzard's radar.
Same company that after the BlitzChung thing just said "oopsie daisy" and people were falling over themselves to consume products and get excited to consume future products, despite no actual statement of action to rectify things.
You was the generation that bought stat boosts and you get what you deserve.
I doubt the backlash to this will even register on Blizzard's radar.
Same company that after the BlitzChung thing just said "oopsie daisy" and people were falling over themselves to consume products and get excited to consume future products, despite no actual statement of action to rectify things.
yeah. "oh, they said the cutscenes would be removed." didn't stop them from using the 2018 trailer on GDQ
The bait and switch was terrible. They really did not go out there to address the change in direction, it was only quietly said on some behind paywall panel at blizzcon with limited coverage. They didn't even change it on the website or any other formal announcement that yeah, the scope of this project is greatly reduced since the last time we talked about it and announced the thing. They didn't do any of it. It was probably intentional but that's not even important even if it wasn't, it is still misleading advertising.
I don't know about the worst though. Say, FFXV is a similar thing. Hardly any footage from the trailers are in the final product. They cut so much and it changed so much. They similarly addressed that it is different now on some live streams but most people probably won't hear about those imo and they think they are buying that game they saw at e3 or some big expo. Misleading is so common in this industry that I don't think it can be the worst, it's just another case of same shit, that's why you should never preorder. You never know what you get.
I don't know about the worst though. Say, FFXV is a similar thing. Hardly any footage from the trailers are in the final product. They cut so much and it changed so much. They similarly addressed that it is different now on some live streams but most people probably won't hear about those imo and they think they are buying that game they saw at e3 or some big expo. Misleading is so common in this industry that I don't think it can be the worst, it's just another case of same shit, that's why you should never preorder. You never know what you get.
But it's not just a bait and switch. All the owners of the original wc3 got screwed whether they bought the product or not. They removed features with No warning. People can't play the base wc3 the way it was before reforged came out
and they never mentioned they were going to do this
People coming into this thread with flippant comments need to understand this isn't simply a bad remaster that you can easily ignore. People with no intention of buying Reforged are forced to use it, with cut features and content. People are getting a worse game forced on them and erasing all the content the community built up over nearly 20 years.
That's not actually a big deal because everyone was playing on private w3arena servers anyway before blizzard remembered they had this game. They can go back to that. It has a solution. bnet servers were rubbish and full of cheaters, so they actually improved it imo, they are more useful than before this whole patching thing. I know because I actually played this game then unlike the outraged op.
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I don't know that I would consider it egregiously "anti-consumer", that just feels like a term being leveraged here to justify and whip up extra outrage and a grander sense of objective authority over how bad it is.
I mean, it is pretty anti-consumer to force you to use a pared down version of a client that wipes features you used to have even if you had no intention of upgrading to this new version, just to keep playing online as you have for years, but now with additional region locking and fewer options.
It may not be the most anti-consumer thing, because they have the potential to fix it and I'd probably agree that aggressive MTX is worse.
Ya know, it might be? We need to let it sit for awhile to know for sure, I think. But the impact on the classic game and the custom work people have poured into the game for almost two decades, when you combine that with the new terms for custom creations, it's definitely up there.
After the hearthstone china incident I decided to drop my blizzard account, but I still kinda had the itchy of playing the remaster of a very important game in my life when I had some of the fondest memories with my childhood friends
But then Blizzard decided to make my life easier and release a huge piece of shit, I'm glad that I never preordered it
But then Blizzard decided to make my life easier and release a huge piece of shit, I'm glad that I never preordered it
What's the issue with this?
Blizzard doesn't own the rights to the games, they own the rights to the name and content made within the engine. If someone creates some amazing First Person Racing Moba Platformer Battle Royale, all blizzard owns is the content and the name... nothing is stopping someone from ripping off the concept and just renaming it.
League of Legends didn't suffer from not being named Defense of the Ancients. All their TOS really covers is losing trademarks to popular concepts.
And before anyone says "Well HOTS suffered from not being called DOTA!" No, hots suffers because Valve just did it better. HOTS could have been called DOTA 2 and Dota 2 could have been called Big Rigs 2 and Big Rigs 2 would have still been the superior game.
Have you watched the video? you cannot even play custom single player maps anymore.
People are coming in here thinking it's just whining about a bad remaster when it is actually much worse than that. Also, the usage of "anti-consumer" has sort of been tainted over the years, and any usage of that term automatically triggers some people to give a snarky, flippant response dismissing the issue without reading into the situation at all.
To everyone who didn't bother reading the links in the OP:
Remember how Activision re-released Modern Warfare 2 and put loot crates in the remaster?
The Reforged equivalent would be, you go to boot up your OG Modern Warfare 2 (without buying the remaster) you are greeted with a 20+ GB update that removes half the multiplayer modes and rebalances the game for the newly added loot crates, to make it just like the remaster.
Like, we've seen shitty remasters before. We saw OG versions of games being pulled from sale when remasters come out. But the publishers never went as far as to overwrite the previous version of the game you already bought with a crappy remaster, whether you've bought it or not.
THAT'S what makes it messed up. Blizzard is forcing Classic users to use an inferior, broken version of the game, with an option to get better-looking graphics as "consolation prize" for 30 bucks. But if you don't want to pay 30 bucks, your original game is still wrecked.
Remember how Activision re-released Modern Warfare 2 and put loot crates in the remaster?
The Reforged equivalent would be, you go to boot up your OG Modern Warfare 2 (without buying the remaster) you are greeted with a 20+ GB update that removes half the multiplayer modes and rebalances the game for the newly added loot crates, to make it just like the remaster.
Like, we've seen shitty remasters before. We saw OG versions of games being pulled from sale when remasters come out. But the publishers never went as far as to overwrite the previous version of the game you already bought with a crappy remaster, whether you've bought it or not.
THAT'S what makes it messed up. Blizzard is forcing Classic users to use an inferior, broken version of the game, with an option to get better-looking graphics as "consolation prize" for 30 bucks. But if you don't want to pay 30 bucks, your original game is still wrecked.
Is it incorrect to say that the damage to classic Warcraft III is a totally unprecedented situation? Can anyone think of any comparable examples?
Isn't the anit consumer the guy they just beat in Crisis on infinite earths?
Valve locking the Kidvoker Persona behind a Battle Pass
Let me buy that shit bitchhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I'm joking but also not joking.
Yeah, Valve locking International cosmetics behind larger paywalls is bad.
The real answer, though, is horse armor. Everything has gone downhill since.
Worst so far this year? Yes. Worst of the decade so far (in its one month)? You betcha. Worst ever? Hell no.
Say what you will about Reforged, it probably can't psychologically and financially ruin a person. The same can't be said about shit like Fifa these days.
Say what you will about Reforged, it probably can't psychologically and financially ruin a person. The same can't be said about shit like Fifa these days.
The : surprise! Your previously perfectly working purchased copy of the game is now ruined with an 'update' that removes many features the original game was built and sold upon, AND they want you to pay extra for in-app-purchases AND it wasn't an opt-in situation is pretty damned unbelievable.
Even if you hadn't been paying any attention and didn't know a new version was coming, just being online and the Blizzard updater would nail you like a bad case of an extortion virus, only instead of restoring your stuff, the best they can do is sell you more for a worse version.
Pretty incredible. Stunning even. Bethesda must be dancing in their penthouses at the sheer idiocy of it, even FO76 looks competent compared to this.
Even if you hadn't been paying any attention and didn't know a new version was coming, just being online and the Blizzard updater would nail you like a bad case of an extortion virus, only instead of restoring your stuff, the best they can do is sell you more for a worse version.
Pretty incredible. Stunning even. Bethesda must be dancing in their penthouses at the sheer idiocy of it, even FO76 looks competent compared to this.
"Did you seriously just say heretofore??"
But it's probably one of the most anticonsumer acts in gaming, simply because it literally undoes an original purchase to replace it.
But it's probably one of the most anticonsumer acts in gaming, simply because it literally undoes an original purchase to replace it.
Holy shit are you serious right now? They really added more MTX into WARCRAFT 3?????
I think just about every major sports game is way, way worse considering kids are getting exposed to what is effectively gambling. That shit can spiral and cause lifelong issues.
Does BDO get itself into an older game and takes features away from it?
Seriously. People are bringing up cases of bad games.... But for all of those, there's an option of NOT BUYING THE BAD GAME.
Here, we have a company going back and deliberately destroying a beloved 18-year old classic game.... to try to sell a shitty remaster.
So people can't receive a refund? My guess is that they made the game exclusive to their own launcher?
I mean, there are many examples of online games shutting down service, or games being rendered unplayable by DRM, or various other instances of purchases being rendered null.
This is technically not even quite as bad as that.
Blizzard has utterly screwed up here, and on many levels. It's staggering, and they need to be held accountable. But people nowadays really need to stop framing everything at the extremes of "WORST/BEST EVER," because it only serves to sabotage their arguments. Such hyperbolic statements are rarely supportable, and people's memories short.
actually, getting a refund on B Net is very easy. that isn't the problem.
My gut instinct says no, but typical rereleases/remasters don't also simultaneously cripple the old version of the game in question. That's particularly novel for this case I think.
In my personal case:
- Last time I played the original WC III was15 years ago, and I would have never done it again without this version with updated assets.
- I'm not seeing any micro-transactions or pay to win dynamics in my single player campaign so, NO, I don't think this is the most "anti consumer" act ever. Not even close.
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Warcraft 3 Reforged is a special case because it goes out of its way to overwrite the existing, classic version of the original game. That combined with an ordinary downgrade bait and switch, and the new HD assets not looking super great, and Blizzard's radio silence all week, is a really bad combination.
All of that said, I still think predatory microtransactions (lootboxes etc.) are as low as the industry has gone. They're so normalized that people don't really talk about them anymore, but in terms of scumminess I think a typical mobile or AAA game extracting hundreds of dollars from a whale is worse than Warcraft 3 Reforged.
All of that said, I still think predatory microtransactions (lootboxes etc.) are as low as the industry has gone. They're so normalized that people don't really talk about them anymore, but in terms of scumminess I think a typical mobile or AAA game extracting hundreds of dollars from a whale is worse than Warcraft 3 Reforged.
Pretty much, this is far from the worst thing. It sucks and I would love them to fix it but people are just overreacting about this like normal.
I don't know, OP has a point. Imagine you're playing TLOU 2 and then a rep from Naughty Dog walks into your home and swaps the TLOU 2 disc with a copy of Bubsy 3D and says "yeah this is your version of TLOU 2 now, because we said so".
Well blizzard lied about what would be in the game and updated their ToS which now says "We own all the original shit you make now" and the old stuff is now worse.
SO yes fuck blizzard
SO yes fuck blizzard
Diablo 3 real money auction house
Paid lootboxes and other gambling mechanics
The encroach of micro and macro transactions
Dont know how anyone can look at the past decade and go "yeah a shitty remaster with false advertising is the most anti consumer act in all of gaming".
Paid lootboxes and other gambling mechanics
The encroach of micro and macro transactions
Dont know how anyone can look at the past decade and go "yeah a shitty remaster with false advertising is the most anti consumer act in all of gaming".
OP
OP
Because anyone can simply ignore microtransactions or generally not buy games that utilize them.
Nobody who owned WC3 could do a damn thing about their game being ruined. They had no choice in the matter whatsoever.
Is it shitty? Yes
Is it worse than companies intentionally exploiting vulnerable individuals (I.e people with addictive habits like gambling, children that don't know any better, etc) and dehumanizing them by likening them sea creatures? No not really
You may be able to easily avoid or ignore them but that isn't the case for everyone and having your copy of WC3 changed isn't going to potentially lead you to financial ruin.
Blizzard's design-by-committee approach to game development has always been a huge turn-off for me ever since Diablo 2, even the original Warcraft 3 was an extremely dull game.
That said, ever since Vivendi merged with Activision those sorts of anti-consumer moves were bound to happen.
That said, ever since Vivendi merged with Activision those sorts of anti-consumer moves were bound to happen.
There's definitely worse bullshit than this out there.
..but ruining classic Warcraft 3 for everyone even if they don't buy Reforged is legit awful. Business as usual for modern Blizzard.
..but ruining classic Warcraft 3 for everyone even if they don't buy Reforged is legit awful. Business as usual for modern Blizzard.
No.
#1 Online gaming ransoms
#2 Console exclusives in general
At least those are what first come to mind.
#1 Online gaming ransoms
#2 Console exclusives in general
At least those are what first come to mind.