The popularity of the projects released by Blizzard has significantly decreased in recent years. Many mistakes in determining the direction of development of future games, as well as a careless attitude towards fans, are slowly leading the once famous and powerful studio to withering. It was a matter of time until Blizzard's projects would have worthy and more accessible competitors for a wider audience that would be able to provide players with what they want. In December 2024, such releases were Marvel Rivals и Path of Exile 2.
Immediately after the release, competitors showed excellent online results and over time this indicator only continued to grow. Marvel Rivals plays daily on average 400 thousands man, and in PoE2 is stably located at the same time 450 thousands gamers. In contrast to these successes, games with similar genres from Blizzard are simply eating up the crumbs from the table: the release of the expansion "Vessel of Hatred" did not help Overwatch 2 still can't regain its former glory.
In essence, Blizzard is ruining its own legacy: the company is releasing new games in the series that are completely different from their predecessors. Adding fuel to the fire is the fact that when competitors create games that are more similar to the original Blizzard projects than the final "crafts" from Blizzard itself, the latter tries to groundlessly denigrate someone else's work.
On the social network X (Twitter) Rod Fergusson (head of the Diablo franchise) and Mike Ibarra (former head of Blizzard) already tried to ridicule the hype around the release of PoE 2 and MR, but in the end they only made it worse.
The secret of competitors is very simple — they really try to make good games, and Blizzard seems to have lost this skill, but doesn’t want to it it:
- Serial projects copy previous versions, and the next game often incorporates more shortcomings than advantages, so gamers it's more interesting to try a new product similar genre from a third-party publisher (for example, players are hooked by the deep development of the hero through a huge skill tree in PoE).
- The studio is spread thin across multiple projects that fail to live up to fans' expectations due to lack of content and mediocre quality (for example, Diablo Immortal and Overwatch 2), and the product at release does not always live up to the developers' promises.
- Instead of making quality games, the company is involved in lawsuits and high-profile scandals - similar corporate problems have a strong impact on the loyalty of the core audience.
- Aggressive monetization and inflated prices for additional content are pushing players away, while competitors, if they do offer donations, do so on more attractive .
As a result, many fans action RPG and Online first-person shooters are getting more enjoyment from projects like Path of Exile 2 and Marvel Rivals, while games from Metelitsa are gradually losing active players.
As an example, here are a few decisions by Blizzard that received a lot of hate from fans, which subsequently had a negative impact on the reputation of the studio's main games:
- The modern Western agenda has an impact on Overwatch significant impact. Thus, the figure of Tracer received a kind of "nerf" in a couple of patches, which, of course, did not escape the attention of players.
- Sets with expensive skins for Diablo IV, the price of which is more than half of the cost of the game itself or DLC for it.
- The pursuit of savings led to the release Warcraft 3 Reforged was a complete disappointment to players due to numerous bugs and performance issues, while the graphics were of low quality.
- В World of Warcraft Instead of serious work on patches and balance, they release expensive mounts.
- Created for Hearthstone paid skin, the cost of which is comparable to a AAA game.
The listed facts show why modern gamers increasingly prefer new projects from third-party studios, because the Blizzard company has practically lost its former reputation and is now simply chasing super profits.
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