[phillryu]

I feel like it's relevant to mention how huge Hearthstone is, and that's a mobile first game (at its best on iPad which is rare) that I feel is totally Blizzard tier quality with expected polish and substance to it, and both satisfied a lot of Blizzard fans + successfully tapped into that 10x market.

There's fair criticism to how it monetizes but it still dominates its category for a reason, they continue to own it like the MMO genre with WoW.

I don't know where I'm going with this, I guess just that between Overwatch and Hearthstone I actually mostly enjoyed this recent era of Blizzard and I'm more hopeful for what's next. I didn't feel contempt from them playing these games, I felt that old Blizzard spark.

[andrewzah]

Both of those were fine in the beginning. HS became impossible to play without endless grinding or spending money. Overwatch became tedious and toxic, due to both the players and how the developers responded (spamming in-game voicelines is now "toxic").

I think people just got fed up with online trading card games and the grind/monetization that they have. At least with MTG I can resell the cards... In fact MTG online with cockatrice is way more fun than HS or any of the other clones.

[akmarinov]

Yeah i find that weird, viewership numbers on Twitch for HS have been steadily dropping for the past 2 years and have halfed in the time.

Yet it seems people still play it.

[skystarman]

Hardcore gamers love to trash ATVI/Blizz but they are without a doubt dominant gaming developer/publisher in the business, and it's really not even close unless you count Tencent.

Ask people on HN if they like CoD and they'd laugh at you but the games are IMMENSELY popular every release and they print cash for ATVI.

[ineedasername]

When people bash Blizzard, they aren't bashing them based on their revenue or market penetration. A bad opinion of Blizzard does not translate into also believing they are failing to generate revenue or attract players. They have plenty of other reasons to bash Blizzard.

[skystarman]

This isn't what I was saying.

My point was that these criticisms never acknowledge that ATVI is massively successful and the critics are always in the minority.

They assume because a few hundred on a message board said something the entire company is a failure and everyone agrees.

For the record I agree with most of the criticism...I also acknowledge what I want isn't necessarily what others want.

[krageon]

Lots of people like terrible games. Even if it makes the publishers a ton of money, I don't need to care about that and in fact I don't.

[skystarman]

Just because you don't like something doesn't mean it's terrible.