Blizzard Devs Vs Asmongold: A Call For Pragmatism In The Social Media Age 

@M J Nah.

@@icipher6730 true....even suicide numbers multiplied in some regions

That's a two-way road, though. Using Asmongold as an example, I enjoy watching him, I believe he has many great qualities as a person and content creator, but you can argue that he also uses social media to, even if indirectly, and unconsciously, disrespect people. For example, the controversy regarding the use of the world "retarded", which he openly said he is fine with. What makes it different than calling people the N word? Both words represent a stigma, for people used to be called it in a derogatory way, in a way to represent them as inferior. Completely capable people that suffer from mental illnesses such as Autism or Down's, are called "retarded", and if they say it hurts, I believe them. I know it is not the intention when you are using it against someone that has no mental illness, but that's exactly the point - indirectly you are implying that they "act like they are", as if people who actually suffer from these issues are any less worthy of the chance to do something, or of our respect. That's just an example and I still catch myself thinking or almost saying it to others in online games or to call the president of my country, so it's not something easy to "take out" of our system. But then I do my best to refrain from saying it. However when such a big streamer fails to recognize that their opinion might not be directly aimed at specific others, but might still be used by their fanbase to further spread harm, then I agree that sometimes the first stone was thrown by them, even if they are not aware of it. To quote Bellullar, "do you actually feel entitled to have free reign to do and say whatever you want without consequence?" - This, in my opinion, could apply to both the "righteous" offenders that attack Asmon, but to Asmon himself, unfortunately. That's the internet jungle.

@@voidgods you bring up a very good point: intent. There's a saying: we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions. It took me a while, but eventually I realized my intentions aren't important. My results are.

yeah though at the sametime you prevent young people from actually making change in the real world and tell them they will live at worse standards than their parents cause of some old people and how the economy is badly run no shit they gonna be acting strange online, a place where all the negative shit is not there.

Do you expect them to CRUNCH!!!!!!??????

literally the "this is fine" meme.

The thing is its not developers, but mostly designers, the people that have a job to think about systems and representation and other weird things normal players dont care about which in turn leads to being inside their own heads for way too long. They push their ideas to the devs to implement while they get some coffee and spend 30 minutes to read some twitter posts. It is a part of their job to investigate how their ideas are going, but its just sad when they cant keep an open mind and change themselves.

Amazing how they suddenly found the time to add much requested additions that they "didn't have the time" to implement before.

@@mostlypixels2975 More like they were told not to do them kek

Wow hardly have community managers. Gms very rarely talk on forums, lack of communication was going for years from bliz side

I think communication between devs and players can be good. But... pretty much any other job, regardless of if you're on work time or not - you talk shit about someone online and you can be identified as an employee of a company, you represent that company. You would be fired/reprimanded. Very few other industries get this kind of leeway. If Asmongold gets hype for a patch or update for WoW, that's thousands of people re-subbing. Any other business would crucify an employee for costing them sales by engaging negatively with such a customer.

Tribalism. They must defend their game at all cost and against all criticism lest their frail composite identity be unraveled. Standard dumass behavior.

Toxic devs engaging on the most toxic social platform what do you expect

That’s what happens when. Your billion dollar company is managed by clowns .they use the same great forethought in their game design, and it shows ! Keep digging blizzard, you need a mighty big hole to bury a company that big and successful. you dig really well, with passion !

Aren't Metallica the ones responsible for starting this dmca nightmare we live in?

@@franzhopper7631 not exactly, but they did purposely put themselves out there as the face of it... So they deserve to be directly linked to it

That's among the stupidest things I've ever read. Are you serious? I completely missed this!

@@BrilliantSunsGaming lol should watch the video the music they dubbed over might as well be on barney.

@@franzhopper7631 yes and no. they helped and lobbied for copyright infringement laws against napster and limewire. the suit against them started the fight against piracy, but it turned into striking down fair use, and literal artist approved performances. its all because record labels want more money, and no matter what the artist themselves say, their approval doesn't mean shit when the label that oversees them does all the rights and publication.

This era of progressive “tolerance” is agree with us or we will be the most vile narcissistic garbage humans. They are the biggest hypocrites and idiots. Asmongold is an ass sometimes but not the reincarnation of Hitler they make him out to be or anyone they don’t like in general.

He wouldn't really be wrong but Asmon isn't the devil he's made out to be. Historically he's himself lead or encouraged harassment campaigns. Such as taking his streams to crash and harass players on role-playing servers during open player run events. Some in the Mythic+ community hold him responsible for changes to chests in dungeon completion and his influence negatively affecting major content changes. Or exploiting the RMT market to buy carries that he gets exception for while blizzard punishes regular players. The truth of the matter is that he's been flagged for TOS violations so many times that he should have been permabanned a few dozen times over. He's not responsible for the decline of the community though.

Asmongold is an asshole sometimes, but so is everyone. However, his arguments against what WoW and Blizzard has become were justified and backed up with evidence. The dev was triggered by Asmongold's statements because they're not used to seeing the backlash that has been building. But, that's what happens when you continually ignore your player base. Also, ignore Strik Ace as this has nothing to do with politics at all.

I really think he's mellowed out a bit. Still edgy sometimes, sure, and he did say some really awful shit in the past, but he doesn't say (or probably even believe) the types of things they're accusing him of anymore.

The dude used to be a misogynistic piece of trash, and a lot of his followers are toxic man babies like Strik Ace, who has also responded. The "how dare you not tolerate our intolerance" types.

@Urazz the problem is that as an employee your behaviour can and often does reflect on the employer who employed you. It's not uncommon to see people get fired over exercising their "freedom of speech". You (in general, not you specifically) absolutely have FoS, you also have consequences for spouting things in a void on social media. People who are aware of this usually don't get caught in such a mess. People who do are not aware or do kot care about it.

@@Aelendris Yeah, the Freedom of Speech is specifically about the government being unable to prevent you from saying what you want to. Doesn't mean there aren't social consequences for saying whatever you want. Your job isn't a democracy, you don't vote for your boss.

That probably are that unprofessional. Without the blizzard brand and the history of world of Warcraft the current game would not sell. You could not take wow as it is today and give it a reskin and be successful. The only reason why there's players is because the history of the game and people's hopes it'll be good again. But there's a lot of hubris within the company just by being part of the team even if they're not actually creative contributors in the legacy of the game in a positive way.

I find the most hateful and toxic people tend to be the same ones preaching “progressive” values

@@RenegadeVash true and real

@@RenegadeVash - ahhhh, a variant of the "how dare you not tolerate my intolerance" whining.

@@RenegadeVash Projection 101. Reich Wing hates: Gays, Trans, Women (wants to force them into becoming living incubators), Hispanics, Blacks, Muslims... basically anyone that isn't white male that focuses solely on being intellectually absent and licking Trump's boots.

Why more legal trouble, more money. Their lawyers are most likely just as deranged as the devs are.

@@NerdlySquared becarefull dude some people dont understand sarcasm

And that’s the main criticism I hear, is that they don’t listen to their fans and keep making the same mistakes, doubling down on them even

Bungie has been operating the same way since 2014. Same with Ubisoft. They don't use their forums to seek out player concerns, they use them to ban accounts that question their decisions.

I honestly think the dev responses to Azmond are more personal than monetary. they are emotionally responding to everything & hate anyone who doesn'tthink like them.

I am 100% sure this is 100% it. I'm not really a fan of Asmongold but his criticism of Blizzard is spot on lately. If they want to fix this perception problem they need to fix the game systems.

@@Hrodebertgaming I don't even play WOW, but I know the devs are hostile

Lol you repeated the thing bellular said like he's your dad lol

Oh man I remember Talesin(?) saying Asmongold shouldn't do that. I like the guy and his usually new perspective thinking on issues about the game, but the dude was totally wrong about not punching down. Forget that, you should totally be within your right to punch back, no matter if it is up or down.

@Killingdance - spoken like a thin skinned child

Grade A waste of resources, that guy. Asmongold, I mean.

@@DerekScottBland found fragile black supremacist

It's easy, once you realize that developers think that they're owed our money.

Game directors from GGG and amazon could do a very civil discussion and interviews about mmos with him. But the blizz devs still act like he's their boogeyman

@@toolshedvideo it's a very Communist way of thinking. Not surprising considering how many of them there are at Blizzard

Asmongold has done nothing but shit on WoW since Legion, sure he played a lot but he was and always has been a PR nightmare for Blizzard even when WoW was doing OK back in Legion he did nothing but complain. It's not baffling at all, at most he was a useful idiot for promoting WoW in his stream but to say he has supported WoW as in him being a WoW supporter is a big stretch, it's this trackrecord that's pretty much banned him from having ANY interviews or discussions from any gaming company on his stream/YT. He's referenced a lot but never actually engaged with.

@@ammox4683 i still havent forgotten those devs promoting a tweet to mass report him on ff14 theyre still definitely engaging him in the most pathetic and unproductive way thats for sure

The problem is programmers that think they're rock stars.

@@toolshedvideo I get the feeling that’s what he meant haha

@@emdubb1381 Yeah, I know, but I'm trying to point out how absurd they must be to think that coding makes them glamorous in any way

@@toolshedvideo As a programmer, I agree with this statement. David Lee Roth: he was cool. Dee Snider? Cool. J Allen Brack? Not cool. Not even close to cool.

@@TheRockinDonkeyLOL exactly. I mean, the only guy from a development studio that sounds like he isn't wetting himself onstage is Todd Howard

this! such baffling action they did. wouldn’t it be better for any person/company who was facing lawsuit and other eff up situation to just lay low? i am surprised they did the opposite.

Facts

yeah something about social media, basically leads to a habit you will see in many. To be massive aholes, even if the other person is trying to be as nice and reasonable as possible. Than they act like oh, they can't punch back. Like they forget how reality works. If you insult someone, odds are they are not going to be friendly back towards you. Just like if you punch someone, you shouldn't be surprise when they punch back. Which with how big blizzard is and well known they are, anything they say is akin to speaking in public with how many people are watching and bad news can spread way faster these days. Which unlike the old saying, any pr is good pr, is not really true these days. For as seen recently with all the people quitting wow, you can only do so much nonsense before even the most hardcore of fans will just straight up and quit, due to having enough. for people don't like being treated like dirt over and over again. For with how easy it is to find games and reviews for them today, it easier than ever to jump ship or find a different game to play. blizzard can't afford to act like rockstars anymore, not with how their rep is in the dirt,how they have destroy more or less all good will they have earned over the past couple of years. No they are just simply of another dozen or so game companies out there. Yet hey, if blizzard wants to keep on acting like rockstars. Well it will be funny to see them burning their own company to the ground, since hey if they are not willing to listen or change their tone. Nothing you can really do beside laugh and enjoy some popcorn over the over flames.

Don’t forget shredding evidence of frat boy culture

He’s not woke therefore he’s a heretic. It’s really that simple.

I always thought ASMOND was an not the nicest guy , I’m more woke then whatever the opposite is, his mount offs got me back into BFA…….. but I don’t blame asmond , I blame blizzard , their the Worste . The worste .

Well said!

@@wackywarrior001 Exactly what WW said. Same here. Well said, WW.

He is more or less pointing at the problems and people start following that narrative. The guy(s) from Blizz arent wrong saying that. Where they are wrong is that he is the reason for the games downfall. He is just the result of bad gamedesign and is one of the more vocal parts of the community.

They also told a lot of their dumb devs to shut up. Several of them made their twitters private after putting their foot in mouth.

not really, the diehards are gonna be hopeful, but the greater part of the community is weary and they are watching closely for an excuse to say goodbye to Blizzard forever, 10.0 they'll need to prove they've learned their lesson or no amount of whales will save Azeroth from it's end.

@@UltimateGamerCC they will never learn

@@Leohast we'll have to see, they have been bending over backwards the past few weeks, again if they dont show results in 10.0 they are literally screwed, not 10.0.5 not 10.1.0 they have to do it right by actually using the feedback before it goes live.

@@UltimateGamerCC The current game design has been ongoing for years. If they haven’t quit yet they won’t, gamers in general are the most idiotic and pathetic consumers. Pay early for broken products every few months constantly but never learn, I don’t blame companies for milking idiots. Gamers are going to be the death of games.

We said that this expansion

Oh nothing is changing, Blizzard is not listening to the players. This is a throw away patch for PR. I will say the next one will be as well. Then it will be back to gouging the players for more money and systems that feel like a job.

Well they own people money for not delivering on their own mission statement.

​@@danpavlis3016 Oh, I know. I stopped playing Blizzard games when the whole Blitzchung debacle happened, so it's not like I'm willing to put up with their BS. It's just that the amount of players fleeing WoW at this point is bad enough that you'd think their recent coments about "having to regain the playerbase's trust" would actually mean something this time around, because that would make sense from a business perspective, you know? But I still see the same symptoms in their attitude, so yeah... I don't expect anything good.

9.1.5 is the same move Blizzard has made during the last two expansions. "Fixing" the horrid systems everyone told them were horrid from the beginning because they "weren't working out as they had hoped" despite everyone telling them that from the beginning. The only difference this time around is that it's happening in a 1.5 patch instead of a 3.5 in time for the next expansion and the next horrid borrowed power system. The very fact that they said for months upon months that changes like Covenant swapping and getting rid of Anima Power were straight up not possible, yet they miraculously managed it as soon as sub numbers started outright hemorrhaging shows that. They always planned to implement these changes, from day one guaranteed. The only actual change they are making now is their timeline. The only way I will believe any of this counts as a lesson learned, is if when the next expac is announced, they content they lay out is story, dungeons, raids. If there is not a single mention of a borrowed power mechanic or endless grind, then I'll believe they listened.

And this is why I don't believe WoW will get better just cause that Sockpuppet Brack got replaced. Kotick and Ion are still in place.

Truer words have never been spoken.

Doesn't matter of brand or not. Who wouldn't? Especially with a tone like that

You don't have to attend every fight you're invited to.

gonna be taking those statements as they really are great articulations of it. The problem to me seems that the core of who twitter is designed/curated is about sticking you nose into other peoples business and its a two way street people using twitter to have the internet equivalent of an argument in the middle of the street for all to see and my opinion on that is unless some is being or threatening physical harm don't get involved and if they are call the police not jump in the middle thinking you are an action hero, but thx to the fact for a lot of people twitter removes much of the consequence for getting involved in shit that isn't your business has made way to many actively eager to get into shit that has nothing to do with them.

Exactly let them make their own mistakes because they will regret it sooner or later when someone finally claps back

Because those that get involved in other people's business win the game of civilization. People who genuinely think that they can "just leave everyone alone" end up in chains.

They've also lost the art of disagreeing and then just moving on, instead of making any statement they hear into a total crusade.

it does

yep, it is.

100%

Ya'll are rock stars I'm the opposite, I can just throw a rock and, hit a star for the fuck of it.

Yes, more specifically 'stop being terminally online and go outside'

Ye they really do :)

u sure they are just not outsourced like a lot of the last content .

Probably both.

@@Archyoda7 No, it's now a bunch of social just idiots who have no experience in creating things.

The consequences of the diversity hire and culture are obvious.

Kekw, because they can't.

It seems that they only miss the last step to me.

iirc theres an acronym used to describe this sort of deflection used by abusers

To be fair, sometimes the fans of the person with the bigger following are wrong. That's when things get nasty

Michael's sucking up to someone bigger than he is, that's all. He doesn't want As to unleash his army of idiots on this channel.

@@DerekScottBland what?

@@DerekScottBland ... no.

@@DerekScottBland you weren't around when bellular finally lost his shit at blizzard then.

@@Rayhaku808 - yes, I was, but it's obvious he's afraid of Asmongold attacking him and sending his army of basement dwellers his way.

I think Bellular summed it up well. They think in entirely political and social terms and have radicalized by being on Twitter nonstop. Thus they see Asmongold as a social issue to combat, not as a person.

“Massive Extreme” welcome to the internet

I find many time Dev response in such a childish way even using formal speech while Asmongold response in a reasonable way even with his a childish speech it's weird which side are more mature and professional *in their own jobs*.

On point

Wow 2 will be like Everquest 2 …… remember that game…… yeah most don’t ….. blizzard will be a lesson of what NOT to do . How do you destroy a billion dollar company , it takes HARD work but blizzard will show you how

Very well said.

Thats what gets me about the whole “its my opinion not the companies” thing. If you make a statement like that and the company lets it stay up they are associating with your thoughts. If I or majority of people came out left field and said hateful comments online most of us would be fired if our bosses find out its usually written in your contract.

So to play devil's advocate for a moment: How is a developer or team of developers or lead designer exactly supposed to take it when Asmogold or Bellular or some other creator cock over and shit all over their ideas and work? It's not like all content creators or people on social media have a reputation for being the most diplomatic or careful with words individuals out there, I've personally seen developers called stupid, morons, idiots, accused of sabotaging the game... and this is all in a world of what amounts to competing design interest, ideas or philosophy. We've all (well most of us) written at least one bad essay in our lives and had a teacher tear you a new one, but imagine that teacher making a video about it and having teachers from all over the world just rip you over and over and over non-stop brutally... fuck that happened to me at 18 in college and I gave up on what could have been a promising career in journalism. The same way creators and players want their humanity respected, I feel like we need to also understand, the folks making this game are human too, and the exchange of currency doesn't remove that.

@@R.Jay.Creations Bellular has a constructive critique. He did not call devs names aka stupid. But it is important that feedback is given. If all customers would be nice and always happy with the product, product would get worse and worse. Devs should though take the critique as it is and not feel offended for every shit.

@@R.Jay.Creations I can understand that it must be hard to deal with the extensive criticism you receive when your work is for public consumption. People judging and criticising your work is part of the job. Yes it sucks to have your work judged by millions and there are fans that absolutely do take it too far. Creators like Bell and Asmon have onky ever criticised the work and the product, for those developers to then turn around and attack them personally. Their character or the way. I can empathise tensions would be high but why is it okay for a game developer to say things like that? If I snapped at a client at work and called them an asshole id be fired. If an actor snapped at a film critic on twitter they’d ruin their reputation. Again this isn’t defending those that do take it too far and attack the developers personally.

He leaks some hot takes sometimes about pronouns and trans people, but it's really his twitch chat that is toxic and gives him a bad rep. His mods are VERY loose with bans. Antisemitism and homophobia gets a pass for some reason

@@KingK0ma Yup. They've come over here in droves to defend him with their rampant toxicity and misogyny.

I wonder how much power Ion has lost with the change of CEO's.

Jeff Hamilton most assuredly needs to be fired. He is ethically harmful to everyone.

Make that everyone but the art team , everyone but the art team needs to go .

@@wackywarrior001 I don't know..... there are starting to show some cracks in the art team as well. Sad to say it.... but the various in-game cutscenes for the korthia campaign were pretty terrible. I have many good things to say for the art team on other things... but even they are not flawless like I considered them in the past.

But everyone are free to criticize freely the game even if it's a big influencer

Better than lying on his audiance

Most important it has to be earned, not granted

@@mauriceanderson5413 you are definitely right

People playing Japanese/Korean MMO begging for wows ui.