I Really Enjoy Hearthstone!
I admire the Blizzard corporate ethos of putting the consumer and the consumer's experience first. I think its a difficult stadard to hold yourself up to!
but I think it is an ideal that helped Blizzard make some very powerful and fun games.
but, man oh man, does that make Blizzard fans entitled! I mean, the Blizzard ethos celebrates fans, and celebrztes its employees as fans, and intentionally markets itself as a community for fans. But in rasing up the consumers, we enter a paradox a little. First, mass media cannot cater to everyone's niche. The more consumers it must appeal to, the more broad and accessable it must be. But when you celebrate fans, you put them on a pedistal, fans feel as if they have ownership over a media property. So if something happens to your company that polarizes its audience, or there is a great yawning of dissatisfgaction within the community itself, potential customers get alienated.
And if you see yourself as a member of the Blizzard community, when that just obscures the real relationship with Blizzard, some things recently have probably been very upsetting! So I kind of want to talk about consumers being -rightly or wrongly- alienated.
Star wars is a great example of this! After The Last Jedi was released, it experienced a (i would say bad faith) backlash from "true star wars fans". There is probably (see 100%) a link between the backlash of The Last Jedi and the, um, "backlash" of casting POC and women as main characters of the newest trilogy. People love to direct their anger and frustration at the POC in the new star wars movies, for example.
But Star Wars has always been a celebration of the "true fans", hasnt it? It buries in-jokes and backstory in novelizations and comics. It has countless video games and has so many books that the old backstory was declared "non-canon", so they could sell more books and open up more space in teh universe. Consumers of these star wars goods and media were let in on the true secrets of the Star Wars universe. And in the same way children in the 90s ranked themselves in a group by how many pokemon facts they knew, Star Wars fans saw their mastery of the Star Wars Lore as them being the arbiters of star wars. Like the Trade Federation as it keeps the jedi Council from investigating Naboo.
In marketing The Rise of Skywalker, J.J. Abrams really listened to the fans. He took great pains to walk back every interesting and dramatic beat that fans (mostly in bad faith, i believe) criticized from the previous movie. And as a result, The Rise of Skywalker is so so not a good piece of media.
I dont think it is JJ Abrams fault! Honestly, i think that the production of Star Wars or any property as large as star wars is difficult! The studios are going to spend a ton of money, and need to appeal to the largest group of consumers they can! And getting to the space between critical success and mass apeal is difficult. It's like sailing a shipping freighter, Hard to turn and often tied to bad decisions made earlier in production.
But, thats really not my point! My point is that Star Wars as a brand has lived and celebrated its fan base. Death of the Author and all that. And while many fans do make some amazing cosplay and write interesting fan fiction and extended universe things, most fans have a sense of ownership based in part on how much meal is made by the creators of Star Wars on the value of consuming the branded material of star wars. (If you are a cynical guy like me, maybe you can see that these people were empowered in order to keep them buying Star Wars merch?)
But when push comes to shove, the act of consumption of a piece of media doesnt make you an owner of the media. At most you are a supporter, and the company has an interest in getting as many supporters as possible. You can buy the DVDs and the Tshirts and the novels and the comics. And George Lucas, now Disney, has an incentive to keep you buying!
Here is the thing! Many media companies have pushed to include POC and non-cis non-male characters in more active roles with more fleshed out, well written parts in blockbuster movies. There are a few reasons for this!
If hollywood studios didnt think that it was more profitable to show a diverse main cast in star wars, they wouldnt do it. And they know, non-white non-male money spends just as well as anyone elses money.
This well goes deep, but there is a group of fans who think that any attempt at adding POC or women to movies somehow is political correctness run amok. (I think these people are very wrong, mostly because of point 1 above). I think these people tend to be white and male. I also think these people dont value representation (or rather, value the representation of white men), because they have always seen themselves and lived out their power fantasies in movies.
But they complain and get upset and really band together and say how the story makes no sense and the casino scene was pointless (when i thought that that seeing how there was a wealthy class that sat above all the eternal war and just made money off of the deaths of the Alliance and the First Order was an intersting idea.) They make a whole lot of guff out of nothing.
This is all to say, when these angry white guys start sending death threats to POC actresses in movies, maybe they arent really concerned about the integrity of the story telling.
This is also to say, maybe they dont have good ideas of what media should be? And maybe you shouldnt raise their voices up by seemingly bending over backward for every small complaint they had about the previous movie? Eh, JJ?
Still, I am not here about the Star wars thing! I am here because I want to talk about how I like Hearthstone.
Oh wait yeah no thats later. I was saying that Blizzard Fans are entitled.
I enjoy WOW. when there is a new expansion i get on, I play a bunch, I enjoy the story, i collect some toys, i try to do alot of things! And I enjoy it! I often think that I would play only WoW as a game if I had less time. There is alot to do, especially if you are someone like me who will play for hours and hours sometimes, and then only play for maybe 30 minutes or when i have free time before bed on other days. It is great!
But there is always a point where i cant keep playing. And that point is when Blizzard fans get involved.
#notallblizzardfans
But jesus, there is a certain type of blizzard fan that complains about every minor, insignificant change. Even major changes that are exciting, that will change the way my character is played, any lore where a character takes a heel turn (like Sylvanus Windrunner, a character who was pretty evil from the start and who became the main bad guy in the last expansion), they just complain. "It isnt as good as it used to be", they say. "Blizzard needs to keep the game complex." They say. "They are catering to casuals and normies" they say. "Everyone who enjoys this game is not as smart as me, the person who hates this game, listen to me Blizzard," I read into their words.
Hearthstone was just as bad for a good long while. About 3 years ago, I stopped trying to be a part of the Reddit (a website i quit using because it gave me psychic damage and made me sad and actual reasons about arguments and ideas that i dont want to get into right now). People would complain about needing to buy cards for the game. They complained about how free to play worked or how stingy the company was. And more often than not, they complained about the meta. There were certainy some broken cards and some bad design choices, but small things were blown up to death threat levels so fast.
But for my money, i could still enjoy the game and not get involved in that stuff!
But then, Blizzard did 2 things that are pretty bad. 1. Blizzard Activision cut many jobs and started to underpay many workers, even as their profits were the highest they had ever been. I personally blame this on Activision, and I really dislike that. However, I am reading more about this now! Good research takes time! And I want to know more about it!
The main thing though that i cannot really justify personally is how Blizzard and Hearthstone did not allow one of its tournament's competitors to voice his support for the protests in Hong Kong. I personally support the pro-democracy protesters in HK. I look at many of the people who are anti-China, and see alot of people who are against Chinese people more than the terrible things china does. I do not like these people. And It makes me very critical of the motivations of people who are Anti-China. China certainly does terrible things with the Uighurs and with the wage-slaving that goes on in China, the supression of peoples voices and dissent. It is horrible. And alot of the criticism from Anti-China camps are fair and valid. But often the things people say makes me feel as if they are motivated by something less democratic that i am not comfortorable with.
But Blizzard stripped the player (Blitzchung) of the money and of his ability to compete because he criticised China in an interview. And, ok, thats terrible for me.
so bad!
Blizzard has a huge audience in China, and yeah, it cant run afoul of the Chinese governments messaging machiene, lest it lose a huge market for its games. But here, the company makes a choice towards the Chinese government. And, you better believe that people were upset. People were so angry, and rightfully so!
And many consumers, understandably, backed away from the product. Blizzard alienated some consumers. No doubt.
But here, I want to talk about the Fan as Owner. Fans are not owners. Fans can feel like a part of a community! A community with values and ideas about playing fair. But ultimatly, the company Blizzard owns the products. All of the games are commodities to be bought and sold, and Blizzard might hold company values to treat everyone fairly, they are beholden to the principal of making a profit.
So when fans complain and get angry, when fans are telling Blizzard they are not happy, the fans voices really arent as important as making a profit. Further, blizzard said they wanted to keep the broadcast "on the games" and not about politics. So, Blizzard sees its values as apolitical, and sees membership in its fan communities as also apoliical.
I get this. I dont know if i think it is correct. I think sports, international sports and games are inherently political. But also, I dont enjoy esports really. It doesnt enter into my enjoyment of the product. So, I never really let that stop my playing of Hearthstone. And also at the time (this was before Blizzard did some not great labor things) I had thought that these people were trying to use a company to be political against the companies wishes. Blizzard doesnt try to tell really complex political stories. Those things can be read into the games, but the games are not advocating for specific changes or anything like that. And the company had incentive to keep chinese consumers. It is a global company. I guess i thought it was sad they didn't let Blitzchung speak his peace, but also Blizzard has the right to say what is appropriate and innapropriate at its events.
Still a super bummer of a situation. And it doesnt reflect well on Blizzard at all. I cant look at something like Overwatch -a game about an internationally diverse group of heroes fighting for freedom- as a celebration of international spirit. If anything, it makes me see the ethos of Overwatch as a bit phoney and performative.
But also, when Blizzard spends years and years and years telling consumers (US consumers especially) how the company is for consumers, consumers believe it. And then when many consumers have strong beliefs on something like the demonstrations in HK, and Blizzard does something that runs against those beliefs, Blizzard is on a course for controversy.
What a long way to say, I dont think consumers should see themselves as owners of a product. Seeing yourself as a consumer has some real meaning to it. I know many people have a real They Live image around that word, but as long as we live in a capitalist society it is important to see that for what it is.
anyways lets talk about what hearthstone decks i want to make.