Hearthpwn

It's natural for a company of this size to eventually restructure and fire employees. But to do so unexpectedly and without prior notice or even discussions with the employees involved... that's downright despicable. The values of good old Blizzard died years ago. I'm almost ashamed to still play their games.

It's distressing that people here are so emotionally obsessed with the balance of their card game that they'll cheer on people getting fired without notice. There's a lot of reasons to dislike Blizzard, especially Blizzard management, but you have to draw a line between that and "I'm glad ordinary working people are losing their livelihoods without notice because hunter has been op, or they might've worked on an expansion I didn't like." Grow up.

I couldn't help but feel the same, reading through the majority of comments on this post. It's disheartening to see that people are still unable to make a  disconnect between developers and corporate suits when it comes to game production. Even setting that point aside, the general apathy to those who just lost their career without notice is disgusting. 

I don't care about that stuff and I am happy it is happening. I am in tech and these layoffs have needed to happen for a long time. There is so much bloat and people who need to be gone to make room for better people to come in. They also need to open up money that could be used to pay other people more or acquire better talent. It's never a one sided story. 

Sucks when it happens, but people need to read the market and be self aware about what value they actually bring rather than chase that high profile job and a big name company. They can and will spit you out much easier. That's not to say it is because they are evil and don't care. Just that the bigger the valuation of the company the more value they expect you to bring if you want the paycheck that comes along with it. 

Lmaoooo MyDude how do those boots taste? Cant believe we got a /r/hailcorporate post in the Hearthpwn forums

I'm not saying they're good or bad. I'm just saying the market forces are at play here more than anything. Too many people and not enough work to go around has been an issue for 3 years now. Gotta get rid of the bloat when the money isn't easy. 

Let people draw their own line wherever they see fit. Grow up.

There is no blizzard employee that is anywhere near close to "ordinary people" they are specifically and openly hired for their wokeness. None of them are losing their livelihood they are stacked with money more than 95% of the gaming community. When they pity me I'll pity them.

Also it's much, much more than Hearthstone's balance that people dislike about blizzard. In fact, it's a dead game and nobody care anymore in a couple years it will be lost in memory like HotS.

I am absolutely glad that all the wonderful, extraordinary people at blizzard are losing their jobs. What happens in their personal life I don't care, we all have problems.

I hope those are the ones who encouraged people to afk farm PVE Mercenaries to inflate the metrics and create the illusion that people were really captivated be their new garbage game mode.

This is clearly a shitpost, but I do have a soft spot for hating on mercenaries. God that mode was the biggest mistake they ever made.

Banning cards never solves the problems, it pospones the fucking problem

"Postponing" a problem is a solution, you know.

Let me guess:

Unity controversy still?

Since Hearthstone is done on this fucking engine, maybe they are translating their resources to another one instead

Source: https://gizmodo.com/first-official-unity-user-group-disbands-new-fees-1850874704

Finally some good news

so .... no balance changes then?

I welcome any destabilisation at Blizzard, hopefully the company doesn't survive.

They litterally destroyed all of their IPs and i'm not gonna feel sad for anyone at Blizzard for the shit that happens.

Hearthstone in particular is at its lowest point ever in interest rate and I equally blame the shit investors and the shit devs, there isn't one human being at Blizzard who isn't either bad at their job or intentionally malicious, or both. Except the artists. They always did a good job and probably aren't getting paid enough because they single handedly carry blizzard IPs nowadays.

You can only go so far with milking people and now we're out or milk.

18 years at Blizzard and you got laid off without notice ? Ok that's sad. Name one good things you did for blizzard games in the last 18 years. Oh I see. You did nothing, you are part of the 80% employes who do nothing in jobs. "I am no longer needed" means you never were.

Wow. If you honestly believe that someone who worked 18 years at a company never did anything he or she was proud of, or was received well by the audience, you are delusional beyond measure.

To add, not knowing if you have a single clue about how companies operate: developers are almost never in charge of prioritization and/or focus. It is ALWAYS mismanagement of the executive layer.

Thinking people who work for monthly wages deliberately wish ill intend on the game they’re working on is next-level paranoia. Read about organizational design and company governance before blurting out nonsense on the internet.

I literally own a company (agriculture). You are delusionnal. 95% of the work is done by those who work for wages and the actual boss, regardless of who is "in charge".

America invented management and it's borderline useless and if they are in charge of something stupid the good workers will get the job done their own way. They can be blamed for not doing anything but they can't be blamed for ruining a company. Workers ruin a company, whether they intend to or not is another matter entirely.

Also, in the video game world, "devs" is a very loose term that represents ALL workers in the video game company. I have no pity for ANY of them, from janitor to CEO.

Last but not least, statistics don't lie. You can sugar coat your politically correct argument all you want, fact of the matter is, Blizzard is absolute garbage, it's the objective truth, they make shit games, they're all woke freaks, the harass employees, they SA employees, they intentionally introduce predatory tactics in their games (and devs ARE OKAY WITH THIS otherwise they would leave the company, this is a free country with infinite opportunities and blizz devs aren't poor).

But yeah sure, i'm sure it's AAAAALLL management's fault.

Also I never said they deliberately ruined the game.

Stay mad shill keep spending money on blizzard i'm sure the real devs are very grateful LOL

I have to agree with Petite Mouse here. Sadly most people on this community didn't understand this simple logic behind operation of a company.

I do have a small company (tobacco). Here is the basic rule of a company anywhere in the world, customers didn't really care what or how your company doing. What they care is literally "QUALITY" of the product itself. If they like the products, they will subconsciously like and support the company, vice versa. Then, If we are talking about a video game company, then we talk about "EXPERIENCE" as a player.

Experience
Lets talk about my experience first before I explained further what is wrong with this company. I started play this during gadgetzan (late 2016) and love control type decks. I do find old hearthstone is very enjoyable where the game was still very slow back and forth every turn that require you to think hard for the upcoming turn especially KFT hands down best expansion ever. I always buy preorder because I admit Ben Brode has this kind of god tier marketing eventhough at that time I was mere a student (obviously didn't have a bunch of money). Then I decided to not spent any more money on this shitty game since the rastakhan (late 2018) (eventhough I have already work and make a bit of money at least). HS became boring as f, and literally the MOST EXPENSIVE GAME I've ever played to keep up with standard. Then I switched to fully play wild.

Surprise surprise, wild is even more bullshit. Shudderwock shaman, magnetize warlock, prime odd paladin, quest mage, secret mage, big priest, witching hour warlock, tome tempering, quest warlock, tony druid, quest magnetic rogue, kingsbane rogue, you named it.

Ah lets try this new exiciting duels mode, (I love adventure/duel format). Surprise surprise, It is even bigger bullshit KEKW. stelinna that can deal 20+ dmg on turn 1 and 2, deathrattle slate, boar resurect, kirin tor+flame waves, divine shield/mech turalyon, freeze solid, freeze dk, shockspitter bran, discover  give your trash minions +1/+1, and the most retarded is drectar groovy cat.

they ignore that kinda bullshit for months, but when its several time for control enjoyer to shine (ex : mycelyum guff, dead man hand zuljin). they INSTANTLY banned them ??????

how about bg ? I would say it is the most stable mode amongst all. but there are still lots of bugs such as dancing minions or game crashing

Conclusion
After long observing and experiencing all of that, I reach to 2 conclusion
1. This company only care about MONEY - therefore it makes 0 innovations
2. They dont care about customer experience AT ALL

Proof
1. There so many hard dead facts about this : Battle Pass, BG Battle Pass, Runestone (read : prepaid income), Endless heroes skins card back, Bartender, BG Attack Animation, Legendary Heroes Skin, Diamond Card.

For those that choose to spend, it is up to you to spend your money. But let me tell you this : You are getting ripped of by "illusions" of "missing out" this "exclusive" "digital assets" that you can't even trade or sell anyway, also if you notice the company actually OWN everything you own (read user aggreement). Worse part once you start spending, it is even harder to get out since you've already invested so much (Sunk Cost Fallacy)

2. 1st ex : bug - If I were the exec of this, a bug is 0% tolerance. It is something ABSOLUTELY CAN NOT HAPPENED NO MATTER WHAT in a product that require "experience" as it main selling point. take example of dancing minion, can you imagine 4 years of it ??? 48 months ?? a whopping 1040 working days. What the hell these peoples do during that time ? I can understand if this was some small company with little to no resources, but a GIANT company like this is something I can't even comprehend.

2nd ex : "new card" library feature. Imagine having this little feature take YEAAAARRSSSS to develop KEKW. its is a little so insignificant feature that allowed you to click on it instead of typing in the library

yeah, I blame ALL of them from top to bottom. Shitty management create shit environment that affect all employee. It didn't surprise me when there is negative news in Blizzard.

Perspective form Another Game
Take example from Dota 2 : 0 dollar required to play, never encountered bug (for me at least) even if there is, it required something so specific for it to happen even if that goes viral it didn't take long to fix that max just several days, each game is very unique situations with so much room for self improvement creativity and strategy, solid community (toxic here and there but overall pretty solid), greatest Esport events through out the years. Occasionally maybe you get salty mad or became toxic but at the end of the day you are having "FUN". that alone is an indication that it is a GREAT game for me and I didn't find that in Hearthstone.

I think, but it’s wildly suggestive, two things are happening.

1. It might have something to do with prepping for the Microsoft takeover, and if that’s the case, I think we should see it as a good thing. We all know Hearthstone has been dipping its toes in multiple new modes, mechanics and other forms of cosmetics. Most of them, sadly, didn’t work. Duels, Twist, Mercenaries, all fell short. I don’t think Diamond portraits did very well either, while I can imagine they take up a lot of resources.

2. Linked to my first point, the game lacked focus for a long time now. I don’t want to discourage gaming studios trying new things, but Hearthstone’s track record of launching those new things and then not supporting it after, is bad practice. In my opinion, the game was best with just Standard, Wild, Arena and Battlegrounds as its main modes. Duels could’ve been fun if it received more support. And Twist, well, I think it’s a super ambitious game mode that is just not profitable. They can make it more accessible, but I don’t think they are willing to cut deep.

All in all, I hope it’s a good sign, as painful as it is for the laid-off employees. I hope it’s a sign of renewed focus and perhaps a bigger focus on retention instead of attraction of new players.