Blizzard CEO calls shipping an unfinished product, 'devastating'

I thought they were talking about Mythic's Warhammer.

When he wrote this, the first thing that came to my mind was Age of Conan. Then I thought to myself again no, Age of Conan wasn't that bad of a game, he must be referencing Alganon.

Yeah I agree its can be devistating to anyone who releases an unfinished product but on the other hand, Blizzard takes decades to make games and Diablo 3 and StarCraft 2 are perfect examples of it. If it wasn't for games like Diablo and Starcraft there would be no WoW.

The when is done mentality is hazardous, Blizzard delivers great games, but, they deliver them after their time, usually they just loose the technology window and deliver a product of a previous generation.

still good, but not in time.

"Unfinished" is a subjective term at the best of times, as far as MMO's go the term is even more open to interpretation, what one end-user sees as unfinished might be viewed as barely started by another & completed by yet another.

Try gaining a consensus on what "unfinished" means, I dare you to try, it's simply a popularist term it's actualmeaning & definition is incredibly fuzzy & boils down to overriding opinions, the developers may see a title as fit for release while the end-users feel it was put out the door way too soon, there has not been a single MMO release that could be called a finished product upon release so far, & there is a likliehood there never will be, it purely boils down to how much the players get het up about it, what is the complaint ratio of any game?


I think this statement is nothing more than arrogance gained by a distorted view itself fuelled by an unprecedented success, Blizzard's game's never break into new territory, only take established formulas & make them accessible to wider audiences through good marketing & solid design, they did the same things with Diablo & Starcraft, both borrowed heavily from other games and added in features from yet other titles/genres, they'll do the same things in the future, they build their designs by looking at current titles & modelling a product based off them, that is what has worked for them so far, when Blizzard go out on a limb & take a risk innovating & bringing a new groundbreaking title to the market they will have evolved past their current philosophies, so far all they do is "make a copy, but better than an earlier attempt".

Blizzard themselves have had problems & released "unfinished" titles, perhaps they are just speaking from experience, but they continue to make the same mistakes, & that's with having the massive resources they now have, if a company as big a powerhouse as Blizzard now is continue to release unfinished content (hi to you WoTLK) how can any company in a less well off position reasonably be expected to?

Polish pays, but I'm sensing an effort to spread some Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) about competing products at this point. If WoW had waited until it was 100% polished to ship, not only would they not have had as chaotic a launch as they had, but the whole Cataclysm reconstruction of the starting zones wouldn't be happening this many years after the game shipped.

When an MMO ships, it needs a sound, solid design, it needs to be feature-complete, it needs all character classes to be equally playable, it needs the most immersion-killing glitches wiped out, and it needs to be stable and reliable. But it doesn't have to be polished or fleshed out to the standards of a six-year old MMO with a hundred billion dollars invested in it to date just to ship. Although I'd bet that Blizzard would like you to think that no MMO should ship until it's had a hundred million dollars invested in it, since if everybody followed that rule, no new MMOs would ever ship.

We'll see how long Blizzard sticks to this line of reasoning when it comes time to ship their next MMO.

Hey Kyle, just a bit of a fact correction for you: Paul Sams is actually the COO of Blizzard, not its CEO.

The interesting part is most players and most in the industry know when an MMO or computer game is released that isn't finished.

The only ones who apparently don't seem to at the time are the management people who force the product to be released.

You get the usual excuses - no money, we'll make things better later, or this game is not suppose to be for the serious crowd.

Whatever.

What a surprise that Blizzard makes a comment like that near another MMO release.. again...;)

Yes, yes.. the game is polished. We get that... but it was Olde years ago. It's also funny that people who say that they always make "polished" games, admit almost on the same sentance that they had trouble in WoW launch. So which is it?

They are in a position to shoot cheapshots from their mouths, and my god do they do it every time there is something new on the horizon...

I used to be a fan of Blizzard, but I'm getting sick of their smugness while they milk their cow (of the Lich King).

Lolwhut?

They do have a nerve to pop comments like this? WotLK is the prime example how to launch an unfinished product and not deliver on the promises. Kotick will turn WoW into a Guitar hero franchise, with a new extremely shallow expac every year and make a killing with it, due to blizzard fanboys and watery eyed old timers who believe the WoW that BC and Vanilla was will come back someday.

Kotick wants minimum investment with maximum return, I would be really curious how Metzen and the other guys who used to love their game cope with that.

Blizzard? Blizzard now can tell us how to make games? lol WoW was a half-baked bug mine when it shipped, and Blizzard had to delete the first several years' worth of WoW player forum comments in order to disappear the MASSIVE quantity of complaints that detailed their every blunder and lie.

Atari should be listening, and Cryptic as well.

I Beta tested STO, and it shows much promise, but man does it need more work!