TYFP

First things first: Steve Danuser is attempting to swaggerjack FFXIV’s Endwalker.

Endwalker was billed as an end to the 10 year main arc of a core story, and has been talked about in the media since fanfest this past summer, all the while Blizzard and WoW’s reputation and credibility continues to tank. Blizzard’s terribleness, FFXIV’s fans and developers, and popular memes and streamers led a great migration of players from WoW to FF. 

It’s no secret that Blizzard is trying to solve their problem, however everything they do has a bizarre taint of failure to it; they had unsubscribing players answer survey questions about Final Fantasy, developers have gotten on social media to attack popular streamers who criticise them, and they are trying to launch a ‘community council’ buy literally saying they want to talk to a select few players, not everyone. Try as they might, they manage to spread more ill will and disappointment with every attempt. This is usually because instead of solving their problems by listening to the criticisms of their dwindling player base, they continue to communicate that even though they know the complaints, they think they can solve their problem by force feeding remaining players Ion’s ideas and nothing else. The community council itself is a Greek comedy in its own right, as players have already started to figure out that it’s likely going to just be used as a means of reinforcing their own bad ideas and refusal to listen to criticism. 

After months of failing at literally everything they attempt, Blizzard plans to hype up WoW 9.2, and part of that? Having Steve Danuser, fresh off a righteous dragging on Twitter, say this:

Holy shit, amiright?

He literally went from one keelhauling to this interview with Gamerant, immediately into another murder scene on Twitter.

At what point does anyone in this leadership team get a clue? How far does the descent lead? Why would an executive level writer lie to bite a piece of Yoshippy’s moves, when everyone knows that a majority of WC 3’s saga ended in Wrath of the Lich King, and the best argument for any saga left after that would be the end of the Legion expansion?

You know how every workplace has that one guy? You’re telling a funny or cool story. One night at a party you drank a bunch of shots or something. And then this guy interrupts you right before you finish so he can tell everyone in the break room that he did the same thing but with waaaaaay more shots. That’s Steve Danuser right now.

I used to love Blizzard and World of Warcraft so much, its heartbreaking in a way to see decades of memories and lore and enjoyment culminate in this.

I used to think that things would get a low point like this and someone would right the ship. But every single day I doubt it more than the last.