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Since I first played Warcraft II back in 1995, Blizzard always had a special place in my heart as a game developer.  I didn’t really think of game developers individually at the time but I couldn’t help but recognize the quality of the game as something “different”.  That became the industry known Blizzard “polish”.

Now it’s 2008.  Blizzard’s World of Warcraft is a behemoth in the gaming industry let alone the MMORPG market with it’s boasted 10 million subscriber mark.  10 million customers forking over a $15 monthly fee on a 4 year old game title is something that would make the biggest oil company executive envious.  With all that success, it seems like things have changed a good bit over at Blizzard.

Back until the release of World of Warcraft, Blizzard was a fairly quiet company letting it’s games do the “talking” for them.  Even World of Warcraft’s release wasn’t heavily marketed compared to some other titles.  Their Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft franchises utilizing Battle.net to offer free online gameplay raised the bar for many other services at the time.  Blizzard became a sort of martyr.  A game developer made of gamers.  Their fanbase was quite rabid about it – waiting eagerly for any news of a new Blizzard title.

Whether it’s because of working with Vivendi for so long or their recent merger with Activision; or maybe neither and Blizzard has just outgrown that comradeship feeling by getting so successful.  Either way, their new approach to business and gaming is starting to feel a lot less like the warm and fuzzy “gamers making games” and a lot more like the corporate fist feeling me up with no reach around.

Whether it’s charging $10 for the pleasure of changing your name or paying $6.50 for a little dongle to do my job of protecting my user name or password.  It seems like everything Blizzard is doing is a way to raid my wallet with little regard to me as a customer.

What happened to just making good games and selling some gimmicky paper back books?

Now we’re seeing entire diasters like the Blizzcon problem, DirecTV ripoffs and even going so far as to charge me for wanting to change my elf around a little bit.  It really feels like Blizzard is losing touch with me as a fan and just wants my $$.  Any sensible person would tell me that’s the way “businesses” work and normally I agree but I can’t help but feel a little disappointed that my romanticized belief that there was a company out there that cared a little more is simply not true anymore.  If it ever was.  Ah well, reality here I come.