I’m a gamer.
My circle of friends.. hell, even my wife, wouldn’t describe me in those terms. But it’s there, in my heart, where it’s always been… since I was a child playing Tron on my Intellivision with my grandpa in the basement of my childhood home.
Gamer. Through and through.
Nobody could brag about their Centipede high score in my house. Super Street Fighter II Turbo was a religion, not a game. A deep voice beckoned “Finish Him!” from the living room often; spikes, spines, gore and incessant screaming ensued hundreds of times daily. Final Fantasy II through XI took over a thousand hours of my adolescent and teenage life collectively — and honestly, I wish I could play XIV with the same passion today.
I’m one of the minority of people who’s ever been to an E3 Expo (multiple times), or who has worked in the industry and gotten paid real money to play in a fantasy world. My dream as a child, outside of becoming a pro athlete — was to design, play, or otherwise make my living in the video game industry, one way or another.
I’m not though. And that’s a story for another day.
But for those of you who relate to the above, it will come as no surprise that I was a bit shocked to see Blizzard’s email in my inbox at midnight tonight — announcing that the Auction House in their hit game, Diablo III, will be shutting down permanently in March 2014.
“We are writing tell you about an important change to Diablo III: we’re going to be removing the gold and real-money auction house system from the game.” –Blizzard Entertainment (via email)
If you’re not a gamer and/or you’re not familiar with the Diablo series, stick with me here, it will all make sense soon.
Diablo I and Diablo II [along with Star Craft & WarCraft] arguably put the game development company, Blizzard, on the map in the world of gaming. They later produced the smash hit “World of Warcraft” or “WoW”, which you’ve surely heard of regardless of the circles you run in. Someone you know has surely lost their life to this game.. in some cases, literally.
Most games don’t have very long life cycles due to the constant pressure of new game releases and the superior technology and budgets that power them.
The Diablo franchise is a unicorn though. Smash hits that stand the test of time.
After Diablo II was released in 2000, a huge community of hardcore players were STILL “farming loot” over EIGHT years later, when Blizzard finally announced it’s successor, Diablo III, and the gaming world rejoiced. This tight knit community of dungeon crawling, skeleton-bashing fanatics only had to wait 4 more years, as development delays pushed the promised Diablo 3 release back to 2012… a full TWELVE asinine years after its predecessor was released.
This new entry in the Diablo franchise was one of the most anticipated releases in the gaming industry’s relatively short history.
And that’s why the shocking news I received tonight is important in the gaming world — and I’m about to share why I think it should also be important in your world.
The point of Diablo games is to hack and slash (clicking and clicking) your way through dungeons swarming with the devil’s horde of creatures and undead, all while collecting the items (loot) they drop on the ground after succumbing to your mighty sword (or magic spells). This type of game is otherwise known as a “Dungeon Crawler”.
The Diablo games have always had a particularly addictive quality though, which is achieved through a great balance of near-infinite randomness combined with simple probability. Few items or dungeons are ever the same, and the more a player plays the game, the more likely they are to find that amazing item that improves their character or is tradable for an item that does.
As you can imagine, there’s incredible “bragging rights” to be had in these games. All one has to do is devote every waking moment to Diablo, equip their character with badass loot that drops from the most difficult monster battles, and an earn an equally badass case of carpal tunnel.
Trust me, I’ve picked up my fair share of ‘Stones of Jordan’ (a rare D2 item) in my lifetime. Putting the mouse down was always incredibly difficult. My wrists & fingers have never forgiven me.
But Diablo III changed the game. It was a new development team leading the project, a totally new era in video games and on the web, and Blizzard had to prove they could keep up with the times. They had to prove to their cult-like player base that they still had what it takes to create a sequel that resonated with them, but could still muster a decade-plus worth of lasting power like it’s predecessor did.
So aside from shiny new graphics, in-game physics, and some novel play mechanics — the real focus was centered around their ace-in-the-hole.. the new “economy” of the game — the “Auction House”.
The Auction House is exactly as it sounds; a place to buy and sell in-game items for in-game currency (gold).
But wait!
This auction house was also going to allow REAL MONEY to be exchanged for in-game items.
That’s right — you could play the game, earn an item after killing a monster, list that item on the auction house, and have money in your PayPal account the next day… assuming your item was purchased by someone. Not unlike eBay, except exclusively for the sale of virtual items found in the world of Diablo 3.
Interestingly, this amazing new economy that’s been enabled by the Auction House system, is what has completely ruined the game for many of Diablo’s core fans.
It ultimately clashed against the core values, the culture and lifeblood that Diablo players lived and breathed for over a decade:
Kill enemies. Get cool stuff (or trade for it). Rinse. Repeat (a lot). Eventually collect REALLY cool stuff. Brag & bask in the glory of not having a life.
This was the vicious addictive cycle of a Diablo player.
Now all of a sudden ANYONE could get really cool stuff. Anyone with a disposable income or mommy’s wallet could buy rare items and “fake” their way, FAST, to the same end-game that took hardcore fans YEARS to obtain.
“Farming” operations in China and other low-wage countries began paying employees from day one to play the game 24 hours-a-day, flooding the market with thousands (or millions?) of “rare” items, thus reducing their rarity and artificially reducing the bragging and satisfaction (aka warm fuzzy) value for just about anything of importance in the game. All of this because there’s a buck to be made. Blizzard earns a cut on every transaction too, of course!
Millions of players (and Blizzard) were suddenly able to monetize the game in a new way, which in turn drove dedicated PLAYERS away, and invited dedicated OPPORTUNISTS in.
Diablo sold it’s soul to the Devil! (heh.. see what I did there). The hardcore players were marginalized.
The game has been rotting, and players have been complaining. And thankfully, it seems, Blizzard has been listening intently.
With the auction house closure, Blizzard is doing something very publicly that most companies, gaming or not, wouldn’t dream of doing — swallowing their pride, admitting their mistake, and taking action to fix it — and [presumably] taking a mammoth loss to the game’s revenue along the way.
This is about more than a game company’s mistake though.
This is about religion. This is about culture.
It’s about what resonates with your team and your customers. About your duty, to those around you, to represent and stand up for who you are and what brought you this far.
Diablo III’s new feature wasn’t faulty. The decision to include it in a Diablo game WAS.
Put that same auction system in a brand new game franchise and it works. It becomes part of the new franchise’s DNA from day one. It declares: “this is who I am, and what I stand for — play me if you love me, ignore me if you don’t”.
I doubt Blizzard did this intentionally, but it was a slap in the face to the loyal cult who had been through good and bad times for 12 years. It declared: “Surprise! I’m newer, better, faster, shinier and attract new people. Oh and by the way, the old me that you once loved is gone.”
The lesson? Never piss off or abandon your cult by drastically changing your core values! They’re already drinking the juice, don’t change the fucking recipe!
If you were passionate enough and lucky enough to create something that receives a long-lived, viral, and equally passionate following — make sure you stay in touch with the core reasons and identity that won you that following.
Drastic changes should be saved for those instances when you can’t find your core, when your core isn’t relevant anymore, or for when you want to create a new one. And definitely not applied to a winning formula in a live environment where your reputation is at stake.
People who have clear values and stand for something without abandon, are more attractive by a large magnitude over wishy-washy dipshits who waiver on everything.
This is true in business.
This is true in relationships.
It also makes you infinitely more annoying to those who don’t agree with your values —
but that’s OK! Just ask yourself this question:
Would you rather be generally liked by everyone…
or passionately loved by a growing few?