If game journalists reported on things that are of concern to the consumer instead of “The Industry” or acting as a sternographer for company’s announcements (and more recently, announcements of announcements), we would be hearing stories about the below.
Attendees at Blizzcon, who can only be described as the biggest Blizzard fans, are not slurping up whatever Blizzard puts out. This forum post describes the incident:
“It’s called LAN!”
That’s what a BlizzCon attendee shouted out after Rob “answered” a question regarding the reduction of multiplayer lag in Australia. And of course, there was also that earlier incident where Rob asked how many people still play games offline and a little over half the crowd gave a resounding uproar of confirmation. After an insulting snort of laughter, he asked “Really?” and quite a few people shouted out things like “Yeah!” and “Yes!” and “All the time!” Asking why they didn’t play online, a handful of people gave reasons, the only audible answer being “College.” Then he proceeded to blatantly brush away those reasons by giving the insulting response, “Well, those five people will be able to play in offline mode.”
Nice one, Rob — real nice.
What is disturbing is not so much the no-LAN path of Starcraft 2, but the attitude at Blizzard where they just don’t give a damn what their fans think on this matter. This is not the same Blizzard that made the original Starcraft.
