After last weeks late in the week announcement regarding changes that were coming to the Heroes of the Storm team, someone decided to pen a letter written in similar PR fashion to how Blizzard creates post to their communities, and posted it on the Heroes of the Storm Reddit where it’s gotten several thousand upvotes.
So it’s only a matter of time before it goes full viral and will start circulating across Blizzard’s other game community Reddits as well as being picked up elsewhere. Not everyone will agree with everything in it (I don’t) but what is important is how the sentiment is in fact, beginning to change with how larger portions of the once very loyal Blizzard community are now viewing Blizzard Entertainment (much less apologetic whiteknighting to be more precise).
I personally already voted with my wallet 3 years ago when it came to being a Blizzard customer (as far as Activision titles are concerned, I don’t own nor play any). Blog posts here from November 2015 and earlier detail why (much of it centering on how their design teams don’t really properly parse the feedback that is provided to them from community management.
This tone deafness is pretty much a larger issue (within their PR department) considering the whole Diablo: Immortal fiasco where publicly, the message Blizzard is trying to say is “we hear you” and “we’re working on multiple unnannounced Diablo projects” without simply admitting they announced the mobile title at the wrong event (and thus to the wrong audience). Sometimes with PR, your company leaders need to come right out and say “we screwed up”.
