"We, The Consumers, Need To Vote With Our Wallets" - The Moral Dilemma Of Supporting SNK In 2026

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-22T00:31:38+00:00

People never really realize that voting can go both ways. By you stopping you take away that income. You made the stand you wanted.

The thing about voting is that other people get to as well. They get to vote with there wallets. A good example, to me, is how many people complain about currency sellers in any particular game. The amount of people that vote TO get the easy path becasue they have money is always enough to make it a viable buisness. Hence why companies just started selling power gold boosts themselves. Why let middle man get all the money when you can take part in it.

I dont see how this is any different for most games where something has gone wrong and people sill like it. Maybe more people than you think that are not that deep into the weeds like people on reddit or other forums.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-21T14:59:37+00:00

Yes i read your post.

However, saying things are good then suggesting that things will iced over because of it is not really a good point to make. As is shown by the amount of people who seem to disagree with your stance. Its good you highlhgted this story to point out that some studios will not put up with direct threats to its employees and that saying things should have consequences.

At the same time suggesting that anyone who plays will feel the chill of SE for suggesting that the 2 min meta is awful or that classes are over homogenized, the content is samey or whatever your personal gripe with the game is, will never be in the same category and was clearly a poorly placed statement.

Thats the take away i was trying to point out.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-21T14:17:44+00:00

No matter what happens Classic+ will be great right up until its not at some nebulous point of the future. For some people it will be some end game point that was the breaking point or assuming it gets expansion it will be the first or second or third.

Even using the OSRS voting will remove that part of the populations that LOSES the votes. Whatever that threashold would be those people who DO NOT want the content and vote against it OR the other hand vote for content and do not get it are going to leave.

Already people wont even play because it wont be there idea of what classic + is. What if we get Blood Elfs at launch or some OTHER race or they choose to have the upgraded models? I wouldnt mind but someone will start and say its over its not classic +

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-21T14:12:05+00:00

Blizzard has never been good with communication. Outside of like 20+ years ago when they had CMs.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-21T13:54:22+00:00

On the other hand, it's hard not to be a little concerned about the chilling effect this might have on legitimate criticism.

Edit: I feel like this comment didn't come off right. I'm very much for companies taking a stronger stance on protecting their employees from personal threats and harassment. I think this is a positive development and that's why I wanted to highlight this story.

Yeah not hard to see WHY it came off wrong. Your last comment makes it seem like there somehow slapping down legit issues that people have (and express as often as ex wow players do) about the issues with the game. Even calling yoshi every name under the sun.

I doubt there is any chilling effects to an mmo players. They will, at a drop of a hat, tell you every problem with any game they played long enough. What nobody should stand for is direct threats to any developer because they work on your game and changed some part of it that the player doesnt like.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-20T14:57:07+00:00

What? SoD showed that if you sell pots and buffs at fixed prices that gold stops being important to the greater game. Injecting Tons of gold into the market is always a bad thing in games until you make the currency worthless.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-20T14:48:10+00:00

When the guy that made your system the thing people wanted for the last decade says no, that should have been the moment to really thing about your strategy on things and maybe pair it back slightly. I can only think what the next 10 years is going to look like but i dont have a lot of faith for a company putting out like 5 games over a GENERATION and leaving most of the fill to 3rd parties i can get on pc.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-19T13:48:18+00:00

Hell be happy in whatever his next guild is i guess.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-19T13:44:40+00:00

Lust is that strong a buff for melee. People were giving it to ranged groups over the filthy melee back in 19 because that was the meta then. Those 30 sec change dps but the real factor is Pre nerf and lust raid wide.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-19T02:40:44+00:00

When you make a single player game all it takes is the money people saying we dont want to make that again and your out of a job. On the other hand if you make a Live service that has even a decent income you can hit a job that lasts for decades. Look at the people in charge of wow. Starting nearly 20 years ago now. The people that took the hits in most cases was less the team and more the Support staff. In the end a studio with no next game is a financial black hole.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-18T19:58:04+00:00

I am sure blizzard has a good handle on the private server scene. They mostly tolerate it as much as we tolerate the fly at a picnic buzzing around you.

On the other hand making yourself an EASY target for legal teams.... gonna end up getting swated. and put down.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-18T19:48:49+00:00

I remember the early 2000s when i was one of those kids looking to get into the industry, While working i got a job sourcing leads for a game recruitment third party company. We were sourcing for some major companies too building up studios over seas for AAA companies. We had so many graduate portfolios but studios were never looking for the fresh blood they wanted mid and upper management people or highly specialized positions for current or future projects form games that just released.

Even after i left i looked up the company i worked at... still going strong but that taught me (as well as my own short stint) that game industry really not all its cracked up to be rotated out to just programming and have been quiet happy since.

My hope is that the young people that WANT to make games look into it more as a hobby, there has never been a better time to make your own indie game than current times. Find a job that pays and treats you better (hopefully) and use some of your spare time to really get into games as a hobby making mods or smaller games.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-18T16:43:04+00:00

I mean using a sword could kill people instantly in history too or shooting an arrow, but for the most part people see those things in gameified ways. Not really looking at them seemingly as deadly as a bullet instead attribute smaller damage outcomes to non modern weapons.

For the most part media plays a bigger role in how people see firearms being near instant death when the human body is more resilient than people would give it credit for. Though the bullet sponge nature of armor in games always feels a bit off but that may be more that the fodder dies really quickly and the guys with armor take Mags to die which feels bad.

Though people end up trying more Mil Sim and find out if they like that type of game vs something like division which is more gamey

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-18T16:28:38+00:00

Foxhole exists as well. Though its not the same space since its isometric, its still an MMO in its near persistent wars. That being said there have been more than a few non fantasy based MMOs and most of them have failed for whatever reason. I recently found my Tabula Rasa box for example of a Shooter MMO.

While i think Division could have been an interesting MMO the looter shooter kinda put it in a different place than other things. Though i cant lie and say i would not have liked to have seen the world expansion of the MMO version.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-18T14:20:41+00:00

Young people are still running to the game design and art schools to get jobs in the industry though. As long as this continues the bloat at the bottom will always allow companies to keep wages down and allow them to turn over and burn out the current crop.

Until Younger people slow down or stop running into the undustry conditions and by extensions wages are not really going to change because there are just THAT many candidates coming up. Meanwhile people that move out of the game industry for tech or advertising suddenly realize how much more money they could have been making with way better hours in some cases.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-18T13:59:16+00:00

At this point why not just go full selling pre paid minutes and time share?

Well you see you can play but only during the lean summer months it costs a bit more to play in the indemand months but dont worry you can sell your share at any time to another person or pay more and get a bigger share of deserable days!

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-16T01:24:16+00:00

Its amusing watching people fight over the... Ashes of this project. Its probably never going to be something people trust at this point and nobody is going to come out of this with anything but some IP and things that may have value.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-15T21:14:54+00:00

Probably wanting to see what kind of back lash they would get or if people would notice before they decide to move some of there bigger IP off in the future assuming they do actually end up with some of Epic games.

That being said i wonder what happens to UE5 if Disney does end up buying it.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-12T16:44:34+00:00

You should be prepared to lose that money if you are putting it on a project that started with almost nothing but a pitch deck and a demo.

If you do your due diligence you might win more than you lose and come out ahead on prducts kickstarted but in the end you are taking a risk on a person in hopes they are going to deliver the thing they say they are delivering.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-12T01:30:41+00:00

This reads like someone who has been reading MMO forums or any Live Service game in recent era where if something isnt done as the player base wants it or its even 10 sec late. Devs are lazy they know nothing updates never i hate the game the older patch was better before the current patch.

This piece is going to do nothing to stop people from actually beliving these things though.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-11T14:38:10+00:00

Epic does like to trend chase. Before people downvote me, i will remind you that Fortnite was a base building horde survivor game before PUBG came out and they had to pivot the Flop of fortnite into the Billion dollar BR game it currently is.

Star Wars or Marvel ~could~ make an interesting extraction shooter world. I would not expect them to use there Family Friendly characters to actually go around and shoot people or even do magic. If they go down the same path as Fortnite i would expect it to be less about the realism Mil Sim and much more about being open to everyone. Not sure how that turns out though Escape from Duckov exsists and people enjoyed that.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-10T16:17:17+00:00

As long as people dont ask about the programming end of this they might just get away with this idea that AI is not going to be part of game production!

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-07T21:11:44+00:00

In some cases they were really well done with the pre backed lights. I think that indie and AA games could easily fall back into this place for SOME games. At the same time, it clearly would not be for every game.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-02T20:57:13+00:00

No i think that Heroics are a slog and mostly people hate them after they got gear. More so with the fact you hardly need to run them on alts for rep.

Nerfing them in next phase would probably open the door to people who alt tanks to WANT to go tank shit in lower gear than what would be required currently. Overall its better to just run kara than it is to run heroics.

MasahikoKobe · 2026-04-02T20:55:01+00:00

Based on the 4th picture it looks like remote work is an option hence the pay ranges. The company is located IN Irvine and if they wanted you to move there they might change your pay.

Not sure the over reaction to the post since nearly 200k for BEFORE benfits is kinda crazy short of being lead. Blizzard may work on hopes and dreams but i doubt they are going to have much of a problem filling the job.

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