Subscription and sales numbers should be the driver, integrity matters only in how it impacts them. I want a fun and fair game as a free player, but it would be absurd for me to stand on a soapbox and say they’re somehow morally obligated to provide me that.
Things can have multiple reasons for happening. They run a business. Assume one factor for every single thing they do is money. Doesn’t mean they are lying to you when they give you a different reason.
I have played games from AAA publishers such as Diablo, and also from independent ones such as Path of Exile. I think nerf is a fact of life for any online games. Something gets used too much, dominating meta to the point that a player loses out without having that thing, it will get nerfed. I remember the forum ruckus when the devs of POE nerfed the Mjolner hammer, the single most important legendary weapon in the game back then. Every online game developers does nerfing at one point or another in their game’s lifetime. By itself, nerfing cannot be used as a criterion for integrity.
But the process leading to nerfing, the honesty and transparency of the explanation given for the nerf, and how much the devs listen to the feedback after the nerf can be.used as criteria for integrity.
I will not try to analyze D3’s integrity here, but let’s be clear on what you mean by “integrity” before you cry “foul!”
Quite sure there are more than a few companies you give your money to that fit that negative description.
You don’t find it to be even questionable that a company would make use of sophisticated psychological strategy specifically tailored to enable and prey on addictive personalities and mental/emotional weaknesses? Because that’s what you’re saying. Cigarette companies were recently forced to stop doing so via cartoon characters selling smokes, right? There is a difference between the two products, but the mechanism used to exploit consumers, and I do mean exploit, is just as detrimental.
Structural Integrity would be nice. Especially on iOS.
#TooSoon?
You must not be living in the same world as I, because almost everyone, everywhere is giving money to companies that don’t care about them. That’s the nature of capitalism. Their bottom line profit drives all business decisions.
The company might even say in their marketing slogans that they care about you, but they really don’t. They will say whatever they have to in order to get as much money from you as they can. Disney is a prime example of acting like they’re your friend, but they are actually very greedy and underhanded in their practices.