Blizzard is truly an incredible company. To complement the ongoing card reveal season, Blizzard has decided to spread misinformation to the casual masses via Twitter, which goes well with that whole Elon Musk acquisition thing that's been going on.
Quote From BattleNet Check out some of the new March of the Lich King DK core set cards
They followed this up 11 minutes later with the following tweet:
Quote From BattleNet Gotcha! Head on over to @PlayHearthstone for the ACTUAL reveals.
Here's the problem. These cards are all from the Knights of the Frozen Throne adventure during your fight against The The Lich King. This content is ancient. Many players probably never took part in their fight against The Lich King and more importantly, folks that were around when it was current content back in 2017 probably don't remember the exact cards used in the fight very well.
With players looking for new cards, they're going to assume at a glance that an official Blizzard account is giving them real news. People use apps like Twitter to scroll past information without looking any farther into anything, only reading headlines, which is why we're in this horrible age of people being so misinformed. Blizzard is disappointingly adding to this problem by promoting the new expansion under the guise of relevant reveals.
They are doing the community a disservice by pushing out content like this. As a community website that has a large focus on delivering factual Hearthstone content, we condemn Blizzard's actions.
Comments
Anyone agreeing with Flux's position should read up on The Onion's amicus brief to Novak v City of Parma. It is a spirited (and hilarious) defense of parody and why it is unnecessary to disclaim that something is a joke.
The Onion itself is an exemplar of presenting absurdity as fact. Sure, that's technically "misinformation", but it's misinformation that should be allowed and enjoyed by those of us with a sense of humor.
Those without a sense of humor should not be trying to ruin the fun for the rest of us by advocating the banning of parody.
You might be right for some, might not be for another but if you really think bringing a political opinion about Twitter on how you associate this stuff with Elon Musk's acquisition is a good idea, you are wrong. It is worse than what you think is worse which is the joke that blizzard made in this case. Reading that comment as an opener even spoils the enjoyment completely from beginning. It gives a bitter taste from the get-go.
We saw from Avalon's comment how revealed cards are a red line for your team but it seems it wasn't for blizzard (which obviously was a joke, even for a new comer.) so you can't get angry for a company for not having same red lines as your business model.
I mean, I know everything is connected to each other; games, politics, etc. but it is not a good move when you politically judge something in a website which isn't the topic here. I don't care about Twitter and I don't want to learn your political arguments about twitter and how you relate it with Hearthstone here. If i wanted some political approach, it wouldn't be this site to visit. I guess you understand what i meant here.
And also, it doesn't prove that blizzard also thinks that they were wrong by deleting those tweets tbh. That move proves anything at all. Even if they got bad feedback and deleted tweets, it wouldn't prove anything again.
I got your frustration and even sympathize with you as how this topic is a red-line for you but it doesn't have to be red-line for others as well. Tbh, i liked the joke at first glance and would be happier if they didn't delete them.
One way or another, this must've definitely created some confusion among people from what we saw and didn't go down all too well, since the Battle.net tweets appear to have now been deleted. Throwing out any fake/custom/other cards right during the reveal season is risky when you are the official account with a wide platform; it's the kind of lessons we have already seen in the past.
The people in the know and the dedicated players (like most around these parts) will be always able to tell things apart, but this might not carry over to anyone who maintains only a very superficial connection to the game. Or those press outlets that don't cover Hearthstone regularly, but might mistakenly jump on the opportunity with "look how crazy stupid overwpowered cards they made!!!" while never researching the context (you'd be surprised how many of those are there on the world wide web).
I'm sure it was well-intentioned and harmless (in their minds) fun by Blizz, just didn't quite land with the awkward timing. If they have only thought to wait for a better moment, could've been a good nostalgic joke with no strings attached.
However you view this whole mishap (I forgot to laugh and mainly just rolled my eyes once everyone on social media started reposting this and going 'huh?'). We could debate the merits of what is and isn't misinformation; the initial tweet arguably treaded that fine line, while meant well. Personally I wouldn't want to see a precedent where it's suddenly okay to randomly go "hey check out these new cards, haha, not really" because we just wouldn't see the end of it.
It didn't make me angry or anything, there are ambivalent feelings at most; seemingly as with most of the audience out there. But we're all bound to have some different perspectives on this whole thing depending on our involvement. Shrug it off, didn't quite work. Making fun of them for this strangely timed attempt, fair game too.
I too have to side with the majority. It's hard to make a fair comparison between misinformation spread on Twitter with this quote-unquote card reveal. Usually misinformation covers important topics which can make a big influence on a community or even an entire country, such as elections, laws and mandates where people's lives will be at stake. Meanwhile Hearthstone is just a video game, whether or not these virtual cards are real won't cause the apocalypse or anything.
Misinformation and Disinformation.
Misinformation is when you post something that isn't factual but your intent was not to deceive people. Disinformation is when there is deliberate deception involved. I don't believe Blizzard created disinformation here which is why it solidly falls into the misinformation category.
While Hearthstone may just be a video game, that doesn't mean the community shouldn't be held to a higher standard. I've been saying for years that gaming should remain fun and that isn't something I'll ever disagree with, but that also doesn't mean we can't have serious conversations when people mess up.
And honestly? Blizzard messes up a lot. A lot of that I don't even talk about publicly because it's beating a dead horse at this point and overall we don't need that kind of negativity so consistently. Some folks call me a Blizzard shill, others call me a Blizzard hater, I just call it like I see it because we have witnessed one of the greatest gaming companies become a tenth of what it used to be. I really hope that Microsoft's acquisition of their IP and talent ends up being a positive for their titles because they certainly need all the help they can get.
We should hold them to a higher standard.
I'm actually quite surprised how people aren't seeing this from Flux's point of view. A small amount of empathy should be warranted here. He's the owner of a news site, even if it's for a game. Misinformation damages the reputation of news sites and it wastes staff time.
Yes, Blizzard's fake post is in poor taste but it can also be seen as slapstick humor. This doesn't mean the whole OoC community should gang up on Flux if you don't agree with his opinion. Also view the bad language as being passionate about the subject 🙃
It is what happens when you bring some political judgement here i guess.
I don't think it would have this kind of reaction if there was not that twitter adversion. This is a Card Game News site and we are not here to read this kind of political approaches. If I wanted to, I can easily follow news about Hearthstone from twitter, reddit etc. and then I can't say anything to those platforms because they are not themed around card games but I'm here because this site was used to have plain and simple news without political adversions or any other off-topic criticisms about the games I am playing.
My reaction is all about this else I can sympathize how flux feels about misinformation. Even though It is not my red-line, it is a valid opinion as a news site owner but if this is not a political site or even though it would be one, A news site owner and/or a journalist has to be objective about political stuff while sharing news. You can't share your political judgement as news, it is an unfavorable move for a journalist.
Look man, a skilled new reporter like Flux should be able to recognise a clear joke like this one, tho. This shit is embarassing. I have nothing but respect for the guy for creating and keeing up this website, but I think he's 100% in the wrong on this one.
You gotta stop using the term "misinformation". It's clearly a joke, it wasn't meant to misinform anyone, and I don't understand how anyone could be mislead by the tweet.
I'm very well aware of what their intention was - to do something silly. They clearly had a second-thought about it though because the tweets referenced in the article have since been deleted.
I'm not at all embarrassed and never will be. I'll continue to hold Blizzard to a higher standard. Their staff complained on Twitter about news outlets dropping bombs on them when the company was up to no good during the start of a card reveal season, well, in my eyes, they're now the people that are putting up junk in their reveal season.
And because I said it in another reply here but want to really hammer it home:
Misinformation is when you post something that isn't factual but your intent was not to deceive people. Disinformation is when there is deliberate deception involved. I don't believe Blizzard created disinformation here which is why it solidly falls into the misinformation category. Intent it what matters here. They made a mistake and they got called out on it.
Although I do not want to get involved too much in this topic, I'd like to give my own cents on the matter: maybe it won't change anything, maybe your ideas will shift a bit - see for yourself.
Almost a year ago, Onyxia's Lair's reveal season was taking place and Blizzard revealed the Warlock card Impfestation (yeah, super busted, right?) - after that, Songbird tweeted out that this card was initially meant to be a lesser Ultimate Infestation called Ultimate Impfestation (for obvious reasons), but in the end that design was used for Dreadlich Tamsin instead. Why am I telling this story? When creating this article's thumbnail, I created a card with Impfestation's art but called it "Ultimate Impfestation" to be used as a funny teaser. Here's the actual thumbnail.
However, my idea got rejected: Frosty explained to me that we were during a reveal season, and publishing a "fake card" without a clear disclaimer would've been a terrible move for us, because it would've been misleading to our audience and would've damaged us in the long run.
Now let's get back to yesterday's episode. We just finished pushing live the first reveal article of the day when we notice Battle.net's tweet. I am still editing minor details (card positioning, sources, article tags) and this second "reveal" catch me and everyone else off guard, as we weren't expecting more cards, let alone from another account that Team 5 never really uses for communication. I rush an article up without even looking at the cards, but when I am about to paste them I immediately notice that they're from Frozen Throne's solo content: I didn't even question their powerlevel (which is blatantly over the top), as I just pointed out that they couldn't be real. We just stay silent for a couple of very long minutes, not really knowing what to do because during a reveal season we have to be as fast and precise as possible (in the end, you're in this comment section because you trust our work, and we want to keep things that way), but at the same time we cannot afford publishing fake stuff, as we'd make fun of ourselves by doing so! After some time, I convinced Flux that there was no way they were actual Death Knight cards and he wrote this article.
Again, I am not interested in jumping into the debate, but I just wanted to give all our readers a few behind-the-scenes details that many of you might not be aware of. To me, the reveal season and the actual new Death Knight cards are way more interesting and exciting than a poorly timed joke, so I will keep focusing my attention towards them and, specifically, towards the next reveal, taking place in 9 hours (fucking perfect screenshot timing btw) - see you all then!
thanks for the well put together insight, I still feel like the profanity was still a bit too much, but I understand where the frustration is coming from now
It was an unfortunate part of the heat of the moment reaction, and I certainly understand how it would be off-putting. Not everyone approves of certain bluntness. I appreciate the level-headed approaches I get to see here and there, even when personal perspectives might differ.
Such a weird article to wake up to honestly.
Blizz, in their official capacity, should not have attempted it, but its really just an honest joke. The bombast effect of the cards alone should be informative in of itself. Is it misinformation? Yes, it is technically by definition, what more from an official position, but its so harmless that its more likely to evoke laughs than actual damages.
But I can understand the point of view of someone whose job is to keep up to date with these things. Getting pinged by nonsense is not likely to make anyone's day any easier to stomach. Still though, this is stuff to rant in private, because the good message will almost certainly be clouded by the case study's relative harmlessness.
This is the part where I agree with most of content creators. They need to stay fresh with every new content, which means, every little misinformation gotta be a pain in the ass.
Twitter and it's problem is different case. I couldn't care less about it.
Go outside.
Oh boo hoo.
People should grow a pair and call it like they see it more often. Go get your pre-order in - Bobby Kotick needs another yacht.
We'll see if Blizzard sends you another 'care package' after this.
I've been off their list since Alkali took over - the promotion company that was sending stuff out already had my information for the remainder of the sets they figured their gear out for.
Hearthstone is anti-datamining now and their repeated asks for me to take content down, which was denied, resulted in them saying no more free stuff. Which isn't that big of a deal, I don't have room for it all anyway. They believe stuff on a public CDN is private.
Yet I would love to see more datamining coming from you. It's been a while now. Screw with whatever they say, I just want some content to read in.
They're more tight-lipped in a lot of the data in the client these days. Sometimes we see stuff that could be interesting, like the DK Location image, and I think I screwed up by not posting about that particular asset this time around because ultimately is gave us DK and it would have been a killer headline. I ended up not though because I didn't think about it very much.
I wrongly assumed they were just catching their assets up as a precaution. I would not have ever predicted a class at the end of the year, though it does make sense with Wrath of the Lich King back on and alive and the end of the Hearthstone year always being weaker for them than the start. It'll be very interesting to see the numbers and what the start of next year looks like.
Datamining though. Definitely my favourite type of content to talk about!