Why They Rage

ANONYMOUS BLIZZARD EMPLOYEE: All they see them as is an incredible revenue stream, my man. Blizzard is going to suck them dry until their parents kick them out of the house and they become homeless. Then a whole new generation of losers is going to step up to the plate to throw their money, and lives, away. It's a perfect business model.

REPORTER: Why maintain such extensive forums if you don't care about the players or what they have to say?

ANONYMOUS BLIZZARD EMPLOYEE: I'm not sure. Those forums are a wasteland. We throw every single suggestion players make into the garbage.

NARRATOR: When asked for comment representatives at Blizzard Entertainment declined to speak with us on camera but said, "This employee does not speak on behalf of Blizzard Entertainment." We wanted to know more. Why maintain forums if anything your user base is going to say is going to be ignored?

Prof. BRIAN SLYTHERIN, Harvard University: Most companies are seen as big faceless corporations who could not care less about customer input. Then there was this trend. A bunch of young executives got together and said, why don't we find out what our customers have to say?

NARRATOR: Brian Syltherin is the professor of Internet forum studies at Harvard University, a graduate program for students who would like to make a career out of administrating web forums.

Prof. BRIAN SLYTHERIN, Harvard University: After that you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a company with a ridiculously extensive "contact us" section on their web site. The mantra from that point on was, "Your opinion is important to us!" Today it's just a farce.

REPORTER: A farce? You mean these companies' don't actually care what the consumer has to say?

Prof. BRIAN SLYTHERIN, Harvard University: At first they did. They truly did. But very shortly after this whole thing started they realized one thing, customers are morons.

RERPORTER: Morons?

Prof. BRIAN SLYTHERIN, Harvard University: They were paying large amounts of money for research teams that discovered one and only one thing, their products suck. No matter what, their products were inferior and they were better at some previous point in time. Eventually they realized that customer outreach programs weren't going to result in better products or increased profits so they dumped the programs altogether. Now customer feedback divisions have only one employee, a shredder.