"Working as Intended" - by whom?

For anyone not recognizing the title quote, it dates from the first couple of years post-release of the game which more than any other ruined online play, World of Warcraft. Like many entertainment companies, Blizzard always invested more in hype than in actual development. When customers would justifiably complain about problems going unsolved for months at a time, Blizzard's public relations wranglers would trot out that line by way of pretending nothing is wrong. It's not bugged/unbalanced/missing; the content is "working as intended" with the implication you must just be clicking it wrong.

 

That infamously brazen stock lie goes hand in hand with another, more widespread, moldy old PR favorite: it's not in the budget. Funding is just "not directed toward this aspect" of business. I really wish I didn't have to be the only one asking every time: well who allocated your fucking budget? Was it not... you? Did secret agents sneak into the manager's office to allocate ten workers to packaging and only three to your actual product? Did gremlins smuggle a giant cash magnet into the marketing department to draw all your funding there? Did Martians descend in the night to unbalance your spreadsheets?

 

Budget allocation is not some immutable, external cosmic force. No-one made you over-hype, over-invest, over-expand and under-develop.

YOU ARE STILL RESPONSIBLE FOR THE QUALITY OF YOUR PRODUCT.