Blizzard Faces Hellish Backlash after BlizzCon Diablo Mobile Reveal

Nytegard said:
China is a huge market. Hollywood movies have started to cater towards them. And now games are. The problem is, tastes are different in the USA than China. So now people are finding out that modern games are evolving, and they're no longer the audience.

Being pushed out of the mainstream gaming market happens to us all sooner or later.
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taste is actually quite the same , but nearly all games which we like elsewhere is banned in China or does not get a proper Chinese translation.

Lol if this game is banned too. ( which wouldn't be an impossibility as China now seem to be on a crusade to set morally acceptable limits for games)
 
Hostile said:
And that guy who stood up at the Q&A and asked if it was an April Fool's joke is a rude, dickhead. He's not some internet hero, he's a douchebag.
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How is he rude? It was a legitimate question knowing Actiblizzards history.

He's a damn saint, and asked the question that everyone had in their minds, which is why he has such great applause.

Everyone in that audience knew it was a shitshow.
 
activision set the stage for this when they came out and gave hope of a big diablo reveal at blizzcon. the long standing plan is to gut blizzard and turn battle.net into the activations gaming service inorder for that to happen blizzcon must die in its current form or at least scale back to a glorified esports festival
 
Hostile said:
People on the internet are such pieces of shit. Really. Grow the fuck up.

If any of these "hardcore Diablo fans" were upset that Diablo 4 wasn't announced then they're idiots. Blizzard has been hinting for weeks/months that Diablo4 was NOT going to be announced at BlizzCon this year, at least as far back as October 18th...

And never mind that it took 8 years for Blizzard to announce D3 after D2. So anyone expecting to hear about D4 so soon were kidding themselves.

And that guy who stood up at the Q&A and asked if it was an April Fool's joke is a rude, dickhead. He's not some internet hero, he's a douchebag.
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Wow, man, "hinting for weeks/months...at least as as far back as October 18th" what are you, the king of hyperbole? The ONLY reason they told people not to get too excited on the 18th was because everyone and their mothers - including all sorts of gaming media - were hyping the fuck out of the Blizzcon Diablo announcement after Blizz went out of its way to tease "upcoming Diablo projects" in August and then booked a bunch of Diablo panels at Blizzcon. The fact that they thought people willing to pay money to go to their convention would be eager to lap up a fucking mobile Diablo game shows (yet again) a complete disconnect from and disdain for the Diablo fanbase. If this was some sort of side announcement then sure, whatever, but to make this the big reveal...well, you saw what happened.



BlizzCon 2018 is almost here and we’ve seen a lot of rumors flying around about our plans for Diablo at the show. These are very exciting times—we currently have multiple teams working on different Diablo projects and we can’t wait to tell you all about them . . . when the time is right.

We know what many of you are hoping for and we can only say that “good things come to those who wait,” but evil things often take longer. We appreciate your patience as our teams work tirelessly to create nightmarish experiences worthy of the Lord of Terror.

While we won’t be ready to announce all of our projects, we do intend to share some Diablo-related news with you at the show.

November 2 will be an especially diabolical date—not only is it the first day of BlizzCon, it’s also when Diablo III arrives on the Nintendo Switch. If you’re planning to pick up the game (the digital download will be available starting at midnight on launch day) and are joining us in Anaheim, be sure to bring your console. We’d love to slay some demons with you on the show floor.

Again, we want to thank you for your patience and support. We are eternally grateful to you and the millions of other Diablo fans around the world whose passion for this franchise inspires us and keeps our fires burning.

We’ll see you in hell . . . and at BlizzCon!
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"The forges here at Blizzard are burning hot." Uh, I guess the forges were moved to NetEase?
 
Aix. said:
Wow, man, "hinting for weeks/months...at least as as far back as October 18th" what are you, the king of hyperbole? The ONLY reason they told people not to get too excited on the 18th was because everyone and their mothers - including all sorts of gaming media - were hyping the fuck out of the Blizzcon Diablo announcement after Blizz went out of its way to tease "upcoming Diablo projects" in August and then booked a bunch of Diablo panels at Blizzcon. The fact that they thought people willing to pay money to go to their convention would be eager to lap up a fucking mobile Diablo game shows (yet again) a complete disconnect from and disdain for the Diablo fanbase. If this was some sort of side announcement then sure, whatever, but to make this the big reveal...well, you saw what happened.





"The forges here at Blizzard are burning hot." Uh, I guess the forges were moved to NetEase?
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You link a direct press release detailing a mobile release, explicitly stating that the mobile announcements are only some of the projects being worked on, and you're both surprised and mad that D4 on PC wasn't announced even though there isn't any reason given to even expect that to be the case?

LMFAO, are you guys actually Diablo fans, new to the franchise, or new to following Blizzard?
I don't know a single person who thought D4 was on the table. It's literally years early for such an announcement, even more years away from being developed, and the only thing I heard people speculating about was whether we'd see an MMO roadmap and if this was the year for the D2 re-master.

Elsewhere at BlizzCon, W3 remaster was announced along with WoW classic servers, both of which the customer base has been asking about for damn near a decade! Blizzard has always moved at a glacial pace and the D3 playerbase is pissed they don't get a new iteration after a mere 6 years? It's not as if you guys would have been satisfied with D4 anyway...unless it's a remaster of D2. If it bothers you that much, a D2 remake is already available on SC2 and that's already free to play now from those damn money grabbers!
 
Gotta wonder- you're not buying a Diablo game for the graphics. You're buying it for the content, for better or worse.

Why complain about a re-skin? This is much the same as just using the same engine, isn't it?

So if the 'engine' used for the game works well, I'd consider that a plus over Blizzard building an indigenous one and dealing with development issues. Hell, they probably farmed the engine out simply to reduce development time, given that phones iterate so quickly.
 
mope54 said:
You link a direct press release detailing a mobile release, explicitly stating that the mobile announcements are only some of the projects being worked on, and you're both surprised and mad that D4 on PC wasn't announced even though there isn't any reason given to even expect that to be the case?

LMFAO, are you guys actually Diablo fans, new to the franchise, or new to following Blizzard?
I don't know a single person who thought D4 was on the table. It's literally years early for such an announcement, even more years away from being developed, and the only thing I heard people speculating about was whether we'd see an MMO roadmap and if this was the year for the D2 re-master.

Elsewhere at BlizzCon, W3 remaster was announced along with WoW classic servers, both of which the customer base has been asking about for damn near a decade! Blizzard has always moved at a glacial pace and the D3 playerbase is pissed they don't get a new iteration after a mere 6 years? It's not as if you guys would have been satisfied with D4 anyway...unless it's a remaster of D2. If it bothers you that much, a D2 remake is already available on SC2 and that's already free to play now from those damn money grabbers!
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I'm not going to hate it like so many other people, because I really didn't have expectations going in, and Diablo Immortal seems to be the way games have been going.

Still though, Blizzard made a massive mistake in the sense that you need to know your audience. Sometimes announcements of projects can be worse than no announcement at all, and this is one of those situations. Diablo Immortal really wasn't made for Western adults, which is exactly the group who goes to Blizzcon.
 
Nytegard said:
China is a huge market. Hollywood movies have started to cater towards them. And now games are. The problem is, tastes are different in the USA than China. So now people are finding out that modern games are evolving, and they're no longer the audience.

Being pushed out of the mainstream gaming market happens to us all sooner or later.
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All the FPS games and DLC pushed me out years ago. Buy a $70 game, get half of it, buy a "season pass" for $20, also known as "the rest of the damn game". It has just gotten to stupid levels.
 
Nytegard said:
I'm not going to hate it like so many other people, because I really didn't have expectations going in, and Diablo Immortal seems to be the way games have been going.

Still though, Blizzard made a massive mistake in the sense that you need to know your audience. Sometimes announcements of projects can be worse than no announcement at all, and this is one of those situations. Diablo Immortal really wasn't made for Western adults, which is exactly the group who goes to Blizzcon.
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Management told the Blizzard devs: hey dudes we are going to get loads of money on mobile Diablo , please sell it for us you will get main stage on Blizzcon kthxbye
 
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Spaceninja said:
All the FPS games and DLC pushed me out years ago. Buy a $70 game, get half of it, buy a "season pass" for $20, also known as "the rest of the damn game". It has just gotten to stupid levels.
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It's just a sign of getting older unfortunately. Games evolve. As a gamer, you need to get with the times, or you're not going to like them. But it's been like this since the beginning. I was watching a movie on arcade history a few years ago, and one of the people talked about how the golden age of games was the arcades of the late 1970s, and early 1980s, and how games have all gone downhill since then. And it's pretty much true with every generation.

I grew up on Sierra adventure games. I remember people hating them, because text adventures were the true games, and games like King's Quest were all about graphics and no gameplay. And how I was part of the generation destroying games. This was in the mid 1980s.

The thing is, when we first start gaming, our games are the best games. We don't pay attention to the whiners, because they're just old and upset, and their complaints carry no weight. We only pay attention to things that validate our feelings.

Blizzard though, in a very public way, just told a bunch of gamers that they're old, and it's time to move on, because Blizzard is, and that they're no longer the main audience. Typically game companies phase out gamers, rather than telling them to their face that they're no longer the audience.
 
Nytegard said:
I'm not going to hate it like so many other people, because I really didn't have expectations going in, and Diablo Immortal seems to be the way games have been going.

Still though, Blizzard made a massive mistake in the sense that you need to know your audience. Sometimes announcements of projects can be worse than no announcement at all, and this is one of those situations. Diablo Immortal really wasn't made for Western adults, which is exactly the group who goes to Blizzcon.
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Like it or not, Blizzard's audience extends beyond Orange County.

Let's put this in scale: the Shangai airport alone serves twice as many total attendees at BlizzCon.
China's mainland population is 4x that of the US' mainland population.
We don't even know who was actually attending in that audience--it's an assumption that it was primarily a Western audience (based on the surround, local population of Irvine and OC in general, that would be a very wrong assumption, FYI).
 
Nytegard said:
It's just a sign of getting older unfortunately. Games evolve. As a gamer, you need to get with the times, or you're not going to like them. But it's been like this since the beginning. I was watching a movie on arcade history a few years ago, and one of the people talked about how the golden age of games was the arcades of the late 1970s, and early 1980s, and how games have all gone downhill since then. And it's pretty much true with every generation.

I grew up on Sierra adventure games. I remember people hating them, because text adventures were the true games, and games like King's Quest were all about graphics and no gameplay. And how I was part of the generation destroying games. This was in the mid 1980s.

The thing is, when we first start gaming, our games are the best games. We don't pay attention to the whiners, because they're just old and upset, and their complaints carry no weight. We only pay attention to things that validate our feelings.

Blizzard though, in a very public way, just told a bunch of gamers that they're old, and it's time to move on, because Blizzard is, and that they're no longer the main audience. Typically game companies phase out gamers, rather than telling them to their face that they're no longer the audience.
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That's a good way of looking at it. I like your perspective & I agree. I guess its time to hang em up.
 
Nytegard said:
It's just a sign of getting older unfortunately. Games evolve. As a gamer, you need to get with the times, or you're not going to like them. But it's been like this since the beginning. I was watching a movie on arcade history a few years ago, and one of the people talked about how the golden age of games was the arcades of the late 1970s, and early 1980s, and how games have all gone downhill since then. And it's pretty much true with every generation.

I grew up on Sierra adventure games. I remember people hating them, because text adventures were the true games, and games like King's Quest were all about graphics and no gameplay. And how I was part of the generation destroying games. This was in the mid 1980s.

The thing is, when we first start gaming, our games are the best games. We don't pay attention to the whiners, because they're just old and upset, and their complaints carry no weight. We only pay attention to things that validate our feelings.

Blizzard though, in a very public way, just told a bunch of gamers that they're old, and it's time to move on, because Blizzard is, and that they're no longer the main audience. Typically game companies phase out gamers, rather than telling them to their face that they're no longer the audience.
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It is more business then gaming now.

I often wondered what Activision/Blizzard were doing with all the money WoW made they certainly did not invest in better content or top notch gaming engine.
Most of the games are more of the same and certain things are just different name same shit.

I could play hours and hours of one on one basketball on my commodore 64 :)

Business is severely screwing with people's gaming and not the other way around. games for shareholders not for gaming. Unless gaming becomes for gamers again it is not worth having any kind of hope for the industry that ones thrived so well when it was about games and not about money.
 
DejaWiz said:
A video game company (partly) outsourcing their gaming development to China...wow, that's pathetic.
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Why not?

They outsource heavy manufacturing, textiles, etc. If you don't like it vote with your wallet. When Mexico came for my manufacturing job I didn't see developers and silicon valley types worried about me. So I say fuck em'. I'll care about them just as much as they cared about me... in other words not at all, just give me my 5 cents off and go away. Perhaps I'm a bit bitter, but I find it enjoyable when the same people that didn't give a crap about factory workers etc. and just wanted to reap the benefits of outsourcing end up getting replaced by cheap labor and cry about it. Tasty, tasty, irony.
 
bigdogchris said:
"Do you guys not have phones?"

Does Blizzard not get that Diablo fans are not mobile gamers?

What a fucktard question by them.
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They realize that Diablo fans aren't mobile gamers. But there are ALOT more Chinese than there are Diablo fans.
 
Nytegard said:
It's just a sign of getting older unfortunately. Games evolve. As a gamer, you need to get with the times, or you're not going to like them. But it's been like this since the beginning. I was watching a movie on arcade history a few years ago, and one of the people talked about how the golden age of games was the arcades of the late 1970s, and early 1980s, and how games have all gone downhill since then. And it's pretty much true with every generation.

I grew up on Sierra adventure games. I remember people hating them, because text adventures were the true games, and games like King's Quest were all about graphics and no gameplay. And how I was part of the generation destroying games. This was in the mid 1980s.

The thing is, when we first start gaming, our games are the best games. We don't pay attention to the whiners, because they're just old and upset, and their complaints carry no weight. We only pay attention to things that validate our feelings.

Blizzard though, in a very public way, just told a bunch of gamers that they're old, and it's time to move on, because Blizzard is, and that they're no longer the main audience. Typically game companies phase out gamers, rather than telling them to their face that they're no longer the audience.
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I'm not against FPS games, I played plenty of them back in the day. Doom, Duke Nukem, RoTT, all the way to Medal of Honor, UT2k4 and so on. LAN parties were a lot more fun. No lag, you could throw something at your friend who got you with a cheap kill, those kinds of things. Not to mention when you bought a game, you got the whole game and maybe there would be an expansion that would have more maps and another single player campaign. Now it is just map packs and online play. Single player? What's that?

Games evolving isn't an issue. Text based dungeon crawlers grew up to become Skyrim. Sim City grew up and became Cities: Skylines (which I do play when I have time) There use to be a lot more genres of games that got lots of promotion, now it is just Battlefield (insert time period here) Call of Duty (insert tagline here). It could be an exposure thing as well, that is just what it seems the developers are focused on.

The biggest problem is DLC and micro transactions. If I buy a game, I want the whole thing. Not part of it and then get to pay to have the rest unlocked.
 
RogueKitsune said:
I actually feel sorry for the guys that were up on stage. In all likelihood they had no part in any of the decision making process to develop or on how to present the game at the con. They were just up there doing their job to the best of their ability. All the criticism should be directed at ActiBliz not at individuals running the slideshow they didn't make.
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sure they may have to toe the company line since it's their job.

but.... they need to take responsibility for their disparaging and belittling comment to the the fans in the audience, blaming the issue of lack of excitement as being due to them being smart-phoneless peasants.

from the youtube, one guy uttered it, and his lackey backed him up on it (go watch the youtube youself). so yeah, sympathy went out the window after they escalated a bad pr situation to an even worse one.

maybe they could have avoided this, by releasing a mobile platform game (although i hate the idea) if paired with a diablo 4... or at least be upfront about this coming down the line rather than getting the fans hyped up (and later blaming the fans for getting hyped. they did this crap before.... and they did it again....)

and if the fans are not happy with this mobile platform game, then don't make the situation worse by making it personal and taking it out on the fans needlessly by saying utterly ridiculous and condescending as they did o-O:
 
Lol it went that bad that they have re-uploaded the video due going over 400K dislikes and 1.5m watched... they posted a new one which it's going with 134k dislikes and 785K watched lol.. it's actually funny how low they can fall.
 
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At least a mobile version won't wear out your mouse buttons :p

I last played Diablo in College in 2001. Must have been Diablo III. I remember it being highly additive, but in general not very good "progress quest" style game you just mashed on mouse1 in for hours on end.
 
TordanGow said:
Why not?

They outsource heavy manufacturing, textiles, etc. If you don't like it vote with your wallet. When Mexico came for my manufacturing job I didn't see developers and silicon valley types worried about me. So I say fuck em'. I'll care about them just as much as they cared about me... in other words not at all, just give me my 5 cents off and go away. Perhaps I'm a bit bitter, but I find it enjoyable when the same people that didn't give a crap about factory workers etc. and just wanted to reap the benefits of outsourcing end up getting replaced by cheap labor and cry about it. Tasty, tasty, irony.
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I'm right there with ya...I've had previous jobs go to Juarez and Guadalajara. Including a manufacturing job...I absolutely give a crap.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
At least a mobile version won't wear out your mouse buttons :p

I last played Diablo in College in 2001. Must have been Diablo III. I remember it being highly additive, but in general not very good "progress quest" style game you just mashed on mouse1 in for hours on end.
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Would've been II, only know because it was the first game that I started playing when the sun was setting and got surprised by the sun rising thirty minutes later...
 
IdiotInCharge said:
Would've been II, only know because it was the first game that I started playing when the sun was setting and got surprised by the sun rising thirty minutes later...
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sounds about right.
I got 3 to go with a new system in 2011-12, played maybe 2 hours and forgot about it.
 
Araxie said:
Lol it went that bad that they have re-uploaded the video due going over 400K dislikes and 1.5m watched... they posted a new one which it's going with 134k dislikes and 785K watched lol.. it's actually funny how low they can fall.
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Thanks for letting me know that I have to go dislike more.
 
I have no issue with blizz making a game like that, I just wont play it. However this should have been a minor anouncement to something like ow yeah, next year at blizz con we will show you D4 or in 6 months we will release a remake of D2 but not this sould not have been anything major.

IMO blizzard is milking it's existing games a bit too long, while supporting your old games for a long time is a good thing, and I on't need a new game every year like cough cough AC or COD but with games like heartstone, heroes of the storm, overwatch and wow where they just keep adding stuff this is getting hard to also develop new games.
 
Nytegard said:
It's just a sign of getting older unfortunately. Games evolve. As a gamer, you need to get with the times, or you're not going to like them. But it's been like this since the beginning. I was watching a movie on arcade history a few years ago, and one of the people talked about how the golden age of games was the arcades of the late 1970s, and early 1980s, and how games have all gone downhill since then. And it's pretty much true with every generation.

I grew up on Sierra adventure games. I remember people hating them, because text adventures were the true games, and games like King's Quest were all about graphics and no gameplay. And how I was part of the generation destroying games. This was in the mid 1980s.

The thing is, when we first start gaming, our games are the best games. We don't pay attention to the whiners, because they're just old and upset, and their complaints carry no weight. We only pay attention to things that validate our feelings.

Blizzard though, in a very public way, just told a bunch of gamers that they're old, and it's time to move on, because Blizzard is, and that they're no longer the main audience. Typically game companies phase out gamers, rather than telling them to their face that they're no longer the audience.
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Thing is, mobile is not superior gaming platform: it doesn't offer superior controls or superior sound or visuals - in fact, it's all way worse than consoles let alone PC where the Diablo series truly lives. So to sell this as filling in the story between D2 and D3 or whatever and expecting Diablo players to flock to this inferior platform is just misguided at best. It has nothing to do with "you're old" and everything to do with trying to cash in on the crowd that, to this point, has stupidly shelled out money on mobile games for things like "play another level!" and using the Diablo franchise to do it.
 
Ranulfo said:
Oh, the defenders are already out in force. One within hours was calling them sexists/misogynists.

https://i.imgur.com/cUEC7Z8.png

Everyone needs to chill out about diablo immortal:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/insert...one-needs-to-chill-out-about-diablo-immortal/

Twitter collage:

https://i.redd.it/6mgpttba94w11.jpg
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Will Powers = complete beta cuck. Probably has his wife/gf/bf peg him every night while he whines about toxic masculinity. And all the defenders are the paid off shills who work for these publications that everyone should be ignoring.
 
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