Blizzard Faces Hellish Backlash after BlizzCon Diablo Mobile Reveal

Imagine you paid money to go to Comicon, and Disney/Marvel announced a new Captain America movie and since Chris Evans is out it will star a Chinese actor that's largely unknown in the US. The people who went to Comicon would lose their absolute shit over this, it's obvious this is pandering to a different market, it's obvious this market isn't the people who went to Comicon, while sure there could be plenty of other Captain America fans that are ok with this they aren't ones who typically will go to Comicon, and there probably are going to be plenty of fans who absolutely fucking hate the idea as well without being one to go to Comicon. Now look at the parallels between that and Diablo, if you're one of those that are ok with it, then great no need to defend what Blizzard is doing, simply sit back and wait to play your game, for everyone else just let them have an out to vent, it's like people are saying "you're not allowed to be upset, you're not allowed to get some of your aggression out, bottle that shit up and accept it for what it is"
 
My biggest concern over all this and with Diablo's future comes down to Blizzard's shocked reaction to all this. They've shown that they do not understand their audience if they couldn't predict that announcing a mobile only Diablo game to a crowd of PC enthusiasts wouldn't go as planned. If they were that caught off guard over this and that out of touch, I worry what Diablo 4 will actually be like...
 
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Deathroned said:
Who makes Diablo?
Blizzard

Who owns the Diablo IP?
Blizzard

why should they make a minor announcement of the game they are making, its Blizzcon, an event hosted by Blizzard.

Let them take their sweet time making Diablo 4, you guys want Developers to rush their games, then complain when it is unfinished and it's buggy.
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Blizzard admits they have several more diablo projects in the works they don't talk about, it's pretty safe to assume one of them could be D4, knowing that a company is working on a game does not force them to bring it out any faster. Also taking your time does not nesecarilly make a game better ** cough DNF cough**

I don't understand all the need for this so called "secrecy" that is all the rage these days, I still remember Carmaks .plan updates on the games he was working on. Everyone knows these game companies are working on something and with existing ip that is theirs it's not like someone else is going to steal their thunder.
 
Deathroned said:
Who makes Diablo?
Blizzard

Who owns the Diablo IP?
Blizzard

why should they make a minor announcement of the game they are making, its Blizzcon, an event hosted by Blizzard.

Let them take their sweet time making Diablo 4, you guys want Developers to rush their games, then complain when it is unfinished and it's buggy.
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You are not wrong just ignorant, people like you working for blizzard are why Blizzard made this misstep. Yes it's their con, they can do what they want, but people paying to attend can also say and do what they want, and will have their own expectations that are not that hard for Blizzard to know.

This backlash was 100% predictable.

Edit:

There are two huge silver linings to these backlashes.

One it shows that a market still exists for what many of us consider a good quality game. Two it tells developers that. If blizzard and others won't make it, then someone else will.
 
So you're saying Half Life 3 is confirmed... Awesome! :D/s
 
Abomination that looks to rip off the visuals of this game:
Wolcen-Edric-Art-1440x720[1].jpg
 
Lakados said:
Except that screenshot is from the 2020 game Lords of Mayhem which isn’t actually a licensed Warhammer title. And it’s graphics were a rip off of Diablo 3.
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I'm not sure that "which specific game a joke about getting who ripped whom off" is the joke.
 
1_rick said:
I'm not sure that "which specific game a joke about getting who ripped whom off" is the joke.
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I don't know either, it's pretty unclear, but it's also from a new account on a 4-year-old thread, I am confused all around and the coffee isn't working this morning. I just don't have the ability to process this.
 
Lakados said:
I don't know either, it's pretty unclear, but it's also from a new account on a 4-year-old thread, I am confused all around and the coffee isn't working this morning. I just don't have the ability to process this.
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OK, to be clear, I was accusing that post of doing the same as Gabe.
 
Armenius said:
PC release? I guess we all didn't have phones, after all.
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They say it's because if they didn't release it on PC, people were just going to emulate it there. So they might as well launch it and save everybody the headache.

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo-immortal/23797159/making-diablo-immortal-for-pc

https://www.polygon.com/23040956/diablo-immortal-pc-mobile-emulation-blizzard

"In a blog post, Blizzard speaks a bit about going back and forth on wanting Diablo Immortal on PC at all. “On one hand, we felt that we wouldn’t be doing the title justice by releasing a game originally designed for mobile on PC,” Blizzard said, “on the other hand, we wanted to make sure the game reached as many players as possible—especially our most dedicated PC fans.” But, Blizzard explained, “the deciding factor was that we knew many of you would attempt to play this game through an emulator, thus leading us towards building a better experience.”"
 
I must be a glutton for punishment but I signed up for the pc beta...😁

Reading the details it looks like they really did put some effort into coding for K/M and controllers.
 
Bowman15 said:
I must be a glutton for punishment but I signed up for the pc beta...😁

Reading the details it looks like they really did put some effort into coding for K/M and controllers.
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Not gonna lie, if I get this I would be really tempted to use the PS5 controller with it.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Super easy to do a port to PC I guess? Same clunky interface as the phone, wonder where the p2w mechanics fall into place. "You have used up your 20 minutes of playing today, to gain more playing stamina pay 4 red shards by clicking here"
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The days of complex ports are gone. Most engines now hide the platform specific functionality, so you have DrawStuff(), rather than DrawPCStuff() && DrawMobileStuff(). I mean, most mobile platforms now are as powerful, or more powerful than a PS4.

As for the p2w mechanics,

https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/kfehj1/technical_alpha_preliminary_look_at_the/

Certain upgrades will require either real money purchases, or money you get from the auction house. Others will require real money purchases, such as upgrading a rift to guarantee legendary drops, or cosmetics, or guaranteed upgrade to stats.

So, I'm assuming it will be something like you run 10000 rifts to get one semi-useful item, vs someone who spends $1000 and gets one really good item. And like modern games, there are going to be dailies, weeklies, monthlies that you'll have to do to get the base items, and those certainly will be capped.
 
Nytegard said:
The days of complex ports are gone. Most engines now hide the platform specific functionality, so you have DrawStuff(), rather than DrawPCStuff() && DrawMobileStuff(). I mean, most mobile platforms now are as powerful, or more powerful than a PS4.

As for the p2w mechanics,

https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/kfehj1/technical_alpha_preliminary_look_at_the/

Certain upgrades will require either real money purchases, or money you get from the auction house. Others will require real money purchases, such as upgrading a rift to guarantee legendary drops, or cosmetics, or guaranteed upgrade to stats.

So, I'm assuming it will be something like you run 10000 rifts to get one semi-useful item, vs someone who spends $1000 and gets one really good item. And like modern games, there are going to be dailies, weeklies, monthlies that you'll have to do to get the base items, and those certainly will be capped.
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It's actually better than the people speculating back in the day hopped.

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo-immortal/23580185/our-free-to-play-approach-and-values

Basically, it will be for those who want to either grind up a character to compete in ladders or to absolutely min/max characters for ladders. You can buy improved drops (Elder Rifts vs Normal/Greater) or stuff for Reforging stats.
 
Lakados said:
They say it's because if they didn't release it on PC, people were just going to emulate it there. So they might as well launch it and save everybody the headache.

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/diablo-immortal/23797159/making-diablo-immortal-for-pc

https://www.polygon.com/23040956/diablo-immortal-pc-mobile-emulation-blizzard

"In a blog post, Blizzard speaks a bit about going back and forth on wanting Diablo Immortal on PC at all. “On one hand, we felt that we wouldn’t be doing the title justice by releasing a game originally designed for mobile on PC,” Blizzard said, “on the other hand, we wanted to make sure the game reached as many players as possible—especially our most dedicated PC fans.” But, Blizzard explained, “the deciding factor was that we knew many of you would attempt to play this game through an emulator, thus leading us towards building a better experience.”"
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‘“On one hand, we felt that we wouldn’t be doing the title justice by releasing a game originally designed for mobile on PC,”Blizzard said, “on the other hand, we wanted to make sure the game reached as many players as possible—especially our most dedicated PC fans.” But, Blizzard explained, “the deciding factor is we really like milking our entire idiotic fan base for their cash.”’

I fixed it for them.
 
Nytegard said:
And like modern games, there are going to be dailies, weeklies, monthlies that you'll have to do to get the base items, and those certainly will be capped.
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See this is an aspect that I really don't like, where I feel like I need to log in just to get the daily whatever. I like Final Fantasy:BE as a game, as simplistic as it was, but the daily grind that I felt was necessary just made it unfun after a while, and that's without going into the "stamina" aspect that I really dislike in games. And while people will say "You don't have to do it every day" you really do have to do stuff every day just to get that one thing that is here for a limited time or whatever the mechanic is.
 
sfsuphysics said:
See this is an aspect that I really don't like, where I feel like I need to log in just to get the daily whatever. I like Final Fantasy:BE as a game, as simplistic as it was, but the daily grind that I felt was necessary just made it unfun after a while, and that's without going into the "stamina" aspect that I really dislike in games. And while people will say "You don't have to do it every day" you really do have to do stuff every day just to get that one thing that is here for a limited time or whatever the mechanic is.
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These games are designed to be addictive, not fun. Because it is free to play, they need to make money somehow. Blizzard and NetEase are companies after all. The bottom line is, most people don't play 100 hours on any video game.

Even Diablo, the numbers aren't that great. Take Diablo 3. Unlike the PC, you can get a full player count, or roughly one, per season. It's somewhere between 200k-250k per console of people who play the season. But fewer than 50k of players even reach Level 70, which is where most people believe the game actually begins. And it only takes like 6 hours at most to get there.

It's similar to casinos. According to the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304626104579123383535635644), there are 2 types of customers you want to target. Whales and degenerate gamblers make up roughly 80% of a casino's profit. You have to cater to the whales obviously, but degenerates are going to gamble regardless, so all that you need to do is make things addictive. So casinos focus on that crowd, and everyone else is really just a side note. I'm pretty sure freemium games work the same way.
 
Nytegard said:
These games are designed to be addictive, not fun. Because it is free to play, they need to make money somehow. Blizzard and NetEase are companies after all. The bottom line is, most people don't play 100 hours on any video game.

Even Diablo, the numbers aren't that great. Take Diablo 3. Unlike the PC, you can get a full player count, or roughly one, per season. It's somewhere between 200k-250k per console of people who play the season. But fewer than 50k of players even reach Level 70, which is where most people believe the game actually begins. And it only takes like 6 hours at most to get there.

It's similar to casinos. According to the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304626104579123383535635644), there are 2 types of customers you want to target. Whales and degenerate gamblers make up roughly 80% of a casino's profit. You have to cater to the whales obviously, but degenerates are going to gamble regardless, so all that you need to do is make things addictive. So casinos focus on that crowd, and everyone else is really just a side note. I'm pretty sure freemium games work the same way.
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My thinking is based on what they said they are monetizing in the store is they are going after the ladder climbers and the streamers. The things you are paying for is for min-maxing with the reforging, transmogs for those who customize their characters, and more challenging levels of rifts. All things the competitive players or streamers are going to need but not the stuff the remaining 90% are going to care about.

It’s enough to lock in their MDI players or what ever they are called and then sprinkle down on that fan base as they try to duplicate it.
 
Lakados said:
“the deciding factor was that we knew many of you would attempt to play this game through an emulator, thus leading us towards building a better experience.”"
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That is a good joke. Blizzard thinking they're competent and can best content that comes from the community.

More like they saw another opportunity to extract cash from PC gamers with shitty broken ports.
 
Lakados said:
My thinking is based on what they said they are monetizing in the store is they are going after the ladder climbers and the streamers. The things you are paying for is for min-maxing with the reforging, transmogs for those who customize their characters, and more challenging levels of rifts. All things the competitive players or streamers are going to need but not the stuff the remaining 90% are going to care about.
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With this information in addition to the fact that they're too lazy to bring it to macOS, makes it a hard pass for me.

The WHOLE point of Diablo in general is the loot. Putting loot behind any form of paywall with haves and have-nots is just a method to milk people and make them frustrated. If they didn't learn a thing from the D3 launch, auction house, terrible grind, etc, then they deserve every failure coming to them.
Even Overwatch is "just" swag - and not competitive advantage.
Blizzard is a rotting carcass. I've literally been with their journey since the original Warcraft back in the mid 90's. But as I get older I realize that IP is only worth what is built off of it. I look forward to new passionate companies to eat their lunch at Action-RPG's and RTS's.
 
Well I'm extremely skeptical of this game being any good at all, but since it is F2P (I won't fall for the P2W)... I signed up to give it a shot on PC. Blizzard already owns all my info anyway.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
With this information in addition to the fact that they're too lazy to bring it to macOS, makes it a hard pass for me.

The WHOLE point of Diablo in general is the loot. Putting loot behind any form of paywall with haves and have-nots is just a method to milk people and make them frustrated. If they didn't learn a thing from the D3 launch, auction house, terrible grind, etc, then they deserve every failure coming to them.
Even Overwatch is "just" swag - and not competitive advantage.
Blizzard is a rotting carcass. I've literally been with their journey since the original Warcraft back in the mid 90's. But as I get older I realize that IP is only worth what is built off of it. I look forward to new passionate companies to eat their lunch at Action-RPG's and RTS's.
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I’m pretty sure the MacOS/iOS overlap here is going to be pretty huge. So I don’t think they are missing anybody market wise, it still may be available to MacOS users in the store anyways. But that’s pretty interesting that they would leave MacOS out specifically like that.

I’m not seeing a lot of loot being left out, it’s just custom options are going to come slower to F2P players as they have to farm the various parts and not just buy them.

But who am I fooling I will for sure have it on my iPad, I’ll be one of those who plays it from time to time if one of my friends is but I don’t see the appeal of the grind like I used too.
 
Lakados said:
I’m pretty sure the MacOS/iOS overlap here is going to be pretty huge. So I don’t think they are missing anybody market wise, it still may be available to MacOS users in the store anyways. But that’s pretty interesting that they would leave MacOS out specifically like that.
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2 things here:
1) Blizzard themselves have stated that it’s coming to desktop to save users the hassles of emulation. That’s either true or it’s not.
2) The amount of time it would take to port something from iOS to macOS is near nill. It literally just requires a recompile. Especially now that everything is ARM and Metal. So basically point #2 is in disagreement with Blizzard’s stated point #1.

EVERYONE HAS A PHONE. Overlap of iOS users to macOS is meaningless. Windows users are on android or iOS too. If that is the logic, then Windows doesn’t need a port either.

If it’s not blocked by Blizzard then technically ARM Mac users will still be able to play the iOS version directly on the Mac without needing an emulator. But if not, then Blizzard is basically just lying about their reasons for Windows support. Either desktop support should be there or it shouldn’t.

Lastly Blizzard themselves since being merged with Activision haven’t bothered to port anything to macOS. So there is no version of Overwatch on Mac despite having plenty of hardware that could play it. The same is happening with D4. Blizzard used to be a very Mac friendly company, and now they aren’t. With the Microsoft acquisition I only see this trend continuing.


Lakados said:
I’m not seeing a lot of loot being left out, it’s just custom options are going to come slower to F2P players as they have to farm the various parts and not just buy them.
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Doesn’t matter. Any paywall on loot is bad for the community and the game. Blizzard is incentivized to make the grind as terrible as possible to extract as much money as possible. The FTP option will always mean that you either play the game as a full time job or pay money. And both of those are unacceptable in 2022. And well, since ever.

To see this in action at Blizzard themselves, play Hearthstone for a year and you’ll see first hand what FTP mechanics look like.
 
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Dayaks said:
‘“On one hand, we felt that we wouldn’t be doing the title justice by releasing a game originally designed for mobile on PC,”Blizzard said, “on the other hand, we wanted to make sure the game reached as many players as possible—especially our most dedicated PC fans.” But, Blizzard explained, “the deciding factor is we really like milking our entire idiotic fan base for their cash.”’

I fixed it for them.
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The secret cow level was a warning from the future.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
Doesn’t matter. Any paywall on loot is bad for the community and the game. Blizzard is incentivized to make the grind as terrible as possible to extract as much money as possible. The FTP option will always mean that you either play the game as a full time job or pay money. And both of those are unacceptable in 2022. And well, since ever.

To see this in action at Blizzard themselves, play Hearthstone for a year and you’ll see first hand what FTP mechanics look like.
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It could be argued that Blizzard and their "grind" has gotten worse and worse on every title they currently have and this is just going to be their new low. But I'll see what it looks like when it gets here, I can easily see this being my 30 min as I wind down for bed title once I am done Pokemon Legends.
 
Tweak155 said:
Well I'm extremely skeptical of this game being any good at all, but since it is F2P (I won't fall for the P2W)... I signed up to give it a shot on PC. Blizzard already owns all my info anyway.
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Ah the game is 100% free on PC? I would say that makes it easier to swallow the p2w mechanics but still dont like them. Other p2w mobile games out there I would happily play the price of a game to play them how I want to.
 
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