Blizzard Responds to Diablo: Immortal Backlash

Megalith

Megalith

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With criticism for Diablo: Immortal mounting, Blizzard has been forced to justify their decision for demoting the beloved franchise to mobile devices, which fans have described as “out of touch” and “a slap in the face.” Speaking with Polygon, higher-ups “repeatedly stressed” Immortal is just one of the Diablo games currently in development, and how it was created “from the ground up” despite allegations to the contrary. The company thought Immortal would be a good idea due to the popularity of mobile devices and believe “fans will probably change their opinion of Immortal when they actually get their hands on it.”

“The way I’ve been kind of looking at the mixed comments is what those folks are really saying is they desperately, passionately want the next big thing. So I actually think that those two items are being conflated. So I don’t think that the mixed comments are necessarily anything other than when a really passionate audience that desperately wants to see what they hope to see one day ... It’s pretty clear to us that there is a huge audience around the world that is gonna love this title. So hopefully we’ll get there.”
 
Then maybe show them.

At, I don't know. Some sort of convention or expo related to your company's products.

Also calling it original is a flat out lie. It's an asset swap. It may be a heavily edited asset swap but an asset swap it will still be.
 
Rathor said:
What is wrong with a mobile game? I’m kind of excited for more AAA mobile games. Right now I’m no where near my computer and am bored!
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You don't make the that main announcement at a convention Diablo fans have paid and waited in line for.

It might be the biggest example of a AAA gaming companies marketing department being shown to have no idea how to do their job I've seen recently.
 
I think the whole.. “Do you guys not have phones?” really, really set people off, esp with the tone of the comment.

Mobile phone games are big $$$ but they are not the kind of thing people expect from Blizzard.
 
Rathor said:
What is wrong with a mobile game? I’m kind of excited for more AAA mobile games. Right now I’m no where near my computer and am bored!
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Nothing wrong with the mobile game and I'm a huge Diablo fan and still play D2 and D3 to this day.

The problem is, is that they hyped the crap out of this game and the entire convention was filled with PC gamers. This was the first time in years that Diablo was even mentioned at blizzcon. They made it known that there was big diablo news well in advance to this blizzcon and when a bunch of hardcore diablo PC GAMERS attended the conference and was told that it was a mobile game being made to a bunch of PC GAMERS, thats where the uproar is.
 
The damage control by shills on Twitter and 'gaming journalists' is very revealing in how unprepared Blizzard was for announcing this garbage.
This announcement has been a great litmus test for people who remember what Blizzard used to be.
 
Mav451 said:
The damage control by shills on Twitter and 'gaming journalists' is very revealing in how unprepared Blizzard was for announcing this garbage.
This announcement has been a great litmus test for people who remember what Blizzard used to be.
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There's a few laughable snow flakes attacking the April Fool's guy for asking the joke question.

They say he made the devs feel "unsafe" and put them in danger.

No , not kidding.
 
burn in hell corporate yes men and pr shills. Tell your core fanbase at a core fanbase specialty event that they are playing games wrong and then act surprised at the outcome. Well done R/D

CookieFactory said:
Blizzard sees this game as an AND - you can play Diablo 3 on the PC and you can now get your Diablo fix on mobile as well. Neckbeards with an entitlement complex blew it all out of proportion.
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There are already a hundred diablo clones you can play on mobile, and guess what, this is going to be another one of them. Made by a company that guess what, makes diablo clones, not by Blizzard. How is their outrage not justified? The biggest announcement for their entire year, at the most important event of the year is that they sourced out a mobile game. Exciting times to be alive for sure.
 
Maybe had they actually built a new Diablo game for mobile, there would be less moaning. Simply re skinning an existing companies flakey game under your name then hyping it to all ends as your new franchise launch didn't sit well with most.
 
Rathor said:
What is wrong with a mobile game? I’m kind of excited for more AAA mobile games. Right now I’m no where near my computer and am bored!
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Nothing wrong with a mobile game. Everything is wrong with a hyped up huge announcement in a beloved franchise turning out to be a re-skin of a mobile game by a chinese developer.

And that's exactly the point. Mobile is not a gaming platform, games on mobile are to waste time when you're bored and can't do something else that you'd rather do. Nobody would cite mobile gaming as one of their hobbies.
 
I think Blizzard has lost touch with a lot of its fans. Seriously, we build gaming machines to get 200fps for every little competitive edge in OW, playing casual or competitive, and now you want us to divest some of that gaming time to a tiny 7 inch screen?
 
As a blizzard fan from the early Warcraft and diablo days ( 10 years old) most of their games have been pretty good.

I don't fanaticise about their games and I dont freak out when there is a new release.

I only got D3 just 2 months ago and gotta tell ya, better than I thought it would be.

Now I too was hoping for a new expansion for D3 or even a D4 as I imagine most of the participants were and if blizzard didn't expect that they don't know their audience.

The last diablo hype than that derailed me was the "remaking diablo" announcement.
I was wired for a massive update to D1, and instead it was a soft mod for D3......booooooooooooooo

Now you take their audience (target demographic) with computers and consoles then drop a mobile game on them that is considered to be in the realm of not "enthusiast gamers" but "casual gamers" and your going lose all the wind in your sails at an enthusiast event.

Sure, I get it, they want the huge pool of money mobile casuals drop on pocket games. I would too.

But I would NOT drop that BOMB at that demographically targeted event and not expect the crowd to look like they all had rabies.

So boo for planning their product launch.

It's not a platform I game on so good luck, I'll just waunder over to my very expensive desktop or entertainment center and console to play another game and not help them generate money from that game.

GLHF
 
The reason for the backlash is people spent hundreds of dollars to attend only to get a mobile game announcement when the primary audience are PC gamers. They could have just announced it after Blizzcon, and it would not have been that bad. Announce D4 or an expansion for D3, show some gameplay and people would have appreciated that. At least that is how I think it should have been handled.
 
to be honest im not at all upset about this diablo mobile i played 1 and 2 on pc got 3 on xbox one and ive been bitching for blizzard to branch to mobile for years..... not so much for diablo, but back when i played wow..i thought it would be cool to do battle pets on mobile....
 
The issue of entitlement lies with the company, not the fanbase. They are paying (or providing access, however you want to phrase it) their "journalist" buddies in the industry to shill for them and attack the fans, meanwhile they are also paying for an editor's choice award for a game that isn't even out yet.

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Dahkoht said:
Serious question , how does this make it past marketing , CEO , something.

Someone with some sort of business sense somewhere should have known better.

Pure arrogance on their part ?
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People at the top are frequently out touch. Their immediate subordinates got to where they are by being yes men. People who develop have no power. That's probably the whole story.
 
I texted a buddy this morning who departed Blizzard recently, but knew this project was in the works before he left and still has friends there. I asked what he made of this game's announcement. His reply: "KING backwash".

He's referring to Activision's acquisitioun of King (candy crush bullshit) a couple years ago, and the shift in corp culture toward mobile. I had no idea how big King's MAU (monthly active users) was - 270million, vs Activision/Blizzard's combined 80 million. In Act/Blizz's last earnings call, "mobile" was mentioned 23 times -- clearly Kotick has a major hard on for it and its pretty obvious what's going on.

What will be interesting to watch now is whether Activision/Blizzard stock takes a dip tomorrow or not - because if it doesn't then I don't think we'll see any real damage control effort or olive branch any time soon, and they'll just ride it out.
 
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The backlash to this stems from these self-proclaimed "hardcore" gamers forgetting that despite dumping thousands of hours into a game they're just filthy click-to-move casuals. "Remember what Blizzard used to be?" LOL. Blizzard has always been and will always be devs for casuals.

In the other thread I pointed out that Blizzard has always been a multi-platform developer and that only Warcraft is a PC-only franchise and a few members completely lost their shit. These guys literally think they're hardcore gamers! LOL, one even tried to throw shade on me saying that I was somehow not standing up for PC gaming because I pointed out Blizzard has always been like this; yeah, BlizzCon hasn't even ever been about Diablo. The announcement to the "fans" explicitly pointed out Diablo 4 wasn't on the table yet. Once BNet pulled in the Activision clowns this company managed to gather two of the most toxic player bases in gaming and when you deal with trash tier players you're going to get a dumpster fire.
 
I spend thousands each year on pc and console games and hardware.

I have played and bought stuff in mobile games. I never pay more then I would have just played for a full mobile game 5-25$.

Since I bought a Nintendo switch 1.5 years ago I have not played or spent a penny on mobile games. Don't foresee doing so in the future. Switch rewrote mobile gaming to real games, real devices. Phone games cannot compete on any level.

Do wish they would release a metal switch but that's unrelated.
 
I don't know about you guys, but I'd love a good Diablo game on mobile. What I don't want is all the typical mobile game monetization crap. Maybe the backlash will help to temper that a bit. One can hope.
 
hurleybird said:
I don't know about you guys, but I'd love a good Diablo game on mobile. What I don't want is all the typical mobile game monetization crap. Maybe the backlash will help to temper that a bit. One can hope.
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That's what you're going to get, a typical mobile game with monetization. That's what works with China, and is extremely profitable, so this is the present in gaming. They obviously want someway to keep money coming in, and the auction house failed miserably with Diablo 3, but the Chinese version has been monetized, and is working well there. Companies have been slow to move this style to the west, but it's going to be the main way to play sooner rather than later.
 
Rathor said:
What is wrong with a mobile game? I’m kind of excited for more AAA mobile games. Right now I’m no where near my computer and am bored!
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Nothing wrong with a mobile game, if you are someone who's into mobile games. For me playing a game on a relatively small phone is not something I want to do when I have a relatively "small" 24" monitor at my computer, hell the few times I played "serious" mobile games I actually installed an emulator so I can actually see half the shit that's going on. Plus I'm not sure how the interface will work but I seem to recall previous DIablo games worked better when you had the ability to do more than just click parts of the screen. Then there's the elephant in the room, how much of a microtransaction game will this be? Anyone remember the rage fest when the game was always online and the primary reason for that was the auction house? Well it's not a far stretch to think that on the mobile platform they could extend the "pay to win" dynamic pretty far, at least with Diablo 3 it was absolutely possible to beat the game without an intensive amount of grinding, and the grind aspect was simply if you wanted to chase that carrot of beating the game at the highest difficulty levels with all the fancy gear (which is where the auction house started to rake up money for Activizzard).

Now sure you could absolutely point and say "but you're just one person, and I do want to see this game on the mobile platform" which is a perfectly valid response, however the absolutely huge outrage/crapfest response to this kind of shows that I am not alone in my concerns oft this game. Besides calling in a AAA game might be overstretching things, sure the company releases AAA games, however the "collaboration" with some Chinese company who makes mobile games (ironically of a similar nature) might be more of a matter "leasing IP" to this company with certain stipulations as far as lore and mechanics go.
 
Mobile gaming won't we of any quality for a long time. Mobile gaming exists purely to monitize people, you are a product, not a person.

This will just be one more peice of shit in the pile.
 
Rathor said:
What is wrong with a mobile game?
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Nothing. You just don't hint something is coming for intellectual property that has near cult status at a conference that predominantly PC gamers pay to attend or stream and then spring a mobile game on them.

If you do, you get the fiasco that was this week. Mobile games are fine for some, but not the traditional audience of Blizconn. If I had paid for a ticket and they didn't talk about anything else Diablo related I would be a little pissy too.

Which is why it's dumb to pay for corporate events like that, but that's probably another thread :)
 
Mark my words, now that the cat is out of the bag, Diablo will never come back to PC.

Activizzard will drink the tears of the "old guard" Diablo fans while laughing all the way to the bank. If you want to blame anyone, blame the idiots out there who run up their credit cards to pay for microtransactions in mobile games.

Publicly traded companies will always follow the money, pure and simple.
 
Aireoth said:
Mobile gaming won't we of any quality for a long time. Mobile gaming exists purely to monitize people, you are a product, not a person.
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Not all mobile games are crap. Fluxx was awesome before they stopped updating it. Carcassonne on the iPhone/iPad is very well done. The Civilization ports on the iPad have been a pleasure and I still play Civ Revolutions on an older iPad from time to time. Sometimes I want something fun and not overly complex. Fallout Shelter was fun; it just wasn't very deep. They've added a bunch of new stuff, I've been meaning to dust it off and try a new vault from scratch to see what it's like now. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what Donut County is really about. I could go on. The nice thing about mobile gaming is I always have my phone with me.

So yeah, there are some more than decent mobile games that aren't a complete monetization fest. I wish they were a bigger percentage of what is out there, but unfortunately the free to play pay to win stuff makes devs tons of money so they respond to what the market demands. However just because Developers put crap out there doesn't mean you have to play it.
 
Rathor said:
What is wrong with a mobile game? I’m kind of excited for more AAA mobile games. Right now I’m no where near my computer and am bored!
Click to expand...
Who the fuck actually sit around playing real legit games on a phone? It is not practical. Play serious games drains your battery and small screens are lame. Mobile games are nothing more then time wasters for most people. Not to mention how many are just gatcha games to drain people's wallets. Real gamers don't want this shit.
 
Dont get me wrong I love playing mobile games. But I do not want to play an action game on my phone...Thats just me....I will give diablo immortal a try on a PC emulator and use my kb/mouse, but fuck playing it on my phone.
 
Donald Bell said:
Mark my words, now that the cat is out of the bag, Diablo will never come back to PC.

Activizzard will drink the tears of the "old guard" Diablo fans while laughing all the way to the bank. If you want to blame anyone, blame the idiots out there who run up their credit cards to pay for microtransactions in mobile games.
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I hope you are wrong but know in my heart you are probably right. At least if they prove me wrong I'll be surprised instead of disappointed o_O
 
DocNo said:
Not all mobile games are crap. Fluxx was awesome before they stopped updating it. Carcassonne on the iPhone/iPad is very well done. The Civilization ports on the iPad have been a pleasure and I still play Civ Revolutions on an older iPad from time to time. Sometimes I want something fun and not overly complex. Fallout Shelter was fun; it just wasn't very deep. They've added a bunch of new stuff, I've been meaning to dust it off and try a new vault from scratch to see what it's like now. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what Donut County is really about. I could go on. The nice thing about mobile gaming is I always have my phone with me.

So yeah, there are some more than decent mobile games that aren't a complete monetization fest. I wish they were a bigger percentage of what is out there, but unfortunately the free to play pay to win stuff makes devs tons of money so they respond to what the market demands. However just because Developers put crap out there doesn't mean you have to play it.
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They are crap, ports of games better played elsewhere. Sorry you like them, really it's everyone else's loss that this market exists.
 
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