Blizzard Responds to Diablo: Immortal Backlash

My biggest concern over a mobile Diablo is that 99% of all mobile games are labeled as "in-app purchases", and clearly developed as microtransactions first, everything else last. It's far worse than PC and console games.

I hope it bombs and Blizzard actually understands why: this is not their roots nor their fanbase that made them a successful company.
 
My biggest concern over a mobile Diablo is that 99% of all mobile games are labeled as "in-app purchases", and clearly developed as microtransactions first, everything else last. It's far worse than PC and console games.

I hope it bombs and Blizzard actually understands why: this is not their roots nor their fanbase that made them a successful company.

This is exactly what every. single. fan. worries about as well. I don't think anyone has put it so perfectly.
 
I think you really underestimate just how detached executives can be from their own customer base.

Sure, but they should realize that sometimes people react in different ways. What was their contingency plan?

Of course... EA, Microsoft, etc. have fucked up quite a bit. Some backtrack while others blame the customer (similar to the Simpsons meme... No, it's the customers that are wrong).
 
They've been saying for over 6 months they've got more things going on. Blizzard doesn't just announce shit for announcing shit...come on, when has Blizzard ever just shown some splash screen simply to appease fans? I always thought Blizzard was the shut up and wait for perfection studio.
StarCraft_Ghost_title.jpg
 
My biggest concern over a mobile Diablo is that 99% of all mobile games are labeled as "in-app purchases", and clearly developed as microtransactions first, everything else last. It's far worse than PC and console games.

I hope it bombs and Blizzard actually understands why: this is not their roots nor their fanbase that made them a successful company.
It wont. People seem to love throwing money at shallow mobile games. The stupidity of people makes my head explode. There is no value in this kinds of games and there are people that drop thousands of dollars on one game.
 
I think you really underestimate just how detached executives can be from their own customer base.

That is where they strictly listen to pencil pushing Accountants and their projected forecasts ignoring everything thing else as just noise.
 
I think you really underestimate just how detached executives can be from their own customer base.

The problem is metrics. Look at how EA wants to "curate" the player's experience through monitoring how they play games. Or how Blizzard said "you don't know what you want" when people asked for vanilla WoW. Plenty of other examples. These companies go through tons of data to make decisions on how to best make money out of the player, and to ostensibly make better games, which inevitably creates a barrier between them and their audience. Think about it: if you were making choices on reams of information about little numbers running around playing your titles and you were always focused on the bottom-line, how could you possibly retain complete humanity when dealing with them? Especially when you believe that they lack the ability to comprehend any such analysis even if they had the data? But this is not a mistake limited to companies or to today, it's been going on at all levels for a long time. They always forget the human element because over time they become detached from the ground - and this detachment causes them to lash out at things like "Trump" or "misogynistic white male gamers." It shows only that they lack self-reflection and without that you cannot be grounded in reality. It's a factor of ego backed by confidence in meaningless data.

(and yes I realize the irony of saying they are essentially dehumanizing their customers since they leaped at the chance to block the NPC meme)
 
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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.

Or maybe a completely redone Diablo 2 for PC. 4K textures, 4K res support, game tweaks/fixes. That's all people really wanted.
 
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The guy running the D2 mod in Starcraft 2 engine basically said he's re-opening work on the mod.
I believe he, like many of us, had been expecting an official remaster to be released and had paused work indefinitely.

But that's where we're at right now lmao.
 
LOL, it never even occurred to them that they might get that reaction. Otherwise, they would have put someone with a shred of social skills on stage to make the announcement and defuse the situation if warranted.

???

Are you implying that,

”DONT YOU HAVE PHONES ?!?!”

Was not an example of a social genius?
 
It never occurred to me to ever want to play D3 on my phone. One it's an older game and already on so many platforms and two there are a lot of D3 mobile game clones anyway. If I ever want a time waster I'll play Angry Birds if I can get to the start button in between ads and pop ups.
 
Just saw this on Reddit.

Apparently Blizzard has been planning this for years.

Weird Al closing out the 2016 BlizzCon.

 
I'm getting pretty tired of this bitch/whine fest movement that video gamers do. Battlefront last year. This announcement this year.

I understand passion, but when it starts getting whiney...it just grates at me.


We will see how it goes. Blizzard makes a fuck ton of Money. A holy fuck ton. I bet you this is going to work cause they are just gonna force pay it to work over time :)
 
I'm getting pretty tired of this bitch/whine fest movement that video gamers do. Battlefront last year. This announcement this year.

I understand passion, but when it starts getting whiney...it just grates at me.


We will see how it goes. Blizzard makes a fuck ton of Money. A holy fuck ton. I bet you this is going to work cause they are just gonna force pay it to work over time :)

I agree, the internet is a boon and a curse, because there is always a real, good, solid, point behind the complaint, but the internet inevitably ruins it with Mass noise that turns into whining.
 
The guy running the D2 mod in Starcraft 2 engine basically said he's re-opening work on the mod.
I believe he, like many of us, had been expecting an official remaster to be released and had paused work indefinitely.

But that's where we're at right now lmao.
I haven't heard that and I can't find anything along those lines. The guy's Patreon is still up and his facebook page is still active and talking about development. It just launched a few months ago, I think Blizz even featured it, so I didn't get the impression he had any plans of shutting it down any time soon if ever. Even with a remastered version he's still going to release the SC2 mod cuz it's a mod and fans like it.
 
Wait a minute, which video did you see? Because this one is Brevik and his wife defending Blizzard and basically point by point what I've written in this thread:
blaming gamers for hyping themselves up over something that Blizzard explicitly told them not to get hyped for, tells gamers not to be a dick, and calls them hypocritical and "taking it over the top."


I don't play games on, or with my phone on the toilet. Disgusting creature.
 
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Why defenders of Blozzard think it's acceptable to announce a mobile title on a main stage at one of the biggest conferences in the industry is beyond me.

I get that Blizzard said no to D4 pre-confrence, but to be a mobile title? To conference goers! Those are the least likely people to be enthusiastic about a mobile game. This was a huge misstep on Blizzards part.
 
Hell no I don't. Diablo 3 sucked!
Past tense, when it released it was absolutely garbage. It's pretty solid at this point. I would still agree D2 is better, but I pretty regularly enjoy d3 seasons.
 
Why defenders of Blozzard think it's acceptable to announce a mobile title on a main stage at one of the biggest conferences in the industry is beyond me.

I get that Blizzard said no to D4 pre-confrence, but to be a mobile title? To conference goers! Those are the least likely people to be enthusiastic about a mobile game. This was a huge misstep on Blizzards part.


It's verging on audience abuse.
 
Past tense, when it released it was absolutely garbage. It's pretty solid at this point. I would still agree D2 is better, but I pretty regularly enjoy d3 seasons.

I'll updated it for you. Diablo 3 sucks.
 
That's your opinion and you are entitled to it. I disagree personally.

It would have been passable had a butterfly not killed Deckard. Atrocious story telling. But typical Actiblizzion fashion, (take something beloved and shit on it.)
 
Past tense, when it released it was absolutely garbage. It's pretty solid at this point. I would still agree D2 is better, but I pretty regularly enjoy d3 seasons.

Yes, its pretty solidly considered solid garbage at this point because it is pretty much pure solid garbage. People have already moved on to GD and POE, you know, games that aren't still solid garbage.
 
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Which dumbass gaming journo provided you with that hot take?

The one that just had your mom as the centerfold. I believe the issue was titled, “Gamer Grrls or Whores for Loot Boxes? An Inside Look”. It’s full of hot, spicy takes.
 
Why all the anger? This isn't the same Blizzard from decades ago. They have been different ever since Activision acquired them. They had some great games in the past and developed those games fairly quickly, WC2, WC2 expansion, SC, BW, WC3, WC3 expansion, D2, and D2 expansion. WOW was also great. Their more recent games have been alright but not as good as the classics.
 
Why all the anger? This isn't the same Blizzard from decades ago. They have been different ever since Activision acquired them. They had some great games in the past and developed those games fairly quickly, WC2, WC2 expansion, SC, BW, WC3, WC3 expansion, D2, and D2 expansion. WOW was also great. Their more recent games have been alright but not as good as the classics.

We're in the anger phase, next comes the rationalization phase. Let us be angry. Its healthy. :)
 
Don't be obtuse, the piss off isn't that they are making a mobile game but how they unveiled and announced this. An appropriate announcement would have been a smaller booth to the side, or just usual game announcement via ign etc. To give it a center stage at blizzcon was tone def as fuck.

As an aside, I am sure some would be pissed off anyway, but someone is always pissed off. Ignore them, but don't conflate the always pissed off with legitimate anger.

Edit: activation is not missing out on mobile gaming at all.

Well, the Blizzard I know mostly releases shit I don't care about. The Diablo games, that turd WarCraft 3, WoW, Overwatch. I am used to their shit. Maybe it's time you wake up too
 
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