Diablo Immortal
What do you all think about the D:I salt train? Onboard, getting a good laugh out of it, or already signed up for it? r/Diablo certainly is a riot right now.
I think there's a chance the game might be good, but at the same time, will be a micro transaction nightmare.
Laughing all the way at the outrage, but really sad that they didn't make a better game on PC.
Concerned that huge chunks of downvotes are disappearing from all the youtube uploads. They're not just bot votes disappearing, mine have as well.
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Yeah, they've been caught trying to hide the outrage for some reason. I feel bad for fans, and laugh at how surprised Activision is that this happened
I don't really care about Blizzard, or Diablo, or anything they do anymore. But I have no faith this game will be good. It's not going to be made by Blizzard, it's being made by another mobile MMO company, and they're just using an engine for games they already made, and re-skinning it to look like generic Diablo .... as an actual Diablo. Which is just absurd. Total failure all the way around. I'm sure Activision could have scrounged up at least 3 internal dudes to build a game, if not more. This is just silly
The outrage has certainly been good for a laugh. A mobile game was probably inevitable, but the internet is certainly taking it way too far. The missing comments are probably the worst part on the user side of things, agreed. I'm a little more worried about the reputed death threats to the devs and similar things, though. That's just not cool.
Internet outrage is always over the top
Anyway, considering the game looks like, and is made by the creators of, diablo knock-off games that i've tried and were bad, I don't expect anything from this but an MTX-infested mediocrity that'll make millions of dollars in China, where this stuff is actually popular.
Blizzard's surprise at this not being well-received at the top of their big yearly keynote in front of a PC and console crowd is hilarious.
I feel sorry for the guy on stage, he looked so excited and pumped with the game and then some dick came along and as like " is this an out of season April Fools joke ?" and you can see him slowly just be crushed emotionally.
I can sort of understand some of the upset because mobile games can push money out of you, but like, PC games have DLC and Loot Boxes.
The Chinese seem to be equally against it. Their trailer has a few hundred likes and several thousand dislikes. Some have come to the US Diablo forums to inform people of mass Diablo websites and news articles claiming to be against it.
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Honestly that guy just said what the audience was almost universally thinking. And I doubt it's so much that they'll just monetize the hell out of it (though they absolutely will) as much as it is making your big announcement to your hardcore PC fanbase at your big yearly convention be a mobile game is already dumb. Even dumber that looks like it might just be a re-skinned version of previous games the developer made (whether that's actually the case doesn't really matter as much as the fact that that's how it appears from the point of view of the fans looking at it. Doesn't matter if it's completely different under the hood if people can't see it). Hell, even announcing something you've farmed out to a chinese mobile developer as your big news is dumb when you're Blizzard. No one is getting psyched at Blizzcon for a mobile game that seems like it was primarily made to appeal to the chinese market that Blizzard obviously gives so few trouts about they didn't even make it themselves.Originally Posted by maybee
Now obviously any fan outrage that goes as far as death threats and absurdity like that is going too far. But I'd honestly say the things they're in general outraged about are actually pretty justified. And I say that as someone who doesn't even like Diablo and couldn't give two trouts on a personal level if the next game was some mobile garbage or a full blown PC release of Diablo 4.
What I can say is that on a personal level I find this whole thing to be an amusing and interesting train wreck that I can't look away from and I will probably continue to laugh at for a while to come. But it was also a predictable train wreck that anyone who isn't an executive at one of the biggest game publishers in the world would have been able to see coming long before they actually went and announced it.
Also, just as a bit of a related aside: if people boo your mobile game at your convention and your response is to ask them incredulously if they all have phones, then you're kind of being a dick in that moment and you may want to just end the presentation there before you inevitably make it worse.
I've seen people play devil's advocate and suggest they the guy probably cracked in the moment when he asked that, and it's probably true. It doesn't look good on paper though. And I'm surprised that he was surprised. The company was legit dumb enough to send someone unsuspecting and positive to make this announcement. He should contact their HR for doing that to him. They should have sent out someone aware there was going to be backlash and someone prepared to handle it. I know they were assuming his positivity would bleed into the crowd and fix it for them but that was predictively short sighted. Though someone on YouTube pointed out that these people payed to be there and are likely fanatically loyal to Blizzard and still boo'd the announcement. That's a lot of people setting aside a lot of bias. Fascinating and almost commendable. If not for the death threats. But Blizzard gets death threats with every update and announcement...
That was incredibly cringeworthy but somehow I suspect the salt on reddit means considerably less to them than the fat stacks of $$$ that they will make off this.
The main thing it does for me is remind me that what they think is the important part of Diablo and what I think is the important part of Diablo are miles apart. Although Diablo 3 already made that clear.
Oh, they definitely will makes loads if money on that game, for sure. People spend way too much on micro transactions in general. Hopefully they re-invest some of that back into D4, or whatever pc game comes after.
Master of the Fork
Cid's Knight
I don't doubt they have been working on D4 but they probably just have nothing to show for it. There's been rumors about Blizzard the past few years. That their Dev team is basically rockstars and can do no wrong. That they're a bit in their own echo chamber. You can see peaks of this with like the current BFA WoW content or even the guy, who is now president, saying to people when they asked for vanilla wow "You think you want it but you really don't". Just a general air of condescension with them and their fans. It's been getting worse over the years as the "old guards" have been leaving. Now the only one people feel has their back as gaming weird awkward nerds is Jeff Kaplan of the Overwatch team.
Mobile games are a HUUUUGE market... for the east. They shouldn't have made that the big reveal for hardcore mostly PC fans who paid around $1000(tickets, hotel etc) just to be there while ignoring the PC game they all wanted. Hell they could have pulled a bethesda and went "TITLE AND MUSIC, we're working on it." *Insert Fanfare* They should have announced this thing at like E3 or Gamescon, maybe TGS. Something not dedicated to hardcore fans.
Having been to blizzcon twice myself, I would have been upset FOR them and I'm not even a diablo fan.
Them not expecting that reaction shows you how insulated they really are about it.
I was hoping they would learn from this and adjust their attitude but based on the interviews I've seen from after the opening ceremony, then the Q&A, they haven't. The sharding of WoW classic servers will be another example. There's an overwhelmingly majority of players telling them to get rid of it, they don't want it at all, but Blizzard is still throwing out the "we feel", saying they think it should happen, completely ignoring what players are telling them they want.
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Wow, they're as ignorant as Bungie, but for completely different reasons. The Activision umbrella continues to astound me, and I'm forever grateful that they don't own anything that actually matters to me. I don't care what they do with Call of Duty, I don't care what they do with Destiny, I don't care what they do with Diablo, WoW, or Overwatch. But as an outsider looking in, it is fascinating and troubling, especially since they're so big and important to so many other people
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