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Blizzard Says It Wasn't Expecting Fans to Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal

kotaku.com

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Re: Blizzard Says It Wasn't Expecting Fans to Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal

#91

Post by BadassFractal »

bdz wrote: post #12

And Kotaku once again spins the wheel against the players >The explosion of outrage has many on social media discussing the extent to which video game culture enables entitlement. It’s not surprising, after all, that there’s been some pushback on the idea of a mobile Diablo game. What’s shocking here is the sheer amount of molten vitriol that’s pouring in over what seems to be a pretty cut-and-dry situation: A proper…

> Gaming journalism is just terrible trash

Any publications out there that might be an exception?

Re: Blizzard Says It Wasn't Expecting Fans to Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal

#92

Post by WalterSear »

sharpneli wrote: post #29
bdz wrote: post #12

And Kotaku once again spins the wheel against the players >The explosion of outrage has many on social media discussing the extent to which video game culture enables entitlement. It’s not surprising, after all, that there’s been some pushback on the idea of a mobile Diablo game. What’s shocking here is the sheer amount of molten vitriol that’s pouring in over what seems to be a pretty cut-and-dry situation: A proper…

It was a massive gaffe by Blizzard almost perfectly designed to cause an outrage which the gaming press can then use to bash gamers. Compare this to Fallout Shelter. No-one minded as it was not made to be the prime of a show, especially one not focused on mobile gaming. Even announcing it before wc3 remastered would have produced way less outrage. It’s like having a classical music festival suddenly change into heavy…

More like a classical music festival featuring Yanni.

Re: Blizzard Says It Wasn't Expecting Fans to Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal

#93

Post by WalterSear »

jakebasile wrote: post #89
pcwalton wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The decisions of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have real, tangible impacts on our careers. Not only that, they have an impact on democracy. The importance of FB, AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, and MSFT to society has never been higher. The relevance of ATVI to anything important is, to a first approximation, zero.

Again, you're essentially saying that because games aren't something you care about that it's wrong for anyone to care deeply about them.

I'm not much of a video game player, but I chafe at the number of people coming in to this thread to express how much more valid their emotions are, than some group of people they've have little interaction with.

Re: Blizzard Says It Wasn't Expecting Fans to Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal

#94

Post by robotbikes »

philipov wrote: post #53
Buldak wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the complaint is just that Blizzard should have framed their announcement differently? The project is fine, but just don't present it at Blizzcon? That seems so feeble to me, and the sort of criticism you get when fans can't reconcile their displeasure with the understanding that Blizzard is rational to pursue the mobile gaming market this way. As for "You guys not have phones?", that was obviously a bad look, but…

Acknowledging a market player as rational doesn't mean you have to sympathize with them. That road leads to Stockholm Syndrome, as displayed by many apologists for late stage capitalism. Being a rational actor isn't sufficient to shield you from criticism. The complaint here is that Blizzard is abandoning the people who made them rich, and the off the cuff remark about phones is proof of the latent disrespect they ha…

These are the same people extracting money from people to "cheer" for their e-sports by selling them fake fireworks so they can show they are a "real fan" while watching on twitch or wherever. Modern gaming is pretty much a shameless cash grab especially when you bring up these type of mobile pay to win scenarios.

Re: Blizzard Says It Wasn't Expecting Fans to Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal

#95

Post by WalterSear »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #72
jakebasile wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're mystified by it because you probably aren't a dedicated gamer. To lots of people, including myself, gaming is a huge part of their identity and lifestyle. It's a hobby like any other such as repairing old cars, painting, craft beer, etc. The "but climate change" is just whataboutism because gaming isn't important to you, so why aren't people paying more attention to what is important to you. edit to clarify: T…

> It's a hobby like any other such as repairing old cars, painting, craft beer, etc. And yet you don't see people who follow those hobbies throwing an absolute fit like gamers are now doing continuously.

In a group of consumers of an industry that is larger than the film and music industries combined (and this was before casual gaming took off), you are going to get some people who are louder and more committed than others.

Re: Blizzard Says It Wasn't Expecting Fans to Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal

#96

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

thomasz wrote: post #80
ggregoire wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I continue to be completely mystified with the concept of outrage about video games. What about the concept of outrage about programming languages, frameworks, web browsers, operating systems, laptops, phones, open source? I guess 99.9% of the population would be mystified with the outrages that we can see on Hacker News. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221527 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1741357…

The comments in these links are downright tame compared to r/diablo right now, while the stakes are way higher. The decisions of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have real, tangible impacts on our careers. Diablo is just a goddamn video game.

> Diablo is just a goddamn video game.

The Super Bowl is "just a goddamn game" too. The Harry Potter series is "just a goddamn book" and Game of Thrones is "just a goddamn TV show". I'm sure whatever leisure activities you enjoy can easily be given a sneering dismissal as well.

Are we not allowed to have passion for our hobbies?

Re: Blizzard Says It Wasn't Expecting Fans to Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal

#97

Post by dorkwood »

kowdermeister wrote: post #21
pcwalton wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And people wonder how the hell do they get away with p2w and gambling mechanics in games. Because that business model is profitable, and entertainment is a business like any other. If you don't like it, you are free not to play it. Besides some potential for gambling addiction (about which state lotteries are a far more important target for your ire if that is your concern), mobile games produce no externalities wh…

This is all fine, but I help demystify the problem here. They marketed the new game to a completely detached audience as the highlight of the event. And when real questions came in, like "maybe a PC version comes later?" The reaction is: "You guys not have phones?" [1] I can see people snapping to rage mode. And then the gaming 'media' calls theys guys out as assholes, which really shows how strings are really pulled…

Just to clarify for anyone reading, when asked if the game would be coming to PC, the response from the guy on stage was “no, this is only coming to Android and iOS”.

The “do you guys not have phones?” remark was in response to the crowd booing. It got a few laughs at the time.

Re: Blizzard Says It Wasn't Expecting Fans to Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal

#98

Post by erik_seaberg »

lousken wrote: post #54

They completly missed their target audience, I'd guess except for hearthstone 95% of ppl on blizzcon are PC gamers and Diablo fans especially so that was expected. And what was that stupid question at the end about not having phones? Yes ppl do have phones but most of them don't have and don't need gaming capable ones and why would they buy one? Mobile gaming is terrible except for card games and couple of casual tra…

The PC master race is still upgrading desktops for performance. They're never going to be content with the severe compromises that make a pocket-sized CPU/GPU work at all. From their point of view there are no gaming-capable phones.

Re: Blizzard Says It Wasn't Expecting Fans to Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal

#99

Post by thomasz »

WalterSear wrote: post #93
jakebasile wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you're essentially saying that because games aren't something you care about that it's wrong for anyone to care deeply about them.

I'm not much of a video game player, but I chafe at the number of people coming in to this thread to express how much more valid their emotions are, than some group of people they've have little interaction with.

I have sunk an absurd number of hours into games in my life, Diablo in particular. I still remember some of the goddamn uniques on my sorcerer from the first one (Dreamflange, Thinking Cap and Najs Plate or Cape). And while I'm totally flabbergasted by the emotional response, I'm not very judgemental about it. I don't get deep emotional attachment to sport teams or TV shows either. But the sheer fury and vitriol and the paranoia fuelled fantasies about evil journalists are a little bit unsettling to be honest, especially because we both know that the stuff we get to see is just the tip of the iceberg.

I simply can't help noticing the striking difference to the reaction to SyFy's cancellation of The Expanse.

Re: Blizzard Says It Wasn't Expecting Fans to Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal

#100

Post by xbmcuser »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #90
BoiledCabbage wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It truly is the bratty self-centered rage that's incredible to witness. "Hey, we're working on the game you want. In the mean time here's another game for different users." "Noooooo! I've been betrayed! This is the ultimate insult!!!!" And as much as people don't want to admit it, gamergate was the same thing. I've spent a lot of time gaming in my past, but there's something unhealthy floating around here. If you saw…

What's your expectation? Blizzard released their games (the Blizzard-specific ones) only for PC for ages. Only recently, they released them on console too. Bet what? ALL their fans are pc gamers. All the 10m people that bought diablo 3 on day one are pc gamers. You know what pc gamers don't like? Pay2win. And any business model that usually runs on mobile that is not buy once (or monthly subscription), because in any…

So Blizzard should not try to diverge and stay with the same fan base that could kill its game and blizzard itself if not well received. Or should they try to diversify and try to gain other customers/fans where 1 failed game would not be it's death?
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