Diablo III: 4 - Necros Aren't Just for Posts Anymore!

[Psyren]

PC gaming is a different market in China (and most of the rest of SE Asia). Most people actually don't have PCs and play PC games in internet cafes.

Which tends to mean that the more successful games are ones where progress is account bound so it can be transferred between individual machines, and games that can be installed in large volumes.

So free to play does well over there, and they have a completely different opinion of pay to win (they don't give much of a damn about it).

Right, and all of that applies to Hearthstone too. So I'm still nonplussed by this design choice.

I'll just bask in the inferno that is the Diablo forums like everyone else...

[GloatingSwine]

Right, and all of that applies to Hearthstone too. So I'm still nonplussed by this design choice.

I'm not sure why you think Hearthstone is relevant? People who would play a diablo-em-up on a phone are not necessarily the same people who would play Hearthstone.

This is Activision identifying some people who aren't giving them money and finding a cheap way to squeeze some money out of them. (Cheap because the game is basically a reskin of existing Chinese mobile games by the same developer).

(Also Hearthstone has exploitative nature built in because that's what CCGs are.)

[Olinser]

PC gaming is a different market in China (and most of the rest of SE Asia). Most people actually don't have PCs and play PC games in internet cafes.

Which tends to mean that the more successful games are ones where progress is account bound so it can be transferred between individual machines, and games that can be installed in large volumes.

So free to play does well over there, and they have a completely different opinion of pay to win (they don't give much of a damn about it).

Then the Chinese announcement should have been big.

To hype this up and make the big release announcement to an American audience and then be surprised at the backlash means at a minimum that you are totally disconnected from what your current non-Chinese customers actually are interested in.

[GloatingSwine]

Triple-A publishers like Activision being disconnected from the desires of their audience (whilst being firmly connected to ways to extract money from them) isn't even news any more.

And whilst people tend to give Blizzard a hell of a lot of slack, remember they're also the ones who put the real money auction house in Diablo 3 when they first released it, and made all the good drops super unlikely and unlikely to be character relevant so they could push people to use it and cream off their cut.

[Seerow]

Then the Chinese announcement should have been big.

To hype this up and make the big release announcement to an American audience and then be surprised at the backlash means at a minimum that you are totally disconnected from what your current non-Chinese customers actually are interested in.

Pretty much agree here.

I have several problems with the announcement:


1) It was an announcement for a mobile game and nothing else. A mobile game announcement along with any sort of updates for D3 (a new expac is probably out of the question, but a new class? A patch with a few systems/tuning updates? Maybe Diablo 2 Remaster? How about that Netflix series we've been seeing rumors about? Literally anything else along with it would have been great.

2) They saved the announcement for last. If they had put it at the start as a "Hey this is a thing that is happening, you probably don't care but it's here" that'd be one thing. But instead they spent time hyping up a Diablo Announcement, and put it as the closer for the opening ceremony, and put it up first on the mythic stage. For something that most people gave zero care about. It's a huge case of Blizzard misreading the audience, and setting expectations that were doomed to fail.

3) It's not a Blizzard game. It's a NetEase game with Diablo imagery. I've looked into NetEase's similar games, and am not impressed at all. We have been given no reason to suspect Immortal will be any different. I can generally trust Blizzard quality for when they release something. I don't trust NetEase in the least.

4) On a similar note, ARPGs are not a genre that is really good to play on mobile. Even coming in with worst expectations of seeing Diablo for mobile as our only announcement, I figured at the very least they'd do some unique take on it. Similar to how instead of just doing WoW for mobile, we got Hearthstone, a totally new game in a new genre using the Warcraft IP. Not saying I needed another card game, but there are so many other genres that DO genuinely work on mobile. I would have been happier seeing a Match 3 Diablo game where you're collecting gems and runewords or whatever than this. Okay maybe not quite that, but there are definitely things that would work much better for mobile than trying to port action RPG gameplay poorly onto it.

[Psyren]

I'm not sure why you think Hearthstone is relevant? People who would play a diablo-em-up on a phone are not necessarily the same people who would play Hearthstone.

Because it's a Blizzard mobile game that is also on PC and that doesn't seem to have hurt its success any. That should be obvious.

And while the overlap may not be 1:1, Blizzard themselves are banking on it, what with offering multiple promotions that include HS card backs, Diablo pets, WoW mounts etc. But even if the two audiences were mutually exclusive, who cares? More platforms is still a bigger audience, and it's not like they'd have to envision how Diablo works on PC when it already does that.

(And if you want another big-ticket and even more relevant example - Fortnite is on both mobile and PC too and it's raking in the cash.)

[GloatingSwine]

Because it's a Blizzard mobile game that is also on PC and that doesn't seem to have hurt its success any. That should be obvious.

Except this is a (not) Blizzard mobile game that is not also on PC. Diablo Immortal is not getting a PC release, and the answer to "will there be a PC release" was literally "don't you people have phones?!". If you can get your most dedicated audience who have paid hundreds of dollars to come and see you to boo you live on stage you done ****ed up.

Also, when Hearthstone was released it was not the only significant Warcraft themed content for several years then teased as major news, and it was a brand new game not an inevitably limited version of an experience that people were looking forward to a much more significant version of.

There's a reason why the defining moment of this launch was someone asking "Is this some kind of out of season april fool's joke?".

(It's almost as if Activision weren't paying attention when everyone dunked on EA for doing the same thing with C&C, they were super brave to let the audience ask questions.)

[WhismurWanders]

I feel like most people missed the memo when Blizzard came out and said (paraphrased), "Hey guys, don't get too excited. I know we said there'd be cool stuff for Diablo, but it's probably not D4/A popular remake."

D4 is probably still in the works, it's not like the existence of Immortals precludes the existence of any other game using the Diablo IP. Just that this is what they happened to announce this year, at this Blizzcon.

[Seerow]

I feel like most people missed the memo when Blizzard came out and said (paraphrased), "Hey guys, don't get too excited. I know we said there'd be cool stuff for Diablo, but it's probably not D4/A popular remake."

D4 is probably still in the works, it's not like the existence of Immortals precludes the existence of any other game using the Diablo IP. Just that this is what they happened to announce this year, at this Blizzcon.

I got the memo. I set expectations low. They managed to sink below those expectations. If we were going to get a trash mobile game, I didn't think I even had to hope that it would be a Blizzard trash mobile game. I didn't think I had anything to worry about expecting at least some mention of update for D3, or some allusion to other projects even if they're not ready for a full showcase yet.

Blizzard coming up to announce a half-done port of a chinese mobile game I don't think was on anyone's radar even as a worst case scenario, even after being told to lower expectations.

[Inarius]

I feel like most people missed the memo when Blizzard came out and said (paraphrased), "Hey guys, don't get too excited. I know we said there'd be cool stuff for Diablo, but it's probably not D4/A popular remake."

D4 is probably still in the works, it's not like the existence of Immortals precludes the existence of any other game using the Diablo IP. Just that this is what they happened to announce this year, at this Blizzcon.

Yeah I saw that, but at the same time Blizzard had been hyping up Diablo before blizzcon. So while I figured there wouldn't be an announcement of Diablo 4 I was assuming they'd at least announce something interesting and worthy of them saying "its a great time to be a diablo fan" like a remaster of 1/2 or an expansion/dlc for D3. I also figured a mobile game was in the works as part of their "we have multiple diablo projects in the works bit" but to make that the capstone of the opening ceremonies seems a bit tone deaf. They could of at least gone the way Bethesda did when announcing blades by teasing one of the other upcoming projects they're working on because that's what traditional fans of diablo are most interested in.

[Olinser]

Yeah I saw that, but at the same time Blizzard had been hyping up Diablo before blizzcon. So while I figured there wouldn't be an announcement of Diablo 4 I was assuming they'd at least announce something interesting and worthy of them saying "its a great time to be a diablo fan" like a remaster of 1/2 or an expansion/dlc for D3. I also figured a mobile game was in the works as part of their "we have multiple diablo projects in the works bit" but to make that the capstone of the opening ceremonies seems a bit tone deaf. They could of at least gone the way Bethesda did when announcing blades by teasing one of the other upcoming projects they're working on because that's what traditional fans of diablo are most interested in.

Yes. After the relative success of StarCraft Remastered and them hyping up a Diablo annoucement I was kind of expecting a Diablo 1/2 Remastered.

Instead they gave us Warcraft 3 Reforged and a ****ty mobile game they slapped the Diablo label on.

[Keltest]

I think the fact that it isn't even an in-house project is what offends me the most. What is the PC team even doing, if they don't have any news for Blizzcon?

[Winthur]

I think the fact that it isn't even an in-house project is what offends me the most. What is the PC team even doing, if they don't have any news for Blizzcon?

Oh, they set up a website for the actual, full-fledged Diablo release they have in the works: http://playdiablo4.com

[Thomas Cardew]

Even knowing what that link was in advance, it still cracks me up.

[Lord Torath]

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed to hear Diablo Immortals was just a reskinning of another game.

In other news, I completed the Season 15 Journey! It only took me 750 paragon levels (450 regular and 299 Hard Core).

What's the fewest paragon levels you've ever had when you completed the Guardian level of the Season Journey?

[Olinser]

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed to hear Diablo Immortals was just a reskinning of another game.

In other news, I completed the Season 15 Journey! It only took me 750 paragon levels (450 regular and 299 Hard Core).

What's the fewest paragon levels you've ever had when you completed the Guardian level of the Season Journey?

It's not even a reskin.

It's a reskin of a game made by ANOTHER COMPANY. Blizzard isn't even making it themselves they farmed it out.

So the actual Blizzard team had LITERALLY no progress to report on anything the Blizzard Diablo team is actually making.

The more I find out about this the more I think Blizzard would have been better off just not making a Diablo announcement.

[Resileaf]

Apparently, Blizzard was going to make a Diablo 4 reveal... But for some reason pulled it back.
Or so Kotaku claims they have learned from inside sources. I have no idea how trustworthy they might be on this. It would explain a lot, though.

[Keltest]

Apparently, Blizzard was going to make a Diablo 4 reveal... But for some reason pulled it back.
Or so Kotaku claims they have learned from inside sources. I have no idea how trustworthy they might be on this. It would explain a lot, though.

Im dubious myself, but it seems... plausible.

[Inarius]

Apparently, Blizzard was going to make a Diablo 4 reveal... But for some reason pulled it back.
Or so Kotaku claims they have learned from inside sources. I have no idea how trustworthy they might be on this. It would explain a lot, though.

FWIW while Kotaku may be fairly cringeworthy, they do have some fairly accurate predictions. The guy who wrote the article in particular, Jason Schreier, is more often right than wrong with his inside sources. He's the same guy who said Fallout 76 was going to be an open world multiplayer survival game weeks before the official announcement for example.

[Olinser]

Apparently, Blizzard was going to make a Diablo 4 reveal... But for some reason pulled it back.
Or so Kotaku claims they have learned from inside sources. I have no idea how trustworthy they might be on this. It would explain a lot, though.

I mean that's all they needed to keep this completely ****storm from hitting them.

They didn't need a big trailer, gameplay reveal, release date, voiceover, nothing.

They needed 30 seconds of a black screen fading into a Diablo 4 logo - that's it. Fans would still be complaining and asking for more information but they wouldn't be raging about Immortal like they are now.

[Winthur]

Apparently, Blizzard was going to make a Diablo 4 reveal... But for some reason pulled it back.
Or so Kotaku claims they have learned from inside sources. I have no idea how trustworthy they might be on this. It would explain a lot, though.

Damage control.
"We left the final announcement of Blizzcon - the meatiest and juiciest one - to announce a completely anticipated big hit but decided to retract it at the last minute because the other announcement went poorly."

Not to mention that this is only there to switch the media's narrative of "gamers are entitled children, see, Blizzard NEVER promised Diablo 4, they promised the exact opposite!" and replaces it with "actually they had it there all along but they didn't show it because the core audience didn't like their previous announcement so... they... doubled down on it by not showing anything at all"?

[Resileaf]

Damage control.
"We left the final announcement of Blizzcon - the meatiest and juiciest one - to announce a completely anticipated big hit but decided to retract it at the last minute because the other announcement went poorly."

Not to mention that this is only there to switch the media's narrative of "gamers are entitled children, see, Blizzard NEVER promised Diablo 4, they promised the exact opposite!" and replaces it with "actually they had it there all along but they didn't show it because the core audience didn't like their previous announcement so... they... doubled down on it by not showing anything at all"?

That would make sense if the whole "We had Diablo 4 ready to announce" came from Blizzard and not from inside sources that talked to Kotaku.

[The_Jackal]

I really don't see how the 'gamers are entitled children' motif works for anyone. That simply doesn't work. You have this big giant hype fest for your games, for which you charge participants hundreds of dollars to attend, and your big reveal for one of your biggest tentpole properties is a mobile game from a third party developer? How exactly did you expect that to go over?

IMO, Mark Kern nails this one right on the nose: Blizzard's PR people do not understand their audience. The execs making these decisions don't care what kind of games they make, they just see the stable of Blizzard brands as a collection of intellectual properties to be exploited. I don't think it's a coincidence that you're starting to see an exodus of Blizzard founders and original contributors. Sixteen years ago, Blizzard spiked a third-party project, Starcraft: Ghost, because they felt that the partner's product didn't adequately meet the standards they set for themselves. I just don't see the current crop of marketing droids who run the show at Blizztivision doing that.

[Erloas]

Maybe they pulled back the reveal of D4 after the Immortals thing went to poorly because they've also done something stupid with D4 and the previous announcement was finally enough for them to see that. Maybe D4 was mobile too? Maybe they were going to try to reintroduce some of the things that went over so poorly at the launch of D3, like the Auction House? Or maybe "ok, this isn't the right time to introduce D4s new lootbox battle royal deathmatch design?"

[Winthur]

That would make sense if the whole "We had Diablo 4 ready to announce" came from Blizzard and not from inside sources that talked to Kotaku.

Considering that gaming journalism is composed of people forming a third-party PR team for big studios I'd say it's not unlikely that "inside sources" are actually a controlled leak.

[Narkis]

What boggles the mind is how utterly they failed to learn from EA's and Bethesda's similar announcements earlier this year: EA announced CnC Rivals and nothing else for CnC and got an instant ****storm in their hands. Bethesda announced ES: Blades together with a single stock image with the TES6 logo and got everyone to shrug on their mobile cash grab and start generating hype on a game that's half a decade out. And yet Blizzard decided to follow EA's example rather than Bethesda's. Is it any wonder they had the same result?

All they had to do was give us a single Diablo 4 logo on a black background, if they are indeed working on it. The fact they didn't do it means they either have no actual plans for it, despite recent rumours, or their entire marketing department consists of incompetents who should be fired yesterday.

As an aside Polygon is the only major site I've seen with an article that gets why people are actually upset.

[Olinser]

What boggles the mind is how utterly they failed to learn from EA's and Bethesda's similar announcements earlier this year: EA announced CnC Rivals and nothing else for CnC and got an instant ****storm in their hands. Bethesda announced ES: Blades together with a single stock image with the TES6 logo and got everyone to shrug on their mobile cash grab and start generating hype on a game that's half a decade out. And yet Blizzard decided to follow EA's example rather than Bethesda's. Is it any wonder they had the same result?

All they had to do was give us a single Diablo 4 logo on a black background, if they are indeed working on it. The fact they didn't do it means they either have no actual plans for it, despite recent rumours, or their entire marketing department consists of incompetents who should be fired yesterday.

As an aside Polygon is the only major site I've seen with an article that gets why people are actually upset.

And its even worse they didn't learn from C&C.

This is a literal dead franchise that NOBODY, even hardcore fans, ever expected another actual PC game, and there was still a huge backlash against a mobile cash grab of a dead franchise.

The Diablo franchise is very much alive and they somehow didn't expect massive backlash.

[Narkis]

Blizzard: We generally don’t comment on rumors or speculation, but we can say that we didn’t pull any announcements from BlizzCon this year or have plans for other announcements.

There goes that, I suppose.

[Thomas Cardew]

Oh wait, it gets worse.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/11...ple-franchises

[Olinser]

So let me get this straight.

Blizzard has I think almost literally the worst received game announcement in history (I'm heard pressed to even think of one, Battlefield V didn't even come close) because they made the brilliant decision to announce to a hardcore PC gaming audience a mobile freemium game that they didn't even make, but farmed out to another company.

Kotaku spreads the rumor that they actually intended to announce Diablo 4 but changed their minds.

Blizzard not only explicitly denies the rumor, but announces MORE mobile freemium crap.

This is the functional equivalent of somebody jumping off a boat because they thought it was a great idea and starting to drown. Then somebody throws them a rope to pull them out. Not only do they not grab the rope, but they punch the potential lifesaver square in the nuts.

WHO IN THE NAME OF **** IS MAKING PR DECISIONS FOR THIS COMPANY.

Because they need to be fired. Not because the community is mad at them, but because they are clearly utterly incompetent.