By now the dust is beginning to settle surrounding Blizzard’s questionably timed announcement of Diablo Immortal, which gives us a good opportunity to take a look at just what went wrong. If you missed the drama, here’s a super brief recap: Blizzard’s annual convention and celebration of all things Blizzard, Blizzcon, was held over the weekend. As is tradition, the event kicked off with the opening ceremony which typically serves two purposes: A bit of a state of the union for Blizzard and its various game franchises, and to make a bunch of announcements which often introduce the new games and content for existing games that will be on display at Blizzcon.
Blizzcon grows larger every year, and this year the opening ceremony was spread across multiple stages in different parts of the convention center. Technical issues, audio drop-outs and other weirdness made it seem like they were shuffling around the order of the announcements on the fly, made obvious by them being forced to cut back to Hearthstone after a failed announcement earlier in the presentation. This reshuffling likely led to the Diablo Immortal announcement as the grand finale of the opening ceremony.
The reaction that followed the unveiling of a mobile-exclusive Diablo title, was completely expected- As if there’s anything that the different sects of gaming can agree on, it’s that there’s nothing worse than mobile games. The unifying battle cry this created was unbelievable, with chronically outspoken drama hounds and vocal supporters of Gamergate even being seen as voices of reason in the fight against Blizzard. Redditors raced to find more things to vote to the top of the front page, resurrecting ancient Steve Jobs quotes, clips of legitimate 4chan trolls hassling Blizzard staff, and much, much more.
The thing is, the game itself is actually really cool. We’ve got an in-depth hands-on and then an interview with the development team which both reinforce the fact that if you’re willing to leave your anti-mobile bias at the door and give the game a shot, you’re going to have a good time. NetEase and other Asian developers have created a bunch of different action RPGs which have ranged from decent to pretty good, with all of them ultimately falling flat on just how generic the world inside of the game is. Diablo Immortal combines a genre that works well on mobile, with controls that also have been proven to work well with games like Arena of Valor (or Honor of Kings in China), with a game universe that’s actually compelling. It seems like a winning combination.
But where did they go wrong?
Game development in 2018 in a general sense, is in a fascinating place. Cross-platform development environments like Unity and Unreal are normal tools that most developers use, which makes it reasonably easy for them to build a game once and then deploy it absolutely everywhere. Fortnite, for instance, is built in Unreal and is playable on basically every platform you’d ever want to play a video game on- From high-end PC’s to mid-range Android devices. Games are often developed with the full intention to slowly roll out the same game on different platforms- Even if each different version were actually completed and ready to ship at the same time.
It’s a totally open secret in the game developer community that in order for a game to be accepted amongst Real Gamers, you must follow a very specific release cycle. It’s very, very important to release on Steam first, as Steam is a marketplace with vicious perception problems of anything that is available on other platforms, as clearly it isn’t a “real" PC game in that case. Games even get dinged on Steam for looking like they might be mobile games. So, you pretend that your cross-platform game is this killer PC exclusive, PC gamers are totally happy, and your launch goes off without a hitch.
Then, you start rolling out to consoles, creating the assumption that the PC version is the “real" version, and the developer had to tone the game down the game to make it work on “inferior" platforms like the Xbox One or PS4. (Look no further than the different “PC Master Race" groups to see this in action.) Said game came out first on the PC, so no PC gamers get angry, and maybe even some of them buy it a second time because they want to play with Xbox Live friends.
Once both of those release cycles have completely run their course, then you talk about a mobile version. Similar to console, this creates the assumption that the mobile game is an even more stripped down and inferior version than previous releases, which is fine because PC/console gamers already played a “better" version on their platform of choice. They’ll even often be convinced to buy the game a second (or third time) to bring it with them on the go.
Launching a game this way keeps everyone happy, and often results in the same people re-buying, or telling their friends that they should get this game that they liked because it’s “finally" available on console or mobile. Launching a game, even if all versions are ready to go at the same time and it was originally intended to be a mobile game, any other way, is how you wind up in situations like the one Blizzard has found themselves in with Diablo Immortal.
It’s super, super normal for us to go to conferences where games are being shown off by developers, see games that would make great mobile titles, and have developers scared to admit that they even have plans to launch on mobile. The anti-mobile bias is so strong that us even covering that a game might also be coming to mobile can be enough to damage sales on Steam. This is a big reason why this year in our PAX coverage we put up a bunch of videos for games that totally would work on mobile but we couldn’t get any kind of official confirmation just so we have something to link back to when they inevitably do.
Blizzard (potentially accidentally) even followed this similar release cycle with Hearthstone. When it was announced back at PAX East in 2013, it was a tablet game. Months before the game would even launch on the iPad, it was playable there as a big part of how the game was initially demonstrated at the show. I didn’t snag a photo at the time, but iMore did:
However, if you go back and look at how Hearthstone’s release actually played out, they swerved hard into the game initially being played as a beta on the PC. You barely saw any platform-related negative responses because it was PC first in 2013, and in the minds of most people Hearthstone was a PC game. When the iPad client launched in early 2014, again, the perception was, “Oh neat this PC game I enjoy playing on my PC is now on my iPad." In 2015 when it became available on smartphones, you saw a similar reaction.
If, on the other hand, Blizzard had released Hearthstone in a reverse order, they would have been experiencing all the same flaming that Diablo Immortal has seen for committing the cardinal sin of releasing a free to play mobile game. It makes zero sense, as Hearthstone was transparently always meant to be a touch-based mobile game. It’s free to play, built in Unity, has short session lengths, and endless different ways it can send you notifications to come back and keep on playing. It’s arguably even a worse experience playing it with a mouse.
None of that matters though, because Blizzard followed the acceptable platform release order in the minds of Real Gamers. Had they done the same thing with Diablo Immortal, you’d likely see a small amount of grumping over it being free to play, but most people would be excited for a new Diablo pseudo-sequel. Then, when it eventually was released on mobile, PC players would be stoked that they could play a game they like on the go.
It’s all a totally absurd mind game, and while Blizzard announcing Diablo Immortal as the finale of the Blizzcon opening ceremony without even a brief tease for Diablo 4 wasn’t the best idea, this reaction was completely inevitable because they failed to play to the acceptable release cycle schedule. It’s a mistake that anyone releasing a video game in 2018 should be careful to not duplicate, as the anti-mobile bias and resulting mobile stigma is real.
Although the timing of the announcement is questionable, I’m still surprised by how toxic the fanbase of Diablo is towards mobile games.
Why insult the fanbase? BlizzEnt messed up here. The Diablo fanbase has had it rough. They got a pay2win (AH) initial release of Diablo 3. Which they had to get Blizzard to fix. They endured rubberbanding in their favourite game. They still do. This series gets little action at BlizzCons. And now this fresh hot mess. This poor stunt proves that no one at Blizzard listens. And their shouting out loud praises of the Community is just hot air.
This is part of the problem.
Some media is trying to focus on “toxic gamers”, “entitled”, “don’t be a dick” in the meanwhile, trying to sideline the ever growing underlying problem of a games industry steadily pushing towards (some publishers are more egregious than others like EA, Activision and Take 2) more and more microtransactions, gaming as a service, lootboxes and nickel and diming everything to kingdom come at the expense of gameplay, mechanics, content and value for money.
The other part is, there are many mobile gamers here who are new, have no idea or don’t understand the source of the outrage and history many console/pc gamers have with the games industry.
Mobile games and their F2P model would not be so detested if mobile games quality standards and expectations were considerably raised beyond just predatory cash grabs, gambling mechanics, ocd exploitation and the games industry as a whole clamoring over each other towards “bastardizing” their IPs to ripp off unknowing mobile gamers and also ripping off their core customers (console/pc gamers) with the likes of SWBFII, FIF2019, NBA2k18 etc...
Who insulted whom? I never said that I agree with how Blizzard announced Diablo Immortal at Blizzcon, and I also seriously worry about NetEase as their reputation is becoming worse even in other Asian countries and regions due to their failed operation on various mobile games. What I disagree with is that many people within the Diablo fanbase tend to despise all mobile games, and even the word "mobile" can make them triggered.
You wrote that their fanbase was toxic.
It goes to show how little you know how detested mobile games with their F2P/P4F/FREEMIUM models are.
There a lot of us mobile gamers who come from a console/pc background and know what’s what.
Loot boxes actually came from mobile games.
%70+ of money made from mobile games actually comes from a small segment of the population that are whales because their OCD is exploited, which the gambling industry know full well how it works.
EA would have gotten even far worse a reception (but this is becoming standard now) with their introduction of Command and Conquer rising, a well known PC RTS series, which EA started to push towards ‘Mobilizing” (Command and Conquer 4 was actually a mobile game, but was retooled as a pc game) by killing the series, but luckily for EA it was at E3, not a dedicated convention filled with its core demographic and target audience.
I can’t believe that everyone has to go through this same song and dance every time just because “real gamers” can’t fathom a mobile game not being garbage. I’m really excited about Immortal because I’ve never played Diablo and never had a system that I could play it on before, but I’m bummed that there are so many “true fans” that are souring the whole thing right from the start.
Do you actually know why so many Diablo fans are pissed about this? Or are you just glamouring on to the headlines?
It has been explained quite a few times here on this board, in other games forums and game videos.
Do you know why so many people detest mobile games?
Every time I look at bliz's anouncement of this title and the fanbases reaction I am reminded just how smart Bethesda was a year or two back with Fallout 4. They announce Fallout 4, folks cheered. Announced it was 6 months out, folks went wild. Then announced alongside that news a f2p base builder for mobile, folks were accepting. Then Bethesda repeated this with Elder Scrolls : Blades. Announce the next premium elder scroll title, then in the next breath announce a f2p mobile game for those so inclined.
Why? Because the hardcore loyal fans didnt feel like their beloved franchise was about to receive the Dungeon Keeper treatment. Here Bliz shot down any and all news regarding D4. Announce Immortal AND said they intend it for the entire fanbase. Oh and then you look at the developer who's working with blizzard to bring it to light, that developers game library and the fact that immortal looks like a skin clone of at least one other game made by Netease.
Bliz needs to hire/take notes from Bethesda's PR team because this diablo immortal announcement was a PR wreck.
That said? I'll definitely be playing it.
I think Blizzard is skating to where the puck is going with their mobile-first announcement. If there aren't more mobile gamers than PC gamers yet, I'm certain there will be soon.
Did the Diablo userbase freak out this hard when Diablo 3 was announced with cartoony visuals and console ports? I believe they did.
I'm sure Blizzard isn't above alienating a few neckbeards as they try to monetize and/or improve the game. As vocal as they are, I have a feeling the "buy it once for $60 and play it hardcore forever" kind of customer might not be what Blizzard wants most of all.
« Don’t you have a phone? »
The condescending response sealed the deal.
That plus the fact that they saved it for the end of the show as this huge, insanely monumental reveal.
I was excited for hearthstone. I didn’t end up getting into it for a lot of reasons (it ran like a donkey’s ass on my iPad 4 was a bigggg one) it just wasn’t for me, I wanted it to be but I dunno.
I was INITIALLY excited for Immortals until I saw the gameplay and it looked a whole lot like every other diablo clone.
I’ll for sure try it when it comes out, but watching the gameplay, all other reports notwithstanding, nothing felt like diablo other than the graphics to a degree. And even then, it just... I dunno. I’ve never been a hardcore diablo gamer until 3, although I’ve played them, and I was thrilled with it coming to mobile. But partnering with a FTP heavy developer where they will be sanitizing it heavily for a global audience is really sad to me.
But that wasn’t the worst. It’s the response from blizzard. Their vagueness around the monetization and their being “so shocked” at the backlash.
We will see how it turns out. Maybe I’ll be surprised. And I do think the “RIP BLIZZARD, 2018” melodrama is just dumb, but I’m not going to count down as each announcement releases.
Were you guys very clandestine about being toucharcade reps or journalists there and if not did you fear for your safety atdter the announcement for being there?
I don't think it's an absurd mind game at all, its understanding your hardcoire fanbase. People pay a LOT of money to go to BlizzCon, and they are.. at heart.. pc gamers. The want multi-keyed, high powered, too complex to play on a console games. To demo a mobile only game, and I agree.. a game that looks superb.. to Diablo fans thirsting for.. well.. anything Diablo 2 or 3 was a bad idea as it clearly showed they no longer care of have any clue what the Blizzard loyalists actually want. This is mainly due to the fact that most of the key Diablo devs have been moved on.
IF they also brought this to PC and console the reaction would have been disgruntled but likely turning to the positive.. but to shout out 'do you not have mobile phones; to the crowd was just petulant.'
I am hoping, as it was with Hearthstone, this is not a blatant cash grab. Hearthstone is one of the fairest F2P games I have seen, and with generous IAP that allow you to get antire card sets a shining example. I have no issues paying for IAP's any more, but I never pay for loot boxes or treasure chests of random items.
I think the hard thing is for anyone who has played diablo before, the entire aspect of the game is loot loot loot and more loot. Same with wow.
In the end, that’s the entire goal of the game. Acquiring more loot. You find better loot to do better and kill more monsters to find better loot.
Add in FTP and, I dunno. It feels weird. I don’t mind dlc characters or even paying for stuff like pets, but there’s SO much loot in a game like diablo. It’s about chasing that high and gaining that legendary item that hits all the stat markers you’ve been dying for.
The outcry is like Morgan says. The people in attendance paid a huge chunk of money, a lot of them flew out. It’s like pax for blizzard stuff only. And their big, massive, closing announcement was a game made by a developer who makes diablo clones making a Diablo game for your phone.
Had they left it out and announced it elsewhere I’m not going to pretend gamers wouldn’t get butthurt, there’d still be threads full of the outrage, but it wouldn’t have been remotely as impactful. Hearthstone was a new IP, Diablo isn’t and you’re basically telling the crowd that “hey but you have phones!”... just so many wrong decisions that anyone could have guided them away from to assuage this nuclear bomb.
PC gamers are entitled whiners. Also in news this week, water is wet.
My issue isn't the mobile. I don't have mobile bias. I enjoy games on Mobile. My issue is that a multi-billion dollar company like Blizzard gave us a game that is with NETEASE. FFS. NETEASE. Coupled with the fact that they haven't decided "premium" or "f2p" immediately raises the hackles. Sorry mate, I think you're off base. If Blizz said they were gunna make a mobile, did a 5 second teaser that said Diablo4 on it for PC coming soon, then the Blizzcon people would be wetting themselves.
very interesting - I've been following a remaster of a game I used to play about 25 years ago.
Pretty much the same situation as described here - it's due out on all platforms eventually. Xbox has had all the focus, and Nintendo switch was next. Then they were advised by their publishers to switch focus to the PC version first, so the switch version seems to have been pushed back a bit in favour of getting the PC version out (which has now become the first version available along with Xbox)...
Guys no. Just no. First of all, blizzard pc games don't release on steam, they release on the battle.net platform.... Secondly, refer to my first point.
The distribution network is sort of irrelevant versus the overall platform. Steam, GoG, Kongregate’s new thing, Battle.net, the Discord Store, etc, none of these things change the thesis of the article.
Ask steam fans if the difference is irrelevant.. Plus it's just bad form.
I get what you're saying
How to better pander/pitch this announcement: “You Real Gamers know how mobile ‘gamers’ are garbage-scarfing, money-barfing chumps with no taste, right? [winks..cheers..] Well, we got a Chinese company to make us a Diablo game for mobile, and we’re going to use it as a gateway drug and a money machine to pile up more resources for development of our Actual Games and convert new fans into Real Gamers. Also, it’s a pretty cool game. You guys might like it.”
Mobile games standards and expectations need to be raised considerably.
Diablo 3 for mobile, is the better choice over ‘Diablo Immortal’ on mobile.
Those who are not familiar with Diablo and never played it before, I recommend you try Diablo 3 on the Nintendo Switch if you can and than try ‘Crusaders of light’, essentially a Diablo clone on mobile.
Than you will know what your missing out when you will play ‘Diablo Immortal’.
This was the equivalent of LeBron's The Decision on ESPN, just a really bad idea to use Diablo Mobile as finale for hardcore PC gamers who spent money to travel to Blizzcon. Let's hope there will be a "Cleveland, this is for you" redemption moment.
Having said that, Netease is the second most successful mobile gaming company in the world, this will be a freemium game that most likely makes more money than any other Blizzard game in the coming years. Mobile gaming is bigger than PC and console combined now, that is why "real gamers" are so salty . . . They (for the right reason) fear their precious AAA single player games, which cost $40 to buy 20 years ago and cost $60 today, are becoming extinct.
Longtime Blizzard fan here from Starcraft and Warcraft through WoW woes and Diablo. I purchased Diablo 3 on release for PC, then later on console. I personally believed the game played better on console (game play rather than visuals). I remember telling friends it seemed like the game was developed with console in mind. And maybe it was but Blizzard felt compelled to follow the same song and dance mentioned here. Either way Diablo 3 had been in the pipeline forever [with teaser game play mechanics] before being released so who knows how things played out over that time.
I see two missteps here. First releasing Diablo 3 on Nintendo Switch followed by the announcement for Diablo Immortal on mobile. I believe would have made more sense to release Diablo 3 on mobile first for continuity while not appearing to show preference for a specific platform. In this scenario they could have sold the initial Diablo 3 content and the Immortal content as an expansion. Bringing players back to the well a second time with a concurrent release across all platforms.
Second, perhaps the game would have been better received with the same content simply branded Diablo 3: Immortal. People would have assumed a watered down version of Diablo 3 for mobile and been distracted from the actual content. As it stands now there is exclusive content being offered up as mobile-only. And this imo is a no-no and slap in the face to the community.
Blizzard haven’t done anything wrong. The mobile games market, I believe the biggest games market in the world now? Will love a proper Diablo game on mobile, especially after all the endless rip off’s we’ve had over the years!
All this backlash is from salty cry baby master race PC elitist gamers who are upset they didn’t get a new Diablo, they think they are the only ones who matter and the company exists purely to serve them, they have been introduced to the real world now where maximising profits for share holders is all the rage. So they go after the biggest and most lucrative markets..
I’m sure they will make a new PC Diablo game, so all those ‘fans’ who cured and screamed when Diablo was launched on console including the recent Switch version no doubt, will shut up.
It’s pathetic when in a world where people still starve to death, you have people get all angry over a game...
I agree with your assessment of the market in general, but I wonder how exactly could they ever possibly spin Diablo Immortal as a PC-first game, with that traditional release schedule, even if they tried? Hearthstone had no legacy baggage, but Diablo's legacy is heavier than ship anchor.
I believe they knew full well it was impossible, but at the same time they can't afford to miss the mobile market. If I were to guess, they were betting that this particular episode, a necessary evil, will blow over soon enough and everyone will be happy again when Diablo 4 comes out, this time PC-first.
They might be surprised at the intensity of the hate, but I doubt the hate itself was any surprise to them.
Why is the diablo community against THIS mobile game? Blizzard was hyping that something big was coming for diablo. Since the last bit of content that was released for Diablo was the Necromancer pack and that was shown at BlizzCon 2016. That pack did not include any story content just a character. BlizzCon 2017 comes around and Diablo is not even mentioned. We come to BlizzCon 2018 there is hype of Diablo going to the Nintendo Switch, no new info for the game in almost two years, and then there is the hype that was generated when people started noticing Blizzard hiring for the Diablo team. Diablo was the anchor to the opening of BlizzCon and that usually means a rather large announcement. With the technical difficulties with the Hearth stone stage sound Overwatch and I think starcraft got pushed forward, but not Diablo leaving it as the anchor adding to the hype. Then Wyatt came out and announced Diablo mobile from another developer and that is it. No Diablo character pack. No new thing for seasons. World of Warcraft had a new cinimatic and patch 8.1 news. Hearthstone has a new expansion coming. Overwatch get new hero and new cinematic. Starcraft gets more co-op play and I was really let down by this. Warcraft reforged is announced. Then Diablo announces a mobile game made by AN OUT SIDE COMPANY not blizzard. Everything leading up to the Diablo Immortal announcement was adding hype to the end of opening and then it flopped. The hype killed Diablo mobile.
Normally, I would agree with you Eli, but I just don’t see from the gameplay trailers that D:I has the heart and soul of something truly “cool” in this space, like Crashlands for example. It feels a bit samey and bland, if only mildly thematically Diablo.
Already from impressions, there are concerns about skill-heavy classes like the wizard being under-represented as the skill sets are limited (not to mention the absence of the Witch Doctor).
The fact that its engine seems to have been farmed off to NetEase, who is best known for its predatory MTX and regurgitated/reskinned carbon copy titles is also a concern. I don’t suggest Blizzard would stoop to that, but the allure of making squillions out of heavy spending regions like China will be hard to resist.
Maybe the reaction would be different if this was a true in-house developed labour of love by Blizzard (putting to one side the manner of its announcement). But it sure doesn’t feel like it. As much as I’d hate to admit it, it does look like a bolt-on Diablo-like NetEase title with some oversight by Blizzard. And it certainly doesn’t look like the Blizzard Tier 1 project that Hearthstone was for example.
Also, (although I’m hopefully wrong about it), the whole partnering with a (rather dubious) Chinese development studio charade has left me with an uneasy feeling.
In the same vein as your arguments, maybe if Blizzard itself treated mobile with the same level of seriousness and care and attentiveness then they’d have made a better show of it.
Also, in relation to the outrage, while I can appreciate the angle you’ve taken on it from a mobile-first perspective, I think in this instance you’ve missed the point. It was about the target audience who attended BlizzCon and the botched messaging from Blizzard. I think this article sums it up nicely: https://www.forbes.com/site...
The restaurant analogy is a good one and one we can all relate to at some stage or another. Except in that case, the consumer didn’t have to pay a hundred or thousand dollar ticket to get a seat at the table.
Simpler: Blizzard's mistake was announcing Diablo Immortal at Blizzcon.
It's just a re-skinned Crusaders of Light. Nothing to get excited about one way or the other.