The Blizzard turns into an angry storm

Blizzcon is over and many fans are... disgruntled? Okay, furious is more accurate.

So what happened? Apparently it was a very lackluster con to begin with. This in itself is nothing new, it's a fairly well known fact that about every other Blizzcon has exciting stuff and the others contain filler announcements. This year was pretty much a filler year.

They announced a remaster of Warcraft 3, new heroes for Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm, a new expansion for Hearthstone and that World of Warcraft Classic is coming Summer 2019 and is free with a regular WoW subscription. Basic stuff, right? So far so good.

Then we get to the delicate issue. For a couple of years now, Diablo fans have been asking for news regarding Diablo IV and Blizzards only response has been “sometime in the future”. Then just before Blizzcon 2018 a blog post popped up on the official site that, it seems, was poorly worded.

It did say not to get your hopes up, but that it could also be seen as a teaser. I don't care enough to actually read it, you can probably find it if you want to.

Now, a presentation is a delicate thing, doing it right takes a very specific formula. In a nutshell it goes sort of like this:

1. Mid sized announcement
2. Small announcement
3. Small announcement
4. Medium to big announcement
5. Small announcement
6. BIG FRIKKIN' ANNOUNCEMENT

You layer the not so exciting bits between the hot stuff and finish big. You want the audience to leave the hall feeling pumped and buzzing with hype. Pretty simple right? Not, it seems if you work at Blizzard.

They end their main presentation with an announcement that we are getting a Diablo mobile game. Yupp, at a con that is predominantly full of PC players, they proudly trot out a mobile game as the big finisher. Then during Q&A a guy asks “Is this a delayed April Fools joke?” And the devs say no. The crowd is silent and very displeased. Then first one dev and then the others ask sarcastically “Don't you all have phones?” What a slap in the face to your own fans.

Crowd erupts with boos, and I can't blame them. Unfortunately the more “passionate” members of the fanbase started with the nasty personal comments on social media. You know, the never okay personal attacks and threats. Anger and disappointment is one thing but I wish people would stop with these attacks.

Apart from the disgusting attacks another commenter group appeared. The “how entitled can these people be?” comments. But I don't think it's about entitlement, it's an honest reaction to Blizzards lousy handling of the game. In itself, a mobile game is nothing. Yes, the fans wanted Diablo IV, and eventually they'll get it. The mobile game is not taking away that, but to pull out a mobile game as a big deal is frankly, idiotic.

Back when Bethesda announced Fallout 4 at E3, they also announced Fallout Shelter, a mobile game, and the fans were ecstatic. Why? Because it was announced along with the main game, and it was available on the iOS store that same day. Not in some distant future, but now. At this years E3, Bethesda did it again. Like my formula they had some smaller games up first, announced Elder Scrolls Blades, a mobile game, and then teased Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6. No one was upset, no one got angry, because Bethesda treated the mobile games like they should in front of a PC/Console crowd: like a small, fun extra thing. Very sensible indeed.

And let's not forget, it is usually not the developers who makes the decisions, it's the MBA business suits who neither understand the games nor the gamers. All they care about is money, and yes, a business has to make money, but a game company should also make games. If they make good games, they actually make money, and without cynically doing all they can to force people to pay up extra.

Well, that's it for me, this has gotten long enough and I've said announcement too many times already. Until next time, have yourself a great week!