No, the Blizzard Fans Aren't "Toxic", the Company's Practices Are

Let's face it, the first day of Blizzcon has brought some wonderful news.

World of Warcraft is bringing back legacy servers pretty much for free and everyone is falling back in love with it. Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm are both receiving new playable characters respectively, which is obviously something welcomed by their communities. And after all these wonderful news, it had come to be the time for the Diablo panel.

And we all know how that ended up.

To understand why the ceremony has been such an infuriating failure, we need to travel back in time, all the way to the beginning of the year. Here we can see Blizzard posting job offers for various Diablo related positions listed under the "Unannounced project" category. While this tells us absolutely nothing, the fan-base began to dig its own grave with speculations and theories about the  possible upcoming Diablo game. No one thought that maybe the time span between the first listing and Blizzcon would not necessitate an actual announcement there.

And then came the Blizzcon announcements, goodie bags and finally, the schedule. And did anything stir more of deep waters in any fandom before than the schedule for 2018's Blizzcon.

But first things first, the they made it sure that there was something huge coming for Diablo fans. The goodie bags contained a Diablo figurine, and the announcements  hyped up the conference while admitting that something was indeed coming this year. All of this to tell the fans to lower their expectations mere weeks before the conference, when the tickets have been bought.

Now to the schedule. 

Some of the more observant have taken notice, that there has been a huge gap after the initial ceremony, as well as an unusually high amount of Diablo-related panels. Combine this with the job listings, goodie bag hype and everyone had the right to think that a new Diablo project was indeed coming, except for Rhykker, who has believed this since Blizzcon 2016 and it's misprinted D4s.

By the way, Diablo 4 hype is not anything new or exclusive to 2018. In 2016, the fans have been misled by one of the employees tweeting "Diablo fans are going to lose their $#/7." The tweet has since been deleted and said employee fired. The hype it has created, however had stayed until the conference.

That year, we got the necromancer expansion, which, obviously, did not live up to the hype, since it has not brought many new things to the endless tiring grind that Diablo III has become.

So, the Diablo fans have been starved of proper content since the 2014 release of the Reaper of Souls expansion, yet, Blizzard has been hyping the franchise and desperately trying to keep it alive.

So, here we are, at the opening ceremony, promised to see something huge, even bigger that the necro expansion (at least by Blizzard's stance towards it) and with huge smile on his face, Wyatt Cheng tells us, that we are getting an outsourced mobile game with Diablo's name stapled onto it.

Let me be frank, most of the reactions were appropriate.

There was dude who asked if it was just a joke. Blizzard defenders seem to use him as the main point when talking about "spoiled manbabies" and other labels they use when they run of of real arguments. His question itself was a form of a joke too, but unlike the one from the side of the Blizzard, no one was unnecessarily hyped up for this one. It was not a direct insult, at least not one that would make the company a victim of any abuse. Let's also not forget, that the clip of the man asking the question is getting heavily censored and taken down from various portals, only to emerge over and over. People will not forget it.

It also shows how the company is aware that they have messed up. In a way, by censoring negative feedback they show their awareness of it's source, but refuse to acknowledge that that the audience is aware of it too.

Then the booing. The most common form of disagreement at public events and definitely one of the more appropriate ones. I'm not trying to say we should be glad people did not trash the place, I'm trying to say that it was not out of place at all. Fans had the right to show their feelings, and it's not like they tried to interrupt the speakers. The reaction came appropriately right after the clarification, that the game is not coming to PC.

There is something to be said about the attempt at a joke after the booing, but frankly, that is a  blunder of one of the devs that the company cannot be held accountable for.

And to top it all off, the trailers happened. Or, more precisely, the reaction censorship. First, they began to take down comment expressing negative stance (which has backfired hilariously), further perpetuating the censorship. Then, they began to reupload them to lower the number of dislikes, albeit unsuccessfully.

Finally, they have began to simply remove the dislikes, with the main trailer losing 100k dislikes in a second. Sad things is, Blizzard really seems to think that this approach will fix anything. The worst part about Diablo Immortal is not even the announcement itself anymore, but the way Blizzard has handled the feedback.

So, to put everything into one picture.

A huge game company has hyped up almost a two-decade old PC fanbase and then has revealed a reskinned and outsourced mobile game, which is likely to contain microtransactions. And we all know how happy people were about using their real money in the D3 auction house. Then, they began to ignore and censor the negative and justified feedback. The fans have all the rights to be mad, and they seem to exercise them well.

Now I would like to give some of my own thoughts on the matter.

I have been a Diablo fan for only around 4 years, but I have had my fair share of fun with the franchise. I have always been a critic of the D3's endgame, but have always praised the controls and combat, in which it excels on the market.

The decline in quality between D2 and D3 has obviously been huge at some aspects, but the newer installment has improved the game in many ways. It was strange seeing how the franchise jumped from one of the most restrictive games to one that gives player such a freedom of choice and change.

I have played D2 after D3, but picking a favourite was easy anyway.

From this, I expect the decline in quality to obviously go even further, especially with the platform change. Biggest problem is not even going to be the format in general, but the fact that it is unsuitable for the dynamic way the franchise was heading towards.

I have played quite a few mobile RPGs and the reason I stopped playing all of them was, that they were so underwhelming, repetitive and boring. This is a problem of the entire genre on mobile, so it begs a question, why they thought bringing a beloved franchise into it was a good idea.

But I guess we will have to see how it turns out. And even if the Diablo Immortal ends up being at least half decent, the way Blizzard has treated fans will be remembered negatively for a long time.

There is a moral problem coming from Blizzards behaviour when it comes to taking criticism of Diablo Immortal. We are talking about an actual censorship of opinion and feedback. One cannot argue, that the feedback may be inappropriate, since there's been no inappropriate behaviour, and hopefully, never will be.

If an AAA company is not able to face the music on failed projects and admit that they may have made a misstep in the direction one of their franchises is heading, maybe it is a sign that that company does not care about the feedback or the franchise at all.

However, if you still want to give Diablo Immortal a chance, go ahead, but first, here's some words from a man with first-hand experience.

But remember, "No King Rules Forever, My Son".