We don’t “hate” Immortal, and I imagine most of us will try it. The issue is that Blizzard thought announcing a phone game to a desktop/console audience would be an amazing reveal, when it should have been a very “oh, by the way” note at the bottom of the events card. Imagine it this way: You are at a concert of your favorite band who always reveals a new song, but the new song turns out to be Mary Had a Little Lamb. We don’t hate Mary Had a Little Lamb, but it wasn’t something our favorite band should have expected us to get excited about.
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If you actually read the comments from those Immortal videos at youtube, especially in this week, most of them still hate Immortal.
Only handful of them stop hating Immortal after they got their D4 update and actually willing to give a chance to play Immortal.
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Mary Had a Little Lamb. No phone required. Enjoy.
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I honestly think they are channeling their “announcement hate” into “immortal hate”, and some are possibly riding the “hate train” because it’s trendy. Kind of like not being able to say you like a couple Nickelback songs because everyone is supposed to hate them.
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True, but either way, their hatred over Immortal won’t triumph. According to the interview with Wyatt Cheng and other popular streamers, so far Immortal is getting a positive reception from many alpha players. The Immortal team doesn’t even bother to entertain or try to convince those haters. They are adapting the motto “Show Don’t Tell” and they are succeeding.
Leviathan: Has there been anything from the reports, videos, streams, that has surprised you in the alpha whether pleasantly or unpleasantly?What do you think of the alpha thus far, community reaction, etc.
Wyatt Cheng (Lead Designer): I’m really overwhelmed by the positive reception. It’s definitely been a busy two years and it’s very rewarding to be able to “show don’t tell”. I think one moment that gave me a chuckle on Sunday was opening two streams at once (I think it was Gregg and Raxx?). The two of them were partied up. I was on my anonymous-smurf account and joined them in the party. But then Gregg booted me from the party! LOL. Fortunately I could hear Gregg talk in stream about how I think he was poking around the UI.
Caleb Arseneaux (Lead Producer): We’ve been saying that “playing is believing” mantra for a long time. It’s great to finally see you all play the game and hear their reaction. I’ve been watching multiple streams constantly for days and it’s only made me more excited about making this game! Also I really thought I was good at CR pushing until a few days ago
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“We are on track to repeat the success of World of Warcraft, and possibly eclipse it beyond the highest expectation. Diablo: Immortal is only the beginning.”
-snarky non sequitur-
“…Don’t you guys have shares??”
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I think anyone, even Blizzard, hoping to eclipse the success of WoW is an enormous expectation. Even secretaries at my work who don’t have computers at home are at least familiar with the name.
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If you give credence to the reporting of Jason Schreier as well as Blizzard’s communication, it seems to me like the initial plan was to announce D4 and D:I. This is consistent with the initial hype video. They decided for reasons not to announce D4. Nev made a new video to reign in the diablo Blizzcon hype where if you could read between the lines, it was clear D4 was NOT going to be announced. However, Blizzard still needed to announce something (D:I) given their prior communication. I do not think that Blizzard anticipated fully the extent of the negative reaction.
Do I wish they handles things like Bethesda with their announcements of Elder Scrolls VI, Blades (their new phone game), and their Alexa game (joe but not really)? Yes.
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Do you think things would be better if they reveal D4 logo in the end of the Diablocon?
Yes. It could have been very short just like the Elder Scroll’s VI announcement video. Simple flyover with Blizzard logo, some diablo music, and the title “Diablo 4”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkFdqqyI8y4
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I think most can agree that the majority of the backlash seemed to have been due to the lack of Diablo pc news (be it Diablo 4, Major Diablo 3 update/expansion/, or Diablo 2 remake); and instead only Diablo Immortal was announced.
Blizzard made the mistake of releasing the “Forges are Hot” video, and made no attempt at reigning in the hype it generated until a few weeks shy of Blizzcon; and even then all that blog achieved was informing players that there wouldn’t be any Diablo 4 news; it did nothing to dissuade players hype of potential Diablo 3 or 2 news.
I certainly do. The way Blizzcon went for Diablo in 2018 was that it painted a phone-centric image for some Diablo folks (meaning for players who weren’t interested in phone games would have nothing to look forward to); as they had made no mention of any major Diablo pc news or even consoles (well except for Diablo 3 switch); even when asked regarding it. In fact most of their statements regarding pc content came after the initial event and such was seen as merely damage control.
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Artworks of Diablo Immortal look ages better than what we have with Diablo 3 right now. Not just the engine but they have better artwork direction as well.
Bringing all that hype upwards to try to curb it at the very last moment didn’t work well. It was obvious Wyatt being unable to talk about emulation for PC and NSwitch which would be encouraging third party software as an employee of the company too. Questions asked were wrong, they left out crucial questions about the game and its performance.
Latest government investigations and news about China companies (U.S govt were talking about banning Huawei and ZTE that time) made people question their tailflick as NASDAQ crashes. Their PR service was half of the letdown and really needed better feedback.
If you ask me, I’m pretty happy about how D:I gonna turn out. Wyatt took all the criticism and did his best to lessen the impact of monetization in design, while keeping both player and their partner company happy.
If D:I release and it’s compatible with emulation software, I don’t see any reason for it to not prevail and become the next best thing after D3’s NSwitch version. No way everyone would have pricey £1000 phones in this world.
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I think these two statements pretty much sum up the majority of the issue.
For myself (and possibly some others) it is not so much hating the release of Immortal but more of a dislike in the direction Activision/Blizzard is taking their games. I understand that releasing franchise content onto newer platforms with larger populations of users equates to a greater potential increase to the player-base. What I don’t enjoy is the shift in focus this normally results in from an active consumer perspective.
We can see the results of this type of shift in the D2 vs D3 vs D4 crowd.
Change happens and I understand that but it doesn’t mean as an individual consumer I will always like it or even that I should. In the end as a consumer when I have had my fill I will simply stop purchasing. This turnover is also the very reason the gaming industry is forced to always chase new generations of players (because old ones die out regardless).
On a personal note Immortal doesn’t offer me anything as I honestly don’t like mobile games. I have a wonderful PC and I like the acreage my screens provide it is simply the platform I prefer. Also I dislike the micro-transaction centered focus most mobile games and their developers push onto their consumers.
So will I be trying out Diablo immortal? Absolutely not. Pretty pixels are just not worth it to me to put up with a platform and monetization system I already despise.
To be honest I no longer play anything from Blizzard other than D3 and that is only used to cleanse the pallet so to speak when taking a break from other games I do enjoy.
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Personal opinion, not tryng to be the voice of anyone but me.
Announcement caused me to hate it, and how Blizzard managed the situation after it, with the censorship and so on, it’s something I’ll never forget.
So everytime I hear about Immortal, what comes to my mind is manipulation and a company declaring a war against its customers, against me, so there’s no possible redeem for me.
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If Diablo Immortal ends up with a Nickelback soundtrack, I’m gonna hunt you down and pelt you with marshmallows.
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I am writing from my phone now, it is so awkward.
Doubtful. I won’t be trying it for sure. It might have Blizzard stamp of approval on it but at the end of the day it’s still an Asian mobile cashgrab game, of which there are plenty. I do not want to support that direction so I won’t buy it. I am also not so addicted to games that I need to be playing them 24/7, even during downtime when I don’t have access to a PC.
The announcement was like spitting in the face of your fans. You don’t do them like that after they have been starved for years for proper Diablo content/news. As a sideshow announcement? Fine. But as the main deal? Like, it would have been better to reveal it in a blogpost prior to the event lol.
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not only was its announcement a middle finger to their main fan base, they make diablo bloodless. that´s both middle fingers. real fans won´t acknowledge immoral.
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and welcome to the block-list, latest activisionblizzard-bootlicker sozijlt.
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I dont hate D.Immortal, but it just looks… cheap. A game for 0-6 kids.
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