I’m still dying at the fact that Blizzcon this year 100% requires you to have a smartphone because you can’t get into the show without it.
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I guess they wanted to know the answer ahead of time when they ask the 2019 crowd if they have phones.
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Ion strolls out on stage, arms folded behind his back and wearing a smug smirk
“I see you all do have phones.”
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That response to an angry crowd will go down in history as one of the most socially inept.
It was a display of cluelessness that I rarely see outside of very specific scenarios. He was there to announce a product in a way that belied the actual magnitude of it, so expectations were high, and then it turned out to just be a nothing mobile game. Then he was very clearly caught off guard by the visible anger, which means he genuinely thought this was going to go over well. Somehow.
Then he completely misunderstood the reason for the outrage, and in a moment of I’m sure panic and embarrassment thought “They must be mad because they don’t have phones? ![:cold_sweat:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/cold_sweat.png?v=6" ":cold_sweat:")
” and thought he should remind them that they do indeed have phones.
The entire thing was such a crap storm of incompetence, I don’t think I’ve ever felt such a combination of anger and pity.
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Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have predicted announcing a mobile game to a group of pc/console gamers would be a disaster.
Not to mention how they hyped up the announcement before hand
Not to mention having that announcement be the bookend of the opening ceremony.
Whoever thought announcing Diablo Inmortal at BlizzCon was a good idea is an idiot.
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not to mention the best phone games are just waifu collectors
Are you going to let me collect Sexy Diablo, BLi$$ard?!
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Are phone games actually this popular and I’m just unaware? Is there ANYTHING, market-wise, to their claims that mobile gaming is the future?
The mobile market is the lion’s share of the $22B gaming industry, yes. If D:I had been announced anywhere else, it probably wouldn’t have been a big deal but here we are in hindsight
e: I stand corrected. $134.9B market. Mobile is roughly half. Apparently the forums Tiers are rolling so I can’t link anymore but just google “gaming market 2018” and look for the Gamesindustry.biz link. The Asian mobile market is an absolute beast.
Mobile games are an absolute monster. It’s easy to overlook if you’re more focused on PC or consoles, but even companies like Nintendo, Square Enix, Bethesda, etc have attempted to get a piece of the pie.
The most popular ones rely on the gachapon method of random-rolling characters in a sort of RPG setting (generally with high-quality character artwork and special limited-time versions, etc), where they gain levels and such to tackle various challenges/fights. My phone’s old so I can’t really play them, but some do sound honestly fun.
They don’t know their audience. They blindly think that all gamers play all platforms, or the expected that a large segment of the audience are mobile gamers as well as PC gamers.
While it’s not a bad idea to bring non-mobile games to a mobile platform, this wasn’t important to the Diablo fans. They wanted Diablo 4. Getting boo’d for a mobile announcement instead was an inevitability. Any fan they asked would have probably told them this. It makes me think their staff do not play their own games.
Even knowing beforehand not to expect Diablo 4 (they literally had to write a blog about it), people were probably just hoping for something Diablo on PC. D3 has been in maintenance mode since the Necro DLC, basically, and the IP needs something new on the Launcher.
Instead, they were given a mobile game from a Chinese company that even Chinese gamers don’t trust.
This is the long and short of it.
I’d go even further, they don’t understand the industry at all anymore.
Anyone with even the slightest grasp on the gaming industry would have been able to tell them Gamescom or something lole Gamescom is where you announce something like Diablo Immortal, absolutely not BlizzCon.
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Good lord really? O.o What happened?
Depressingly i wouldn’t actually be surprised if this was exactly what they said.
To be totally fair on them, I understand why they want to tap into that market. I also kinda feel for the guy who made the “don’t you guys have phones?” joke. He had a hostile crowd and didn’t expect it , because let’s be honest, the way it usually goes is Blizzard says something, anything, and the room breaks out in cheering xD. He got abundant booing, didn’t expect it, and stupidly tried to bring back a happy mood with a badly thought out joke that just made him sound condescending. I kinda feel for him there. But yes, the whole thing was a massive misread of their audience. If anything, they should’ve tried tapping into the market with a new game, not a rebrand of a popular old computer classic that fans have waited for years to see a new installment on the computer.
I get feeling bad for him. However, it was a situation of their own making. Their own sheer willful stupidity brought that situation on and I dont feel bad for them.
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A guy got beat up after they whipped the crowd into a bloodlusting frenzy against the Alliance players. Intentionally.
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Blizzard has been pretty blatant with their strange, creepy desire to create faction tension - even at the cost of comfort online for people who don’t enjoy being harassed because they play a specific faction.
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“It’s all in good fun” used to get thrown around a lot. They don’t really bother with that anymore because nobody believes it, but it’s still their basic mentality. Outside of literally KILLING another player in real life, any form of harassment, heckling, stalking, or threatening over faction choice is “all in good fun” to them.
Which is why they need a serious culture change. The one they’ve built isn’t adapted to survive in our current social climate. Feelings, compassion, consequences, and empathy are finally becoming good things, and their 80s metal, blood and honor, ripped guys, armorkini girl, head-banging style isn’t gonna survive a whole lot longer. By their choice, or simply society’s.
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“Just boys being boys!” yes because bullying makes boys into men still right, yes, bullying good
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it’s all fun and games until somebody dies.
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One of the bigger things I don’t miss playing XIV is the faction war. I don’t miss having my server’s population split off because of what races we chose. I don’t miss communication barriers between me and other people playing this game. I don’t miss the concept of playing “with” people I’d never be able to actually play with (unless I want to PvP).
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