Blizzard teased that something big would be happening with the Diablo franchise at this year’s BlizzCon, and of course fans jumped to the conclusion that Diablo 4 was going to be announced, or at the very least info on a new expansion, but that of course was not the case. What was announced instead was a new free to play (F2P) mobile game being done by an outside studio. The game is called Diablo Immortal.
This sounded great to me. Diablo on the go? Why not. As long as the F2P stuff is optional. I mean Pokémon Go, PUBG, and Fortnite have all shown that games can be F2P on phones and still be fun. Hardcore Diablo fans on the other hand raged. Don’t go anywhere near Blizzard on twitter or any of the Blizzard franchise Reddit pages. It is just hundreds of angry gamers lashing out at anyone who works at Blizzard/Activision with toxic vitriol, and what is sad, is that this isn’t surprising.
Lately whenever a developer or any other media company does something fans don’t like, fans feel it is their duty to lash out, to get things changed, or to get the people responsible fired. Look it is okay to be disappointed. To have a large stage show in front of the most hardcore of hardcore fans that paid hundreds of dollars to be there live and fifty bucks to watch virtually then announce a mobile game was not a smart move on Blizzard’s part, but while it is okay to be disappointed. To out and out rage is not.
Blizzard has several F2P games, and I am sure they thought one based on one of the their biggest franchises would big news. It was, but not for the reasons they were hoping, and the fact this rage has lasted all weekend long with no signs of slowing down is saddening. We as fans need to be better about this. If you don’t like the game, don’t play it (though everyone is going to). Also, I am not saying not to voice your displeasure. Please do, but be respectful. It is much different to say, “Blizzard is a bunch of greedy a$$h0!es!” versus, “Man I am bummed we didn’t get any new mainline Diablo content.”, or “Why use BlizzCon to announce a mobile game?”. Two of those statements get our points across, and might even get read by Blizzard employees. One makes us look like a bunch of jerks. I will let you decide which is which.
We should all be true to our feelings, but taking them out on the people that make our games and movies is not helpful. It is upsetting that so many fans feel like this is okay. It makes it hard to call myself a gamer knowing that so many of us act like entitled brats about little things that don’t matter. What’s worse is that we all know Diablo 4 will come out sooner or later, Diablo fans are just mad they feel they were bait and switched, and even if they were to some small extent, this is not how it should be dealt with. We should all take deep breaths and be grateful for all the great content we have and that is continuing to be made. Not pitting ourselves against the people that are making it.