This past weekend was Blizzcon 2018 and once again fans got to see how out of touch the company is with their own customer/player base.
I am a fan of Blizzard Entertainment and have been since someone bought me the StarCraft box set when it was released almost twenty years ago so I can say that Blizzard is no longer thinking about their clients first. It started when they became a public company and got even worst when Activision and Blizzard merged into Activision Blizzard.
So for those of you who do not yet know what happened, Blizzard decided to announce a brand new Diablo game that will take place between Diablo II and Diablo III BUT there is a catch. It is ONLY for mobile. That is right, the fans whom have been pretty much forgotten by Blizzard for the past 6 years and are all PC (Windows, Mac OS, Linux) gamers, finally get a new Diablo game but will not be playable on PC.
Announcing a mobile-only game at a convention consisting of only PC gamers is the dumbest move any company could make. This just shows how the people in charge are absolutely stupid.
Also, PC gamers know that mobile games are nothing more than a cash grab and what is even worse is this new game coming in 2019 is a 100% clone of another game created by the company Blizzard has hired to make the game. Blizzard says it was made from the ground up yet if you look at Diablo Immortal and compare it to this other game, it is clear that Immortal is nothing but a clone. Same attack effects, UI, etc…
To Blizzard, if you are reading this, get your shit together and get back to putting your fans first as you did over a decade ago. You have lost your way, especially after the merge with Activision.
So I was just about to publish the above when I saw a new video that appears to be some kind of news conference that took place at Blizzcon. Below are my thoughts on what was said.
In the video, you see two Blizzard employees, Wyatt Cheng who is head of the Diablo teams and Allen who is executive producer.
Allen states that the truth to why they are bringing Diablo to mobile is to target younger gamers whom they say are all mobile gamers. Stats, of course, say different with player retention for mobile games being no more than 5%. With that said though, they still chose to show a mobile-only game to an entire PC player base.
I understand a business would want to attract more gamers to their franchise so I don’t blame them for wanting to expand to mobile but you have to choose the best place to announce it. Blizzcon was the worst place to announce a mobile-only game for a franchise that has received very little love from Blizzard in the six and a half years the game has been out.
Another piece of information given is there will be even more of its franchises will be coming to mobile making it clear that Activision and their greedy micro transactions lifestyle is officially making its way into the Blizzard games.
The only way Blizzard can save face now to the Diablo fans is to announce that Immortal is going to come to PC.
