The 2018 BlizzCon Con

I'm going to complain a little here. You'll witness the ButtHurt fanboy side of me now. If you're allergic to ButtHurt fanboys and their petty complaints about trivialities like movies and videogames, I bid you to move on to another blog for now, while I strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my favorite videogame of all time.

_{source: Wikimedia Commons}

Ezekiel 25:17 isn't fit for Pulp Fiction only; it perfectly describes my disappointment and, yes, anger at Blizzard. I think Blizzard is the one and only multi-million (or billion? don't care really) multinational I have respected and loved for more than 20 years now. They are the creators of my favorite videogame franchise, Diablo. But at the current Blizzcon, their annual meeting where they make their big game announcements, the blizzard representatives on stage were actually booed by their fan-audience for the first time.

The first game in the series came out in 1996 and I've been playing the game since. That's 23 years now, with a pause of about 4 or 5 years after the second game. But since 2012 I've been crawling through dungeons, slaying monsters and searching for loot again with the latest installment, Diablo 3, and it's expansion-packs Reaper of Souls and the Necromancer character (although I haven't actually played the Necromancer yet as that character seemed overpowered when it just released, and now I'm struggling to find the time to even reach the leader-board in the current 15^th season).

The best game in the series is still Diablo 2, but it's the one I've played the least because that was a very busy period in my life. But needless to say that if you play a game for almost 23 years, almost continually, there's got to be some love there. You see, where other games and other companies have all found their way to the "free to play and pay to win" heaven of mucho dollars, Blizzard kept Diablo outside that realm of profit-making. For 23 years now Blizzard has given us the chance to buy a great game only once and play it without spending a dime after the initial purchase. Battle.net, the name of their multiplayer server and service, first created for the original Diablo, has become a household name for gamers everywhere.

And it's not that Blizzard is oblivious to the "pay to win" concept; they make very popular and highly profitable games with that very profit model; Heartstone needs constant new expansion card-packs, World of Warcraft is subscription based... But for Diablo they've kept the servers running and maintained for us to keep playing at our heart's content. Maybe the only exception is Reaper of Souls which was a necessary update we all had to buy, but that came with a whole new chapter, characters and monsters, so no one complained.

_{source: Deviant Art}

But we're complaining now. Before BlizzCon they already said they were not going to announce Diablo 4 yet, so that wasn't the cause of the sour taste in our mouths after the first day of this year's BlizzCon. It's what the did anounce: Diablo Immortal. It's a whole new game in the series, not just an addition or even the much asked for Diablo 2 remake, so what's the problem, you might ask. Oh there's problems alright, several of them.

First, the game isn't developed by Blizzard: they've sold the rights to develop a game with the title Diablo to another company. And it's a mobile game company. Mobile! Damn Blizzard! How could you get this so wrong? You're dealing with hardcore fans here, and you know exactly what gets our blood pumping, and it's not some lame mobile game! When Wyatt Cheng announced this on stage the unthinkable, but fully expected happened: he got booed, something I've never before seen at any BlizzCon. In the Q and A section one fan even asked if this announcement was an out of season april's fool joke...

I mean, hardcore gamers don't play Facebook games. We don't play on our mobiles. We want an immersive experience which is nowhere to be found on all of the 5 or 6 inches of our mobile displays. We play with a keyboard and mouse or, when these are not available, a good controller; we don't tap tiny mobile displays but immerse ourself in the game behind a many-inch-sized full hd widescreen monitor.

Also there's a real danger now that this Diablo Immortal will finally be the first pay to win Diablo game; that's how a lot of mobile games are set up anyway, and it's not Blizzard who developed it... I'll never play it and as a consequence I'm going to miss out on large parts of the lore, one of the main attractions of the series that has had fans patiently waiting for the next installment for almost a quarter of a century now. It's sad to admit maybe, but this half a century old man feels a little like a butt-hurt fanboy. Disney did it with Star Wars, and now it seems Blizzard sacrifices another beloved franchise on the altar of Corporate Profits.

I'm not alone in this; I'll leave you with the official trailer on YouTube so you can see for yourself that Blizzard should really be worried about the reactions if they give a damn for their most hardened supporters. The game looks great for a mobile game, but that alone won't make me play it; I'm terrible at even texting on my mobile and the few games I've tried all failed for me because of the things I said earlier. Look at the video, but especially look at the likes / dislikes ratio. I rest my case. And Blizzard should get of their butts and better come up with something really good for next year.

_{Diablo Immortal Gameplay Trailer}

Having said all that, I'm still going to keep playing Diablo 3 for as long as I have fun with it. And I am grateful to Blizzard for the decades of gaming pleasure they've given me and so many others. I'll keep waiting too. Hoping for the best.

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