Will people downrank Immortals on the app stores?

[Archmage Alodi]

if i had a phone, i certainly would.

hell, i'd like to have a phone just to do it.

You don't have a phone?!

[Yvaelle]

The backlash to Immortals was actually appropriate and proportional, but has nothing to do with the game.

It's really important to announce your product to your potential customers - they got that wrong - very very wrong.

Fandom for Diablo, a PC game franchise, does not necessarily translate to fandom for a mobile game. There is obviously some overlap and I will get to that, but when you consider that the hardcore/whales of mobile gaming typically don't even own a console or gaming PC - an alarm bell should be going off with the marketing team. Those whales and hardcore mobile gamers are the ones you want to present a new mobile game to, not PC gamers.

Not a single member of the ideal audience for D:I was in the room that day. Instead, it was a room full of the people most likely to resist change.

People who put tens of hours a week into PC gaming - like hardcore Diablo fans who fly out to BlizzCon every year: up until now the premier developer of AAA-title PC games - don't have spare time to put tens of hours/week into a mobile game.

Further, fandom for Blizzard Entertainment does not translate to fandom for NetEase Entertainment. If Blizzard is Diablo's mommy, the fans are Diablo's daddy, and then Mommy mailed the baby off to a stranger in China to raise, and Dad is having a fucking heart attack and thinks she's lost her mind. Outsourcing is a tried-and-proven-to-ruin-franchises strategy, and they did nothing to mitigate that obvious concern.

Going back to the overlap audience - fans of the Diablo world and story - you are still telling them that you are replacing your PC gaming storytelling platform with a mobile storytelling platform. The all-but-explicit statement in that platform switch is you are going from the storytelling platform of games like Dishonored, RDR2, Spec Ops, The Witcher, and Diablo 1 & 2 & 3 - to the platform of Flappy Bird and Snake.

When managing a major change like this - they should know that they will always get judged by the best case in the old system vs. the worst case in the new system (D2 vs. Flappy Bird). There are ways of mitigating that perception - models like ADKAR for change management cover this in depth if anyone is interested - but suffice to say Blizzard employed none of the techniques of effective change management in their launch announcement, or anything I have seen regarding Immortals since.

It was also tone deaf to the politics of the gaming community over the past several years. When EA makes a grand sweeping announcement (seemingly every year) that "PC gaming is dead, the future of gaming is Flappy Bird!" - listening to Blizzard announce the next installment of one of the most beloved and successful PC franchises will be a mobile game, validates that "EA was right all along": and that's something the PC gaming community will never accept. Again, they could have anticipated this response - and remedied with a single line before the announcement that would have completely changed the tone - but they didn't do it.

Namely, "Diablo 4 is in the works, and is on schedule for an early 2020 release". That would have got thunderous applause. That would have built anticipation for the follow-up, that "In the meantime, we have another announcement, we'll be releasing a new Diablo mobile game in 2019, without further adieu, here's Diablo Immortals" *cut to trailers*: again, under the right context, D:I could have gotten thunderous applause.

So at the end of the day, the reaction had nothing to do with D:I itself, nobody really knows anything about D:I yet anyways - obviously it has nothing to do with the content. It was a reaction to probably the worst managed PC game announcement in years.

They also antagonized it, when they had dudes crying at the microphone asking "What does it all mean?!", "This can't really be happening?!", "Just kill me please! Spare me this torment!" - even if they were completely blindsided by everything above - they didn't realize they were talking to the wrong audience, with the wrong approach, without anticipating their reaction, without considering change management approach, without creating a positive context to setup D:I - the reactions from the audience should have immediately concerned them. It didn't. They can't read a room.

All they had to do to dissolve any tension would have been to say, "Oh sorry everyone, we are working on D4, but we aren't ready to reveal that today, D:I is not a replacement to D4". That would have taken seconds and would have prevented weeks of backlash. Or they could have tweeted that at any point in the weeks that followed. They didn't though. Instead, they responded with the equivalent of "Let them eat cake"; "YoU gUyS DoN'T hAvE PhONes?!"

TL;DR - the backlash was completely appropriate and proportional to their train-wreck marketing strategy for D:I, and D:I itself is just caught in the controversy, but the game has almost nothing to do with the backlash.

[klepp0906]

not unless its bad in and of itself. im not a petty child.

[derpkitteh]

You don't have a phone?!

my last phone was a flip phone, i had it when i was in highschool in 2008.

i picked it up one day in like 2010ish and it fell to pieces.

[EyelessCrow]

You can bet your pretty ass I will! Fuck Bli$$ard

Yeah, fuck those money hungry assholes for not announcing what I want right NOW *stomps foot like a brat*!!!!!

[Projectmars]

Hm, couldn't find a good video of Linkara voicing a Clone Hitler from Superman at Earth's End saying "Of course, don't you know anything about science?" so here's the runner up:




Kinda dumb that people will without trying it at least though, imo, but how else are people gonna protest?

- - - Updated - - -

Would you kindly please name their names for us? At least one mobile game that is not time/money locked, which you can play as much as you want?

Unless paying once for the game counts: Sonic 2 has a pretty nice mobile port. Sonic 1 and Sonic CD mobile ports are also probably pretty good but I have not played them. All three games are what got Chris Whitehead the job of making Sonic Mania, so there's that.

EDIT: Pokémon Go probably counts too, although your mileage may vary on that depending on where you live. If you live in a city, for example, you're more likely to have easy(ier) access to a lot more pokestops/gyms than someone in the country. There's also a cooldown to spinning individual stops, but it's about 5 minutes or so, but spinning more than once does return less rewards than the first spin (but you also get better rewards for spinning at least one pokestop a day consecutively, with the best rewards/most items obtained on day 7 before it all resets). Also Stops, Gyms, and Gifts are the only way to get items beyond the cash shop and leveling, so there's that too.

[Yunaqt]

yes some people no doubt will, because they're that immature.

They're on the same level as Lady Gaga fans who wrote fake bad reviews for venom since it was releasing the same day as Gaga's movie (clearly same fanbases would see those 2 movies).
Things that are shit fail on their own just fine.

[crakerjack]

Damn right I'll downvote their game. Screw them.

[Deleted]

i well not downvote something i won't be trying. Gotta try something to hav a say in it.

[schwank05]

Is it Free? if it isn't free I wont download it, I will only play if the controls feel good. And even then basically just while taking a shit. Like Hearthstone is for me now.

[Deleted]

I don't care. I have nothing to do with the whole mobile stuff.

[Archmage Alodi]

my last phone was a flip phone, i had it when i was in highschool in 2008.

i picked it up one day in like 2010ish and it fell to pieces.

If you have lived without one so far, do yourself a favor and don't ever get a smartphone.

[MoanaLisa]

Of course it does, rendering you a 7 inches picture. Play your console or PC on a 7'' monitor, it will give you 9999999 fps on ultra as well, lol.
Not to mention how much premium smartphones' costs compared to consoles. You can buy what, 3 ps4 for the cost of one foolPhoneX?

Scale and distance matter. My PC monitor is between 18"-24" away from where I sit. For many it's closer to 36". A phone you hold in your hand is likely to be around 12" from your eyes. Smartphone cost is obviously an issue but many people already own a premium smartphone. That's where the market is.

I fully concur that I don't really understand how the controls would work comfortably but I don't know that they won't. I never imagined that after years of PC gaming that controls on consoles would work very well either at first. People get used to things. Developers figure out what works and what doesn't.

The only thing that matters is if the game works on the platform. Have to wait and see about that.

Weeks and months of yelling about the inappropriate way the product was introduced is largely irrelevant to anything about how the game will be. A lot of it strikes me as posturing, sincere or otherwise.

[Ausr]

Since my whole life doesn't revolve around hating this game in this thread, no.

[Quinraylo]

i would if the game sucks really bad and turn out to be a cash cow

[KOUNTERPARTS]

I would but i will probably (most definitely actually) get the game and try it before I make an opinion. As all of you should do as well

and then when the game turns out to exceed expectations I will upvote it as it would be deserved.

[gaymer77]

Believe me, people who played the game on blizzcon shown that this is by far the best diablo ever. Getting downranked is really not hard, even if the comments are all serious, but personally: i totally will downvote it.

So you comment how those who have actually had the game in their hands and played it think it is an amazing game yet you're so petty that you'll downvote it just because your precious feelings were hurt that they didn't announce a D4 or something YOU wanted them to announce. Typical entitled millennial attitude.

[Gravity2015]

i would if the game sucks really bad and turn out to be a cash cow

my guess is it will be awesome and a meeeeggggaaa cash cow

*enterred to many rifts, pay $2.99 to enter 4 more and immediately clear the first with extra loot
*your hero has died in a rift, you may re-enter the rift with lower difficulty for $0.97c
*random loot bundle, guaranteed orange text legendary for $3.25 (can be purchased 2x daily)
*ancient primal items unlocked for 1x fee of $5

[Velerios]

So you comment how those who have actually had the game in their hands and played it think it is an amazing game yet you're so petty that you'll downvote it just because your precious feelings were hurt that they didn't announce a D4 or something YOU wanted them to announce. Typical entitled millennial attitude.

Wow, so many buzzwords. Entitled, millenial, YOU, precious feelings; just one word more, and you won the bull**** bingo. And yes, there are people who say it's the best diablo ever; but how many people played this there on these empty halls. And how many are simply running on the paycheck of blizzard (no, that does not meaned they get payed; they are other ways to be virtually on blizzards payroll). Heck, when even HotS can make people stand in line and this crap doesn't even fill up the PCs... *chuggle*, sorry i meaned smartphones, then i don't kwow what will.

And sorry, for a millenial i'm far too old. But hey, nice try. Still: it's a diablo from a less than mediocre developer (it's not even blizzard developing it, it's a copy&paste from another game), and why should i then give a game that can only be played on a crappy small screen a good rating: i will load it, i will try it, and alone for the small screen it get 1 star.

[valax]

I really hope that D:I shows under Netease created apps , the world must know that blizzard commissioned one of their major IPs to the creators of .....fortcraft .... yes you got it right , fortcraft.
FFS how in the world did they think was a good idea accomunating their company to chinese rip off developers...

ps: I will , both on appstore and google play