It's been a bad few days for Blizzard with the Diablo Immortal reveal turning into a bit of a PR fiasco. Joining the fans, a former Diablo producer has blasted the company in a series of tweets regarding the Diablo Immortal reveal.
Mark Kern, a producer on Diablo 2 and Starcraft, team lead on Vanilla World of Warcraft and creator of massive planetary game Em-8ER has shared his thoughts about the whole Diablo Immortal backlash saying that Blizzard doesn't understand gamers anymore.
In a lengthy Twitter thread (tweet deleted), Kern pointed out that the way Blizzard teased the project was wrong leaving players somewhat mislead. "There is nothing wrong with having a mobile version of Diablo. In fact, I would have wanted one as an option," he said, adding that Blizzard should have predicted the negative response. "But the way it was hinted at, and presented, and the failure of Blizzard management to predict the backlash caught me by surprise," Kern continued.
He added this would never happen back when he was with the company because the team was made of hardcore gamers who were their own harshest critics. "I would have had a line of devs outside my door telling me this was a bad move," he said.
Kern suggested Blizzard should apologise to PC community by releasing the trailer for the upcoming Diablo title. "I like how Blizzard isn't blaming their customers (yet), but say they are 'passionate'. That's pretty good so far, but an apology and a PC reveal would be better." Mark advised.
Blizzard
Blizzard have been receiving nothing but enraged reactions and negative comments from fans since the reveal of Diablo Immortal. The company's co-founder Alen Adham has to the backlash encouraging fans by saying it's just one of the upcoming Diablo games. That may be true, but Blizzard would've probably avoided this PR disaster with a simple teaser trailer for the Diablo PC title.
What caused such a blizzard of negative reactions is that players didn't get any bit of info about the PC version of the game but were presented with a mobile one that looks like a straight-up clone of previous NetEase releases. It remains to be seen if Blizzard listens to suggestions and get this one right in the upcoming weeks.
Diablo Immortal, a mobile game by NetEase and Blizzard
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