Cortyn is unhappy with BlizzCon 2018. Because the show did not require its own fair so far.
Although only one of the two days of BlizzCon 2018 is over, I am already quite dissatisfied with BlizzCon.
The big announcements are over. Or in other words: There were no big announcements at all.
- A new hero for Overwatch with cinematic
- A new hero for Heroes of the Storm with cinematic
- A new Hearthstone expansion
- A new patch with new content for World of Warcraft
All these things are not spectacular. All these things are content that Blizzard usually releases throughout the year “anyway”. New heroes for HotS and Overwatch come out at regular intervals, just like new expansions for Hearthstone. There is no need for an in-house fair. So there remain the real “new” announcements:
Warcraft 3: Reforged and Diablo Immortal.
To be honest, I was quite pleased with Warcraft 3: Reforged. I had just replayed Warcraft 3 a while ago and wondered what the game would look like in more modern graphics. My only criticism is that the remake seems to lose a bit of its “comic charm”, but I would rather wait for the finished game than form an opinion beforehand.
The blunder: Diablo Immortal
Even though I don’t play Diablo 3 myself, I care about Blizzard franchises. Not least because I like to play the heroes in Heroes of the Storm or at least enjoy the story of Diablo.
The disaster that Diablo Immortal was at BlizzCon is something I’ve never seen in gaming. Even the Battlefield debacle from EA seems like a joke compared to this.
Why does Blizzard hand over the development of one of its own franchises to a company like NetEase? How can they give up “their baby” like that, even if they are the publishers of it?
Our Schuhmann believes that Blizzard has “proven to have balls of steel”, but I believe that Blizzard has completely worked against the interests of its own community with this game.
One just has to ask: What is BlizzCon? A fair where Blizzard and its games are celebrated, by a loyal player base they have built over decades. These are players on PC or PS4 and Xbox One, and perhaps a few individual mobile Hearthstone players. But I would even doubt whether the pure “mobile Hearthstone” players are represented at BlizzCon.
Blizzard has a player base that enjoys gaming at home and wants to lose themselves in foreign worlds for hours. Blizzard has, at least in the West, hardly any players who want to stare at a small smartphone screen for hours.
To be honest, I felt a bit sorry for the two developers who had to announce Diablo Immortal on stage. When you stand in front of hundreds of people who are waiting with expectations and hopes for Diablo 4, a new addon for Diablo 3, or a remake of Diablo 2, it must be incredibly difficult to sell them something else. Showing them something that they immediately hate is another level entirely.
Or to put it in the comments under the Diablo video: “No king rules forever, my son.”
But at least there is one good thing about it – there are nice memes again, including some of my old favorites:
Maybe it’s good that Blizzard “falls on its face” with this BlizzCon but especially with Diablo Immortal. Because maybe Blizzard has to meet the shareholders and therefore fully focus on mobile – but if the players do not want that, the interest of the shareholders will likely slide far, far into the background.
Sure, BlizzCon is more than just new announcements. It is also the venue for numerous eSports tournaments and a meeting of the community. But I cannot and do not want to evaluate these aspects here. I can only evaluate the new announcements, and they are nothing short of a farce this year.
I wouldn’t have needed a BlizzCon for this.
But okay – at least a few details about World of Warcraft still interest me, so it’s not a complete failure.
What do you think about BlizzCon 2018 so far?
