On Thursday, July 6, Blizzard announced a big livestream for Diablo: Fans were mainly expecting information about Diablo 4. But the show started quite differently.
That was the situation:
- On July 6, a big livestream for Diablo was announced.
- The stream was a huge success for Blizzard: At its peak, 118,000 people alone were watching on Twitch.
- But after the stream, some users were angry on Reddit, as they expected information about Diablo 4. However, the show started with Diablo Immortal. Players feel that Blizzard had exploited their love for Diablo 4 to push advertising for Diablo Immortal.
This is their complaint: On Reddit, there is a thread with almost 9,000 upvotes where people express their frustration that during the big livestream, Blizzard employees seemed to try to use the massive interest in Diablo 4 and Season 1 to promote their supposedly unpopular mobile game “Diablo Immortal”.
Of the 90 minutes of the stream, about the first 20 minutes were dedicated to the game “Diablo Immortal”.
The website Dotesports even refers to it as a “trojan horse”: Hence, Diablo 4 was used to sneak information about Diablo Immortal to many players.
What are the reactions? The most popular comment on the thread is:
- “Do you guys have no internet?” – a reference to a legendary quote from the presentation of Diablo Immortal.
- Another player says he didn’t like Blizzard using Diablo 4 to showcase so much Diablo Immortal. It was the same back at BlizzCon when they presented a mobile game to a paying PC audience.
- A third user explains: He joined the stream late and was confused, why Diablo 4 would already get a new class. Only later did they understand that it wasn’t about Diablo 4 at all, but about Immortal.
Why is the game so hated? It is solely due to microtransactions that Diablo players respond so negatively to Immortal.
It is repeatedly said that it is actually a good game, but plagued by microtransactions and a terrible pay-to-win quality.
One player says, “Trade offer – YOU get a small shot of dopamine – I get: all your money.”
Another user states clearly, “I refuse to play this game.”
How would it have been better from the players’ perspective?? The players of Diablo 4 wish that Blizzard had either completely left the Immortal part out of the stream or at least placed it at the end instead of the beginning, to make it easier to skip. It would be better if they simply separated the streams.
However, one cannot really accuse Blizzard: They were at least transparent and had already stated on June 30 how the stream would run and that they would start with Diablo Immortal.
More on the topic:
Blizzard brings the first new class for Diablo in over 9 years, but for the wrong Diablo
