Riot Games took a nasty jab at Blizzard when introducing new games. As expected, it was about “Phones”.
In recent days, there has been some uproar around the developer Riot Games, which announced several games for the coming years. Not only is there Legends of Runeterra, a card game set in the world of League of Legends, but also a mobile version of Teamfight Tactics (TFT).
However, during the announcement of this mobile version, Riot made a small joke and took a nasty jab at Blizzard.
What happened? In the stream, a developer from Riot revealed that they had listened to the community’s feedback and were working on a mobile version of TFT. She concludes with the words:
It has turned out that you all actually have smartphones out there.
That earned her lots of “LOL” comments in the chat and laughing emojis.
Why was it a jab? At BlizzCon 2018, Blizzard officially presented Diablo Immortal to the worst possible audience. The event was mostly attended by PC gamers who were desperately asking if Diablo Immortal would also be available for PC. After Blizzard said there were currently no plans to release Diablo Immortal on PC, boos erupted from the crowd. This led to the developer’s question:
Don’t you have smartphones?
Last year, this was widely used as a negative example of failed PR and for nasty memes.
Not everyone finds it funny: On Reddit, there are also many places warning Riot not to lean too far out of the window. In recent weeks, there has been a huge backlash against Blizzard because a Hearthstone player was banned, which many interpreted as “catering to the Chinese government”.
This backlash could have easily spilled over to Riot Games, which is completely owned by the Chinese company Tencent. Riot must be glad that hardly any negativity has transferred over to the LoL developer.
What do you think of this action? A successful, harmless joke? Or should one not throw stones when living in a glass house?
