Panic is why, they wanted to minimize and do damage control but obviously the person in charge had no idea what to do except make it worse. They legitimately had no idea that it was going to turn out the way it did and were essentially completely unprepared.
It’s sad to say but they truly believed in their mobile game and only thought they would get some mild pushback. They should’ve probably grabbed a random person on the street and pitched the entire scenario and asked for their opinion on how it would go. That random person could have probably told them exactly how it would go.
And technically they already failed on the PR front otherwise they would either never have revealed it at that venue to begin with or being determined to reveal it no matter what they would have smoothed it over by actually throwing the crowd a bone with what they were really there to see.
They could have saved pretty much everything by just being smart enough to show something, anything… that had to do with D4. It was that simple. People would have swallowed the mobile game bit and left at least somewhat happy.
Poor Rhykker. The guy makes a living out of Diablo content and is in good relations with Blizzard people and as dissappointed as he is. can’t go on a rant, can’t make content either atm. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place. They guy is legit worried.
Yeah, I watched it earlier and commented on it over in medierra’s thread, and pretty much said the same thing (except that now he could stream GD instead). It was kinda hard to watch him struggle, honestly. A few times there I thought he was almost on the verge of crying.
I think he at one point did do a GD vid/review or something.
I didn’t quite feel totally bad for him when he was like, “My girl and I just bought a condo” blah blah blah… I was just like dude… don’t, just don’t do that. That’s grovelling and nobody is going to care about how easy your life has been raking in that EZ streamer cheese. Suck it up. You talk in front of a camera, edit your video and slap it on YT or Twitch or wherever and proceed to get rich because of it. EZ PZ. You got a fanbase that will probably watch whatever you want to stream.
“We can confirm that Diablo 4 is indeed in development. One of those sources told me that the Diablo team wasn’t yet ready to commit to an announcement, as Diablo 4 has changed drastically over the past four years and may continue to change further.”
It´s not official, but I wouldn´t be the least bit surprised if this were true, because it is the exact same bullshit they pulled with Diablo 3. And we all know how that turned out.
That’s pretty much identical to my thoughts on it. Whomever they have handling PR should probably be fired, honestly. They were completely unprepared and frankly, delusional, to believe that their approach was going to end up in anyway other than it did.
I know the saying about hindsight yadayada but no matter which way I twist it in my mind I have to wonder what kind of bubble does a person live in that out of a company as large as they are that they really don’t have at least one person in the company that at some point didn’t go, “umm… guys. We know this crowd is craving D4 news and, umm, ya know, maaaaaybe it’s not the greatest idea to give these PC gamers ONLY news on the mobile game we’ve been working on. Perhaps slip a presentation of some sort on what we’ve got planned for D4 in there somewhere? At least some screenshots of what there is so far or a short video and synopsis of what they might expect? Just maybe? Guys?”
[and really, changes or no changes, in the past or in the future, they would have done well to just take whatever the hell they had and fed it to the peasants. anything at all would have prevented this whole ordeal]
This sums it up. Frankly, companies and people are so focused on making money that they forget the part about getting to the money -actually making something of real quality.
On a related note, gamers encourage this behavior by pre-purchasing games.
Blizzard could have done what Bethesda did at E3 - make a teaser announcement about games in progress. That seemed to work well for them.
To be fair tho, we all do it, and if we hadn’t we wouldn’t have GD. And I’m guilty of it with other games from time to time, if it’s something I’m really looking forward to. Of course, the situation is a little different when you’re talking indie vs AAA, but it can go either way. Not every indie ponies up like Crate did so there is always danger of people taking advantage.
My prediction, as of this moment, is that they are going to scramble and release something D4 related soon. It will probably be a big production, over-the-shoulder dev videos of them working on the game etc.
I’ll be surprised if we don’t see something like that before the end of the month. I really can’t imagine what else they can do now. This is it.
I too have a few developers that I would pre-purchase a game - at least until they demonstrate otherwise. Create and Larian are two that I have and would pre-purchase a game.
What I’m talking about are primarily the AAA game studios, especially the ones that show repeatedly show they don’t care about their gamers, e.g. NCSoft, EA, etc…
Only game I’ve bought on faith is GD. Wouldn’t do it for any other game unless it was a Crate made one since I know the company now. But few games interest me these days, and I was never a big purchaser to start with.
yeah, I am marginally more interested in D4 than in D:I, which I have no interest in whatsoever. I will probably read a bit of news on D4, but I do not expect to buy it after the D3 lesson learned. I just have to accept that the type of games Blizzard is making and the type of games I am interested in do not overlap. I kinda knew that before D3 already but ended up with it anyway (a gift) and it confirmed my worst fears… D3 most likely will have been my last Blizzard game.
Agreed. Blizzard pre-D3, as far as Diablo goes, I would have too, and did the moment I got wind of D3. Their other games I never had much interest in. And foolishly I went into that completely blind not knowing much of anything at all. Let’s just say I was completely surprised by the way the skill system was implemented as I was expecting it to be just like D2, TQ, etc.
My heart literally sunk with that realization but I sucked it up and carried on with it for awhile. But that one thing alone kinda ruined it for me. I was willing to ignore the online-only too and everything but for that one thing. There was plenty I did like but it felt hollow and lacking so I eventually just quit and started looking for a replacement.
It is funny reading these last few replies. There was a time I believed in the brand of studio’s. That when I saw Bethesda, EA, Blizzard etc it were instant buy games. They could announce a game, I’d have no idea what it was about, but I trusted in their type of games and quality. These days I avoid AAA like the plague. How the times have changed
