The announcement damaged their reputation, and that is priceless.
they can regain reputation, people forget / forgive, so by the time DI comes out, the whole thing will be much less of an issue than the initial reaction.
As to it being priceless, the stock drop after the announcement priced it in 
There was also an article written somewhere not all that long ago (can’t remember just where though) stating that Blizzard had NO new games or anything for that matter for PC at all this year. Looks like we’re all in for a long drought from Acti/Bli$$ for the new to distant future i’d say.
I decided to ignore Activision/Blizzard after D3 (was easy, as D3 was essentially the only game of theirs I got in at least 5 years at the point - and I only got that as a gift). They do not make games I am interested in and continue to not do so, regardless of how many PC games they actually end up releasing.
I do not care for online / service games or forced MP.
Dont see anything unusual there. They are not the type of company that is releasing new games every year. In fact most of times they dont release new games every year. Hack after WoW they didnt release anything new for several years until SC2. Normally if you dont count updates and expansion, witch they do release almost every year, and also did in past year, and will probably this year also. So really nothing unusual here.
Have none of you seen this? diablofans.com is shutting down.
https://www.diablofans.com/news/49102-diablofans-says-farewell
Not really following anything Diablo, so missed that. Reason is basically as expected
due to the fading interest in current Diablo products and business realities for Curse, it is time for DiabloFans to say farewell
Yea I heard about that from Rhykker. True shame in how the Diablo franchise has been handled. Blizzard could have mitigated so much damage after the D:I reveal if they simply communicated with the angry fans rather then stay silent hoping the outrage would blow over.
Yeah, that’s where I picked it up from too. Saw it in the headline so went an googled as usual.
i hope the site can revive again, just like titanquestfansdotnet.
Apparently, NetEase is reporting that it’s part of development is done.
I didn’t know, this is so sad. :o I hope their Community will not disband.
Yeah! Bad vibes coming from Activision Blizzard, and this is not just about what happened at the Blizzcon in November 2018:
One month before the Blizzcon when Mike Morhaime, he was the CEO, announced he was leaving the company, I didn’t pay much attention. Then later I learned that other developers left the company to:
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Spencer Neumann: went to Netflix,
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Amrita Ahuja: she was hired by Square,
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Ben Brode, Hamilton Chu, and Yong Woo: they left to found Second Dinner,
In 2018 they showed the door to many developpers:
Mike Morhaime Is Leaving Blizzard Entertainment (theouterhaven)
Blizzard cuts costs offers developers ‘buyouts’ to leave (tweaktown)
And now those rumors of hundreds of lay-offs? The trouble is deep at Activision Blizzard, this is “brain drain” right there.
Also entrusting the development of a Diablo Immortal to NetEase from all developers , they have some of the worst rep, wasn’t the smartest move.
A company of this calibre should have the know-how to develop the game in-house. Why subcontracting? Don’t tell me they don’t have the talents? Or maybe able developers left the company like I said above…
You’d think that but it is common practice. Even Nintendo entrusts their IP’s on mobile to subcontracted mobile developers.
Announced this week in an earnings report, Nintendo is partnering with Japanese mobile game developer Cygames to release Dragalia Lost this summer. Nintendo describes the games as “an all-new original action RPG” and reveals that it has been co-developing the game alongside Cygames.
And that’s not even the first mobile game they’ve let someone else do. So, while ActiBlizz certainly deserves criticism, in this particular area, eh. They do it because they have no direct experience making mobile games and it is likely their understanding of the platform is lacking. Granted, I believe video game giants should definitely be putting together their own internal mobile teams if they want to break in to the market but right now it is not common practice for them to do so.
Well! You have a point there, powbam. 
But NeTease, seriously? At least they should have chosen a respected, uncontroversial company to develop the game.
I really didn’t know anything about NetEase until the whole D:I controversy. I did eventually see comments that apparently the Chinese people in general might not be big fans of their practices tho.
700+ fucking thousand dislikes, holy…
+700k people that does not have mobile phones confirmed!
I am betting they chose them mainly due to their familiarity with the China market. How to market in China is different than marketing in the US or Europe. That market has 1.3 billion people. That’s lots of phones to sell to.