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So while I agree the Twitter post about toxic masculinity is both a HUGELY weird leap and a further sign of the times, Kotaku's take on the situation seems (at least the quoted bit, I didn't read the whole article) a perfectly reasonable and even the "proper" take on the situation. Perhaps barring the "video game culture enables entitlement" bit.

It's a shame watching the quite literal rage that has come about from a company announcing a product decision that wasn't the one that some portion, however large, of the community wanted. Assuming Kotaku is correct and there is still a new Diablo separate from this in the works, then it's a societal disgrace to watch grown adults raging out over a mobile game being announced ESPECIALLY in the context of the game that they actually want is ALSO in the works.

I find it odd that you demand some sort of standard from the game journalism community but find no need to expect a reasonable standard from the gamer community.

> some portion, however large

The largest, from what I gather.

Speaking as a non-fan, it was an egregious mistake to announce it at a conference geared toward hardcore Diablo consumers. This is conspicuously glossed over in social media commentary: had they announced it online in business-as-usual fashion no one would care. Instead we're directed to shame fans about not collectively giving a fuck about mediocre cash grabs.

It truly is the bratty self-centered rage that's incredible to witness.

"Hey, we're working on the game you want. In the mean time here's another game for different users."

"Noooooo! I've been betrayed! This is the ultimate insult!!!!"

And as much as people don't want to admit it, gamergate was the same thing.

I've spent a lot of time gaming in my past, but there's something unhealthy floating around here. If you saw this own behavior in your own son or daughter you'd recognize it instantly.

And now to take this one step too far, to where I'll get negative responses: It's almost as if the hundreds of hours spent in online cultures where flaming vitriol is spewed at the smallest slight has developed a subculture where (obviously not all) but a significant group of people can't handle when things slightly deviate from their wants.

It's funny, but I'm reminded of Willy Wonka's factory tour.

What's your expectation? Blizzard released their games (the Blizzard-specific ones) only for PC for ages. Only recently, they released them on console too. Bet what? ALL their fans are pc gamers. All the 10m people that bought diablo 3 on day one are pc gamers.

You know what pc gamers don't like? Pay2win. And any business model that usually runs on mobile that is not buy once (or monthly subscription), because in any other situation, the game is focused on pulling more money for you.

That’s why people feel betrayed by a mobile game. They created their average customer to be of a specific niche, then they create something that is completely out of that niche. What's your expectation there? Did you ever try to show a ballet instead of a soccer game at the stadium? I bet the problem would be much worse.

And to be fair, I don't care at all (and I stopped being a Blizzard fan long long time ago), I just find ridiculous that people can't understand why the fans are angry.

They created the fans, then created a game that is completely against their fanbase.

So Blizzard should not try to diverge and stay with the same fan base that could kill its game and blizzard itself if not well received. Or should they try to diversify and try to gain other customers/fans where 1 failed game would not be it's death?

Blizzard has many IPs every full release would be a success. Also there is no problem with diversifying, just don't announce it at Blizzcon as the only news to that IP. They should have presented this and then tease D4 nobody would have complained.

Not saying Blizzard shouldn't, just don't be surprised when people complaint. In 10 years from now, it might not be the case, but as of today, that must be expected.

> And people wonder how the hell do they get away with p2w and gambling mechanics in games.

Because that business model is profitable, and entertainment is a business like any other. If you don't like it, you are free not to play it. Besides some potential for gambling addiction (about which state lotteries are a far more important target for your ire if that is your concern), mobile games produce no externalities whatsoever.

I continue to be completely mystified with the concept of outrage about video games. If you want to be outraged about corporate behavior, there are a multitude of examples of corporate malfeasance with actual negative externalities, such as the coal industry's contribution to climate change.

You're mystified by it because you probably aren't a dedicated gamer. To lots of people, including myself, gaming is a huge part of their identity and lifestyle. It's a hobby like any other such as repairing old cars, painting, craft beer, etc.

The "but climate change" is just whataboutism because gaming isn't important to you, so why aren't people paying more attention to what is important to you.

edit to clarify: This may sound a little hostile but it isn't intended as such. I'm just explaining that some people really do care about this stuff just as you really care about your own hobbies or pet cause.

As someone who self-exiled from the gaming community, there are also people within the community, including journalists, who beat on the war drums in order to rile up gamers.

For the last ~4 years, everything from game reviews that gamers disagreed with, to character stencils, have been positioned as the worst things to ever happen to gaming. Some in the community liken it to actual discrimination against gamers.

> It's a hobby like any other such as repairing old cars, painting, craft beer, etc.

And yet you don't see people who follow those hobbies throwing an absolute fit like gamers are now doing continuously.

A big part of that is comparative population size, and the general "connectedness" of the fanbases. All online communities are trending worse and worse, and gaming is not unaffected.

I double dare anybody to show me an even remotely comparable example of people getting so angry about fishing gear or woodworking tools.

In a group of consumers of an industry that is larger than the film and music industries combined (and this was before casual gaming took off), you are going to get some people who are louder and more committed than others.

I regularly observe people flipping out because a corporation changed the license of a product to allow them to get more profit and more people being angry about the choice of webbrowser or whitespace character.

Maybe they are not online to the same extend?

Because emacs-vs-vim used to a flame-war guarantee, and the stupid thing is that nobody is impacted by another persons text-editor, unless they are sharing a computer that can't have both installed (so anything with more than 30mb hd)

> I continue to be completely mystified with the concept of outrage about video games.

People are always going to be upset when something they're passionate about gets ruined. Being continuously attacked by the game press also sets up the whole conversation to be very hostile.

The internet is great for consumer rights. Consumers hold all of the cards and corporations are there to serve them. I don't think anyone should be feeling sorry for companies will multi billion dollar marketcaps or mainstream press. They are not ever going to be the victim.

This is all fine, but I help demystify the problem here. They marketed the new game to a completely detached audience as the highlight of the event. And when real questions came in, like "maybe a PC version comes later?" The reaction is: "You guys not have phones?"[1] I can see people snapping to rage mode.

And then the gaming 'media' calls theys guys out as assholes, which really shows how strings are really pulled behind the curtains.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqjVdPtB9lU

So the complaint is just that Blizzard should have framed their announcement differently? The project is fine, but just don't present it at Blizzcon? That seems so feeble to me, and the sort of criticism you get when fans can't reconcile their displeasure with the understanding that Blizzard is rational to pursue the mobile gaming market this way. As for "You guys not have phones?", that was obviously a bad look, but seeing as it was an off-the-cuff remark in an awkward exchange, I'm not inclined to hold it against the speaker.

>The project is fine, but just don't present it at Blizzcon?

Precisely this. It's not that feeble because you must remember what Blizzcon is. Know your audience. Blizzcon audience has paid $199 to get in. They are quite hard core PC gamers. If your main show for them is something they are not interested of course they are gonna be unhappy.

If Blizzard wants to change Blizzcon they should tell the audience that "Blizzcon 2018 is focused on mobile" before they buy the tickets.

Don't suddenly change the theme and expect a good reaction

You're making a point that keeps being brought up about expectations, which is valid and I get it, but I think the point was not that people should not rightfully criticize Blizzard for that, but rather that the absolute outrage seems ridiculous. This sort of over-the-top accusative outrage is a sad fixture in modern culture, but it seems bizarrely more common in video game news than elsewhere.

If you look at what the audience does it's not that different from what happens elsewhere in entertainment.

What is unique in gaming is the feedback loop that happens. First the media responds by saying the guy is an asshole. Then the gamers respond with more vitriol. Then there is "Everyone hating the mobile diablo is a misogynist" kind of tweets. Rinse and repeat.

Do note I'm not justifying it. Merely trying to reason about why especially in gaming these outrages escalate into insane heights instead of dying in meh after a day or two.

We have been seeing this kind of vicious circle elsewhere too lately. As an example the latest Star Wars film where it ended up so bad that if you didn't like the film you were a Russian troll.

> absolute outrage seems ridiculous

Well, absolute outrage is not absolute. This isn't something that's accurately metered. As with everything in outrage culture, the media tells us the outrage is palpable and we simply accept it. Users voicing their displeasure on reddit / twitter / youtube in any capacity is all it takes for the rags to twist this into an apocalyptic, mouth-frothing rage machine. It's a complete joke. The barrier to typing a few words for the world to see is paper thin. Displeasure isn't rage.

It's easy to manipulate discourse this way because anything can be construed as utter outrage.

Acknowledging a market player as rational doesn't mean you have to sympathize with them. That road leads to Stockholm Syndrome, as displayed by many apologists for late stage capitalism. Being a rational actor isn't sufficient to shield you from criticism.

The complaint here is that Blizzard is abandoning the people who made them rich, and the off the cuff remark about phones is proof of the latent disrespect they have for their customers. The fact that it was an awkward unscripted remark is what makes it sincere, and shows what lies just under the surface when they don't have their marketing staff to edit their press releases.

"OH, they're doing it to make more money" isn't a good excuse. They already make enough money. Blizzard should reciprocate loyalty to the people who are loyal to them, and that breach of respect is why people are mad.

These are the same people extracting money from people to "cheer" for their e-sports by selling them fake fireworks so they can show they are a "real fan" while watching on twitch or wherever. Modern gaming is pretty much a shameless cash grab especially when you bring up these type of mobile pay to win scenarios.

> I can see people snapping to rage mode.

"I can see" doesn't make it reasonable, nor rational. Maybe because you're deeper in it you're more acclimated, but to most viewers it's like saying "I can see my 5 year old throwing a tantrum, crying and throwing his clothes off in the middle of the grocery store because he wants to eat the ice cream now and not wait until we're home."

Just to clarify for anyone reading, when asked if the game would be coming to PC, the response from the guy on stage was “no, this is only coming to Android and iOS”.

The “do you guys not have phones?” remark was in response to the crowd booing. It got a few laughs at the time.

Besides some potential for gambling addiction (about which state lotteries are a far more important target for your ire if that is your concern), mobile games produce no externalities whatsoever.

I don't think it's fair to claim that. Lotteries have been around a lot longer and gambling addiction has had a lot more time to be studied. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if mobile games turn out to be as bad or worse than lotteries. The sheer amount of effort into creating addictive game mechanics and leveraging of statistical methods, such as A/B testing, puts traditional casinos and state lotteries to shame.

Having said all that, you don't have to look very far to see some alarming articles about the effects these products have on young children [1].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-sil...

> I continue to be completely mystified with the concept of outrage about video games.

What about the concept of outrage about programming languages, frameworks, web browsers, operating systems, laptops, phones, open source? I guess 99.9% of the population would be mystified with the outrages that we can see on Hacker News.

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221527

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17413572

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940144

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18052923

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17927972

(just few recent examples, the list could go on)

I think a lot of people have overly strong opinions on things like programming languages and web browsers as well.

The comments in these links are downright tame compared to r/diablo right now, while the stakes are way higher. The decisions of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have real, tangible impacts on our careers.

Diablo is just a goddamn video game.

> The decisions of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have real, tangible impacts on our careers.

Not only that, they have an impact on democracy. The importance of FB, AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, and MSFT to society has never been higher. The relevance of ATVI to anything important is, to a first approximation, zero.

Again, you're essentially saying that because games aren't something you care about that it's wrong for anyone to care deeply about them.

I'm not much of a video game player, but I chafe at the number of people coming in to this thread to express how much more valid their emotions are, than some group of people they've have little interaction with.

I have sunk an absurd number of hours into games in my life, Diablo in particular. I still remember some of the goddamn uniques on my sorcerer from the first one (Dreamflange, Thinking Cap and Najs Plate or Cape). And while I'm totally flabbergasted by the emotional response, I'm not very judgemental about it. I don't get deep emotional attachment to sport teams or TV shows either. But the sheer fury and vitriol and the paranoia fuelled fantasies about evil journalists are a little bit unsettling to be honest, especially because we both know that the stuff we get to see is just the tip of the iceberg.

I simply can't help noticing the striking difference to the reaction to SyFy's cancellation of The Expanse.

The decisions of game giants like Activision, EA, and Ubisoft have real, tangible impacts on my life. They obviously do not have such an impact on yours. Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot care about and how deeply I should care about it?

> Diablo is just a goddamn video game.

The Super Bowl is "just a goddamn game" too. The Harry Potter series is "just a goddamn book" and Game of Thrones is "just a goddamn TV show". I'm sure whatever leisure activities you enjoy can easily be given a sneering dismissal as well.

Are we not allowed to have passion for our hobbies?

> If you don't like it, you are free not to play it

And Blizzard is free not to listen to the otherwise more than justified response.

And when they have to close because all the fanbase has moved on, and we get thousands of tweets about how great the developers working there were, and how sad it is they don't have a job any more, we'll be free to ignore them.

It was a massive gaffe by Blizzard almost perfectly designed to cause an outrage which the gaming press can then use to bash gamers.

Compare this to Fallout Shelter. No-one minded as it was not made to be the prime of a show, especially one not focused on mobile gaming.

Even announcing it before wc3 remastered would have produced way less outrage.

It’s like having a classical music festival suddenly change into heavy rock and then whining about how the audience is entitled. There is nothing wrong with either music style. It’s just the sudden switch from what the audience expected that’s jarring.

More like a classical music festival featuring Yanni.

What injustice has been dealt to the subset of "the players" who are outraged about this?

They paid hundreds of dollars to go to an event that traditionally has had pc announcements. Then without warning the event was changed.

I already used the concert analogy but it’s good. If your rap music concert suddenly switches into techno the audience may be angry without being entitled edgelords. It’s about knowing your audience. And most importantly communicating it.

Mostly disappointment after hyping themselves up for a PC sequel to Diablo. I am not outraged, but just cynical:

From the article:

"it’s a fully fledged Diablo experience on mobile, which everybody will get to play, and hopefully, which will bring new heroes to Sanctuary as well as welcoming our community back into it and something we’re very excited about."

Blizzard has simplified their games to grow their customer base, such as the Cataclysm expansion to World of Warcraft. These simplifications have not been well received by the existing players. My reaction to Diablo Immortal is skepticism about how much crunch there will be. Diablo 3 was not terribly interesting for me after you got past the first few playthroughs, compared to Diablo 2 or more modern ARPGs like Path of Exile.

It's not really anger, it's disappointment; if Immortal turns out to be a great game, I'll happily buy it. The noises Blizzard are hearing from the fans are basically a reminder that they have lost customers when trying to get new ones.

I expect randos on the internet to act like trash (if for no other reason, a chunk of the people acting like 12 year olds really are 12).

I don't understand why the response from people that should know better is to act surprised at them, and feel justified in stooping to such low levels and pettiness themselves.

Well, I guess I can make guesses as to the "why," but none of them are answers that would let me sleep well at night if I were the one doing it. Maybe the sleep deprivation is why they're so cranky.

Or...people could chill out and realize it doesn’t matter...like at all.

That would also apply to the company and the media alike

Talk about bad writing! I guess you need to write things like "molten vitriol" to get your point across when every sentence is hyberbolic. Some journalists need to learn that turning it to 11 isn't a legitimate approach outside of tabloids. Maybe Kotaku is a tabloid though.

Go read the comments on the Diablo Immortal gameplay trailer on YouTube. Tell me that's not molten vitriol.

The vitriol expressed by the gaming press against fans far exceeds the gamers anger.

Gamers: "Is this a joke? We don't want mobile Diablo"

Game Press: "Gamers are whiny, entitled, toxic babies"

You can see it here for yourself: https://i.redd.it/6mgpttba94w11.jpg

It's been this way for a long time and was the reason Gamergate became a thing (see "Gamers are Dead"). The worst part is that because the journalists in the game industry are friends with the journalists in the mainstream media, their take on "toxic" gamers gets spread beyond the industry and their own actions never get called out aside from grassroots movements.

In the end, people who don't have time to research the topic themselves, believe the narrative they're told thus empowering the journalists to continue to attack their audience.

"GamerGate" was "a thing" because of disgusting, and deeply held, misogyny within the gaming community. The reason why every legitimate press outlet covered "GamerGate" from the standpoint of a harassment campaign against women is because that is precisely what it was.

As I said:

"In the end, people who don't have time to research the topic themselves, believe the narrative they're told thus empowering the journalists to continue to attack their audience."

Perhaps you need to research the topic yourself.

I've been following it for a long time. Just as in this situation, the journalists created Gamergate by attacking their audience in a coordinated fashion.

Seems it had more than one type of actor. Some proponents wanted to naively believe the movement didn't represent misogyny if they themselves weren't, but so much of that was perpetrated on behalf of GG. The right thing to do would have had to been splintering and loudly decrying the death threats and misogyny, but of course, the mob didn't do that and they've themselves to blame. Mind you I haven't read much about that nonsense. It was so mundane.

I'll admit I can't really atone for my sins on this, but I genuinely thought GamerGate was about journalistic integrity in gaming journalism. I didn't take place in any of the elaborate social-media campaigns, but I did use the term in some kind of naive attempt at "fighting the SJWs".

I realize how stupid I was at that point, and while I don't think I went "full-on-mysogyny", I was definitely holding a somewhat dated viewpoint which I regret now.

Saying "You can see it here for yourself" and then posting a single JPG of hand selected screenshots that show your point is not even remotely reasonable evidence of your black and white claim.

How so? It's literally exactly what I said. Game journalists calling the gamers and people upset about this "toxic", "F* this guy"...

They are definitely not representing the consumer here.

> Gaming journalism is just terrible trash

Any publications out there that might be an exception?

I get my gaming news from the community via Reddit, Twitch, and direct from the developers on Twitter et al. now. I know these too can be manipulated but in general I'm talked down to far less by these sources than by the gaming press at large.

That said, Niche Gamer is alright if you don't mind seeing a lot of anime in their articles. I don't care for anime games as a rule but it doesn't offend me either.