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[Kotaku] Blizzard Pulled Diablo 4 Announcement [Up: Blizzard - "This is not true"]

MiguelItUp

Member
Yeah, considering the amount of flack they've received, this screams damage control....

Why in god's name would they NOT show this at THEIR convention that people all around the world paid top dollar to come to? That makes no sense. Call me crazy, but in any instance, that would make sense in a "we don't want to blow our load all at once" scenario. But... I don't think they did that at this year's Blizzcon at ALL.
 
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fantomena

Member
Jason Schreier is the strangest, most objectively ludicrous bozo currently scribbling about videogames.

Someone needs to politely remind him that he is not a real journalist.

What exactly makes him not a real journalist?

He has broken a lot of uncomfortable stories in the past, like he received death treats for breaking that No Man's Sky had gotten delayed, a few days later, it's officially delayed.

He has written pieces about ME Andromeda development, crunch in game development, what Blizzards Titan was gonna be like and a lot more.
 
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Helios

Member
Even if he's right all they had to do was put this at the end of the trailer and nobody would've given a shit about immortals being a gacha game.
e3-2017-nintendo-livestream-metroid-prime-4-01-470x310@2x.jpg
 

Moneal

Member
Blizzard said they didn't pull any announcements.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/11/06/diablo-4-announcement-reportedly-pulled-from-blizzcon-2018

Blizzard's full response to IGN reads:
"First off we want to mention that we definitely hear our community. We generally don’t comment on rumors or speculation, but we can say that we didn’t pull any announcements from BlizzCon this year or have plans for other announcements. We do continue to have different teams working on multiple unannounced Diablo projects, and we look forward to announcing when the time is right."
 

Stuart360

Member
I'm not sure what they had planned, but the one thing I know is they sent Wyatt Cheng out to die.

His reaction to the 'April Fools' question was priceless, you could tell he was thinking "i'm right there with you dude, but i had to come out here and try to build up this mobile shite"
 

Graciaus

Member
Even if this is true it doesnt inspire much confidence in D4. Multiple drastic changes with different directors sounds worse then a crappy mobile game the majority will ignore.
 

danielberg

Neophyte
So basically a minor D3 content update and the mobile version yippee! Hopefully fans learned their lesson and move on from Diablo to the alternatives. No point getting hopes up each year for nothing. Can't monetize it so not developing it.

All i want for D3 is them buffing the legacy of nightmares set so i am not bound by the usual sets when playing grifts and instead can play whatever build i imagine... but even such a obvious and gameplay expanding step is too much to ask apparently and if it messes up the leader boards just apply the updated lon only on primal ancients i dont even care. This is all obvious stuff and has been obvious stuff for some time now.
 

EDMIX

Member
Even if he's right all they had to do was put this at the end of the trailer and nobody would've given a shit about immortals being a gacha game.
e3-2017-nintendo-livestream-metroid-prime-4-01-470x310@2x.jpg


Most likely.

They would have just spent that time raging that it was just a picture of a 4 lol
 

danielberg

Neophyte
Most likely.

They would have just spent that time raging that it was just a picture of a 4 lol

Nope they would have not thats the point look at bethesda how they announced the online fallout no one asked for and immidiatly after that showed what was basically just a make believe new elders scrolls announcment that doenst even yet have a title lol everyone was ok with that lol Blizzard should have been much smarter about this lol
 
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Cunth

Fingerlickin' Good!
Jason Schreier reports that Blizzard PR rep Jason Schreier says that Diablo 4 was supposed to be announced
 

Mr Nash

square pies = communism
Even if this is true, it just raises questions about the decision making process at Blizzard. They should have A) had the foresight to realize that announcing a mobile Diablo at Blizzcon would go over like a lead balloon and B) if they insisted on announcing it anyway, at least have the good sense to tease Diablo 4 given how much the rabid fans want it and the sheer amount of speculation floating around prior that it would be announced. I'm personally inclined to not believe Blizzard's statement and assume it's all desperate damage control, but even if it isn't and is actually totally legit, that just suggests there is a lot of boneheaded decision making going on over there.
 

ZehDon

Member
Kotaku have added the following correction to Jason's article:
“First off we want to mention that we definitely hear our community. We generally don’t comment on rumors or speculation, but we can say that we didn’t pull any announcements from BlizzCon this year or have plans for other announcements. We do continue to have different teams working on multiple unannounced Diablo projects, and we look forward to announcing when the time is right.”

However, two people familiar with Blizzard’s plans confirmed that the company had indeed recorded a video in which co-founder Allen Adham spoke to fans about a new Diablo project. What’s in dispute here is the timing. We had originally reported that it was planned for BlizzCon, but it’s possible that those plans were simply discussed and never solidified. (Either way, the video never came out.)
Good to the see correction going up. The timing of this false rumour, seemingly mana from heaven to settle the internet mob, felt a little too convenient - doubly so now that Blizzard have confirmed it as false, and given Jason's twitter posts. So, we're I guess we're back to: Blizzard are out-sourcing a mobile game to a Chinese developer known for predatory monetisation practices, and decided that this "game" was worth hyping up for their hardcore fans at their expensive annual event. Cool. As you were, internet mob.
 

down 2 orth

Member
Kotaku... they've been a consistent mouthpiece for Activision since they did their "secret" interview with Bob Kotick years ago.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
all they had to do was what bethesda did at E3.

they announced some piece of crap elder scrolls mobile game and then confirmed ESVI with a trailer that showed pretty much nothing at all.
 
Why hasn't Jason Schreier been fired yet, seems to me this a clear case of a supposed "journalist" making up fake news and then getting caught red handed. I demand this soy boy's head. I mean he masquerades as a "journalist" so clearly he can't be trusted. What say you Kotaku?


(Crickets)
 

EDMIX

Member
Nope they would have not thats the point look at bethesda how they announced the online fallout no one asked for and immidiatly after that showed what was basically just a make believe new elders scrolls announcment that doenst even yet have a title lol everyone was ok with that lol Blizzard should have been much smarter about this lol

lol they would have not? Buddy, gamers complained when it was just a teaser for Elder Scrolls VI. So basically they are just going from one thing for them to complain about to another.
 

danielberg

Neophyte
lol they would have not? Buddy, gamers complained when it was just a teaser for Elder Scrolls VI. So basically they are just going from one thing for them to complain about to another.
yes they basically said "meh just a teaser" for 2 days and then moved on without much media fanfare or historic dislikes on the video or stupid internet petitions or countless youtubers doint their best to shit the biggest piles they can on it.
There is a sizable difference in reaction imo lol Maybe i just have bad memory.
 

MayauMiao

Member
Why hasn't Jason Schreier been fired yet, seems to me this a clear case of a supposed "journalist" making up fake news and then getting caught red handed. I demand this soy boy's head. I mean he masquerades as a "journalist" so clearly he can't be trusted. What say you Kotaku?


(Crickets)

Maybe Kotaku can't fire him for being bad at journalism because he isn't a real journalist.
 

EDMIX

Member
yes they basically said "meh just a teaser" for 2 days and then moved on without much media fanfare or historic dislikes on the video or stupid internet petitions or countless youtubers doint their best to shit the biggest piles they can on it.
There is a sizable difference in reaction imo lol Maybe i just have bad memory.

A difference yes, folks still got mad. Point is simply that some fans overreact regardless. You just can't please everyone in situations like this.
 

Helios

Member
Instead, his focus is on educating those core fans and reminding them of how frustrated they were with Hearthstone back in the day. These days, Hearthstone has cracked 100 million players. And with a potential tournament payout of a quarter-million dollars, it's no slouch in esports, either.

"Hearthstone was met with same sort of skepticism, and a little bit of confusion," Adham noted. "And I think we've proven over time to that audience, to our audience, that Hearthstone is an authentic Blizzard game, in a different way than our other games.
He forgot to mention the difference being the fact that HS was not announced at a Blizzcon (as far as I recall at least), it was completely separate from Warcraft, it was first developed for PC and it was also not outsourced to a company known for making cheap clones.
Besides, Hearthstone has a lot of problems mainly the fact that the game is very limited because it has to work on mobile(Can't view your deck while in-game, no graveyard etc.) and the monetization is complete garbage.
 
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ZehDon

Member
Now this is the Jason Shreier that makes the rest of the industry journalists look like amateurs. Well worth the read!
Mosqueira and team designed Hades as a Diablo take on Dark Souls, according to three people familiar with the project. It would be a gothic, challenging dungeon crawler. Rather than maintain the isometric camera angle of the first three Diablo games, it would use an over-the-shoulder, third-person perspective.

It was such a departure from previous games, some at Blizzard thought they might not even end up calling it Diablo IV.
Kind of glad this was shelved. If I never hear the "Dark Souls of [Genre]" line again, it'll be too soon.
 
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Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
I also remember when Schreier called developer of Dragons Crown a horny 14 year old boy. He twist his shit like he wants to this is what Games journalism today is. He even said to someone normally disagreeing with his Diablo Immortal post to fuck off.

So no I do not believe a LOT he and other so called games journalists are saying because they twist the articles like it fits their political agenda. Another example would have been Battlefield 5 which got twisted that people got mad because women in vieo games which was absolute bullshit as well but in the end it did fit their agenda way better than saying that people find it disrespectful and way over the top for a game that wanted to go back to its roots.

The reason why they also posted these leaks was to enerate clicks nothing about it was journalistic work.

One thing that would be useful to judge him is not that he expresses opinions you may disagree with or that you and others and I may find weird, wrong, debatable, or even dangerously bonkers... that is not evidence that he twists news and facts or that he manipulates and/or manufactures evidence and thus all his articles should be discredited.

Being rude to readers and calling a developer a horny 14 year old, etc... may be bad and offensive, but it is not an evidence of him manufacturing news/facts.
 

Dunki

Member
One thing that would be useful to judge him is not that he expresses opinions you may disagree with or that you and others and I may find weird, wrong, debatable, or even dangerously bonkers... that is not evidence that he twists news and facts or that he manipulates and/or manufactures evidence and thus all his articles should be discredited.

Being rude to readers and calling a developer a horny 14 year old, etc... may be bad and offensive, but it is not an evidence of him manufacturing news/facts.
This is not how Journalists should act especially not when they often call such Beauvoir out with YoutTubers.

I never said he fabricates facts but he also makes wrong assumptions, and creates fake outrage with his headlines etc.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
This is not how Journalists should act especially not when they often call such Beauvoir out with YoutTubers.

I never said he fabricates facts but he also makes wrong assumptions, and creates fake outrage with his headlines etc.

If he is angry about something and he reports how things are or all the facts that are available... not sure what the problem with that is really.

Also, as much as you or I may disagree with him or not, not sure about the fake ness of the outrage and if you have evidence of that. Honest question: are there some particular cases where you think he is generating fake outrage?

He may honestly be outraged and in some cases he should take a chill pill (as it may be worrying, in this hypothetical case, that someone were to be outraged by this) and in some others I agree and people should pick it up and hear what is said and think it through.
 

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
https://www.dualshockers.com/diablo-multiple-projects-2019/

“We continue to read feedback and our internal discussions are ongoing. We have many plans for Diablo across multiple projects which we’ll be revealing over the course of the coming year. We are eager to share more about all of our projects, but some will have to wait as we prefer to show you, rather than tell you, about them. It’s going to take some time as we strive to meet your expectations, but now, more than ever, we are committed to delivering Diablo experiences the community can be proud of.”
 

danielberg

Neophyte
But Journalism guys!!! it's alive and well in the gaming community
This is what basically happens when so called journalists are just industry mouthpieces and literally feel the need to start damage control even before talking to the people/pr revenue they want to protect lol
 
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