Micah Whipple

Didn’t even do BlizzCon hard and still feel like I’m fighting something off. I think maybe my immune system was compromised from reading people’s comments about Diablo: Immortal.

I think everyone at Blizzard knew that this was going to be a tough year to open. The Mike transition, and without Diablo: Immortal the only “new product” type announcement would have been Warcraft III Reforged. Which isn’t really a new product.

So what are your options? Personally I would have liked to see them go the Bethesda Starfield/ES 6 route and just tease Diablo 4 with a logo because you know the thing you’re about to show (Immortal) may not be for your core audience that’s at the event.

Hearthstone being announced at PAX was a good move. Immortal being announced at China Joy probably would have been a better move. But the comments about how Blizzard is failing are (lets be honest) going to last until they put out their next thing that you’ll love.

Should they have handled it differently? Probably. But at the end of the day how they announced it (while fun to dissect from a marketing/PR vantage) isn’t a concern. What matters is if it’s a good game, and it’s Blizzard so obviously it’s going to be good.

Bear with me please: they should NOT have joked with IV turning into M in the presentation opening. I get the economical basis of the D:I and target audience, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay there's nothing else about Diablo. But THAT was in a very bad taste, I felt disturbed.