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Skarjo
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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Skarjo » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:16 am

I agree that there's huge problems in the gaming community as a whole, and you certainly won't find me defending Gamergate harassment or 100 hour work weeks.

But where you say the community 'Power' is now unfairly weighted in favour of the consumer, others would say exactly the opposite and this case stinks of just that kind of specific frustration with the big power players in the market.

On the flip side of what you've suggested, other members of the community are watching their favourite licences get destroyed. If you're a Silent Hill fan, you've just watched one of the titans of single player horror get canned because of a tantrum thrown by the publisher and turned into a strawberry floating Pachinko machine. If you like Sim City, you have to watch as they bare face lie to you about online being a necessity only to paint a 'downloadable offline mode' as some kind of favour. Plants Vs Zombies? Gotta buy the plants in the sequel. Dungeon Keeper? One of the great old franchises got turned into the most cynical of cynical pay-to-click F2P bits of mobile shite.

The mobile gaming market is essentially shorthand for being laden with grinding, microtransactions and is so synonymous with nickel-and-diming the player for every last penny that they're not even regarded as being 'proper' games by the majority of the community. If you're a fan of Diablo, a game whose central mechanic is dependent on random loot drops (but for the price of just 5 crystal shards you can open the 'Legendary Chest' -I'm calling it now), is being touted as going 'mobile', with all the F2P microtransaction gem farming nonsense that always entails, then you'd be entirely justified in standing up and asking 'Are you strawberry floating serious?'

Further, if you couldn't predict that reaction coming from the hardcore PC-focused fanbase of Blizzcon attendees then you're inept. I only pay passing attention to the gaming industry, and have never played a Diablo game in my life. So if an ignorant berk like me can hear the phrase 'Diablo Mobile' and still think 'Oh strawberry float that's gonna go down like a lead balloon' then the devs themselves and their PR team should have been all over handling the reveal with care, not 'DO U PHONE THO'.

I agree there's toxicity in elements of the gaming community. But (and this is in no way meant to justify the previous toxicity, it's whole separate issue) there's also massive amounts of frustration with how gamers are being treated by the industry. Everyone should be held accountable and publishers pulling cheap tricks like sending another successful franchise to die in a pile of pay to wait shite should be made to feel every second of awkward stage time when they have to answer for their gooseberry fool.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Tafdolphin » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:34 am

I do understand there's a simmering tension with the rise of loot boxes and the ongoing commodification of games. I understand that people have seen franchises they love thrown to the dogs of the mobile market and cheap cash ins. What I think we're dealing with here, in this thread I mean, is our different weighting of each side. I agree that there have been issues with developers trying to maximise profit. We could go into the reasons behind this, but still, it's happening. What I don't believe however is that this is an issue comparable to the toxicity of the 'gamer' community. One is a bunch of people being denied a piece or pieces of favoured entertainment and the other is people being driven off the internet and literally into hiding in some cases, because of a community's sense of entitlement.

Yes Blizzard should have, and probably did, expect a negative reaction to this reveal. But had the gaming community not become so entitled, so entrenched in the 'YOU work for US' mentality of the gamer/developer dynamic, would he still have gotten up in front of all those people to insult the devs to their faces? This, of course, is a hypothetical with no solid answer but my belief is that no, he wouldn't. He'd have groaned to himself, maybe on a forum somewhere, and gone home. Because this announcement wasn't for him. It was for the Asian market, the investors and the stockholders. So why did they make it at BlizzCon? Who knows. Was it a good idea? Obviously not. Did it deserve the amount of acid toxicity that's flowed forth since? Absolutely not.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Skarjo » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:44 am

Tafdolphin wrote:What I don't believe however is that this is an issue comparable to the toxicity of the 'gamer' community. One is a bunch of people being denied a piece or pieces of favoured entertainment and the other is people being driven off the internet and literally into hiding in some cases, because of a community's sense of entitlement.


Except none of that happened. A dude said 'Are you kidding'. No ones in hiding, no one's been forced off the internet. This was a literal PR event with a Q&A session. When exactly is the gamer less empowered and more appropriate in making their voice heard than literally standing up one man at a microphone in front of the full PR machine of one of the biggest game publishers in the world? The idea than in this context that the poor publishers were the one at a disadvantage is laughable.

Honestly Taf, when would be a better scenario for the gaming community to stand up and ask 'Are you strawberry floating serious?'

But had the gaming community not become so entitled, so entrenched in the 'YOU work for US' mentality of the gamer/developer dynamic.


This is a perfectly acceptable dynamic.

EDIT: Well, it's a good starting point.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Tafdolphin » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:48 am

Skarjo wrote:
But had the gaming community not become so entitled, so entrenched in the 'YOU work for US' mentality of the gamer/developer dynamic.


This is a perfectly acceptable dynamic.


Ok I think I'm just going to back off now as we've no common ground on this issue. The basis of my argument is that the above is unacceptable and damaging. If we're not seeing eye to eye there then there's no point continuing as we'll just end up lobbing insults and pithy comebacks at each other until we both get bored.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Skarjo » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:51 am

Tafdolphin wrote:
Skarjo wrote:
But had the gaming community not become so entitled, so entrenched in the 'YOU work for US' mentality of the gamer/developer dynamic.


This is a perfectly acceptable dynamic.


Ok I think I'm just going to back off now as we've no common ground on this issue. The basis of my argument is that the above is unacceptable and damaging. If we're not seeing eye to eye there then there's no point continuing as we'll just end up lobbing insults and pithy comebacks at each other until we both get bored.


Yea but it'd fun tho ya smelly fish flap.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Tafdolphin » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:52 am

Ha! I've had enough back and forthing with Denster and jawa recently to fill my pithy comeback quota for the next decade.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Rightey » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:55 am

Tafdolphin wrote: But had the gaming community not become so entitled, so entrenched in the 'YOU work for US' mentality of the gamer/developer dynamic, would he still have gotten up in front of all those people to insult the devs to their faces?


Now hold up a second here. I think everyone here loves games and to some degree accepts that they can be art, and in that case the developer is making their game and merely hopes others will enjoy it too. But you must also accept there is a difference between some passion project made in a bedroom somewhere, or by a small group, and an entry in an already established franchise made by a massive team from one of the largest developers in the world. In this case I think it's perfectly fair for fans to air their grievances about something they care about being used for a massive cash grab.

Edit: God Damnit Skarjo beat me to it. :x

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Skarjo » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:56 am

Tafdolphin wrote:Ha! I've had enough back and forthing with Denster and jawa recently to fill my pithy comeback quota for the next decade.


Alright fine but you can'y say that you're happy with a dynamic that whatever the publisher does is fine and the community should have no slapback against shitty decisions right?

What better platform to question them is there than their own paid-entry PR spectacle fluff events?

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Tafdolphin » Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:15 am

Of course! There should always be some sort of relationship between creator and audience. But the guy didn't ask a question, he made statement. He wasn't literally asking if it was an April Fools joke, he was stating his dislike for the announcement. Such unqualified statements of derision lead nowhere and benefit no-one.

I've been thinking of this situation with regards to my own reaction to Fallout 76. I hate the idea of that game, and yes I think it's a cash in to get some of the sweet games-as-service cash. But I didn't feel the need even to take to twitter to vent this. I got annoyed on a gaming forum (and got told off for being negative). I'm not going to buy the game, I'm not going to make any public proclamation on how shitty the game is, I'm just going to wait for it to fail. I'd say that's a fairly normal response. Had I taken to twitter and facebook and all the rest to announce to the world how personally offended I was by such things I'd say that would have been inappropriate.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Skarjo » Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:23 am

Alright... but why is it inappropriate to ask ‘are you kidding?’.

Why is negative feedback inappropriate? I do not understand your reasoning.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Errkal » Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:25 am

I've seen nothing about this but is we nothing wrong with people booing if they think it's gooseberry fool and a piss take.

It sound alike blizzard where idiots in how they did it, but if you aren't happy with something you should be able to say so.

Of course I could be missing something but from the view that if a company makes a product you feel is taking the piss you are well within your rights to say strawberry float no.

Really they shouldn't put Devs up on stage it should sales people etc better equipped for a backlash than the developers but I don't see a problem with the community turning round and saying it's unacceptable by booing.

gooseberry fool what else can they do? They are at the announcement what better way to state you view there and then!

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Tafdolphin » Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:28 am

Skarjo wrote:Alright... but why is it inappropriate to ask ‘are you kidding?’.

Why is negative feedback inappropriate? I do not understand your reasoning.


In what way is "Is this an April Fool?' feedback? Again I think we have vastly difference perceptions of what went on here. He was there to insult, that's all. He wasn't asking any salient questions nor, as perhaps he should have, addressed the reasons for the disappointment in the room. He made a snarky comment as one would on a forum.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Errkal » Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:30 am

Tafdolphin wrote:
Of course! There should always be some sort of relationship between creator and audience. But the guy didn't ask a question, he made statement. He wasn't literally asking if it was an April Fools joke, he was stating his dislike for the announcement. Such unqualified statements of derision lead nowhere and benefit no-one.

I've been thinking of this situation with regards to my own reaction to Fallout 76. I hate the idea of that game, and yes I think it's a cash in to get some of the sweet games-as-service cash. But I didn't feel the need even to take to twitter to vent this. I got annoyed on a gaming forum (and got told off for being negative). I'm not going to buy the game, I'm not going to make any public proclamation on how shitty the game is, I'm just going to wait for it to fail. I'd say that's a fairly normal response. Had I taken to twitter and facebook and all the rest to announce to the world how personally offended I was by such things I'd say that would have been inappropriate.


So basically, if you don't like something you should stay quiet.

That's idiotic, if no one said anything bad people and company egos would inflate and would start taking even more the piss because well no one has said no.

It you don't feedback bad stuff, don't comment on social etc. They don't know they made a mistake.

It's the same as someone not voting in an election and then not liking the outcome.

If you don't input into the process at all you have no say in the direction and no reason to dislike what comes from the process.

As I say if everyone did it all games would become more and more episs take because everyone is just fine with it all.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Knoyleo » Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:33 am

Tafdolphin wrote:I'm not going to make any public proclamation on how shitty the game is,

He said publicly.

pjbetman wrote:That's the stupidest thing ive ever read on here i think.
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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Skarjo » Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:38 am

Tafdolphin wrote:
Skarjo wrote:Alright... but why is it inappropriate to ask ‘are you kidding?’.

Why is negative feedback inappropriate? I do not understand your reasoning.


In what way is "Is this an April Fool?' feedback? Again I think we have vastly difference perceptions of what went on here. He was there to insult, that's all. He wasn't asking any salient questions nor, as perhaps he should have, addressed the reasons for the disappointment in the room. He made a snarky comment as one would on a forum.


Well I think you, I and everyone else understands exactly what he means and his feelings on the matter. Seems like pretty valuable feedback to me.

‘The Diablo community would like to know if you’re serious or if this is genuinely what you think the community wants from the next Diablo game’

What better, succinct way is there to sum up ‘you either do not understand or do not care about your userbase’?

If we’re talking about insulting people, looks to me like Blizzard started it.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Tafdolphin » Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:41 am

Urgh, you guys.

Like I say I obviously feel very different to people here and have no desire to go through everyone's points, deconstructing them with my thoughts. Because, why bother? No-one's changing their mind, are they?

Guy was a banana split. Criticism is fine if it is criticism and not mindless insults borne through privilege and entitlement. GamerGate is bad and its legacy is still very much visible.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Skarjo » Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:50 am

It’s got literally nothing to do with GamerGate, don’t be hysterical.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Tafdolphin » Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:52 am

It does, don't be reductive.

EDIT: And here we are. Hardly pithy but yeah. Told you so etc etc

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Skarjo » Mon Nov 05, 2018 8:56 am

Oh come off it, I’m one of the worst bleeding heart leftie liberal white knights on this forum and even I’d stretch to make ‘don’t make Diablo into a pay-to-wait mobile shitheap’ part of the same misogynist dumpster fire that was GamerGate.

To even equivocate the two only lessens the legacy of how damaging GamerGate was to the community.

They’re not even in the same ballpark.

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PostRe: Diablo Immortal (mobile) announced, devs booed
by Tafdolphin » Mon Nov 05, 2018 9:03 am

Ok! Bye!

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