Blizzard reportedly had Diablo 4 ready to announce at Blizzcon, but pulled it at the last moment

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BlizzCon 2018 started off in standard fashion, with the announcement of Warcraft 3: Reforged, a new Overwatch hero Ashe, and more. After teasing "multiple" Diablo projects were in the works a few weeks before the convention, Blizzard took to the stage to announce Diablo: Immortal, their latest entry into the Diablo series, which is mobile MMOARPG game. Fans who had expected a Diablo 4 announcement took their ire online, and showed their anger over the lack of a major mainline Diablo title being revealed. However, it seems that just prior to BlizzCon 2018, Blizzard might have actually had plans to unveil Diablo 4 for real, but pulled the game from being at the show at the last moment. According to sources "verified" by gaming site Kotaku, Blizzard's co-founder Allen Adham would have officially announced that Diablo 4 was in active development directly after Diablo: Immortal was shown (though no gameplay would have been shown). The reason for the reveal being pulled is supposedly due to Blizzard "not being fully prepared to commit to an official announcement", despite their previous statement that they definitely have multiple Diablo projects in the works. According to Jason Schreier, Kotaku's editor, Diablo 4 has been in the works for a "while", as the project has moved through different directors and teams in that timeframe.


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Xzi

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The reason for the reveal being pulled is supposedly due to Blizzard "not being fully prepared to commit to an official announcement"
Oh, but they were fully prepared to commit to a mobile game. At a conference full of PC gamers who paid to be there. So extremely out of touch.

Ah well, the Diablo series was pretty much dead to me with the launch of D3 anyway. Path of Exile is far superior, and free. Hopefully ActiBlizzard doesn't find some way to royally fuck up the Warcraft 3 remaster, because that's what I've been anticipating most from them.
 
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Chary

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On one hand, now everyone is talking about this mobile Diablo mediocre game, and even though its all hate, people are hearing about it constantly. Tons of people know its name, only due to it being everywhere online from controversial topics.

I don't think Blizzard did well by delaying an announcement, if they did, and I don't think they planned to revoke the D4 announcement just to boost Immortal, but I feel like now everyone's thinking about Diablo, and talking about it, so when they DO announce it, people will be more excited.
 

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Let's just pretend for a moment that the news is actually legit and they did want to announce Diablo 4 and it isn't a desperate attempt to pull Blizzard out of a well-deserved shitstorm.

The geniuses behind Blizzard didn't want to announce something they weren't sure that could do, like a title that your whole fanbase has been begging you to do ever since Diablo III came out (half a decade ago), or even saying "hey my dudes Diablo IV is real don't worry", but they were confident enough that the mobile reskin of a game and the hyped announce would have been a success?

Time to send my resume there. After all this, I'm pretty sure to be their salvation. I gotta act quick before literally anybody else from the Diablo community tries to do the same though.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

On one hand, now everyone is talking about this mobile Diablo mediocre game, and even though its all hate, people are hearing about it constantly. Tons of people know its name, only due to it being everywhere online from controversial topics.

I don't think Blizzard did well by delaying an announcement, if they did, and I don't think they planned to revoke the D4 announcement just to boost Immortal, but I feel like now everyone's thinking about Diablo, and talking about it, so when they DO announce it, people will be more excited.
Everyone is talking about a game that hasn't come out yet and that most likely won't run well on anything but the last two generations of mobile phones. The only winner here is GGG and their Path of Exile.
 
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Xzi

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On one hand, now everyone is talking about this mobile Diablo mediocre game, and even though its all hate, people are hearing about it constantly. Tons of people know its name, only due to it being everywhere online from controversial topics.

I don't think Blizzard did well by delaying an announcement, if they did, and I don't think they planned to revoke the D4 announcement just to boost Immortal, but I feel like now everyone's thinking about Diablo, and talking about it, so when they DO announce it, people will be more excited.
We'll see. Seems more like an EA moment of "pride and accomplishment" to me. They're definitely not doing a good job of demonstrating that Blizzard has remained autonomous, dipshit moves like this have Activision written all over them.
 

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That is a bunch of bullshit, blizzard.
People were happy last year with Necromancer announcement, and people would have accepted a trailer or something for Diablo 4, just to see that it's being worked on.

The mobile version is just to get into the chinese mobile market, cash money you know
 

Song of storms

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We'll see. Seems more like an EA moment of "pride and accomplishment" to me. They're definitely not doing a good job of demonstrating that Blizzard has remained autonomous, dipshit moves like this have Activision written all over them.
Blizzard has been doing terrible choices since Diablo III came out.
 
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Chary

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We'll see. Seems more like an EA moment of "pride and accomplishment" to me. They're definitely not doing a good job of demonstrating that Blizzard has remained autonomous, dipshit moves like this have Activision written all over them.
At this point, both are at equal fault, not just Activision. It's an absolutely bungled move regardless.

and it isn't a desperate attempt to pull Blizzard out of a well-deserved shitstorm.
While I can see it trying to be a desperate cover move, I don't see why trusting Kotaku with breaking it would be the smartest move. Their track record is weak as it is, and Schrier tends to break stories that wind up pissing off most companies. See: Bethesda, Ubisoft.

It's fishy that Blizzard hyped everything Diablo related, then their co-founder left, then they reeled back and tried to lower expectations, then Diablo 4 doesn't get announced. Seems like there's a lot going on the background.
 

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Blizzard has been doing terrible choices since Diablo III came out.
Yeah, and that's around the time they were acquired by Activision. The vast majority of the original Blizzard development team is gone by now of course, so they just don't have the same vision they used to.

The best way to market mobile tie-ins is to simply release them or announce maybe 1-2 weeks ahead of time at most. Like Super Mario Run or Fire Emblem Heroes. Your audience isn't going to be super hyped either way, but at least it won't seem like you're expecting them to be.

The only reason I have any faith in the WC3 remaster is because they seem to be leaving mechanics and balance alone, sticking strictly to a visual upgrade. They still have a shot at fucking it up though, so I definitely won't be pre-ordering despite the fact that WC3 TFT is the game I've sunk the most hours into.
 

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They weren't "not being fully prepared to commit to an official announcement"? A official announcement where no gameplay would have been shown? Sounds like a really early development stage depite "for a while" in works. Now I'm worried... Hopefully the game dosn't ends in development hell.
 
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Sakitoshi

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Ah, my bad. I'll edit that differently, then. All the headlines I'd seen today seemed quite convinced it was a reskin, though I admittedly didn't research that too indepth.
fair enough.
people are jumping the gun too quickly on this one because of all the heat that has generated, but in truth it looks as much of a reskin as comparing warcraft and starcraft or gta and rdr (same engine but completely different games).
 

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Uhu, sure they did. Saying this AFTER, I'm sure has nothing to do with how fans are reacting to their new gacha Diablo mobile game. Lucky for Blizzard, the internet has a short attention span, and in a few weeks, most of the shit storm will probably be gone.
 

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