Image: Blizzard
Diablo Immortal has ignited the Internet with controversy. All the gaming websites under the sun have an idea of how microtransactions are ruining the game and how Blizzard was ruining the cherished childhood memories of Diablo fans. The game currently has the lowest user rating on Metacritic. Even more Diablo fans feel that this is not a game designed for them. And maybe they are right. Despite its mobile origins, Immortal grew wax wings and flew too close to the sun in PC games. For a loyal audience that Blizzard had pleased for years, this was considered unforgivable.
I understand. Monetization criticisms hold up, but the prospect of overspending isn’t always the real reason console players are so upset. The truth is simpler: the mobile represents another front in the endless cultural war for the heart and soul of the games. But I have to wonder if it must be a war.
Before Immortal was announced, Diablo fans could safely ignore mobile games as “cash withdrawals” that would never affect the premium games they wanted to play. But since Blizzard announced that the game would be a full Diablo experience, these gamers have felt threatened by what they perceive as a mobile invasion in “legitimate” games. In fact, the game raised so many concerns that the Blizzard community manager had to make it clear that Diablo IV would not have “mobile-style monetization.”
But it wasn’t enough for Blizzard to make promises to fans. The press was also expected to be in line with “Immortal is bad”. On June 4, there was an incendiary tweet from a Twitch streamer criticizing reporters for saying that Diablo Immortal is … well, funny. It didn’t surprise me, because I encountered similar public hostility when I started writing about Genshin Impact. If a journalist is “too positive” about a mobile game, then a very vocal segment of players will censor them as a traitor to games and a corporate mess. For these players, the rise of F2P games is a virus that needs to be removed. Especially before he “takes over” games in general.
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Despite all the background noise (or maybe that’s why), I felt compelled to download Diablo Immortal and play around a bit. By context: I’ve never played a Diablo game before Immortal. The setup seemed too exaggerated for my liking, and I wasn’t sure how to digest the three-game story before Diablo IV came out. With so many games constantly being released, I made peace with Diablo to be one of those series that I would never get into.
Diablo Immortal took me by the hand during the unbearable experience of entering a much-loved franchise 25 years too late. The team interface told me which team had the best stats and the footprints told me exactly where to go. The missions were structured in a way that made it easier for me to stop playing and resume the game later. Best of all, Immortal didn’t let me down like I was a Diablo fan. All the stories were perfectly self-contained and the world felt less intimidated by it. Immortal is how I learned to love Diablo.
How, I understand now. Villains may be monstrous demons from hell, but their designs are killer. The voice acting is excellent and I got hooked on the supporting characters I met along the way. I’ve always had the impression that Diablo is an Edgelord game, but Immortal is full of heart. All the characters in the game were willing to make abrupt personal sacrifices because they wanted to fight the suffering that hell inflicted on innocent people. What’s wrong with that?
All of these factors probably played a big part in why Diablo Immortal has 10 million downloads despite a 0.2 user rating on Metacritic. There is a big disconnect between internet commentators who consider themselves game administrators and the actual audience who enjoy playing Diablo as an F2P game. I’m not here to tell anyone that I should enjoy Diablo Immortal. I have friends who can’t turn their brains against the live service loop, just like how my brain bounces on certain types of puzzles.
Screenshot: Blizzard / Kotaku
Part of this problem is compounded by the way Blizzard marketed the game. In order to cover Diablo IV which needs more time in development, the study announced that Diablo Immortal is a “full Diablo experience on mobile”. They quickly learned that this could have been a big mistake.
I almost didn’t write this blog until I was at least level 60. I saw the rejection my classmates had for writing about the game “too soon” and I wanted to avoid this fate. But I was having such a relaxing time at Immortal, that I didn’t feel like rushing the content to prove myself to Diablo fans. That’s when I started thinking: maybe there’s something fundamentally broken about how PC and console games are consumed.
In a computer or console game, the expectation is that they will spend a lot of time in a game very quickly to become a God-like merchant of death. This is not the way to play a mobile game. If any content feels limited in time or locked behind very low drop rates, it’s because you’re expected to play this game for years, not in the fast-paced bursts between now and the next major AAA release. This means that “gains” should also be less frequent. It took me almost a year to form a team good enough to eliminate a major event at Arknights. I couldn’t imagine telling a “traditional” player that they would have to grind a year to erase important content.
Of course, the gambling factor is a legitimate concern. Diablo Immortal will not be released in the Netherlands or Belgium due to its gambling regulations. Despite what haters may think about my Genshin blogs, I think federal governments should put restrictions on F2P games. At the very least, I don’t think kids should be allowed to slip credit cards into microtransactions. But the problem is that most critics of F2P games do not understand the community or the motivations of mobile gamers. Console gamers are often justifiably annoyed by ignorant discussions about gaming in the national media, but even gaming outlets don’t stay up to the same nuanced standards when it comes to mobile gaming. I’ve seen too many cases where mobile gamers called themselves “casual.” Given that almost the entire furious response to Immortal has been based on a vociferous defense of those prone to being exploited by the expense of the game, where is the empathy for people that mobile critics say they care about?
There needs to be a lot of discussion about the most predatory aspects of mobile gaming. But that can’t quite happen from the perspective of a die-hard group of lifelong Diablo fans who are angry because their favorite franchise has reached another audience. Ten million people downloaded the game because they wanted to, and while protecting the most vulnerable among them is an admirable goal, it may not always be the real reason for the protest.
Immortal faced a backlash for the same reasons the Western public reacted so strongly to Genshin Impact. It has a PC port and is high enough to disguise its prime mobile focus. But that doesn’t change that these games were created for a very different player. Therefore, PC and console gamers do not need to feel threatened by Immortal. Blizzard is looking for a much bigger fish – the mobile community that already represents most games.