And then the gaming 'media' calls theys guys out as assholes, which really shows how strings are really pulled behind the curtains.
Precisely this. It's not that feeble because you must remember what Blizzcon is. Know your audience. Blizzcon audience has paid $199 to get in. They are quite hard core PC gamers. If your main show for them is something they are not interested of course they are gonna be unhappy.
If Blizzard wants to change Blizzcon they should tell the audience that "Blizzcon 2018 is focused on mobile" before they buy the tickets.
Don't suddenly change the theme and expect a good reaction
Well, absolute outrage is not absolute. This isn't something that's accurately metered. As with everything in outrage culture, the media tells us the outrage is palpable and we simply accept it. Users voicing their displeasure on reddit / twitter / youtube in any capacity is all it takes for the rags to twist this into an apocalyptic, mouth-frothing rage machine. It's a complete joke. The barrier to typing a few words for the world to see is paper thin. Displeasure isn't rage.
It's easy to manipulate discourse this way because anything can be construed as utter outrage.
What is unique in gaming is the feedback loop that happens. First the media responds by saying the guy is an asshole. Then the gamers respond with more vitriol. Then there is "Everyone hating the mobile diablo is a misogynist" kind of tweets. Rinse and repeat.
Do note I'm not justifying it. Merely trying to reason about why especially in gaming these outrages escalate into insane heights instead of dying in meh after a day or two.
We have been seeing this kind of vicious circle elsewhere too lately. As an example the latest Star Wars film where it ended up so bad that if you didn't like the film you were a Russian troll.
The complaint here is that Blizzard is abandoning the people who made them rich, and the off the cuff remark about phones is proof of the latent disrespect they have for their customers. The fact that it was an awkward unscripted remark is what makes it sincere, and shows what lies just under the surface when they don't have their marketing staff to edit their press releases.
"OH, they're doing it to make more money" isn't a good excuse. They already make enough money. Blizzard should reciprocate loyalty to the people who are loyal to them, and that breach of respect is why people are mad.
"I can see" doesn't make it reasonable, nor rational. Maybe because you're deeper in it you're more acclimated, but to most viewers it's like saying "I can see my 5 year old throwing a tantrum, crying and throwing his clothes off in the middle of the grocery store because he wants to eat the ice cream now and not wait until we're home."
The “do you guys not have phones?” remark was in response to the crowd booing. It got a few laughs at the time.
What about the concept of outrage about programming languages, frameworks, web browsers, operating systems, laptops, phones, open source? I guess 99.9% of the population would be mystified with the outrages that we can see on Hacker News.
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17221527
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17413572
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15940144
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18052923
- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17927972
(just few recent examples, the list could go on)
Diablo is just a goddamn video game.
The Super Bowl is "just a goddamn game" too. The Harry Potter series is "just a goddamn book" and Game of Thrones is "just a goddamn TV show". I'm sure whatever leisure activities you enjoy can easily be given a sneering dismissal as well.
Are we not allowed to have passion for our hobbies?
Not only that, they have an impact on democracy. The importance of FB, AMZN, AAPL, GOOG, and MSFT to society has never been higher. The relevance of ATVI to anything important is, to a first approximation, zero.
I simply can't help noticing the striking difference to the reaction to SyFy's cancellation of The Expanse.
I don't think it's fair to claim that. Lotteries have been around a lot longer and gambling addiction has had a lot more time to be studied. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if mobile games turn out to be as bad or worse than lotteries. The sheer amount of effort into creating addictive game mechanics and leveraging of statistical methods, such as A/B testing, puts traditional casinos and state lotteries to shame.
Having said all that, you don't have to look very far to see some alarming articles about the effects these products have on young children [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/style/phones-children-sil...
And Blizzard is free not to listen to the otherwise more than justified response.
And when they have to close because all the fanbase has moved on, and we get thousands of tweets about how great the developers working there were, and how sad it is they don't have a job any more, we'll be free to ignore them.
The "but climate change" is just whataboutism because gaming isn't important to you, so why aren't people paying more attention to what is important to you.
edit to clarify: This may sound a little hostile but it isn't intended as such. I'm just explaining that some people really do care about this stuff just as you really care about your own hobbies or pet cause.
And yet you don't see people who follow those hobbies throwing an absolute fit like gamers are now doing continuously.
Because emacs-vs-vim used to a flame-war guarantee, and the stupid thing is that nobody is impacted by another persons text-editor, unless they are sharing a computer that can't have both installed (so anything with more than 30mb hd)
For the last ~4 years, everything from game reviews that gamers disagreed with, to character stencils, have been positioned as the worst things to ever happen to gaming. Some in the community liken it to actual discrimination against gamers.
People are always going to be upset when something they're passionate about gets ruined. Being continuously attacked by the game press also sets up the whole conversation to be very hostile.
The internet is great for consumer rights. Consumers hold all of the cards and corporations are there to serve them. I don't think anyone should be feeling sorry for companies will multi billion dollar marketcaps or mainstream press. They are not ever going to be the victim.
Because that business model is profitable, and entertainment is a business like any other. If you don't like it, you are free not to play it. Besides some potential for gambling addiction (about which state lotteries are a far more important target for your ire if that is your concern), mobile games produce no externalities whatsoever.
I continue to be completely mystified with the concept of outrage about video games. If you want to be outraged about corporate behavior, there are a multitude of examples of corporate malfeasance with actual negative externalities, such as the coal industry's contribution to climate change.