Blizzard Entertainment announced Diablo Immortal at this year’s BlizzCon to a resounding chorus of boos from the audience in attendance. Gamers knew what Blizzard was trying to pull with Diablo Immortal, which is a mobile game that many expect to feature loot boxes, in-app purchases, and microtransactions. It was obviously not well-received by the audience because gamers aren’t stupid and they could very easily see through the ruse. That’s not to mention that gamers were expecting a real game, like Diablo IV, not a casual game made for mobile devices with piss-poor controls and a focus on creating addicts out of whales.

Before we get into the nitty gritty, here is the original Diablo Immortal trailer announcement just so you have an idea of what it is that is causing such a stir within the snake’s den and harpy’s nest.

The trailer was promptly downvoted.

All right, so now that you’ve seen the actual gameplay, you have an idea of what Blizzard was attempting to do. However, gamers were expecting a full-fledged game for their high-end gaming rigs, not a mobile port with touchscreen controls.

Daily Twitch Clips has up the video segment from the announcement where the developers display just how out of touch they were with the core PC audience.

The comments also highlight just what most gamers in attendance were thinking and why they booed, bringing out the common sense fact that hardcore PC gamers don’t buy high-end cards to indulge in barely-playable mobile phone games.

It’s not even just the onlookers, the gazers, and the PCMR aficionados who decided to dunk on the Diablo Immortal announcement.

Over on the Diablo sub-reddit the community is not only giving Blizzard flak, they’re also keeping track of the company’s attempt to keep re-uploading the videos to limit the amount of downvotes visible to the public.

You can see that Blizzard has multiple videos uploaded, all of which have been downvoted into oblivion.

Even the fanboys had to come out against Activision-Blizzard on this one.

This should come as no surprise given Blizzard’s censorious behavior, especially with banning a player who only played one character in Overwatch, fining e-sports competitors for using emotes, prohibiting players from using pepe memes on their own personal accounts, and monitoring the off-site behavior of gamers in order to ban them for politically incorrect activity.

As is typical with today’s SJW-controlled media, the NPCs came out in full force against gamers. Attacking them, denigrating them, and proving that #GamerGate was right all along: game journalists are corrupt, anti-gamer scumbags.

It started with tweets on social media from those like Samuel Axon from Ars Technica, who invoked #GamerGate, despite the fact that his outlet was one of the ones responsible for misrepresenting the ethics in journalism movement because they were part of the secret cabal of influencers on the Games Journo Pros mailing list, as outlined on ThisIsVideoGames.com and DeepFreeze.it.

It also shows a total lack of understanding of the industry. When they’re like “Diablo Eternal means we’re not getting Diablo 4,” I’m like… you realize this is made by a different team, right? There is no opportunity cost here. This is additive, so chill the hell out. — Samuel Axon (@samuelaxon) November 2, 2018

Typically, other anti-gaming culture pundits chimed in, including MovieBob Chipman, who apparently knew he would get more views with a tweet than by publishing content on The Escapist 2.0.

Its entitlement. They already had “something for them” – the CONVENTION, aka the giant party full of swag and retail therapy. https://t.co/VqsgBP2uUR — Bob Chipman #RehireJamesGunn (@the_moviebob) November 3, 2018

Bob Chipman wasn’t alone in denigrating the good name of gaming. He was joined by the typical sociopolitical provocateur and anti-white race-baiter, Tauriq Moosa.

This isn’t savage, it’s entitlement. The fact a gamerbro felt he could do this is one thing, but this Tweet is exactly what normalises asshole behaviour within the toxic environment that is the gaming community. https://t.co/gc0bvyUbDV — Tauriq Moosa (@tauriqmoosa) November 3, 2018

Moosa goes on to say (across multiple tweets)….

“The Angry Gamer trope is another example of this, where this same community calls screaming into a camera about a computer game “criticism”, lumping thoughtful perspectives alongside random, pretty scary men. Imagine The Angry Book Reviewer or something criticising a game for being bad is not the same as criticising developers for not making the game you want; you can say a mobile phone game is bad, etc., but that’s not the same thing as “Why is this not a completely different game?” which is just plain entitlement. “This is a community that claims to defend consumer rights until you criticise their favourite corporations who use gambling to target vulnerable people; one that wants games recognised as art, but gets angry when you mention anything that smells of politics.”

Wrong.

SJWs want games recognized as art to diminish the quality of the gaming experience, in order to turn it into a vehicle for sociopolitical agitprop. Gamers want fun games to play and experience in which to be entertained.

Thankfully, there were gamers present in the Twitter threads to point out that hardcore gamers paid money to attend BlizzCon and expected an announcement for an actual game, not a skinner box in a Diablo skin, like a devil in sheep’s clothing.

I disagree, they hyped up blizzcon to be the “Year of Diablo”, and pretty much told their fanbase that has been begging for new content for years “We have nothing for you”. You can call it entitlement if you want, I call it a massive disconnection with their audience. — Joe Khasm (@JoeKhasm) November 3, 2018

I attempted to ask Tauriq why exactly he decided to go after gamers when he doesn’t know anything about the gaming industry, and why he’s defending a game that supports the kind of exploitative practices to whip and enslave the masses into becoming the footstools of gambling mechanisms, but he has me blocked on Twitter.

I guess some forms of slavery are still okay in Moosa’s book.

Adam Holisky from Blizzard Watch came in with the 8-ball shot in the form of a TDS reference, blaming — yes, you guessed it — President Donald Trump for people being angry at Blizzard for hyping up a Diablo announcement just to reveal an unwanted mobile title.

No joke, I blame @realDonaldTrump for the rhetoric of the Blizzard community right now over #DiabloImmortal. It hasn’t been this bad in *years*. Perverse national discourse and normalization of hard line / no compromise speech is the root cause of this. — Adam Holisky (@AdamHolisky) November 3, 2018

The attacks against gamer culture didn’t end with invectives from the sycophants wearing the blue checkmarks of the thought police. There was also plenty of vitriol spewed like sewage from a pipe with no valve from the traditional outlets as well.

Mashable published two articles on the subject, one of which is a hands-on preview where they deride and attack gamers.

Mashable’s second headline speaks for itself, which reads “’Diablo Immortal’ reveal gives entitled gamers a new chance to look like asses”

A cacophony of childish text lines the structured walls of the anti-gaming narrative that Mashable puts forward like an enthralled Schutzstaffel orator giving a rousing speech at an American Bund rally in Madison Square Garden, writing…

“Mashable’s Kellen Beck zeroed in on the blowback after trying Diablo Immortal for himself at BlizzCon, the annual event where the reveal happened. “Grow up,” Kellen wrote. “You are entitled to nothing. Game companies owe you nothing. You don’t just get to have whatever you want and then throw a tantrum when your own personal dreams don’t come true.” […] “[…] Fortunately, the social media noise is just that: Noise. Entitled gamers are a loud bunch, but they define the “vocal minority.” We see them most visibly when stuff like this comes up because they attack news they don’t like with an unhinged degree of passion, even when it’s an incomplete picture.”

Keeping in theme with the pro-corporate guzzling of anti-gamer fluids, Shacknews didn’t disappoint with their piece, with a headline that reads “Fans react to Diablo Immortal like disrespectful edgelords at BlizzCon 2018’s Q&A”.

Shacknews CEO, Asif Khan, tries to patronize gamers into accepting mobile as a legitimate form of gaming, writing…

“It is fine to be disappointed by today’s announcment of a mobile Diablo game, but Shacknews believes that mobile gamers count too. We acquired Modojo several years ago and will continue to report on mobile games and apps because people are interested in them. Mobile gaming is booming overseas in Asia and has seen pockets of success here in the U.S. Clearly, Blizzard sees an opportunity in this market. We can only hope that they will eventually release Diablo 4 and all of this whining can end, but until then, maybe think twice before posting something overwhelmingly negative about a game that some people have been working very hard to announce.”

Keep in mind that a year after Shacknews purchased Modojo.com to report on mobile apps, the site has dropped by nearly 69,000 spots over the last three months, according to Alexa.com, and has stayed on a steady decline all year long.

If people were really that interested in reading about mobile gaming, they wouldn’t be sinking out of existence.

But that’s not all.

Aussie website Press-Start.com also joined in on the fray, seeking to get a pound of gamer flesh, which is all the rage in websites wanting to join the ever-growing list of websites that historically committed (un)intentional suicide.

Press-Start’s Shannon Grixti, who appears to be of the XY chromosome variety, tried to downplay the fan outrage by condescendingly trying to paint Diablo Immortal as a potential worthwhile gaming venture, writing…

“One fan asked if this announcement was an “out of season April Fool’s joke”. Now, it’s one thing to pop your hot takes onto Twitter, but to put this kind of question to a Blizzard representative in front of an auditorium of people, after the team has excitedly announced their new game, is downright disrespectful and disgusting. “Now sure, people are entitled to take interest on what they please, but this seems like a full Diablo experience, albeit on a mobile platform. Blizzard is promising that there will be six Diablo classes at launch (Barbarian, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Monk, Necromancer, and Wizard) as well as regularly introducing new storylines, playable characters and new challenges.”

What none of these websites or social media pundits ever bother to bring up is the increasingly financially vindictive and predatory nature of mobile games.

There is a never-ending supply of horror stories of people getting addicted to mobile game loot boxes and cash shops due to the way the they’re designed.

This isn’t even an opinion, it’s a fact.

There was study done on the mobile monetary model and how it psychologically lures people into spending more and more money due to the design around creating impatience within gamers. The study is called “Exploring Mobile Gaming Revenues: The Price Tag of Impatience, Stress and Release” and it was published back on December 6th, 2014.

As reported by CNBC in a piece published on August 3rd, 2015, even they discovered that the gambling-style mechanics in the freemium shops for mobile games have proven to be extremely lucrative.

Even governments had to get involved in curtailing the implementation and use of loot boxes in games due to their gambling-style nature, which is why predatory loot boxes are banned in Belgium.

The only way journalists turn out to be right in this scenario is if Blizzard doesn’t implement any loot boxes, aggressive cash shop mechanics, or predatory-style microtransactions into Diablo Immortal. But given that they were the ones that first introduced the Real-Money Auction House into Diablo 3 back in 2012 – a feature that was not allowed in the South Korean version of the game on the grounds that it was a hindrance to the health of students, as reported by PC Invasion – it’s highly unlikely that Diablo Immortal will forego the freemium model.

And if Diablo Immortal does contain the typical predatory microtransaction system(s) that are in almost every major mobile gaming app on the market, then it means that journalists are knowingly trying to badger gamers into become gambling addicts, or they hate gamers so much that they don’t care that top franchises are being turned into vehicles for gambling addiction.

(Thanks for the news tip Lyle)