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Comment by pcwalton | Hacker News Reader

> And people wonder how the hell do they get away with p2w and gambling mechanics in games.

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.

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This is all fine, but I help demystify the problem here. They marketed the new game to a completely detached audience as the highlight of the event. And when real questions came in, like "maybe a PC version comes later?" The reaction is: "You guys not have phones?"[1] I can see people snapping to rage mode.

And then the gaming 'media' calls theys guys out as assholes, which really shows how strings are really pulled behind the curtains.

[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqjVdPtB9lU

So the complaint is just that Blizzard should have framed their announcement differently? The project is fine, but just don't present it at Blizzcon? That seems so feeble to me, and the sort of criticism you get when fans can't reconcile their displeasure with the understanding that Blizzard is rational to pursue the mobile gaming market this way. As for "You guys not have phones?", that was obviously a bad look, but seeing as it was an off-the-cuff remark in an awkward exchange, I'm not inclined to hold it against the speaker.

>The project is fine, but just don't present it at Blizzcon?

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

You're making a point that keeps being brought up about expectations, which is valid and I get it, but I think the point was not that people should not rightfully criticize Blizzard for that, but rather that the absolute outrage seems ridiculous. This sort of over-the-top accusative outrage is a sad fixture in modern culture, but it seems bizarrely more common in video game news than elsewhere.

> absolute outrage seems ridiculous

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.

If you look at what the audience does it's not that different from what happens elsewhere in entertainment.

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.

Acknowledging a market player as rational doesn't mean you have to sympathize with them. That road leads to Stockholm Syndrome, as displayed by many apologists for late stage capitalism. Being a rational actor isn't sufficient to shield you from criticism.

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.

These are the same people extracting money from people to "cheer" for their e-sports by selling them fake fireworks so they can show they are a "real fan" while watching on twitch or wherever. Modern gaming is pretty much a shameless cash grab especially when you bring up these type of mobile pay to win scenarios.

> I can see people snapping to rage mode.

"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."

Just to clarify for anyone reading, when asked if the game would be coming to PC, the response from the guy on stage was “no, this is only coming to Android and iOS”.

The “do you guys not have phones?” remark was in response to the crowd booing. It got a few laughs at the time.

> I continue to be completely mystified with the concept of outrage about video games.

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)

The comments in these links are downright tame compared to r/diablo right now, while the stakes are way higher. The decisions of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have real, tangible impacts on our careers.

Diablo is just a goddamn video game.

> 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?

The decisions of game giants like Activision, EA, and Ubisoft have real, tangible impacts on my life. They obviously do not have such an impact on yours. Who are you to tell me what I can and cannot care about and how deeply I should care about it?

> The decisions of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and Apple have real, tangible impacts on our careers.

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.

Again, you're essentially saying that because games aren't something you care about that it's wrong for anyone to care deeply about them.

I'm not much of a video game player, but I chafe at the number of people coming in to this thread to express how much more valid their emotions are, than some group of people they've have little interaction with.

I have sunk an absurd number of hours into games in my life, Diablo in particular. I still remember some of the goddamn uniques on my sorcerer from the first one (Dreamflange, Thinking Cap and Najs Plate or Cape). And while I'm totally flabbergasted by the emotional response, I'm not very judgemental about it. I don't get deep emotional attachment to sport teams or TV shows either. But the sheer fury and vitriol and the paranoia fuelled fantasies about evil journalists are a little bit unsettling to be honest, especially because we both know that the stuff we get to see is just the tip of the iceberg.

I simply can't help noticing the striking difference to the reaction to SyFy's cancellation of The Expanse.

I think a lot of people have overly strong opinions on things like programming languages and web browsers as well.

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 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...

> If you don't like it, you are free not to play it

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.

You're mystified by it because you probably aren't a dedicated gamer. To lots of people, including myself, gaming is a huge part of their identity and lifestyle. It's a hobby like any other such as repairing old cars, painting, craft beer, etc.

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.

> It's a hobby like any other such as repairing old cars, painting, craft beer, etc.

And yet you don't see people who follow those hobbies throwing an absolute fit like gamers are now doing continuously.

In a group of consumers of an industry that is larger than the film and music industries combined (and this was before casual gaming took off), you are going to get some people who are louder and more committed than others.

Maybe they are not online to the same extend?

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)

I regularly observe people flipping out because a corporation changed the license of a product to allow them to get more profit and more people being angry about the choice of webbrowser or whitespace character.

A big part of that is comparative population size, and the general "connectedness" of the fanbases. All online communities are trending worse and worse, and gaming is not unaffected.

I double dare anybody to show me an even remotely comparable example of people getting so angry about fishing gear or woodworking tools.

As someone who self-exiled from the gaming community, there are also people within the community, including journalists, who beat on the war drums in order to rile up gamers.

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.

> I continue to be completely mystified with the concept of outrage about video games.

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.

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