Kotaku backtracked, saying the video existed but it may never have been lined up for a showing at BlizzCon. Then it didn’t help that Kotaku reported on Monday, incorrectly according to Blizzard, that Blizzard cofounder Allen Adham had prepared a video of Diablo 4 and then yanked it at the last minute, leaving only the mobile game announcement. In turn, Activision Blizzard’s stock price fell because of the fan outrage, stripping out billions of dollars in market value. A negative fan reaction started spreading, and the Diablo: Immortal trailer on YouTube had 560,000 dislikes to 21,000 likes. Speculation quickly surfaced to feed this meme, as fans said the game was a reskin of a NetEase Diablo clone or that NetEase was making the game and not Blizzard.
Had Blizzard sold them out, opting to build instead a crappy mobile game that could monetize with greedy little microtransactions? That reaction had so much fear in it, and it was perhaps the worst backlash that Blizzard had ever faced from its previously adoring fans. The hardcore fans who traveled to BlizzCon to hear about the next installment of Diablo were dumbfounded.
And it’s not like it’s all his fault, as he’s just one of the messengers. It puts a bit of a stain on Brack’s first real interaction with fans as president of the legendary, fan-centric, quality-driven game company. One fan summed up the reaction when he asked, “Is this an out-of-season April Fool’s joke?”
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