Diablo 2.0

 

Just as a quick reminder, this game received glowing critical reviews when it launched just over two months ago, and still had a 4.7 user score as of June 10th. I believe the technical term for this is a "fiasco."

To be clear, the game has not changed significantly in the intervening time. The dev team have tweaked a few things, but have not had enough bandwidth to make any significant changes, given their development-by-committee company culture. The only thing that's happened is that gamers have increasingly soured on the game as they've spent more time with it.

So, we have to ask the question: Is Diablo IV dead?

A few weeks ago, I'd have said no. A few weeks ago, I'd have said that it was far too early to be pronouncing on this particular patient; that Activision Blizzard King had the resources to turn things around, given enough time.

Today, though? I think they might have run out of time.

Diablo IV's launch was not a Diablo III-style disaster. D3 lost most of their player base almost immediately, and even the Reaper of Souls/2.0 rework only brought 20% of them back. 

D4, by comparison, seemed to get off to much better start (although, oddly, D4's Metacritic score was a point lower than D3's). Having got out of the starting blocks more quickly than any other Blizzard game in history, though, they have managed to trip over their own feet and face-plant so hard that the impact might be measurable on the Richter scale.

(Diablo III's user score, BTW, currently sits at 4.2.)

D4's situation may well not be recoverable. So many of its players have left, and left angry, and are now playing other, better games, that Blizzard may well have finally killed Diablo for good. I don't know that they'll even get 20% of their D4 customers back for the next season (still at least four months away), let alone a paid expansion (probably close to two years away).

Of course, I've said this before, after Diablo III, and been wrong, but something feels different this time around. Perhaps it's because Diablo IV isn't the only Blizzard game that has cost them the support of the former Blizzard faithful.

It feels like the entire gaming world has suddenly come to the same realization that I did, nearly a decade ago: that the Blizzard they loved no longer exists, and what remains is a shell being slowly drained of its last remaining vitality by corporate overlords who don't understand how Blizzard came to be so beloved by their fans, or to care.

Back in April, I was still on the fence about whether D4 was doomed:

So, yes, Diablo IV might be mildly doomed. It won't be an outright flop, but it won't be a hit, either, instead living in a liminal space between those two states of being... which might be the worst possible outcome for Blizzard, and for their Diablo franchise. A clear result, positive or negative, would at least offer Blizzard clear guidance as to whether they should change course, or stay the course. A middling result will give them no such guidance, and likely result in Diablo continuing on its current apparent glide path to irrelevance in a genre that Diablo invented.

I was a little off-target there, but not too far off the mark. Diablo IV was a hit... and also a flop. It sold millions of copies, and made hundreds of millions in revenue, but also shed most of its fans in the process, and finally pulled the mask off the Blizzard mystique, possibly forever.

And so, here we are: off the fence. Yes, Diablo IV is dead... or, more accurately, undead, a shambling zombie version of what it could have been that will keep shambling along, pretending at life, until it's finally put down. I predict that it will get its first half-dozen seasons, and one expansion, and then get put into maintenance mode after that expansion drastically under-performs in terms of both sales and revenue.

Microsoft is about to acquire Activision Blizzard King. It has previously been pretty hands-off with the leadership and operations of previous acquisitions, including Bethesda, who clearly needed to be more closely managed. If I was to give post-acquisition advice to Phil Spencer, it would be this:

1. Every C-suite executive from ABK needs to go. They're all terrible managers, worse leaders, and such awful human beings that I'm beginning to question their humanity. Bobby Kotick has publicly commented about being available for as long as needed, after the acquisition; not only is he not needed, he's actively damaging to keep on board, and his cronies will have to go with him. Their severance packages will be less expensive to the firm than their presence.
   
2. Mike Ybarra needs to go, too. He left Microsoft after being passed over for the job that Phil Spencer now has, and has been an abysmal failure as head of Blizzard since being made its sole leader. Phil Spencer should hand Ybarra a golden parachute, and then immediately rehire Jen Oneal, who always should have been given the job.
3. Activision, Blizzard, and King should be separate companies, with each reporting to Microsoft Gaming, directly. Just restructure the whole thing; let each studio work independently, and stop making Blizzard report to Activision's leadership team about their every creative decision.
4. Prepare to spend. Blizzard, in particular, is an omnishambles right now. Rebuilding will take years, and it will cost. It might still be possible, but not if you wait before starting.

I don't know if Diablo can rise again from this mess. Honestly, I doubt it. The ARPG genre has moved on; Grinding Gear Games is less than a year away from launching Path of Exile II, and if they stick the landing on that one, they will own the souls of almost ARPG fan on the planet... with the exception of those who prefer to stick with the original Path of Exile, which will continue to be developed and supported in parallel with the new release. 

Developers of new ARPGs are all looking to PoE as the genre leader, and riffing on what GGG are laying down. Nobody except the most diehard Blizzard partisan cares about Diablo anymore, and the few that do are all playing the original Diablo, or Diablo II.

Sorry, die-hard Blizzard fans, but it may be time to let them go. And I'm not the only one who thinks so.

"Everyone who founded Blizzard, all the principles that Blizzard was founded on: they're gone, or they're dead."  -- DesignerDave

RIP, Blizzard Entertainment (Feb. 8, 1991 to May 15, 2012). Zom-Blizzard (May 16, 2012 - ?) may shamble for many years yet, wearing your name and likeness but lacking your soul, and I, for one, will not be fooled again.