I feel like these guys are making terrible assumptions about the playerbase of modern Diablo games. They write in the article, near the end, that a 16-year-old in the D2 days is now pushing 40, and thinking that's still the playerbase of D4. Why is it not possible that their audience is is just the modern day zoomer who expects epic items very quickly, and rejects this "old school" grind? How likely is it that their core audience is made up of those 40-year-olds still?
Does D4 even play as well as D2 does/did? I finally quit WoW after nearly 14 years because the BfA expansion made every class I touched feel so terrible to play. I liked hitting my buttons and when they ruined that I felt there was nothing left for me to enjoy. If D4 feels awful to play, D2 vets wouldn't stick around and would just go back to D2, leaving a younger generation trained on paying MTX fees to skip timesinks.
Watched this divorce lawyer interview and at one point he talks about this like 80 year old guy who's wife divorced him for cheating and how depressing that was to realize that he'll never stop wanting to chase after women, ever.
It's like that. You don't age out of Diablo 2, or Left 4 Dead, or Unreal Tournament 2004, or Team Fortress (minus bots). Great games like these will always be fun at any age.
Their problem is they're making games that aren't fun. Diablo 4 is like chewing gum that's on the 2' high shelf so kids see it; it tastes sweet for 2 seconds then it's like chewing petroleum waste.
I feel like these guys are making terrible assumptions about the playerbase of modern Diablo games. They write in the article, near the end, that a 16-year-old in the D2 days is now pushing 40, and thinking that's still the playerbase of D4. Why is it not possible that their audience is is just the modern day zoomer who expects epic items very quickly, and rejects this "old school" grind? How likely is it that their core audience is made up of those 40-year-olds still?
Does D4 even play as well as D2 does/did? I finally quit WoW after nearly 14 years because the BfA expansion made every class I touched feel so terrible to play. I liked hitting my buttons and when they ruined that I felt there was nothing left for me to enjoy. If D4 feels awful to play, D2 vets wouldn't stick around and would just go back to D2, leaving a younger generation trained on paying MTX fees to skip timesinks.
Watched this divorce lawyer interview and at one point he talks about this like 80 year old guy who's wife divorced him for cheating and how depressing that was to realize that he'll never stop wanting to chase after women, ever.
It's like that. You don't age out of Diablo 2, or Left 4 Dead, or Unreal Tournament 2004, or Team Fortress (minus bots). Great games like these will always be fun at any age.
Their problem is they're making games that aren't fun. Diablo 4 is like chewing gum that's on the 2' high shelf so kids see it; it tastes sweet for 2 seconds then it's like chewing petroleum waste.
Fruit Stripe Gum. There's your analogy right there, for anyone who remembers the stuff.
Fun packaging. Cool mascot. Funky pattern on the pieces of gum. Tasted great ... for about 10 seconds, and then all the flavour was simply gone.
And D4 actually is like that. Starts out OK, but it turns inexplicably ... boring ... really fast.
They should really take a look at MedianXL.