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OPPORTUNITY DIABLOWN: At the end of the keynote presentation for this year’s BlizzCon––a convention devoted to game developer, Blizzard, created by game developer, Blizzard––the wildly successful PC developer announced a new entry into its long-running and beloved Diablo franchise: Diablo: Immortal. While ostensibly a new Diablo game, Diablo: Immortal is a phone game made not by Blizzard but by Chinese mobile developer, NetEase, and it was decidedly not the game fans wanted news about: Diablo IV. In a backlash of epic proportions, Blizzard has tried to course-correct which only dug them in deeper, D. Bethel and Andrew investigate the aloofness of Blizzard, the entitlement of fandom, and the hazy trouble in-between.

RELEVANT LINKS:

• Bethel, D. “The Week – 26 October 2018.” Long John. ––Where D. Bethel wrote about people judging texts based on news, images, previews without actually seeing the final content.

• Good, Owen S. “Misprint Gives Super Mario Bros. 3 Fans a Poetry Book Called ‘Grabbing Pussy’.” Polygon. Vox Media, 07 Nov. 2018.
• Gordon, Rob. “Blizzard Is Working on ‘Multiple’ Diablo Projects.” Screen Rant. Screen Rant, 09 Aug. 2018.
• Grayson, Nathan. “Blizzard Says It Wasn’t Expecting Fans to Be This Angry About Diablo Immortal.” Kotaku. Gizmodo Media Group, 03 Nov. 2018.
• Kuchera, Ben. “Diablo: Immortal Broke the Unspoken Rules of Blizzard, and BlizzCon.” Polygon. Vox Media, 05 Nov. 2018.
• McWhertor, Michael. “Blizzard Responds to Diablo: Immortal Backlash.” Polygon. Vox Media, 03 Nov. 2018.
• Boss Fight Books’ Super Mario Bros. 3 printing error Twitter thread.

INFO:

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For all intents and purposes, that was an episode recap.

FEATURED MUSIC:

-“District Four” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)*
-“Disco Medusae” by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com)*
*Tracks are licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/