14 DAY TRIAL // Diablo III launched this week and judging from the reactions that some of the players have posted on various forums and blogs, one would think that almost no one was able to play the Blizzard-made hack and slash game for the first two days and that the only blame lies with the developer.
I understand that Diablo III is the kind of game that certain players feel compelled to finish in the first eight hours after launch only to then brag about their empty achievement to others.
I also understand that this is the kind of experience that makes it all but impossible for other titles to get space in the enthusiast press and on forums.
I can further appreciate the frustration of fans who were unable to log into the game because of the various problems Battle.net had when hammered by requests shortly after midnight and the fact that some continued to have problems with errors well after launch day.
But surely the best way to react is not to blame everything on Blizzard and quickly adapt and create memes in order to get across the point that the developers are not doing their job.
The best way to handle such a situation is to report issues, wait for answers, seek advice from others and be mature about the size of the problem: after all, the rage of the fans was triggered by the simple fact that Diablo III was unplayable for a limited subset of those who bought it.
Today’s gamers are too entitled and they set their launch expectations too high, which tends to lead to disappointment and then a backlash against developers and publishers that try and make their games the best they can be.
Obviously, there are companies that launch subpar products and here fan feedback and pressure can be a boon, but the recent launch of Diablo III shows that we might need to react less and learn that such grand projects are inevitably beset by problems.