Friday Memes & Arts #15

The year 2018 has had many turning points for the gaming industry for the better or for the worst. Yet, I would like to end the Memes & Arts section in 2018 with the way it is ending for Blizzard, because it’s a sad topic and needs some lighting up. Let’s go through the most dramatic things Blizzard and its games have gone through this year.

Probably the most epic event of this year happened during BlizzCon when Blizzard announced Diablo Immortal. The community didn’t expect a mobile game fiddled with microtransactions and was extremely unhappy about it.

The Q&A Blizzard held was a disaster and it seemed that the developers were completely out of touch with the gamers. Most of the people who attended the event were die-hard Diablo players who are inherently PC gamers and don’t need a mobile game. To make things worse, there is no indication that Diablo Immortal will be good since the game looks very much like many other mobile dungeon crawlers with clunky gameplay that suck money out of the players.

Shortly after BlizzCon many reports and rumours suggested that Blizzard gutted the Diablo development team and cancelled one of the expansions.

World of Warcraft turned out to be another disaster for Blizzard this year. Unlike the Diablo event, this one was building up throughout multiple expansions that turned the game from a fun place into a grinding platform to sink your money into. A recent letter from a WoW fan to Blizzard highlighted the general mood and was supported by thousands of people. 

From here we can move to the calamity of Heroes of the Storm that happened recently. Blizzard outright cancelled the main esports circuits of the game leaving scores of people without a job. We’ve seen people literally cry on stream when they found out that HGC was cancelled and the game development has pretty much stopped. There are many things Blizzard could do better about this game that range from improving the monetization system to giving more space to the community tournaments. Here is a more detailed description of the main problems of the game. 

Not everything about Blizzard was bad this year. StarCraft 2 is at the best place it has been since the disastrous events of 2015 and Warcraft 3 fans are excited about Reforged. The Overwatch League is alive and kicking and the players are very happy about the current state of the game. Unfortunately, most of the good stuff resides in the legacy games (SC2 is almost 10 years-old, WC3 is even older) and nothing points that we will have anything good from the company.

Blizzard is too big to just roll over and die in the nearest years, but the outlook from the fans looks very grim and almost no one is expecting good games or expansions from the company in 2019.

And now, let’s check some good memes and arts that surfaced throughout this week.

u/hopjef shared probably the most touching moment this kid will ever have as a gamer.

u/ReccoR2's parents are divorced and apparently tried to outdo each other this Christmas.

This Polar Express kid created an absolute memesterfire and threw the fans of multiple franchises into a loop wondering if their dragons are in fact wyverns.

An Aunt gave u/Fuzz-OW a book with Fortnite tricks. This is his favourite.

u/ArdentRaven got this 3D print from a boss as a present.

At least to my tastes they don't.

Drow Ranger at Dream Hack Mumbai.

A Dota 2 Christmas art from u/MaxOfS2D

A Nice Fortnite outfit concept.

u/sofia008 shared a photo of a PS mug.