Chinajoy 2020: Blizzard Entertainment
Daniel Ahmad, who covers gaming news in China and Asia markets tweeted that Blizzard Entertainment confirmed a booth at ChinaJoy 2020 through July 31-Aug 3.
Diablo Immortal: Next Activision Blizzard Conference Aug 4
The past two Activision Blizzard financial results conference calls, they have told the shareholders that Diablo Immortal regional testing was on track for launch mid-2020.
June was literally the mid of the year. Nothing happened. That’s gone. Missed.
In terms of quarters, the mid of the year is a range of two months: June and July; plus the half of two additional months: May and August.
Sarah Tudor joins as Diablo Immortal Test Analyst
Sarah Tudor announced in her Twitter account that she has joined Blizzard Entertainment as Diablo Immortal Test Analyst.
Sarah has experience in digital sculpting and illustration — graduated from Illinois State University in 2016. She has worked in game/mobile development since then for Indie and AAA studios.
She was Quality Assurance Analyst for God of War (2018).
- Lead QA Artist — Maple Media (Los Angeles, CA – 2018-2020)
- Quality Assurance Analyst — Santa Monica Studio (Greater Los Angeles, CA – July 2018 – Sept 2018)
- Art Quality Assurance — Deep Silver Volition (Illinois – Aug 2016 – Sept 2017)
Speculation: Diablo Immortal Regional Test on iOS?
As players, we are used to Blizzard Entertainment launching Alpha and Beta testing for PC only, and when the game goes live, there is a PC/Mac launch.
On day one (Nov 2, 2018) Blizzard Entertainment made available pre-registrations for a chance to be invited to test Diablo Immortal Beta. The official website says:
“Pre-register on Google Play today. Coming soon to the App Store for iPhone.”
However, the App Store button is grayed out. So the common sense to think here is that after the last couple of Activision Blizzard financial conference calls revealed plans for Regional Testing of Diablo Immortal by Mid 2020 — that it would be for Android.
Just a few days ago, Julien Blary (@Nari_Ju) — the guy who claimed to have sources telling him about Diablo II: Resurrected at Actugaming.net tweeted an update on June 29th… something intriguing about Diablo Immortal.
Diablo Immortal Appears in Pre-Registration Games in Google Play
Diablo Immortal has been available for pre-registration since its announcement on November 2, 2018.
Ever since, you would only find the Diablo Immortal app by typing the title in the search box.
Even though you could pre-register by searching for the app, Diablo Immortal was not listed in the Pre-Registration Games list within the Google Play UI.
Diablo Immortal was added to this list somewhere between Friday, June 26 and Saturday, June 27th (noon) — range of time since last I checked Google Play.
Diablo Immortal Job: Senior UX Designer
Blizzard Careers had removed the DIABLO IMMORTAL jobs category and most of the Diablo Immortal job openings a few months ago, except for the Senior Product Manager postion that was listed under the MOBILE category.
Today, the DIABLO IMMORTAL jobs category appeared out of the blue again. There is a Senior UX Designer job opening posted there without text — which means it might be work in progress.
I’ll updated as soon as anything changes either way. Follow @blizzplanetcom for updates.
Note: To understand what a User Experience Designer does, I usually refer people who ask me what that is to this article written by an EA DICE Senior UX designer.
First Sign Diablo Immortal Beta is Nigh
The search for signs of Diablo Immortal Beta and failing miserably is over. The new Diablo Community Development Lead Adam Fletcher is taking the bull by the horns in his new role and tweeted fans using no hashtags — which means it was meant for a “small” crowd of 22.6K followers: “Who are some of your favorite mobile content creators and why?“
Diablo Immortal Google Play Updated
It seems there are steps being made to prepare the Diablo Immortal Google Play page for the upcoming beta.
For many many months, the Google Play page had been static with no updates. But something simple, yet undeniably different can be seen in the page.
Compare this screenshot I posted on September 26, 2019.
Theorycraft: Diablo Immortal Monetization
One of the most secretive aspects of Diablo Immortal is the monetization. What will it be like? How will it be implemented? We won’t get a definitive answer just yet.
When asked, Wyatt Cheng basically said the team is focusing on gameplay first, making sure the game is fun. Then, they will iron out the specifics on what monetization might be.
Not everyone believed that due to an image that circulated online showing Wyatt Cheng and Netease developers next to a Powerpoint presentation showing Diablo Immortal monetization ideas — as posted by a Reddit user.
Personally, I can’t confirm that what the reddit user said is true. I don’t read Korean, and the image quality isn’t great. So I wouldn’t be able to know if someone who does read the language can even identify the letters or words from that image.
Diablo Immortal Team Searching for a Senior Concept Artist
In a very curious move, Blizzard Entertainment is searching for a Senior Concept Artist to join the Diablo Immortal team from home (for now).
On February 22, 2019 Netease revealed they had completed their development of Diablo Immortal, handing it over back to Blizzard Entertainment for polishing and completion.
A bit over a year now since then, all we know is that Diablo Immortal beta testing is slated to start mid-2020 — as revealed during the Activision Blizzard Q4 2019 financial report. A good guess would be: any time between the May-August range. If it was to be taken literally, then “June” is the mid-2020 month.