Diablo III launch announcement not without controversy

The time is nigh. Thursday morning, after 10 years of waiting, Blizzard Entertainment announced the launch date for the year’s most highly anticipated release: Diablo III.

Mark your calendars and clear your schedules for May 15.

"After many years of hard work by our development team and months of beta testing by hundreds of thousands of dedicated players around the world, we're now in the homestretch," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, in a statement. "We look forward to putting the final polish on Diablo III over the next two months and delivering the ultimate action-RPG experience."

However, the release is not without a bit of controversy. Just a few days prior to today’s announcement, Blizzard’s Jay Wilson said that player versus player (PVP) will not be available for the game on launch day — a major part of the game that allows players around the world to engage in combat against each other.

While some in the gaming community begrudgingly accepted Blizzard’s decision in favor of having a more robust PVP system, others decried the decision, arguing that Blizzard simply wanted to release the game before other competitive titles being released later this year, even if it meant releasing an unfinished product. 

“…[Diablo III] is clearly not ready, they cut an advertised feature, how ‘ready’ can it really be?” tweeted TotalBiscuit, a popular British gamer and professional caster known for his candor and loveable cynicism. 

But for most of the internet, the announcement was heralded as a satisfying end to a long wait. Others simply lamented their own ill fortune. 

“It’s my wife's actual birthday. I'm so screwed…” said one commenter on the Diablo III Reddit post that quickly shot to the top of the front page.