Blizzard just patched Diablo II, a game that came out 16 years ago

By Justin Pot March 11, 2016

diablo ii patch windows 10 mac el capitan duablo pc arpg blizzard action — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Blizzard just released a patch for Diablo II, a game they released back in the year 2000. That’s right: this game came out so long ago people were still saying “the year” in front of “2000,” and Blizzard just patched it.

The patch, version 1.14, doesn’t add any gameplay or mechanic tweaks, according to Ars Technica. Instead, it lets the game work on new operating systems, including Windows 10 and OS X El Capitan.

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“There is still a large Diablo II community around the world, and we thank you for continuing to play and slay with us,” a Blizzard developer wrote on the BattleNet forums. “This journey starts by making Diablo II run on modern platforms, but it does not end there. See you in Sanctuary, adventurers.”

The update will be particularly welcome to Mac users, who haven’t been able to run the game in any form since Apple transitioned to Intel chips way back in 2005. But Windows users should have a much easier time getting Diablo II to run after the patch, which reduces glitches.

Diablo II came out 16 years ago, at the turn of the century. Even its sequel, Diablo III, came out back in 2012 — four years ago, an eternity in a gaming industry generally obsessed with the next big thing.

For Blizzard to release a patch for a game this old shows a dedication fans will no doubt appreciate. And it seems like there’s more to come: The company posted a job application a few months ago for a “senior software engineer, classic games,” who would own implementation and curation of features new and old.

So this probably isn’t the first updated installer we’ll see for a classic Blizzard game, and it likely isn’t the only update we’ll see for Diablo II — which, after 16 years, is more than fans could ask for. Who would have thought the game would still get official patches two years after extend support for Windows XP ended?

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Activision Blizzard fined over Diablo Immortal’s microtransactions

Diablo Immortal's main screen on the Asus ROG Phone 5.

Activision Blizzard is being fined by the PEGI (Pan-European Game Information) Complaints Board and Enforcement Committee over the inclusion of microtransactions in its 2022 mobile game Diablo Immortal.

This news comes just after Nintendo got sued in North America over its implementation of loot box microtransactions in Mario Kart Tour. However, this decision comes from the European game ratings board PEGI after a reassessment of Diablo Immortal's rating. Activision Blizzard, along with Hunt: Showdown Bounty Hunter -- Limited Edition publisher Plaion, got fined over not properly disclosing the presence of microtransactions in their games when disclosing information to PEGI for a game rating. That's a shocking omission in Diablo Immortal's case, considering just how much it entices players to spend money on the game.
"Both games were published in 2022 and although they contain paid random items (like loot boxes or card packs), this was not disclosed to PEGI when the games were submitted for a rating license," a description of the case says. "Since this amounts to a violation of the rules described in the PEGI Code of Conduct, the PEGI Enforcement Committee sanctioned both companies with a fine of 5000€. The companies had also taken immediate action to update relevant store listings and marketing materials."
A fine of only 5,000 Euros is an extremely small drop in the bucket for a company like Activision Blizzard; Diablo Immortal alone was estimated to be making $1 million a day around its launch by Appmagic. Still, it's a noteworthy slap on the wrist and will hopefully encourage companies like Activision Blizzard to be more open and honest about the presence and relevance of microtransactions in their games.

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Why cloud gaming is the linchpin in Microsoft’s troubled Activision Blizzard acqusition

Key art showing multiple devices playing games via the cloud.

The United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) delivered a shocker this week when it blocked Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard on Wednesday. While a lot of focus on Microsoft’s fight was centered around whether or not the acquisition would give Xbox consoles an unfair advantage over PlayStation consoles, what ultimately decided it was a much smaller market: cloud gaming.
The idea of being able to stream the game you’re playing from the cloud has existed for well over a decade. Cloud gaming’s relevance to the video game industry has only grown over the past several years thanks to both failed and successful efforts from big tech companies like Google, Amazon, and, most importantly, Microsoft. Still, cloud gaming is considered relatively niche, with Activision Blizzard Bobby Kotick calling it "inconsequential" in an interview with Bloomberg and UCL Associate Profession Joost Rietveld saying it’s not a distinct market in a submission to the CMA.
Despite those pleas, the CMA claims that cloud gaming is a “nascent market” and that “already strong incumbent in this market even stronger” in its 418-page report on the matter. Following the CMA’s decision on Wednesday, I spoke to several different analysts to find more clarity about how big Microsoft is in the cloud gaming space and why the CMA should feel compelled to intervene. While experts mostly side with Microsoft over the CMA on this decision, one greater truth emerged from these discussions. Whether one thinks cloud gaming is relevant to this acquisition or not, this emergent style of gaming has reached a point of no return where it'll be instrumental to the video game industry going forward.
Microsoft, king of cloud gaming
Cloud gaming may sound like a niche within the industry, but that's not entirely accurate. BrandFinance Managing Director Laurence Newell tells Digital Trends that “cloud-based services account for over 70% of Microsoft’s brand value, amounting to a staggering $137.5 billion.” That’s quite an eye-catching number that understandably would raise a regulator's alarm bells. However, Newell admits that gaming only makes up 8.5% of Microsoft’s revenue, and cloud gaming is an even smaller amount of that slice.
Despite its relatively small impact on the wider company, most of the experts I spoke to agreed that Microsoft has emerged as a cloud gaming leader thanks to its compatibility with a large segment of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate library. Conversely, Activision Blizzard has had almost no cloud gaming presence outside of one Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice port on Google Stadia before that service’s shutdown. If it were to be acquired, it is inevitable that more Activision Blizzard games would likely come to cloud-based gaming services.

Despite the shutdown of Google Stadia and the relatively small brand value received from cloud gaming compared to the rest of the company, the CMA still points out in the press release about its decision that “monthly active users in the U.K. more than tripled from the start of 2021 to the end of 2022. It is forecast to be worth up to 11 billion British pounds globally and 1 billion pounds in the U.K. by 2026.” Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the UCL School of Management Joost Rietveld, who has also been a consultant for Microsoft during its acquisition process, challenges the notion that cloud gaming as a whole is a single market.
Instead, Rietveld splits it into four categories, placing Xbox Game Pass into a category called “cloud gaming as a feature,” which is when it’s “offered as part of a consumer-facing distribution platform” or “included within a bigger bundle of services provided by the platformer.” Under Rietveld’s view, services like Nvidia GeForce Now, Ubitius, and EE -- all of whom Microsoft has made individual deals to bring Activision Blizzard and Xbox Game Studios titles to -- fall into different categories and thus shouldn’t be considered or directly compared to Xbox Game Pass. No matter how they’re categorized now, the real question mark looming over the technology is its future growth, according to Omdia Senior Principal Games Analyst Steve Bailey.
“Will it remain a niche additional service or become the gaming platform of the future?” Bailey asks in his statement to Digital Trends. “Our projection is that cloud gaming is growing rapidly (revenue should more than double by 2026), but it’s still a long way from taking over the games market, so it remains arguable either way.”
“Arguable” stands out as the keyword to me here. Like any emergent technology, we’re heavily debating the positives and negatives of cloud gaming, specifically through the lens of this acquisition. But what exactly is it that the CMA sees in Microsoft that worries them?
The CMA’s problem with Microsoft
“The CMA’s argument is not that acquiring Activision Blizzard would allow Microsoft to dominate the console market as a whole, where Sony and Nintendo have strong positions relative to Xbox, but only that it would help it to achieve a dominant position in cloud gaming specifically,” Bailey tells Digital Trends. “Microsoft and Activision Blizzard will likely argue that this is disproportionate, given the relatively small scale of the cloud gaming market.”

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will add ranked modes next year

Players battling in Modern Warfare II.

Developer Treyarch Studios announced that Ranked Play will come to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II at an unspecified date in 2023.

The developer confirmed that Ranked Play will include multiple competitive modes and ranked skill divisions, along with the ability to see your skill rating. Modern Warfare II will also have a top 250 leaderboard, and will offer competitive rewards, which have yet to be revealed.