Blizzard to Change Buttons on "Diablo 4," Accused of "Dark Design"

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Blizzard to Change Buttons on "Diablo 4," Accused of "Dark Design"

A temporary fix is "in the works" for Diablo 4's UI quirks, which have been accused of being clumsy at best and intentionally deceptive at worst.

Those who purchase the Digital Deluxe or Ultimate editions of Diablo 4 will receive one Premium Battle Pass unlock for any season. The button to activate the unlock appears as soon as you open the "Season Journey" menu, which you will do many times during play, and the cursor is automatically placed in the middle of it. It is easy to accidentally select it, and some players accidentally use the unlock because of it.

"It was intentionally and maliciously designed that way," said streamer Rurikhan, who accidentally clicked the button in a popular Twitter clip.

Several people responded to Rurikhan's tweet, quoting and retweeting. One user said, "Wanted to save it for a future season pass, but oops, looks like I didn't."

Diablo 4 influencer Rhykker called the button an example of "dark design" in a reply to Rurikhan's tweet. Dark design, or dark patterns, is a term used to describe UI elements designed to trick users into doing something they did not intend, such as unlocking a battle pass they might have wanted to save. In my opinion, Blizzard needs to add a confirmation button or something if they don't want to be accused of using dark patterns." [A simple "confirm" pop-up would solve the problem," Rhykker said.

Adam Fletcher, director of global community development for Diablo 4, said that Blizzard has a slight fix "to at least make the cursor not show up there by default and instead default to Season Journey" He responded that this is planned. He called the upcoming fixes "temporary" and did not explain what the long-term changes would be.

Even after the upcoming changes, the button appears to activate the premium battle pass without confirmation. In comparison, when one tries to purchase premium currency for an action RPG, they are taken to a payment page before anything happens. (The criticized button does not charge the user money, but irreversibly exhausts what money has been spent.)

Not a great look for a game that just dropped a patch so controversial that Blizzard promised never to do it again. It's a shame that this nerf has taken the wind out of Season 1's sails since the launch of Season 1, as the new mechanics are fun to play.

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