A Diablo IV billboard greeting arrivals near Melbourne’s Essendon airport has seen complaints submitted to the Australian Ad Standards Community Panel, with at least one complainant alleging that the ad brings back “memories of…lockdown” and vilifies religious groups. The ad features the game’s villain and Daughter of Hatred, Lilith, accompanied by the text, “Welcome to Hell, Melbourne,” (missed opportunity to create a “Hellbourne” pun, honestly) and the Diablo IV release date and logo.
Guardian Australia reporter Josh Taylor spotted the complaint report, sharing it to Twitter. In the Ad Standards Community Panel case report for the billboard, a number of complaints from concerned community members were outlined. One anonymous comment suggested that the ad “ [promoted] evil and satanic paraphernalia,” while another said their children had nightmares after seeing it.
lol someone complained to Ad Standards that the Diablo ad reminded them of lockdown?? pic.twitter.com/osqdpLYcms
— Josh Taylor (@joshgnosis) July 4, 2023
One particular comment said that while it was frightening for kids, “even as an adult it brought back memories of the hell of the two years of lockdowns in Melbourne.” While I don’t personally remember the part in Diablo IV where I had to fight a family of four for a pack of toilet paper, or where the main characters sang a tone-deaf rendition of ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon, it seems like our demonic mother had some community members up in arms. A similar billboard was placed in Brisbane as well, although the complaints seem to be levelled more towards the Melbourne version.
While the Diablo IV billboard was alleged to have vilified religious groups and depicted violence (breaching AANA Code of Ethics 2.1 and 2.3, Discrimination or Vilification & Violence respectively), Activision Blizzard’s response to the investigation said that the ads didn’t reference, “normalise or celebrate,” the Satanic occult or vilify nor name any specific religion or group.
They also said that the billboard didn’t depict any blood, gore, or explicit violence, and due to the comma before stating the location, neither Brisbane nor Melbourne was implied to be Hell (probably why they didn’t call it Hellbourne, although I still stand by that being a solid pun). The investigation by the Community Panel ultimately found that Sanctuary’s finest didn’t breach either code.
Similar billboards cropped up prior to release in other cities around the globe, with the New York ad receiving attention due to the smoke from wildfires in Canada shrouding the city in an orange haze, as reported by GameSpot. Diablo IV is well and truly out and available now, and it looks like the ads did their job, given the wild success of the game.
It seems like Diablo IV ads have managed to escape any fines or negative rulings this time, although it does leave me wondering what part of a hot demon lady glaring at you from above has to do with lockdown. Sounds like I really missed out on a Hell of a stay-at-home order if that’s what others experienced.
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