Blizzard remove PvP from Diablo 3 launch

This evening Blizzard revealed that they are to release Diablo 3 without any PvP included.
Yesterday Blizzard added the Hardcore mode to the Beta which some have seen as a sign that they are now getting ready to announce a release date for the game. 
Earlier today Blizzard’s Jay Wilson revealed that Patch 14 is feature complete and the game is ready to ship in its current form.
“What is currently in the beta is what we intend for ship, but we’re still tuning and things can change”
This evening statement on PvP reads: 
Today, we wanted to let you know that we’ve made the difficult decision to hold back the PvP Arena system and release it in a patch following the game’s launch. After a lot of consideration and discussion, we ultimately felt that delaying the whole game purely for PvP would just be punishing to everyone who’s waiting to enjoy the campaign and core solo/co-op content, all of which is just about complete.
While we work on making sure PvP lives up to its full potential, we hope you’ll find some consolation in the fact that soon, you’ll be having a blast leveling characters, finding items, learning the classes, and perfecting builds…and that when the Arenas do arrive, you’ll be all the better prepared for battle.
When the PvP patch is ultimately ready, it will add multiple Arena maps with themed locations and layouts, PvP-centric achievements, and a matchmaking system that will help you and your team get into fairly matched games quickly and easily. We’ll also be adding a personal progression system that will reward you for successfully bashing in the other team’s skulls.
We know a lot of you are looking forward to PvP, and we’ll be focusing our post-launch efforts on making sure the Arenas are as brutal, bloody, fast-paced, and awesome as we know they can be. In the meantime, we’re in the process of putting the finishing touches on what we think is a truly epic campaign and co-op experience for launch.
We’ll have a lot more info to share on the PvP system in the future, and we look forward to the moment we can get the game into your hands.
Blizzard has come in for some heavy criticism over from fans since late last year as it looked like they were scaling back on a lot of the game’s features. This is the latest blow for gamers who were looking forward to the PvP arena system at launch and there is no indication of when they will be added to the game.
You do have to wonder what the development team over at Blizzard has been doing for the past six years, the comment of “delaying the whole game purely for PvP would just be punishing to everyone who’s waiting to enjoy the campaign and core solo/co-op content” just doesn’t cut it. Nice try though.
Source: Diablo IncGamers.