Diablo III Has Sold 14 Million Copies

[Steven Bogos]

Diablo III Has Sold 14 Million Copies

Blizzard is understandably very happy with how well the game has preformed.

We all knew Diablo III has been an amazing success for Blizzard, but now the gaming giant has revealed just how massive it has been. "We're pleased with the response to the game's launch on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360," said Blizzard's Mike Morhaime. "Lifetime sell-through of the game across all platforms has reached over 14 million copies, and reviews have been very positive about how the game plays on console."

While Diablo III was the fastest selling PC game of all time [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fastest-selling_products], and was met with generally positive reviews, it did see some backlash from the dedicated fanbase, in particular, over the inclusion of the Real Money Auction House.

However, Blizzard attributes part of the success of the console version of the game to the decision to remove the Auction House entirely. The abandonment of the auction house helped to create a "more fun and satisfying game experience" that the game's players "responded very positively to," said Morhaime. The feedback had been so overwhelmingly positive, that the company will also remove the Auction House from the PC version of the game early next year.

Now, Blizzard is working on Diablo III's first expansion pack: Reaper of Souls, which is due out for the PC and PS4 in early 2014, with Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PS3 versions to presumably follow some time later.

Source: Warcry [http://www.warcry.com/news/view/129464-Diablo-III-Sells-14-Million]

[http://www.warcry.com/news/view/129464-Diablo-III-Sells-14-Million]

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[Shadowsetzer]

Blizzard. Ugh.

I wasn't going to purchase the new WoW expansion, but now I'm going to make a special effort to convince all my friends to avoid it as well. I'd like to take away from their sales in at least a tiny way. They feel more like a soulless money machine than gaming company lately. Taking Diablo and turning it into an auction house/bank for themselves was the final straw.

Except no one was ever forced to use even the gold auction house, much less the RM one. What's Blizz done to you that you feel you have to actively campaign against them? Just don't buy the expansion and be done with it.

 

[Hawkeye21]

I had a huge case of buyers remorse about a week after release, alas, refund was impossible. All in all, I've played for about a month, and only recently installed it again. After 18 month out of about 50 people on my ingame friendlist only 1 still played D3, others have last played more than 3 months before. I think more people play D2 now, than D3.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I suddenly feel really bad for about 14 million people.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

The real question is how many will pony up for the expansion?

Its all very well claiming that you've sold X number of copies, but how much goodwill did you burn through and how many of those customers will buy any produt from you again?

And with other companies like Runic and Crate Entertainment begining to nip at your heels will those sales matter in the long run?

 

[CriticalMiss]

They feel more like a soulless money machine than gaming company lately.

Well, they were consumed by the festering, hell-bile of Activision. That probably had something to do with it.

 

[LetalisK]

The sad part is that 10-12 of that is PC sales. Which means consoles, with a combined market of 160 million people is estimates are to be believed, only bought 2 million. 4 million tops.

I am amazed they didn't call the console versions failures, because we all know publishers say games have to sell at least 6+ million on consoles to be considered a success

I was about to point this out too. Though, considering that they had to put relatively little work in than if they had no PC template to start with, that's not bad profit-wise.

 

[jackpipsam]

Diablo 3's expansion looks really good and with Auction House going I see good things for its future.

Blizzard. Ugh.
I wasn't going to purchase the new WoW expansion, but now I'm going to make a special effort to convince all my friends to avoid it as well.

Attempting to push your agenda on others, that must be fun.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

If they remove always-on they can count me in as a customer. Until then I'm perfectly happy with Torchlight 2.

 

[ungothicdove]

I didn't play either Diablo or Diablo 2. Never played WoW or Warcraft or Starcraft. None of the games appealed to me and I was positively neutral when it came to Blizzard. Then my buddy who loved Diablo 2 convinced me to buy the Diablo 3 for sixty bucks because all my other friends were getting it. I think I played for about five hours before deciding it wasn't for me. And everyone else who bought it didn't last much longer than me. I won't say anything bad about Blizzard but their one chance to hook me was not a success.

P.S. That friend also got me to play The Old Republic for about two weeks before I decided what I knew all along: I hate mumorpugers.

 

[Caiphus]

That is an obscene amount of sales for a game that received so much internet hate. Goodness me.

I'm amazed.

D'oh well, I mean I suppose it's good that people are spending money in this economy.

Edit: I guess I shouldn't have been amazed. I checked the wiki link in the OP, and wow. 6 million sales in the first week. I did not know that.

 

[Steven Bogos]

That is an obscene amount of sales for a game that received so much internet hate. Goodness me.

I'm amazed.

D'oh well, I mean I suppose it's good that people are spending money in this economy.

Edit: I guess I shouldn't have been amazed. I checked the wiki link in the OP, and wow. 6 million sales in the first week. I did not know that.

Ever heard of the term "vocal minority?" The critical reception surrounding the game was overwhelmingly positive, and I would gather for every one "worst waste of $60 ever" guy out there, there are a thousand who enjoyed the game (myself included)

 

[Caiphus]

Ever heard of the term "vocal minority?" The critical reception surrounding the game was overwhelmingly positive, and I would gather for every one "worst waste of $60 ever" guy out there, there are a thousand who enjoyed the game (myself included)

I guess it didn't seem like the vocal minority at the time. I remember it being on the same sort of level as the SimCity kerfuffle.

But yeah, a ton of my friends in England bought it, with generally positive opinions. I was put off since my internet is shite* and cuts out periodically.

Glad you enjoyed it though, by all means.

*By shite, I mean it's cut out twice this evening for 5-10 minutes at a time. This is considerably worse than average, but I just cbf'd dealing with that silliness.

 

[Excludos]

Blizzard. Ugh.

I wasn't going to purchase the new WoW expansion, but now I'm going to make a special effort to convince all my friends to avoid it as well. I'd like to take away from their sales in at least a tiny way. They feel more like a soulless money machine than gaming company lately. Taking Diablo and turning it into an auction house/bank for themselves was the final straw.

Blizzard still takes the second place in the AAA industry over the least soulless companies out there, only second to Valve.

I don't get how them trying to fix some of the problems related to their previous title makes them money grabbing. Both the online drm and auction house was a combined effort at stopping people from hacking and duping items, which we all agree was a rampant issue in Diablo II. They failed, they acknowledged it, and they're removing the feature..albeit being a bit late in my opinion. Good luck getting EA to do that with any of their games. They usually rather see their games fail than read community feedback and improve upon them.

If any company in this industry is worthy of "getting your money", Blizzard is one of them. If you don't want to buy the next WoW game, thats completely understandable. I'm not either. I'm sick and tired of that game. But I'm not going to run around yelling to everyone on the street about how soulless the company is.