Diablo III Has Sold 14 Million Copies

[Feraswondervahnn]

Played it in the Beta, decided it wasn't for me and went back to Diablo 2. Now it's on console I'm quite tempted to get it though. I think it's definitely the sort of thing that me and a friend could have a good laugh completing on Co-op.
I just want Warcraft 4 though really.

 

[Lictor Face]

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.

I won't say Blizzard is soulless, they are......lazy.

WoW has spoilt them. A steady flow of cash from a franchise that is functionally immortal has made them possibly reduce the amount of effort they put on other projects. Lets be very frank, Diablo 3 could have been a lot better than it was. But with Blizzard comfortable in the embrace of the WoW safety net, they just went, eh sod it.

I've played WoW for a fair amount of time. But I utterly gave up on the release of sodding Panda Island. Is there any reason to it? Any plot? Nah, just lol yeah i think it'll be fun to go there.

The next expack.....warlords of whatsit? Involving Gromm time travelling? Yeah. Fuck that nonsense.


I won't say Blizzard is on the same level as EA or anything, but I dare say Blizzard has lost a significant amount of the drive and vision that makes them a great company.

 

[tzimize]

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.

Not sure how much you know about how the AH works, but read up on it. We might not be forced to use it, but the items on the AH affected the item drops in game. So even if you never entered the AH, your game experience was lessened because of it.

It was NOTHING but a sickening money grab. The extreme lack of good gear in the game made gearing up a joke, and if you wanted to progress you could either put in 100000000000 hours to MAYBE get an item you needed that MAYBE rolled the stats you needed in MAYBE the right amount. Awful, awful design.

 

[Aeshi]

It was NOTHING but a sickening money grab. The extreme lack of good gear in the game made gearing up a joke, and if you wanted to progress you could either put in 100000000000 hours to MAYBE get an item you needed that MAYBE rolled the stats you needed in MAYBE the right amount. Awful, awful design.

That was true for the first week or so (if that), then they buffed the drop rates so insanely the game just fucking vomits good loot (I once went through 3 different weapons in 5 minutes because better ones kept dropping), and Loot 2.0 isn't even out yet.

And that's if we decide that the "I can't beat the game, it must be P2W and nothing at all to do with the fact that I can't use 2 buttons and breathe at the same time." crowd needs to be listened to instead of stamped on.

 

[Demandred20]

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)

Ever heard of free game with WoW subscription? Considering wow had about 11 million subs back then its not exactly a wild guess where most of the sales came from. And it even kept the awful cataclysm expansion from turning into a subscription freefall as it was threatening to do.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

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.

Telling people a company is good and you should buy their stuff: sharing opinion.

Telling people a company is shite and you should avoid their content: "pushing your agenda on others".

Your post makes me giggle.

You're trying to force others to stay away from something they may enjoy because of your own personal opinions of the company.

 

[babinro]

A lot of people on the D3 forums point to these figures as proof that Diablo 3 is a complete failure.

It's known that over 12 million sales were made in the first month. This means that fewer than 2 million copies have sold on PC, Xbox, PS3 combined over the span of 16+ months. Given that almost everyone initially bought this off the strength of the Diablo brand, the expansion pack is going to be a guaranteed failure. Likely shipping fewer than 1 million copies globally on all platforms.

As a Diablo 3 super fanboy I'm a little more optimistic. I think RoS, the AH removal and the patches released have substantially improved the games outlook since launch. I also believe that a good portion of people who have 'quit forever' will actually revisit the game on occasion and possibly enjoy the experience. However, having well over a year of endless terrible PR and fan hate has done permanent lasting damage to this game. Many gamers won't trust a critics review since they didn't properly convey the game at launch which led gamers to feeling betrayed.

All told...I'm predicting the expansion to ship closer to 3 million copies globally on all platforms. Just under 1 in 4 initial buyers will pick it up. Whether that's considered a success or a complete failure is a matter of opinion.

 

[CygnusMal]

Held off buying it on PC for the myriad of reasons that everyone else has already listed, plus I was still burnt from my StarCraft 2 experience.

But I did end up picking it up for my 360 about 2 months ago, and it's hands-down some of the most fun I've had with a game in years. I'm one of those gamers for whom Diablo I and II were defining moments for me - heck, I almost failed out of college my freshman I played so much Diablo.

I never thought I'd end up loving another Blizzard game after their departure to the world of MMOs and a lack luster Starcraft, but I've never been so happy to be wrong.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Well, I'd love to check the source cited, but all it does is lead to a grey blank page (also owned by Themis-Media).
Journalism!

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.

Wow!
It's almost as if...the conveniently dismissed "vocal minority" was absolutely right!

A lot of people on the D3 forums point to these figures as proof that Diablo 3 is a complete failure.

It's known that over 12 million sales were made in the first month. This means that fewer than 2 million copies have sold on PC, Xbox, PS3 combined over the span of 16+ months. Given that almost everyone initially bought this off the strength of the Diablo brand, the expansion pack is going to be a guaranteed failure. Likely shipping fewer than 1 million copies globally on all platforms.

Aye.

http://diablo.somepage.com/news/1489-activision-blizzard-q4-2012-earnings-report

12 million sales by the end of Q4 (Feb 2013). At least 10 million of those were by August of 2012 according to Blizzard.
Meaning that its sales rate fell off a cliff at least within ~2.5 months of launch.

Unlike my quoted colleague, I have absolutely no faith left in the Diablo series, or Blizzard.
The Always-Online bullshit more or less rendered me unable to play their games without great tedium thanks to my shitty ISP and their local monopoly. Besides, what I've seen of D3 from others (online and first hand) I'm not missing anything except a lot of grind.

I find no problem with people sharing their experiences about stuff, and actively promoting the good or bad about it.
Its called capitolism.

A more accurate term would be "advocacy". Though I'm sure someone else can find one that's even more accurate than that.

 

[Mr.Wizard]

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.

I admit that actively campaigning against Blizzard is stupid, but you can't really say they didn't force anyone to use the auction houses. Blizzard admitted they made the game worse, mostly because the loot drop system was built around the concept that people would be using the auction houses.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

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.

Telling people a company is good and you should buy their stuff: sharing opinion.

Telling people a company is shite and you should avoid their content: "pushing your agenda on others".

Your post makes me giggle.

You're trying to force others to stay away from something they may enjoy because of your own personal opinions of the company.

Force? I don't think you know what that word means.

It's not like I literally meant you were going to physically force them, but be snide about it all you want. All I'm saying is that actively going out of your way to make people stay away from something they may enjoy, simply because of how you feel about the company, is pretty much pushing your agenda on others. Maybe you should let your friends decide for themselves if the next expansion is worth buying. You can always say you won't be buying it and why, if they agree with your views then there you go, if not then you should just leave it. I'm sure they're smart enough to figure it out for themselves.

 

[tzimize]

It was NOTHING but a sickening money grab. The extreme lack of good gear in the game made gearing up a joke, and if you wanted to progress you could either put in 100000000000 hours to MAYBE get an item you needed that MAYBE rolled the stats you needed in MAYBE the right amount. Awful, awful design.

That was true for the first week or so (if that), then they buffed the drop rates so insanely the game just fucking vomits good loot (I once went through 3 different weapons in 5 minutes because better ones kept dropping), and Loot 2.0 isn't even out yet.

And that's if we decide that the "I can't beat the game, it must be P2W and nothing at all to do with the fact that I can't use 2 buttons and breathe at the same time." crowd needs to be listened to instead of stamped on.

I'm a bit unclear on what you're saying. How much did you play? How far? I'm pretty damn sure you didnt progress through 3 different weapons in 5 minutes when you started playing on inferno/monster power levels. Before that, gear is really a non-issue because the game is so stupid easy. And honestly, diablo 3 gameplay is NOT rocket science. Its not a skill game. Your toon has few skills and few possibilities (mid combat) since you cant switch skills/strategy without a stupid break. If you got the gear, the game is a walk in the park, if you dont, its not.

Drop rates in Diablo 3 have been and still are a joke. The only reason its been a success on the console is because the loot was tweaked for no AH play. If you got the gear to farm on MP10 then its probably decent, but if you got that kinda gear....well....you havent been farming the game for it I can tell you that.

 

[geizr]

I have to wonder what percentage of those sells are gold sellers repurchasing the game for new accounts after getting banned for botting.

 

[geizr]

It was NOTHING but a sickening money grab. The extreme lack of good gear in the game made gearing up a joke, and if you wanted to progress you could either put in 100000000000 hours to MAYBE get an item you needed that MAYBE rolled the stats you needed in MAYBE the right amount. Awful, awful design.

That was true for the first week or so (if that), then they buffed the drop rates so insanely the game just fucking vomits good loot (I once went through 3 different weapons in 5 minutes because better ones kept dropping), and Loot 2.0 isn't even out yet.

And that's if we decide that the "I can't beat the game, it must be P2W and nothing at all to do with the fact that I can't use 2 buttons and breathe at the same time." crowd needs to be listened to instead of stamped on.

I'm a bit unclear on what you're saying. How much did you play? How far? I'm pretty damn sure you didnt progress through 3 different weapons in 5 minutes when you started playing on inferno/monster power levels. Before that, gear is really a non-issue because the game is so stupid easy. And honestly, diablo 3 gameplay is NOT rocket science. Its not a skill game. Your toon has few skills and few possibilities (mid combat) since you cant switch skills/strategy without a stupid break. If you got the gear, the game is a walk in the park, if you dont, its not.

Drop rates in Diablo 3 have been and still are a joke. The only reason its been a success on the console is because the loot was tweaked for no AH play. If you got the gear to farm on MP10 then its probably decent, but if you got that kinda gear....well....you havent been farming the game for it I can tell you that.

I think I can second that point about the gear for mp10 inferno farming. I have precisely 2 pieces of gear remaining that were actual drops which I use farming mp10. The rest were gold AH purchases. The distribution and nature of the drops were such that it is prohibitive to simply farm the gear on your own. It's doable, and people have done it. However, it is a frustrating task.

Of course, now that I can actually farm mp10, I don't care much about gear or the AH, which has caused me to not care much about the game because it doesn't really provide any interesting content. The entire game is just completely unmotivated. About the only good thing I can say about it is that, once you take out the AH, the current state of the game is nothing but a framework for a future game. However, it remains to be seen whether that future game is any good.

 

[Branindain]

I was excited for D3 for the longest time leading up to launch. However, I read enough about it before purchase to realise it wasn't the game I had hoped for and I pulled away from it. Balance issues related to the Auction House and low difficulty on first playthrough being the main points. With these issues removed, I purchased the PS3 version just last week and my son, my wife & I are playing 3-player local co-op. The game lacks the magic of Diablo I & II, but then, neither of them had 3-player local co-op, and it's a more than serviceable hack-and-slash. Blizzard has lost their lustre for me in the past couple of years, but I give them full credit for fixing their broken game and putting out a console port which is superior, gameplay-wise, to the original.

 

[Aeshi]

I'm a bit unclear on what you're saying. How much did you play? How far?

About 80 hours on my Witch Doctor, just over double that with my Demon Hunter, I did a few MP10 runs but got bored because I had already beat Inferno and the achievements don't really care about MP, and now they're removing the AH the only reason I would go back would be if Reaper of Souls contains a video of the person responsible for that choice being run over.
.

I'm pretty damn sure you didnt progress through 3 different weapons in 5 minutes when you started playing on inferno/monster power levels.

It was about 25% of the way through Act IV Inferno (no MP I'll admit). Killed an Elite pack, found a better weapon than what I had. Found a better weapon than that on the next Unique, and the next Elite Pack after that dropped the "final" weapon. Uncommonly lucky I admit, but nevertheless proof that

Feel free to not believe me, since that event will exist regardless.
.

Before that, gear is really a non-issue because the game is so stupid easy.

If gear is a non-issue, why are you complaining about it? This basically turns your original post into "Good gear is basically impossible to get (but said gear doesn't matter in any meaningful way anyway)"
.

And honestly, diablo 3 gameplay is NOT rocket science. Its not a skill game. Your toon has few skills and few possibilities (mid combat) since you cant switch skills/strategy without a stupid break.

D3 requires you to be capable of moving and attacking at the same time. That's more skill than either of the previous games take (D2 and D1 can be pretty much mastered by any object heavy enough to weigh down the attack button)
.

If you got the gear, the game is a walk in the park, if you dont, its not.

Pretty sure you just contradicted yourself there.
.

Drop rates in Diablo 3 have been and still are a joke.

In the sense that the good stuff is now far too easy to get, I'll grant you that.
.

The only reason its been a success on the console is because the loot was tweaked for no AH play.

The Console version was a success? That's (sad) news to me. From what I'd heard it flopped miserably
.

If you got the gear to farm on MP10 then its probably decent, but if you got that kinda gear....well....you havent been farming the game for it I can tell you that.

It turns out that when you're not another lemming who tries to facetank Arcane Sentries and thinks the glowing red and green patches of mist on the ground are disco lights, the quality of the gear you need to have to succeed drops dramatically

 

[Snotnarok]

How many regret buying it out of that 14 million? Probably around half, I know I freaking do. |:

 

[Kinitawowi]

Was one of those who got it in the first week and I've had nothing but love for it. I can't even make myself hate the auction house (the gold one, at least; the RMAH is completely pointless). Got a stashload of loot to pass on to the other characters so I wasn't desperately scrabbling for things off the AH, and it's only the lack of time (caused by, y'know, a day job) that's stopped me doing anything resembling worthwhile farming.

The always online requirement is silly, but not usually unbearable, and I'm aware that most of the time when the game lags like a ***** it's because most of the eight people in my house are torrenting/playing CoD/otherwise thrashing the internet and something's got to give. Yes, it makes hardcore unplayable, which is why I'm not playing that until I move out.

Reflects Damage can still go fuck itself, though. No game should ever exist in such a state that the biggest threat to your survival comes from yourself.