Blizzard's Quarterly Earnings Call: D3 sold 8.8m

[Moraven]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/...to-9-1-Million

Notes

· 16.9 million Battle.net users, up from 10 million just 3 months ago.
· 10 million D3 copies sold, with 1.2 million of those from the Annual Pass.
· Most of the WoW Subscription losses were from the East.
· Losses are from people playing Diablo 3 and leaving until the new expansion.
· 4.7 million people watched the event at MLG for Heart of the Swarm.
· Mists of Pandaria will utilize TV and online ads leading up to the launch.
· The China launch Mists of Pandaria will launch as soon as possible, not likely in Q3.

Last quarter WoW lost no subscribers but gained none. Last year before that they lost 1.8million over the year.
There has been no new content since November 29th, 2011. While patch 4.3 had quite a bit of content, with Transmog, DMF, Raid, 3 new heroics, they basically put everything into the expansion instead of including any small new transition raid like they did with Wrath > Cata (although only 1 boss). Other than small updates and balance changes, twice it took them a full year to transition from major content releases. I understand an expansion is a lot more than patch content, you can't expect a portion of you playerbase to stay interested for so long.

I play off and on and avoid burning myself out as quickly as others. Looking for Raid gives everyone an option to see basic versions of Raids and if that is all of raiding they see, they get bored of it fast. MoP they aim to hopefully give you more options to do things (5man Challenge modes being most interesting in, more daily quest grinds, not so much. Will have to just take them at a casual pace)

Seems what happened to TOR was people were consuming what little end game there was and had nothing else to do.

Another part of the problem is players consume the game content at such blazing speeds and I feel takes away from actually enjoying playing the game and interacting with others. But such as in D3, its to grind as fast as possible to the Best in Slot so I can show the internet how great they are.

*Disclaimer - I have enjoyed all Blizzard games. Not everyone will nor expect them to!

[NathanH]

8.8 million enemies of gaming!

[trjp]

10 million actual sales (buying a year of WoW to get Diablo III 'free' is buying Diablo III in my book) is astonishing.

You could probably add-up the sales of every 'Diablo-a-like' game for the last 5 years and not get that ;)

[vinraith]

How very, very sad.

[Sunjumper]

How very, very sad.

Pretty much this.
So many people voted with their wallet in favour of one of the worst possible systems to interact with a custumer.

[Spider Jerusalem]

lemmings gon lem.

[Frenetic Pony]

How very, very sad.

Perhaps it's because people are so desperate for a game that's not Call of Gears 50 that they're more than willing to pay $60 just based on a name alone. Too bad they got gypped so badly.

[arathain]

I still enjoy it.

[FriendlyFire]

How very, very sad.

I'm surprised you haven't already been lambasted by those 8.8 million fans.

However, I'll fully agree with you. This isn't going to make Blizzard change, quite the contrary.

[Moraven]

Expect the Subs to be gained in 3 months. Happens at the end of every WoW expansion. This is nothing new really.

I was most interested seeing those D3 numbers.

[pkt-zer0]

Pretty much this.
So many people voted with their wallet in favour of one of the worst possible systems to interact with a custumer.

I don't think that's the vote people cast. But rather that, in practice, it's not actually that bad.

It didn't really bother me much, personally. And being a bit co-op shy, it was cool that I could take my existing character online, and not have to start over.

[Heliocentric]

How very, very sad.

This, I actually feel embarrassed for the gaming public at large.

[b0rsuk]

Look at it this way: ActivisionBlizzard takes 8,800,000 points of brand damage they deserve. For many people D3 turned out to be an unpleasant surprise. Torchlight 2 will do the opposite, it will be a pleasant surprise for the few people that decide to buy it.

[Drake Sigar]

If you're saying Blizzard lost massive credibility and that will affect the sales of their other products if they choose to use the same system, I doubt it. I've been strongly against DRM for 7 years, I know how this whole dance goes. :/

[eel]

Why is it that you people refuse to acknowledge the incredible success of their DRM? Up to this day, several months after the release, only the first act of their game has been cracked. This is fantastic. Sure, the security measures are even more irritating than usual, but if you were to compare it with your typical DRM that's cracked on day one and serves absolutely no purpose at all, this is a giant leap forward and at arguably low price.

I can fully understand people who still dislike this form of DRM. It's intrusive, harms the experience and is simply unfair to honest users. Thing is, as I was reading through most of D3 related comments on RPS, no one even bothered to mention that it works. It's as if most of you thought that Blizzard is doing it just for the sake of bad PR.

[frightlever]

I'd rather there was a simple standalone single-player game of D3, but having to log in to my almost exclusively single player game wasn't exactly a chore once it settled down. And the fact I was logging into an on-line infrastructure meant I did eventually have a blast playing drop-in games with friends that I probably wouldn't have bothered with otherwise.

All this "enemies of PC gaming" nonsense is just that, non-sense. If you don't like what Blizzard did with their DRM scheme that's entirely your right, but you don't get to decide every facet of PC gaming. If you're going to, on the one hand approve the openness of PC gaming then you can't on the other hand draw a line in the sand over how one publisher/developer chooses to release their game. It's THEIR game, their decision and their consequences to deal with, be they good or bad.

And I tell you what, I replayed about 20 levels of Torchlight as a Valkyrie last weekend and I hope they've improved the combat in Torchlight 2 because compared to D3, Torchlight felt antique.

I've pretty much stopped playing D3 - the AH requirements for the second half of Inferno have largely killed the game for me, so I probably won't "finish" it. But I easily got my money's worth out of it, and I'll be leaving it installed to see what they patch in.

If you don't want to kowtow to the DRM then don't, but blaming players for playing a game is approaching the problem from the wrong direction. You need to sort out why you care so much that somebody else is enjoying a game you, presumably, haven't even played.

[NathanH]

Frightlever is an enemy of gaming!

[gundato]

I don't like the Diablo DRM, but I am also old enough to remember when people made posts like this about Valve and Steam.

Right now, my biggest complaints about the DRM model are:
Unstable servers - I think they fixed this already, and that won't be an issue in the future (to a large degree)
Downright idiotic delays - There was a week where you couldn't get past act 1 (so about 3 hours, I have been told) until 48 hours (?) after you had legally purchased the game. This is stupidity that will be resolved
Always-online - I don't like this, but I am also mature enough to admit that I basically leave Steam on whenever my computer is on.
Even affects the SP game - Okay, that still pisses me off, but I view that more as a design decision by Blizzard to merge SP and MP.

I suspect that in a few years, future games that use a similar DRM model won't be too much of an inconvenience for anyone with a good and stable internet connection. And if you don't have one: I am sorry, but that is basically a requirement these days (it is even on the box :p), but GoG still has plenty of awesome games without this requirement.

[arathain]

I like being an enemy of gaming. It makes me feel important and gives meaning to my otherwise largely insignificant life. It even comes with the unexpected perk of still letting me play all the games I enjoy. I hope nobody notices and cuts me off.

[Nalano]

I'd rather there was a simple standalone single-player game of D3, but having to log in to my almost exclusively single player game wasn't exactly a chore once it settled down.

Proof that people can get used to anything.

Now let's start charging service fees for customer support on our broken game. Oh, sure, they'll hate it for the first month...