No, they don't really have what it takes anymore. Even if the people who felt wronged don't buy games from Blizzard anymore, the gaming industry is growing, so they'd be replaced by the simple fact that a big company can advertise good enough. This is why for example EA is going still good finance wise.
On the last question though. Because people are naive or stupid. Or both.
oh you naive folks thinking diablo will actually ever have pvp
Well, a lot of people are willing to buy CoD:15 even if it's nearly the exact same as the first 14. My brother admits he will buy any CoD they release because "it's gotta be better than the last one." When you can repackage the best selling game of all time and get even MORE people to buy it the next year you really don't have much to worry about.
On a company level I'd say the damages are low but for a individual title it can be big, people find alternatives and don't look back, so for D3 it's bad when the player ends up being that disappointed but for the next big Blizzard title it won't make much difference.
Sub numbers are not expansion sales. The first week of mists sales were extremely poor, their were threads all over this forum about it. It is as far as I'm aware the first time an expansion has failed to outsell it's predecessor which does indeed suggest that Blizzard is not immune from the effects of a poor showing (cataclysm), The subs going over a million is more likely the result of chinese resubs and a a handful of players buying the expansion back in and is not expected to hold according to several analysts.
call me a debbie downer but i cant even imagine that it would be all that fun in the first place. i love pvp, its basically all i ever did in WoW and every other mmo ive played to date. the pve side of the game has never interested me as much as the pvp does. that being said there is nothing remotely interesting about d3 pvp. personal opinion of course, but it seems far too much reliant on ones ability to farm gold, or buying items with real money. essentially making it a buy 2 win type of game. again just my own .02
I always chuckle when analysts are thrown in the mix.
Anyway considering that blizz are working on a MOBA game/ have a team dealing with WOW pvp and balancing and another working on SC2 balance one would think they could devise a pvp system for D3 if they really put their heads together, but no...
So not selling better than the last expansion or breaking a sales record automatically makes sales anemic? The only figure I've seen for MoP sales is 2.7 million for the first day. I don't consider that to be weak sales. Whether it's more or less than the previous expansion is irrelevant. 2.7 million is an impressive figure.
Tying this back into the original topic, Blizzard will continue this feature pulling stuff across all their titles until people are willing to push back by not buying their products. Railing on them on the forums won't do any good when people won't stop throwing money at them.
Wrath of the Lich King was released on November 13, 2008, selling 2.8 million copies within the first 24 hours of availability. This made it the fastest selling computer game of all time, beating the record set by the previous World of Warcraft expansion The Burning Crusade, which sold 2.4 million within its first 24 hours. It later lost its rank as number one after the third expansion set, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, which was released on December 7, 2010, and had sold over 3.3 million copies within its first 24 hours on the market.
We're not talking about a small deviation from the peek here.
2.7 million the first WEEK for MoP. Get your facts together. It is absolutely relevant to compare between expansion. As much as you like to dismiss it. My suspicion is that diablo expansion sales and (as much as I enjoyed Sc2) HoTS sales will also not be that amazing. People are already begining to push back and not buy their products. The best is yet to come in terms of that though.
http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company...tml?id=7473409
Last edited by Leonard McCoy; 2012-12-30 at 04:43 AM.
You also have to take WoW's popularity into consideration...most games struggle just to get 1 million copies sold...WoW sells over 2 million copies in just a week. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 2.7 million copies sold is in no way "anemic", just because it's less than the previous expansion. Yes, it's less than the previous expansion, but it's INSANELY more than the majority of games today. Very few games manage to sell millions of copies in the first week of release.
It's must less than the previous expansions. MUCH MUCH less. 2.7 million in a week vs 2.8 million in a DAY. They maybe sold what 700k in a day for mists? You don't think that's aenemic for a wow release? Well the suits will I'll tell you that much. Yes I know Blizzard can't do anything wrong and their just much better than everybody else. Look I could name a bunch of games that sold millions in the first week as well, it's actually fairly common for AAA titles. Or whatever Blizzard is infallible, people will continue to buy their bullshit (like pvp blogs and fuck that loser) and nothing can be done about it. I don't get what people are arguing about? Do you honestly think that people will continue to buy Blizzards shit they shovel your way? Well I hope not. If people do well then their fucking suckers and their born every minute apparently.
So we're comparing sale speed now? And ooh, the same amount in a day VS the same amount in a week. That's such a business-destroying difference. Did WOTLK continue to sell 2.8 million copies every single day after release? No? Didn't think so.
What does it matter if everyone buys it on release day, or everyone buys it slowly throughout a week? They're still selling the same amount of copies.
Again, 700k sales every single day for a week is amazing compared to most games.
Yeesh, for someone who hates Blizzard so much, why are you even here? =/