NEWSFLASH: As a game advertised as a game with free online play, as D2 was advertised, and as D2r is a “REMAKE” [cosmetically] of the same game then YES it should stay as such. And the argument that D2R doesn’t make any money is one a lie and two, holds no water. A company doesn’t invest in one product it sells, it invests int he company. D2r is part of the D franchise and is thus supported by monies made by the franchise. Any other excuse is yet another try at a money grab .
Your “company employee” point of view is why games get thrown by the wayside and how money-grabs happen. D2R is a far superior product then anything in the entire franchise, let’s not forget that.
There is no denying the fact that the game has already made them the money it’s going to make them. That being said, the game no longer makes them a substantial amount of money. To “the suits” and more importantly the shareholders they are working for, that’s what matters in determining if there is a need for continued development of the game.
As far as life support for the game? Yes, I will agree with that. Premium level support? Absolutely not.
Money makes the world spin… Try not to fool yourself in thinking otherwise.
I mean he is right though? D2 doesn’t make money with the exceptions of ban waves it has already sold 99.95% of what it ever will sell.
Meanwhile D2 is not their most superior product, even though I love it and think it is great and the best in the diablo series, it certainly isn’t their most profitable product and at best it is equal to their other products in terms of beat well made.
Broodwar and WoW, and WC, OW, Hearthstone are all excellent products. And while their other ventures such as D3 D4 Heros of the Storm, SC2 are all inferior products it doesn’t suddenly change the fact that they have many other great products, listed in the first part above, that all generate more revenue and interest than D2. Hell even their inferior products generate more revenue than D2.
I mean some of these are just proven facts where you’re flat wrong. D2 has already sold the vast majority of the copies it ever will sell. And continual support for other games is far more likely to generate additional revenue.
As for the superiority of the product, the only objective measure we have is sales which can only be assumed by playerbase, which those other games are far greater in number. As for the subjective part of personal preference yes you clearly have an arguement, but your opinion is subjective, the numbers fit a different narrative.
And as for actively generating revenue the products listed have playerbases that are larger and could get more friends to try those games, so they win there financially. They also tend to have esports associated with them, which generates revenue something D2 hasn’t been a part of. There is also the fact that WoW has a subscription which clears everyone. And then IIRC HOTS and Hearthstone have a few micro transaction options which fund them as well. Meanwhile the only thing that brings any notable funding for D2 is ban waves which doesn’t compare to the rest of the games normal funding nor their ban waves either.
So, you really don’t have a leg to stand on with most of those facts and the things that are subjective, you certainly have the right to your personal opinion, but the numbers don’t agree with your subjective opinion.
I’m not sure what you mean by “most of us disagree with you” because most of what was written is just facts. And even the subjective things I’m not sure you have a group of people backing you where you could easily claim “most of us” for the sake of the argument at the moment it is just me talking to you? Are you including the voices in you head or something?
There are a whole lot of people in this world who think that believing/agreeing with something makes it true, even if it isn’t true… And vice versa. Then there’s “common sense”, which is also lacking in a larger part of the population.
If keeping their heads in the sand makes them comfortable, let 'em keep doing it.
To officially put all the old game from bnet 1.0 to 2.0
Boost Diablo IP for Diablo 4
Earn some extra cash
However, with how D4 is doing right now(pretty dead) they really have no reason to do anything for D2R anymore, but to keep it in maintenance mode, same as D3.
I do want to share here that as a business, the Diablo franchise is an intangible asset to Blizzard. The name alone will attract attention and Blizzard is now in the business of directing your attention more than it is at selling you content via marketing. Prime example is the battle.net app.
In my opinion, Diablo 2 is also the core game of the franchise. Blizzard should invest in this title as it did by bringing Diablo 1 to the bnet app with the hopes of attracting more players to D4.
What I as an investor frown upon is how they are handling older titles with little support. If a company like Blizzard is not cherishing their old IPs with great care, then why should I invest my time in any new future Blizzard titles? They have not proven to me that they can make amazing experiences like the old Blizzard used to with Starcraft, warcraft and D2. OW2 meh, D4, not ready yet. I am only interested in playing their classic games because nothing they have comes close to it. Newer Blizzard games are made for a different audience.
My argument is if you won’t take care of your old titles, I won’t invest in your future titles. I just don’t have the time for that anymore.
Look at how Nintendo kept supporting its top titles during the GameCube era, they used the profits from past sales as well as profits from the Game Boy Advance to keep creating wonderful games for a failing consol. I truly respect Nintendo for doing that.
Both Sony and MS sell consols at a loss, because they support the development of good quality game titles.
It looks like Blizzard is taking everything they have left and throwing it at D4 and letting all other IPs suffer, not just D2r.
Problem is…Diablo was not the original Idea by Blizzard. It was an idea of a super tiny game studio called Condor, Condor reached out to Blizzard because they had no logistics to sell the game, The game, Diablo ended up selling under the name of Blizzard North. After the success of D1, the Blizzard North team continued with D2, which was an even bigger hit. Unfortunately Blizzard North and Blizzard itself didn’t get along, so the Blizzard North team quit Blizzard.
D3 was done by Blizzard itself, trying to prove that they are better than Blizzard North, after the success of WOW, and ended up with a big flop, and wasn’t redeemed until its expansion. D4 is another push by Blizzard which results in a bigger flop, destroying the IP altogether.
I think Blizzard now will have more success by buying out smaller companies than trying to make new IP’s. All evidence shows that they have had better sucess with this practice. They recently cancelled their newest IP and I don’t blame them. When a company this big tries to make something special, it usually does not work like they think it will. They have too many restrictions, public image and baggage to be successful.
As far as the Diablo franchise, the Blizzard of now’s plan seems to be to release a half baked game and continue forging it with the hammer and anvil of the player base.
Long gone are the times where Blizzard, or honestly a lot of gaming studios release a (mostly) polished game. I guess I can’t blame them, they’re getting free guidance and game testing from the player community, which to them is far too valuable of an asset to not take advantage of.
big companies are in a bad spot right now when they look at the amount they need to invest into AAA titles and the profit compared to those crappy mobile games with microtransactions. What you said is also true that big companies are more bonded by numerous restrictions, stupid LGBTQ and woke-related BS, and risk management, which is why the majority of the good games are released by small or unknown studios, as they have nothing to lose.
You bring up very good points. Companies today have access to free publicity, beta testers via streamers and “early access”. Heck, there are consumers who are willing to spend cash just to play a game a few days early on untested servers! How crazy is that? But can you blame a company for taking advantage of such free opportunities?
Back in the day, game studios would PAY people to test their games… Not anymore… Just release the game in a buggy state, and let those that PAY FOR THE GAME be the testers.
A dollar saved is a dollar earned. More money for big bucks Kotick. (When he was running things.) The guy is a greedy weasel, but he knows how to make money.
Delusional take. I get that we all love D2, but it is in no way the core game. Not that their really is one specific core game, but D2 is probably the least sold for the time period it was made and has been far surpassed by the newer titles. Starcraft, WoW easily are the bigger titles. Not to mention WARCRAFT 3 in reality probably sold more copies to individual considering D2 and LOD had uses for multiple copies.
Not sure if you’re an actual investor or pretending to be one because you’ve bought their titles, but either way they’re doing what gets real investors money. You might not like the quality of their work and I agree with you, but that isn’t an “investor” worry. They’re still banking hard. And as for what the future of the IP’s holds we have no idea. Microsoft IMO has been good for gaming maybe they breathe more life into old titles, but also plenty of companies leave the past in the past and have no issues. Neither is a strong indicator of what the future will bring.
As they’ve lost your support, they’re now 60 dollars less on the billions they fall asleep on every night. Sorry, but building games like you and me want isn’t nearly as profitable as doing what they’re doing. I think it might be the smarter move, but financially isn’t promised to be better. If D4 was developed like D2 and was much much better, even though that would cost a lot more, there wouldn’t be so many additional new players to justify that cost.
They sell them at a loss because they know they’re going to make it up on their game sales cut, it isn’t some support system for game devs…
In the end I do agree somewhat, that making quality should be much more of a focus and cleaning up all the games and titles they own would be a good move. I think focusing on making great games instead of making a lot of money will probably result in similar money, but a much larger fan base that MAY be more primed to spend extra money because of those benefits. I’m not sure the investors would ever see it that way, nor the board at Acti-Trash-Blizz, but maybe microsoft turns it around a bit. -
The problem is that they said they were going to keep updating it as a means to convince people it was worth it to buy the remaster. They didn’t say here is more polish enjoy.
Keep updating doesn’t mean keep updating forever, you have to be delusional if you think a game who doesn’t bring in any money would keep getting updates, you are silly.
I am hopeful for their lack of doing anything but a reset. It’s a step in the “right” direction!!!
They didn’t add anymore overpowered runewords.
They didn’t add any functions to help and/or encourage botters/RMT’rs, like SP /players x command online.
They didn’t break anything else.
WOW, maybe this will discourage the RMT’rs/botters a bit. One can only hope!!!
Yes, definitely a step in the right direction.
Kudos on a great decision for once!
Now, a list of short term fixes:
Assign a monitor for chat and ban the hell out of chatroom RMT spammers and RMT titled game spammers.
After consistent bans, fix chat back the way it was and allow people to make chatrooms.
Make hostility a mutual thing. That way pvpers can pvp and pvm players won’t be harassed.
Reseparate the realms as they were to discourage combined realm RMTing/botting.
Long term:
Balance.
Remove overpowered runewords like mosaic, enigma, etc. Make Uniques and Rares powerful again. Do a little more with Sets to make them desirable again. Tone down the over-buffs.
CONSIDER, the possibility of adding and ex-pack to D2/D2R. The game is still alive after all these years and is a good promotion for the series. You could even sell the ex-pack and make a little money. The market is still viable.
Reconsider Sunder Charms and the whole TZ thing.
