Easy fix. They dedicate one server for people like you and you get no more seasons or updates.
Problem solved.
Well, maybe. I doubt there would be enough interest for paying a sub regardless for Blizzard to be enticed by the prospect.
By the time a D3R would be a thing I would imagine 60-70 bucks for a remaster would be standard.
Yet received that continued development. The thing that was cancelled was specifically the stuff that would bring in new money.
D4 is selling partly because of D3, just like D3 was selling partly because of D2.
Yeah, a few new items or a temporary buff every 4-5 months. Things that could get done with a skeleton crew.
Of course, that’s how brands work. The intent is rarely if ever to make a product that can’t generate profit by itself and rather produce hype for the next product though.
The products already did generate a profit on their own. That is different from having to keep generating anything.
Continued, clearly. Most companies drop a product when it no longer sells.
Only companies who hate existing would do that. Which to be fair, you sometimes get an impression a few of them do. Many companies know that brands matter.
Really? A product that doesn’t sell (well) tends to be pulled from the shelves, at best you can hope for the items in inventory to be sold, but a lot of the times the inventory is just discarded.
You are talking about selling them, when the topic was supporting them (in D3s case with content or patches).
My old phone still receives updates, so does my old TV, my monitor got a firmware update recently, and so on. Even though the companies are not selling them anymore. Phones indirectly got MTX I guess, so you will probably argue it doesn’t qualify, but my TV sure doesn’t.
They are still very much selling D3 however. It likely still turns a profit every single year.
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Then they aren’t very old.
Seeing as I started it with the line “Most companies drop a product when it no longer sells.”, no it’s not.
Well, phone appears to be 7 years old, and TV 4 years old. More than enough that they arent produced anymore at least.
Your “drop a product” was in direct response to a talk about continued development…
Anyway, point just is, a lot of people seem to have naïve views on business decisions. Smart companies don’t just abandon products the moment they arent selling. That would be self-destructive.
Nor are games usually taken of the shelf, you can still buy games that are 3-4 decades old. Not selling them serves very little purpose, even if they only sell a handful of copies each year.
Why did Blizzard stop supporting HoTS and SC2 development? 
Why did Blizzard still support those old games like Hearthstorm WoW and keep making expansions at insane rates for these games?
I wonder what is the rea $ on for them to do that.
SC2 had its latest patch in January 2023.
Plenty of online only titles that are actually dead, unable to be played.
You will play monetization platform 4 and you will enjoy it!
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Sure. Still a tiny fraction of games. Hence, ‘usually’.
Doubt it will be “usually” for much longer, online only will be the norm fairly soon I reckon.