Something I've Never Done Before

Never attempted to access Diablo II’s game files.
Never used any kind of script on bnet.
Never purchased my gear.
Never used a mod.

My level of skill was developed via trial and error and playing with other players with similar gaming principles.

Likely goes for most of us. Cheaters are easily noticeable, but they usually are a minority.

I like to believe that. Especially because most of the people I personally know who play or played D2, do so on singleplayer. Battlenet is just a fraction of the actual playerbase (although it’s impossible to have an statistical grasp of how representative that fraction is, it’s valid to consider that D2 was sold pretty much in the whole world, but only a few countries actually have battle.net servers close by for a lag-free, or almost, experience), and the people who do things like buying gear and botting are primarily on battle.net.

Of course, on singleplayer you will still have your average hero editor user and such.

A couple of years ago Blizzard removed the feature that said how many players were playing D2 on bnet. The numbers at the time were 20k - 40k at any given time during the dead season of ladder. At reset, between 80k - 100k. There are 100s of 1000s of characters made every ladder that are not mules. Right now, during ladder dead season the bnet buy and sell forums on JSP have posts going up every 5 seconds 24/7. China, Korea, Australia (US West & Asia), Western Europe, Canada, Mexico and the USA all have easily accessible servers. The single player base is a good size, and the mod community has grown significantly, but they are still nothing compared to the numbers on bnet. bnet also hosts the massive pvp community.

How about the millions of people in countries like mine, who can’t really have a good connection to battlenet? My country has the world’s second largest gaming population and Diablo II is a fairly popular game here. I would say there are at least a couple million enjoying it offline right now.

Brazil?..

Yep. Brazil beats most european markets in gaming population, and latin america has a huge number. Plus, older games like D2 are really popular here because it can run in any PC and very few people here can actually afford high end PCs.

Correcting myself: It’s the worlds 3rd largest gaming population, not the 2nd

Really? Brazil doesn’t even register. And the idea that Brazil owns 1/5 of all copies of D2 is silly.
https://financesonline.com/number-of-gamers-worldwide/

I can’t post links here due to the forum social credits, but my sources say there are over 60 million gamers here, making it the worlds’s 3rd largest gaming population.

Unfortunately, there’s a huge piracy culture here though (our law doesn’t even treat software piracy as a crime, only as an infraction, unless you are a company), especially for old games like D2, so I would say very few people here actually own a copy. I’m just saying they play the game.

This has been changing recently with things like Steam offering games at more competitive prices, thankfully. I’m radically against piracy.

You can post a link the same way I can.

I tried, it literally gives me a pop up saying “Sorry, you can’t include links in your posts.”

I have been banned from this forum twice in the last few months.

Highlight the link and click </> in the tool bar.

[Spotlight: Brazil's gaming industry aims for the next level - BNamericas](https://www.bnamericas.com/en/features/spotlight-brazils-gaming-industry-aims-for-the-next-level--)

As for D2, Germany is the second largest demographic to the US.

Notice, I’m talking about sheer player numbers, not consumer markets. As I said, unfortunately, piracy is a serious issue here, with 48% of game copies being pirates (for D2, I’d say that nears the 90% area, people here treat old games as “abandonware” even if they aren’t)

Possibly true if you only count legit copies of the game.

I see your point though. I was talking about people playing the game without cheating in the game itself, but playing a pirated game is just as invalid.

Overall I love my country and wouldn’t leave even if they put me at gunpoint telling me to do so, and I hope this whole “piracy is the smart thing to do” culture goes away (it has been much better than it was in the mid 2000’s so I’m optimistic it will).

Brazil has 22 million gamers. That’s impressive, but small comparatively. From the link I provided.
How many active video gamers were there in 2020?

As earlier mentioned, China has 665 million gamers in 2020, the biggest number of gamers in the APAC region and the world (Statista, 2020). This translated to $40.85 billion in revenue for 2020. Although the 2018 license freeze slowed down the YoY growth rate, the Chinese gaming market was still able to post a modest from $36.5 billion in 2019 (Newzoo, 2020).

The US trails China with over 244 million gamers (NPD Group, 2020). The figures vary depending on the source and demographics counted but it is estimated that 3 out of 4 Americans play video games on various consoles with more than half playing on mobile phones.

Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Germany complete the top 5 biggest gaming markets.

I believe your numbers to be honest. The source I found is actually pretty biased since it was an affirmation from the organized of Brazil’s biggest gaming event.

I still believe there should be at least half a million people playing D2 here, in different levels of commitment. I don’t think I’ve ever went to a gaming cafe here and didn’t see at least 2 people playing D2. I’m just talking out of my gut though. The game does leave a strong impression around here.

It can’t even compete with games like Counter Strike tho.

A fun little story a long time ago, I was looking at the assassin leaderboards in the softcore USEast ladder, and the name on top was in portuguese. I messaged the guy and he was brazillian. We became friends and he gave me a SoJ lol

I love Brazil, too, though I’ve never been. I have an aquarium sitting behind me with 6 fish in it, 4 of which I know for sure were born in Brazilian rivers. I hope one day to visit and do an eccotour of the Rio Xingu and see one of my most favorite fishes in it’s natural environment - Hypancistrus zebra :heart_eyes:

My grandfather used to fish there lol

Was/is your grandfather indigenous to one of the river tribes? It’s believed that the dam will bring the Zebra pleco to extinction, and it is now a protected species that is thankfully being reproduced in captivity.