The 2019 ActiBlizz Annual Report:
For the year ended December 31, 2019, our top three franchises—Call of Duty, Candy Crush, and World of Warcraft—collectively accounted for 67% of our net revenues. No other franchise comprised 10% or more of our net revenues
The 2014 ActiBlizz AR:
Blizzard’s net revenues increased for 2014, as compared to 2013, primarily due to revenues from Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, which was released in March 2014 on the PC, and Diablo III: Reaper of Souls—Ultimate Evil Edition, which was released in August 2014 on certain consoles.
Diablo 3 numbers:
By May 2013, Diablo III had been played by 14.5 million unique players and had sold over 30 million copies worldwide by August 2015.
World of Warcraft numbers in that same time frame (official per ActiBlizz report):
At December 31, 2014, the global subscriber base for World of Warcraft was over 10 million, compared to approximately 7.4 million subscribers at September 30, 2014, and approximately 7.8 million subscribers at December 31, 2013. The increase is driven by the launch of the new expansion, World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor in November 2014.
So there it is in black and white folks. In 2014, even years after release, Diablo carried the headlines for all of Blizzard with ROS. When something solid was actually offered for purchase, D3 community bought it. Blizzard’s revenue is listed as being franchise-centric, detailing year-on-year gains or losses with the various big franchises like WoW, CoD, OW, Diablo, etc. Out of all of those, D3 ROS had the headlines in 2014.
As I’ve said elsewhere, don’t blame the developers, the creative staff, the community managers for D3 being on life support. If senior management hadn’t completely botched the revenue pipeline for D3 (RMAH and microtxns were pay2win dumpster fires), there would likely have been a larger support team with bigger updates and new features.
It’s been 6+ years since the last expansion, just bizarre when you look at 30 million copies sold by 2015. I would even bet the community would have paid for 2 expansions in that 6+ years if they were done right, as ROS showed in 2014.
Again, I would just ask Blizzard senior management to be creative with revenue models, avoid pay2win solutions, come up with something good, and let the community fund content and larger seasonal changes for these great games. Hopefully D4 has also learned from past mistakes.
EDIT - Adding data and sources for ROS numbers, and humerously had to edit title due to new 60 char limitations on forum title length:
Before the March 2014 ROS release, Diablo 3 total sales are ~ 15 million at start of 2014.
https://diablo.somepage.com/news/1785-diablo-iii-sales-break-15-million
After the ROS release, numbers for August 2014: Diablo 3 and ROS have combined sales of 20 million copies. 5 million additional copies sold in first half of 2014.
https://gamingbolt.com/diablo-3-sells-20-million-units-activision-blizzard-revenue-at-658-million-for-past-quarter
Further post-ROS numbers for June 30, 2015: Diablo III and Reaper of Souls have combined sales of 30 million copies. This is 10 million more than a year ago and ~15 million additional copies sold since start of 2014, roughly doubling the overall D3 numbers after ROS release.
https://www.diabloii.net/blog/comments/diablo-iii-30-million-copies-sold
Numbers Summary:
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D3V launch through start of 2014: 15 million.
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Post-ROS: 15 million additional for total 30 million by mid-2015.
EDIT #2 - From May 2021 Q1 Investor Call Transcript:
Diablo IV development is progressing very well with a significant extended team focused on not only launching an epic new experience, but also following this up with robust in-game content to sustain community.
It was great to see that wording on sustaining the community for D4 - multiple expansions are expected.