Because success has many factors that dont relate to quality.
The success of all diablo games come from the first and second game. Most people who buy it are looking for a true successor to D2. and never get it.
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A) not really relevant to âsuccess of the gameâ when weâre comparing free to play or titles they already bought 20 years ago to a 70 or 90$ game, youâd need probably a 100 free to play players for every 1 player in D4 for it to be even
B) The ratio is literally the reverse - tens of millions bought and presumably play D4. 20,000 people play PoE. Lol.
Sounds like PoE needs to buy a more successful IP then, if you think IP alone is why D3 sold 30 million units, the majority of which were sold long after its initial PC release when it released on console with Reaper of Souls.
Lol.
Thatâs like saying shadowlands was the best expansion that wow ever had and we all know that isnât true, hype can push sales that doesnât make a game good, feedback is how thatâs determined and is very mixed for D4 atm
Well according to this guyâs theory its mathematically impossible that Dragonflight bombed because Wrath of the Lich King was insanely popular and nostalgia alone carries an entire franchise for two decades.
D2 alone, pure and simple, is why D4 is successful and therefore thereâs no way Dragonflight could be doing anything less than gangbusters. Especially since Wrath of the Lich King is vastly more popular than D2.
You are still not approaching it logically.
We need to see data of concurrent player counts over periods of time. Then, you can analyze trends and see things like declining player population, or a stable player base.
You are also forgetting, regardless, that D4 was just released 1 month ago. It is still in the honeymoon phase for people that bought it.
Also, the concept of F2P vs purchased is a bad metric too. That problem lies on the decisions management made in development and marketing.
Do you realize that PoE was created by an indie startup company, and that ActiBlizz has a $60+ billion warchest to aggressively market their games? They are also riding on the success of the title Diablo from 20 years ago that was created by a completely different group of people.
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Itâs worse than D3 because for some unfathomable reason they omit the tooltip window when mousing over the damn loot. You canât even see what stats it has until itâs in your inventory. They not only failed to learn, they actually forgot some s**t.
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PoE was marketed as a spiritual successor to Diablo. Shouldnât that word of mouth accomplish something? If D2 is so good, then saying your game is like D2 should cause your game to do well, right?
Yeah, that makes it even worse for PoE. Thereâs no barrier to entry to play PoE and people still donât play it.
Threads like these will always bring in the D3 fanboys who say that D3 wasnât a failure based on copies sold, with no mention of how D2âs reputation & prior hype was what sold the game, and no mention of how they sucked the depth and soul out of the game to make it accessible to console players & children.
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D3 did amazingly well on console. To the point where D4 is heavily âconsolifiedâ because that market spoke with their wallets. Blizzard launched D4 on console day 1, with integrated cross-play. Youâre deluded if you think D3 is considered a failure for Blizzard on that front.
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Financial success, critical failure.
Does it really matter? Nope. They want money, and they succeeded in that. Let the whiny chumps cry themselves to sleep, I know I do.
Equating financial success with a quality game is how we got here in the first place. Easy to make sales when you aim for the lowest common denominator, but you arenât really creating a legacy as a game studio the way old Blizzard did game after game (SC:BW, WC3, D2 etc.).
Point being, their motto of âgameplay firstâ used to actually mean something.
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The mental gymnastics you go through must be tiring. You need to read better.
PoE had essentially $0 marketing budget. I never even heard of the game until a year ago on D3 forums. Maybe you donât realize how small the ARPG player base is. Itâs a niche genre. Iâd say PoE is quite successful. The company was bought by Tencent a few years ago - so itâll be interesting to see what they do with their next release.
It has an active player base and a dedicated following. But, you are still underestimating the power of marketing and using the title Diablo.
I do not appreciate this condescending way of talking that you have; it seems like you assume Iâm some PoE loyalist or D2 diehard. Iâm neither of those things. I just cast an objective eye and view on what is actually going on.
Iâm seriously doubting your reading comprehension at this point because you just want to be right.
https://www.thegamer.com/diablo-3s-second-expansion-was-cancelled/
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You are wrong. It was so successful they just decided it made enough money and canceled the expansion instead.
D3 did about 2 seasons (6 months) worth of updates, then focused on the expansion for 1.5 years and let the game stagnate. By that time most people left and didnât come back.
Arguing over definitions of âsuccessâ and âfailureâ or whatever asideâŚ
The OP comments that struck me was âD2 is a slot machine, D4 is a spreadsheetâ.
Yeah. Thatâs how it feels. I honestly canât remember D2 well, but I donât remember the endless scanning, comparing and recycling of gear that is 99% of gameplay in D4.
Iâm also using spreadsheets to work out how to get all the aspects I want applied to all the gear.
And the UI to actually manage gear/upgrades/aspects/paragons is horrible QoL-wise.
A lot of the game feels like frustration/work, basically.
You seem to not understand how this works. Itâs called proof by contradiction. I break your argument by taking it to its conclusion and showing that conclusion doesnât make sense or contradicts reality. Iâm not doing gymnastics to prove my point, Iâm showing that even if you go through mental gymnastics YOUR point doesnât work.
Go back to the drawing board and try again. This âDiablo 4 only did well because of Diablo 2 nostalgiaâ doesnât hold up logically and you know it.
If the name is worth that much for the Diablo franchise, why doesnât GGG just do a bit of light copyright infringement? Call their game âThe Devilâ, that should do it, right? I mean it isnât as if their Act I-IV structure wasnât a direct rip-off, it wasnât as if they didnât heavily advertise their kickstarter as such. Itâs been ten years, theyâve had plenty of time to copycat the Diablo IP.
You know thatâs not it. Diablo does have marketing power but the name Diablo wouldnât still have weight if Diablo 3 wasnât considered something of a good game in its final days.
Can you point to where that was said?
You are running out of gas my dude. Do you really think âThe Devilâ is a good title for a game? 
To my blocklist you go with the other gas lighters.
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Because for most players, the majority of the gear went straight into the trash bin. You really only cared about unique or set items, regardless of what the forum personalities here who tell you how spell blue or yellow items are would lead you to believe.
In fact, D4âs development kind of got jebaited by vocal D2 Andies. Nobody actually wanted âevery piece of loot to potentially be usefulâ. Very few people actually enjoy swimming through hundreds and hundreds of rares to find an upgrade.
Itâs not a big deal at the end of the day, they can just make uniques much better and it sorts itself out. Weâve seen D3 get a Loot 2.0, D4 doesnât need a Loot 2.0 but a Loot 1.1 or maybe 1.5 would do a lot for that aspect.
Iâll take this as an admission you realized you were wrong and you want to save face. You could have blocked me without saying anything but I thank you for essentially openly admitting you know you were wrong.
I wouldnât think so.
Google this: âBlizzard Management Thought Diablo 3 Was a Giantâ
Those are old figures from August 2015. Upwards of 65 million copies as of 2022!
Diablo 3 was a smash success
D3 âfailedâ for what, 10 years? Thatâs the same energy as the people Iâve seen talking about the downfall of capitalism. âJust wait for it man, itâs right around the corner, trust me bro itâs definitely happening, pls bro just listen, the rev is happening bro, trust meâ
Philosophically Iâm an anarchist but pragmatically? Imma buy that cheeseburger because Iâm hungry, and itâs delicious. If the rev happens tomorrow then egg on my face I guess, but at least I ainât hungry TODAY.
Iâd also like to take a moment to point out there were MASSIVE arguments on the D3 forums over âinventory tetrisâ and how it made âmeaningful choicesâ about what to pick up, and that D4 was going to fail miserably because it was going the D3 route with all items taking up the same inventory space.
Now we get topics like this one here, complaining about having to âstop every 20 to 30 minutes.â
One thing that COULD actually help? If they put in an item filter. At a certain point you really just start vendoring everything that isnât unique, legendary, or ancestral yellow. And even of those, most of them get smashed for mats.