In week one sales D4 has made more than $666 million making it Blizzard’s highest grossing game.
This is important because that absolutely means D4 will have major and continuous resources allocated to us for future content and support.
To put things in perspective DImmortal made $500 million within 11-months, and we know it’s a garbage P2W model.
Remember when they asked us a BlizzCon, “don’t you have any phones?” Diablo was going to take an exclusively mobile direction, it was the fans who said NO, we need a real Diablo (that aside, I do dislike that they borrowed some gameplay from DImmortal).
I know that there are many who are disastisfied with the endgame but given how D4 surpassed expectations and every other Blizzard product, Blizzard is going to give us more because now they have a huge captive audience of consumers, and they’re going to want to shake the change out of our wallets for 4 to 10 years.
I’m fairly certain diablo 4 had a lot higher cost to develop than that garbage f2p mobile game. I’d never touch immortal even if someone paid me. I’m just worried blizzard will try milk the game in some disgusting way because it’s what they do. I don’t really care about cosmetics but if they start selling stash tabs etc then that would really annoy the hell out of me.
I don’t mind if they have tons of stuff available in the store, kinda like Destiny 2.
But what I would like is persistent additions to content and in BIG WAYS. Like adding runewords, meaningful legendary gear, consistently addressing consumer complaints, new zones (not just here’s a new dungeon), expanded PvP…etc.
I am sure that they had a ton of development costs but over $666 million during the first week is insanity. There is no way that they anticipated that on a Diablo release.
Apparently, they got a huge new player base with no prior Diablo experience because they had a very good marketing/hype campaign, that and the console availability.
Side note, these posts from people who say I just uninstalled the gameor more laughably, game is already dead are silly.
Good luck with that… the best you can hope for is tweaks here and there, with bug fixes (which should have been there in the first place) with a little bit of story content in seasons (so quests) added until expansions are released , this is what they openly admitted already in few latest lives.
This is Blizzard we are talking about not Larian for example. We know the practice by now.
Lol, and you would know what they anticipated how? The game’s cost is mostly upfront with a premium range of $70-100. I don’t believe any other game has charged this much.
Stop. For the love of Lilith, stop.
The game’s price has been debated into the ground and every single complaint about price has been debunked and destroyed.
Games are literally the cheapest they have ever been.
Full stop.
There were numerous AAA titles as far back as the late 80s and early 90s that cost as much as $70-80 in that year’s money.
Inflate that to today and games should cost $160-170.
But they don’t.
They cost anywhere from $5-15 (indie) to $15-40 (smaller titles, early access, etc.), to $50-90 (AAA, major studios, major releases, etc.)
So no, it’s not a premium, and yes many other games have cost this much.
And they are STILL less costly than ever before.
You literally make no sense, overwatch sold a crap ton and was the face of blizzard. Then OW2 happened…or didnt. Blizz is not the blizz of old, im sorry.
Wow has made Billions upon billions over the years. D4 had great initial sales, but it wont be anywhere near these numbers for retention or expansions. If they had made an epic D4 game that all gamers were praising potentially it would keep going.
But they will be losing out on the biggest thing, reoccurring revenue, which D4 I bet big money won’t hit any of their targets with loss of players.
Not to mention you can get a solid 50-60 hours of gameplay out of modern AAA games(well most of them). Games used to be a lot smaller and shorter on top of being equally as expensive because there was only so much data you could fit on a disc or cartridge. Some games had to come as multiple discs. Now storage is no longer such a concern and games can be huge with modern SSDs and internet speeds.
Breathe and follow the words. I do not recall of a single game that costs $70-100 upfront. It is clearly exceptional, whether per se unique or not and I do not specifically factor in inflation. This upfront cost multiplied by the game’s release into a cross-platform market that has broadened yields over $666 million in revenue initially. I don’t care what sort of dumb arguments your little candy-a$$ gets into, that’s not what this is. It’s simply a statement that the game raking in money initially is quite expected.
Overwatch ran out of steam because Blizzard makes basic mistakes. There is a reason why Riot has displaced it.
I’m guessing they’ll do fine. As was explained to me with respect to how seasons work with lateral rather than vertical progression, they don’t intend for this game to be like WoW. Much money is made in selling the game at $70-100, then the cosmetics and battle pass crap adds onto it but it is not a game-accessing subscription. I was reading in the New York Times of all places yesterday how Blizzard wants this game to be played for a long time but as is the case with other aspects of this game they have no ambitious or original ideas. They’re just plodding along into making a good deal of money wasting their customers’ times. It’s the fun side of capitalism.
Well this number is extremely important to me as an investor. ABK (Activision, Blizzard, King) are 3 divisions of the over Activision that are expected to make around 8 billion per year revenue. Last year they fell short. In the press release for the year end numbers they included “Bookings” to make it seem like they went over 8 billion. D4 presales were part of those bookings.
Each year they rotate which division is going to release games to spike numbers in certain quarters. Their standard quarterly profit from all 3 divisions without a release is usually around 1.5 billion. If all divisions run to par without a release, the revenue is 6 billion. When they release, their revenue spikes to 2.5 billion in that quarter. They need to hit 8 billion. This usually takes 2 major releases in the year. This year, they were counting on Diablo. At 666 million they would be 334 million short of goal for the first spike. They will be really short because they have no more releases that I am aware of. Bobby is hoping to sell to Microsoft before the numbers actually come out.
You’re factually incorrect. That you don’t recall is meaningless.
Super Mario 64 was $60 in 1996. $115 today. AAA title.
Final Fantasy III was $80 in 1994. $150 today. AAA title.
Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom… $70, brand new game, AAA title.
NBA2K21… $70. AAA.
Street Fighter Alpha II… $70 in the mid-90s
NBA Hang Time $70 in the mid-90s
Mortal Kombat 3… $70 in the mid-90s
I could keep going… and going… and going… and going…
That’s a you problem. The rest of the world cares about inflation and prices changing over time.
This we agree 100% on. I imagine Blizzard planned for at least $500M based on other recent launches, industry analysis they probably spent a load of money & time on, etc.
No, I am factually correct. I have seen many AAA games, all at $60 and none that I recall with a $70-100 range. Recently crappy games have seen an explosion under full-price as well. I pointed out Diablo IV isn’t necessarily unique as I haven’t seen all games in the history of video-game-time and I pointed out I did not specifically calculate inflation differences. You can keep going and going with your '90s games but you would be better served working on your common sense. Again, we’re not getting into the sort of candy-a$$ internet arguments you’re used to whose real purpose is to boost your self-esteem.
My half-brother, who is possibly more successful than you are, objected to the price of this game. The rest of the world does care about inflation, just not from the perspective you’re going at it. I have no issue with the price of this game and indeed, I prefer this “model” (OW1 had it too and I was happy to pay). The free to play stuff is far more predatory.
Again, the game charges a premium upfront price that at release of a game of a popular franchise from a still reputable developer that is gradually falling to the pack in a massive cross-platform market can easily set a company record. There is nothing unexpected about this.
What you are not factoring in is innovation and competition. The market is much bigger now. What you are seeing is not inflation, you are seeing price fixing.
Yes, have you not realized every game from a major corporation is the exact same price? When one goes up the other goes up. Not all major games have the same budget. It is price fixing. If the large game companies see an IP that competes in the AAA range they buy it up and price fix it too… Indie companies are left selling on steam by either giving it away and doing mtx. Or charging a much lower price. The releases are staggered in a way by all the companies to garner the most amount of customers available as possible, instead of creating competition. All price fixing.
It’s all speculation what they projected, but I sincerely doubt that they projected Diablo 4 to gross more than any other Blizzard product…ever.
What’s with the harsh tone? Is there something you don’t like about my post.
The short of it is that I think it’s only a good thing that Diablo 4 had such a successful launch because that means it will receive ongoing and substantial support.
I would bet money that they projected Diablo IV to gross or whatever more than any other Blizzard product ever, presumably a reference to revenue in a short period of time.
Diablo IV will receive ongoing and substantial support according to plan. The problem is these people get showered in money for mediocrity and accordingly have no incentive to do any better, hence keep your expectations in check.