Quote fromSo every moment Diablo 3 isn't out and being bought and played by those people who play WoW as well, Blizzard is loosing money, hitherto I've found no real reason to delaying Diablo 3 because of WoW subscriptions intentionally.
That's ridiculous. They make three million bucks each and every day in revenue from WoW, and most of that is profit. Another fantasy title (with psuedo-MMO features) would absolutely cut into that, and the math just doesn't work when you consider the idea of replacing even a small fraction of that subscription revenue with a one-time box sale. A Science Fiction RTS doesn't compete with WoW directly, which is why you will see SC2 soon.
They aren't losing a thing - but they are keeping the fanbase in suspense and, more importantly, warehousing some of the best developers in the industry without having to compete with them at another studio.
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IIRC, someone at the vegas convention center (which is huge, has a monorail stop the strip, and would generally be an awesome place for a bcon) leaked a potential schedule. (Here's the speculative part:) Someone in Irvine got pissed, and realized that the entire thing would be much harder to control than doing it a few miles up the 5 in Anaheim, and killed it. They probably also didn't shed tears at the idea of the leaker getting in trouble.
The thing is, with digital downloads, Bliz has more leverage than ever, excepting the REAL big dogs like Target or Walmart, I wouldn't be shocked to see them freeze out a retailer for the week of release if they did a big, obvious leak. Of course, if Vegas is hard to control, imagine trying to keep a leash on retailers in Asia or Europe...
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Not only is it unofficial, but it may well piss them off enough to move it out a few weeks while finding a way to punish the leaker.
Remember the potential blizcon in vegas?
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Or does it? Maybe there's some fine print.
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I don't think Skyrim is fantastic, just because I find the whole ES approach boring and formulaic. I find WoW boring too. I doubt I'm alone. I also think of Skyrim as being mostly a console game, and don't have the time to play with mods, and I'm also not alone in that regards.
For all of D3's many flaws and intentionally circular design process, it will be a hell of a lot more fun, and many WoWheads' first experience of a multiplayer game with a little character-based depth that doesn't suck. Ironically, that isn't a good thing for Blizzard's bottom line.
Anyhow, who is to say that Skryim and SWTOR haven't taken a piece out of WoW? The latest weekly activity numbers are really kind of crappy, and may represent a 5-year-low if they sink under the mid-december numbers. Really pretty weak for just a month after what will probably be the biggest drop between cat and pandas.
http://www.warcraftr...php?serverid=-1
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No, I could respond to a number of other misconceptions you have, but I'll just let the lack of a release date in the next few months speak for itself, and enjoy the sound of silence as the last few people here realize what I've been saying for a couple years now is, sadly, true.
A senior employee at Bliz making in two months what you make in a year is funny, isn't it? How about it being a pleasant 63 degrees in Irvine while you're getting snowed on at 22 degrees? Also absurd and unimaginable, I'm sure.
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Funny. You think a senior programmer or old-school cinematics guy costs much less after bonuses, benefits, payroll tax and general facilities maintenance? Of course, you also probably think that Irvine is analagous to a place like Santa Cruz or Santa Monica in terms of 'tree huggers'. I sense a trend here in your general knowledge of things.
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Uh... unless that product directly competes with an established product, and the new competing product is a one-time sale with fairly crappy margins, and the established one makes exponentially more on a recurring basis.
Of course, I defer to your superior experience, being in the hotbed of technology and business development known as Cleveland.
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Uh-huh. Just like losing the lead producer, lead artist and a veteran programmer three years ago has nothing to do with why the game still isn't out.
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No disrespect, but you're wrong on a few levels. Every level of management is concerned about cannibalization, and it is the only explanation for why the game has been in design-based turnaround for 9 months, and why they consciously chose to throw in the RMAH, which they had to have known would be a regulatory monkey-wrench.
And I wouldn't worry about WoW subs covering development - even if you factor in the bloated salaries in their cinematics team, D3 still burns 50mil/year tops on the dev side. That's two weeks of WoW revenue. Which is my entire point - there is no entertainment product in the universe with WoW's margins, and even chipping away 10-15% at that base (which is not unlikely, especially if the online experience has any depth) is incredibly bad business. And, make no mistake, there is a ton of overlap between the two games in terms of the audience, and a limited amount of gaming time all but the most commited (and unemployed) nerds have.
Funny, less and less people argue this point as the obviously intentional delays make it clearer, but I thank you for continuing to fight the good fight with manners.
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One more time... a recurring 1.5 billion is better than a one-time 250 million, especially when the latter threatens the former.
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With today's news, I guess that isn't the case. What's next? A permanent pet in D3?
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