If they can prove they have a solid model for future money (DLC), Blizz will invest money in it. Since the AH closed, they haven't had that, so Blizz hasn't been as willing to front the money so to speak, to continue development. When it comes to fronting money, blizz is going to look at ROI. They will, however, reinvest money made by an IP into that IP if it will help them keep market share in the ARPG space.
Some of that hypothetical money is cost recoup for the work invested in producing the content. The time for art, animation, etc. Some of that will go into money swimming pools of some execs beach house, and some will get reinvested into games. I'm sure that they allocate some amount of money to the project that made the money, but I can't say how much. Blizzard as a company has just realized that the old model of Title, Expansion, Expansion, is mostly gone. Without true content delivered between those major releases, players get bored and move on. The gaming market is just super saturated. This (and the micro transaction set up in China) is blizzard seeing what model works best for an ARPG.
Finally, while tuning skills and coefficients isn't content (and my logic never followed there at all), creating art, animations, etc for an additional class or a new zone/tileset is. The playerbase has been asking for a Necro for forever, so it makes the most sense to add it as a class first, if the idea is to prove to execs that Diablo can make them money. Just because it's a class from D2 doesn't change the the design process (it may even make it harder, since they have to compare to existing expectations) , they still have to do all of the work building character models, animating skills. That is content.
Again, if you don't want to buy the character pack, that's fine. I'll buy it because I actually suspect it'll be rather cheap (like sub $20) and it'll entertain me. I think that including consoles with D3 and removing the AH ended up being too much for the team. They lost their revenue stream (which increases their chances of getting stuff from management) and added a road block that makes patching more difficult (they have to submit things to PSN like 3 weeks before a patch launch, and have a second, slightly different environment to consider with every change)
That's why I think they will try to extend D3s life with character packs etc until they are close to releasing whatever the announced project is.
I agree with all the points you touch in here.
What I am afraid, as previously stated, is that supporting this kind of content has the opposite effect to what we fans would like.
If we pay for the Necro DLC, that means we like that sort of product-business model.
But, what about the share of the playerbase that wants a different type of product? Let's call it a real expansion, with an adequate price and new content ? Should we support the dev team when we don't like the approach Blizz is taking? That's a hard call.
I agree with all the points you touch in here.
What I am afraid, as previously stated, is that supporting this kind of content has the opposite effect to what we fans would like.
If we pay for the Necro DLC, that means we like that sort of product-business model.
But, what about the share of the playerbase that wants a different type of product? Let's call it a real expansion, with an adequate price and new content ? Should we support the dev team when we don't like the approach Blizz is taking? That's a hard call.
That's a gamble there. It could be that they are using the Necro player pack as a test to see what the true buying interest within Diablo is at the moment. If it sells well, then they may drive forward with creating an expansion, updating the engine, etc. Not buying the pack could result in a deeper shift towards focusing on IPs that are bringing in revenue.
However, it could also be that buying the pack will confirm to Blizzard that patch DLCs instead of expansions are the way to go. In my opinion, if the content gets released in 8 $5 packs over time or 1 $40 pack, it makes no difference to me.
What I am afraid, as previously stated, is that supporting this kind of content has the opposite effect to what we fans would like.
If we pay for the Necro DLC, that means we like that sort of product-business model.
But, what about the share of the playerbase that wants a different type of product? Let's call it a real expansion, with an adequate price and new content ? Should we support the dev team when we don't like the approach Blizz is taking? That's a hard call
That's a legit concern.
I think, and this is certainly just opinion, that the gaming industry as a whole is just evolving past that traditional model, and Blizz is trying to keep up. With that in mind, I'm just not sure that the portion of the player base who would prefer the old expansion model are large enough to justify Blizz keeping it in leiu of models that appear to be "the future".
It's certainly a tough call for those players to decide between gambling that the character pack will lead to additional "free" content patches (that change/introduce systems and such), and if so, whether it will be worth the wait.
I've only accepted it because I've been looking at the landscape (this type of thing interests me as a former developer and current infrastructure engineer). Most PC games are going to either free to play or a lower up front cost with some sort of optional cost that facilitates continued development. The crucible DLC for Grim Dawn is a good example, as they added a new game mode for like 5 bucks, but it's completely optional. I'm sure that someone who's good with statistical data and has that data at Blizz has crunched the numbers and determined that moving forward, Diablo (not just D3) won't be able to compete with the base game + expansions model. I basically just understand that this is the model that the market is demanding, so I can't really blame Blzzard for that (though I blame them for some of the things I dislike about the game in general).
I guess I'm holding out hope that if the character pack sells well enough, we'll see a renewed interest in D3 from the money bags at Blzz, and that it will lead to better free content patches that accompany the DLCs, like how 2.0 changed a lot of things even for those who did not purchase ROS. It's certainly possible that I'm being overly optimistic though, and I can understand you skepticism.
So, we should blame Activision Blizzard , but not the Dev Team. They do as much as they can.
That could be true. But let's see how this works out: (made-up numbers)
Necro DLC. (1 class-2 stash - a pet.) 20-25 $.
2 million people buy it. totalling 40-50 million $.
Is it gonna be the Dev team who is gonna receive it for, as you told, using the resources to work at a better pace?
Or is it gonna be Activision Blizzard getting the cash, who ,then, is gonna invest this money in OW and WOW because their Return of Investment is better?
See what I did here? If we don't protest with our wallets, we are accepting the situation. Or even prolonging it, making it harder to solve.
Abut NO CONTENT hyperbole: Yeah, no content is an exaggeration. But reusing old skills, adapting d2 old models and animations to d3..., there's nothing NEW in here. Reused aint new. Content , following your logic, would be changing all skill coefficients; rendering old builds useless, creating new ones. Reusing.
What I call content is NEW CONTENT. And in over a year , there's been none.
There's a working example of that right now with what they're doing with Starcraft 2. It's a 'dead game' as far as overall Blizzard Fans are concerned. Most people are playing WoW, Overwatch and Hearthstone. SC2 sales aren't even as high as when it first launched, and less people care about the game now considering its current age. Yet they're opting towards a DLC business model, and it works for them. They don't need a 3rd and 4th expansion to keep the game running. At the same time, part of the team is likely working on developing the next RTS, be it Warcraft 4 or Starcraft 3 or something else completely.
I think it's a concious choice that the Diablo team is moving towards Diablo 4, but at some point there were plans to make a second D3 expansion and part of it was already developed. I think what's happening now is that some of that is being cut up and released as DLC or future patch content, but they don't have the full design team available to crunch out enough content to be a full expansion or provide story DLC because they're focused on developing the sequel. What we're getting is the stuff picked up from the cutting room floor, polished and packaged for consumption. I don't think they'll be putting effort into providing NEW stuff (ie story campaign, another act); only content that supports what we already have in play.
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What I am afraid, as previously stated, is that supporting this kind of content has the opposite effect to what we fans would like.
If we pay for the Necro DLC, that means we like that sort of product-business model.
But, what about the share of the playerbase that wants a different type of product? Let's call it a real expansion, with an adequate price and new content ? Should we support the dev team when we don't like the approach Blizz is taking? That's a hard call.
However, it could also be that buying the pack will confirm to Blizzard that patch DLCs instead of expansions are the way to go. In my opinion, if the content gets released in 8 $5 packs over time or 1 $40 pack, it makes no difference to me.
That's a legit concern.
I think, and this is certainly just opinion, that the gaming industry as a whole is just evolving past that traditional model, and Blizz is trying to keep up. With that in mind, I'm just not sure that the portion of the player base who would prefer the old expansion model are large enough to justify Blizz keeping it in leiu of models that appear to be "the future".
It's certainly a tough call for those players to decide between gambling that the character pack will lead to additional "free" content patches (that change/introduce systems and such), and if so, whether it will be worth the wait.
I've only accepted it because I've been looking at the landscape (this type of thing interests me as a former developer and current infrastructure engineer). Most PC games are going to either free to play or a lower up front cost with some sort of optional cost that facilitates continued development. The crucible DLC for Grim Dawn is a good example, as they added a new game mode for like 5 bucks, but it's completely optional. I'm sure that someone who's good with statistical data and has that data at Blizz has crunched the numbers and determined that moving forward, Diablo (not just D3) won't be able to compete with the base game + expansions model. I basically just understand that this is the model that the market is demanding, so I can't really blame Blzzard for that (though I blame them for some of the things I dislike about the game in general).
I guess I'm holding out hope that if the character pack sells well enough, we'll see a renewed interest in D3 from the money bags at Blzz, and that it will lead to better free content patches that accompany the DLCs, like how 2.0 changed a lot of things even for those who did not purchase ROS. It's certainly possible that I'm being overly optimistic though, and I can understand you skepticism.
I think it's a concious choice that the Diablo team is moving towards Diablo 4, but at some point there were plans to make a second D3 expansion and part of it was already developed. I think what's happening now is that some of that is being cut up and released as DLC or future patch content, but they don't have the full design team available to crunch out enough content to be a full expansion or provide story DLC because they're focused on developing the sequel. What we're getting is the stuff picked up from the cutting room floor, polished and packaged for consumption. I don't think they'll be putting effort into providing NEW stuff (ie story campaign, another act); only content that supports what we already have in play.