Creepsville no that is called marketing 101, and Blizzard forgot it. I am more than qualified to make that statement but I’m not going to wave my flag here about that. You would be hard pressed to find a savvy entrepreneur who would disagree with the point I made.
I used to run my own online store. I know a bit about this stuff. And I don't think that Blizzard needed to research the market in order to create a sequel to their own IP. I think that is a silly statement to make, as it implies that Blizzard shapes their games around current trends - when all they've ever done with their games is stuck to a simple, unintimidating, easy to pick up game that even Mom can enjoy playing.
I expect Diablo will sell very well, too many have waited too long for it to come out and there are a load of WOW fans who will identify with the more cartoony characters;
The characters in D3 aren't cartoony. They are stylized.
Creepsville I'm not complaining about people who are happy with the game, I'm glad you like it. I do however see a number of the happy with D3 people who don’t seem like they can deal with those who are not. I just happened to be looking forward to one game for several years and was disappointed with what I seen so far and pointing out what I don’t like. In the end it's just a game and this board is just a way for me to pull my head out of code for a few minutes each day and wind down when I’m done.
Creepsville I'm not complaining about people who are happy with the game, I'm glad you like it. I do however see a number of the happy with D3 people who don’t seem like they can deal with those who are not. I just happened to be looking forward to one game for several years and was disappointed with what I seen so far and pointing out what I don’t like. In the end it's just a game and this board is just a way for me to pull my head out of code for a few minutes each day and wind down when I’m done.
Well duh, that's the point! You are supposed to convince us that the game needs to be changed and we are supposed to try and shoot you down, that's how this forum works, you see?
I think its pretty clear he and others didn't even bother asking or wondering what the fans wanted.
What constitutes as a 'fan' under your definition?
Yes Blizzard does make games for a niche of "fans”
Blizzard doesn't make games for 300 players. I think you're confusing a niche market with niche players. As per your definition of a 'niche fan,' it would mean the players that will attend Blizzcon, buy the miniature figurine and purchase the Diablo novels. That definition of niche would actually constitute as hardcore in this case. Those are the very hardcore Diablo lovers that will follow in Blizzard's footsteps. Despite any graphical overhaul, those very same hardcore players will continue to buy Blizzard merchandise because they want more Diablo simply because they love it. Those 'niche fans' won't suddenly hate and give up Blizzard because just they changed the graphics of the game.
no one can accurately claim it’s a “vocal minority of complainers” anymore than they can claim it’s a majority
You can find the vocal minorities very easily. There is an easily accessible example right on these very forums. Look through the threads and look for people that aggresively argues for an overhaul of graphical design. Those are your vocal minorities. People who signed the petition are not vocal minorities because they are purely statistics -which cannot even be cited as a valid source because of anonymous signers and repeated signers- not noise. People who create the noise can be found on the forums.
Blizzard doesn’t want to alienate it core fan base, no company would.
Is it alienation if the 'fans' don't want to change and adapt? Every sequel to popular games undergoes this process. CS1.6 to CS:S, SSBM to SSBB, and so on. In the end, players that don't make the change stick with the old game, despite buying the newer sequel regardless of their 'hatred' for <Developing Studio>'s direction.
i just hope its good... i mean super smash brothers 64 was good... super smash brothers melee was amaizing... super smash brothers brawl was highly anticipated adn stuff but not as good as melee piikachu got fuckin nerfed he was hellla slow in brawl... even though its still a decent game its not the same...
synthaza I think were talking about a bare minimum of 53,000 that signed the petition, that would be a good niche market. Hey if Blizzard wants to direct all 53,000 towards my company because they don't need it anymore I'll be most happy to service that business.
Would any of you snub 53,000 sales a year? I wouldn't. Let's see 53,000 x $25.00 (guestimating wholesale price) is a paltry $1,325,000. Yeah who needs that chump change.
hey you got your wow in my d3... ne way i like ur sig and to blizzard 1.3million is chump change... btw a game is 50 bucks when it comes out s duoble it... 2.6millino is stil chump change seeing as how 10,000,000 people are paying 15 bucks a month for wow... how much is that? 150,000,000 dolllars a month?
synthaza I think were talking about a bare minimum of 53,000 that signed the petition, that would be a good niche market. Hey if Blizzard wants to direct all 53,000 towards my company because they don't need it anymore I'll be most happy to service that business.
Would any of you snub 53,000 sales a year? I wouldn't. Let's see 53,000 x $25.00 (guestimating wholesale price) is a paltry $1,325,000. Yeah who needs that chump change.
How many of those will actually refuse to buy the game is the number you are looking for.
How many of those will actually refuse to buy the game is the number you are looking for.
That and how many of those 53,000 were individual ACTUAL people.
Not to mention they'll probably gain at LEAST 53,000 NEW fans to the series by making the game look more Blizzard like and familiar.
Some people may not like it, but I think all in all they'll be gaining more fans than losing. Which means more sales, more people to play with, more income for Blizzard which is going to lead to more updates and expansions and possibly sequels if it becomes real popular.
Would any of you snub 53,000 sales a year? I wouldn't. Let's see 53,000 x $25.00 (guestimating wholesale price) is a paltry $1,325,000. Yeah who needs that chump change.
Of that ~50k, how many are real people? How many are repeated signers? How many will actually buy the game regardless? And it won't be ~50k sales per year because Diablo doesn't have a business model like that. It would only be far less than a couple hundred thousand dollars per year if D3 ran a subscription model, but they don't run subscription. They run a purchase-the-box F2P service, as with other b.net games. It'll be probably a few hundred people that won't buy it on release, create numerous hate threads about how awful D3 is, the general distaste for the art direction and minor scrapes and bruises, and will continue to purchase the game a few weeks/months subsequent into D3's release.
That one million dollars is massively inflated due to invalid sources. Online petitions don't mean anything as a real statistic and ultimately, I doubt if there are even 25k on that list, and moreso 7/8ths of them would purchase D3 regardless.
Again I’ll say the game isn’t changing regardless of the director so I’m not sure what there is to defend or debate here. I think everyone trying to discredit my numbers here are mostly just those who don’t want that argument to gain any traction. Don’t worry it won’t, Blizzard made its bed and said so.
Its funny people are ready to believe Blizzards PR released 10 million online paying customers but question 53,000 signatures. It’s a private company and they don’t have to report anything, they can say anything they want. I helped start a .com in the 90’s and take it public. We embellished our subscriber numbers as much as possible (and yet be technically honest) so we could get investor money, it got us $40 million in investment dollars. Blizzard is trying to create excitement with their number, hey look we got 10 million, maybe that will make another 10 million join, that’s the point of that number.
Even if the petition numbers were flubbed I’ll bet you can find 100,000 real people to sign if one tried without any trouble. I know some here think the art is stylized and looks great, to me I see it falling (thankfully to a lesser degree) in the same direction of the overly polished polygon 3D characters that are on a load of games that made me put their boxes down and not buy them. DSII, WOW, NWN, EQ, and on and on. I made the mistake of getting DSII, I hated it, what a boring game.
The big problem with most of these games is the characters look too polished and frequently too sexy for the medieval setting they are in. OK, here I am in a dark medieval place, evil is covering the land peasants are getting racked in some dungeon by vile creatures and along comes the shiny 21st century sex kitten hero. Hey I’ll save your land, oh and check out my rack. Be amazed at my bubbly cotton candy magic I’ll thrash them with. FLMAO! Give me a break!
Um.. I'm pretty sure ActivisionBlizzard is not a private company. However, the real question is does signing that petition automatically equal to not supporting Blizzard? Even if one did sign the petition, would they not buy any further products from Blizzard? I find it highly unlikely.
Fluffing up big numbers is always great when trying to ipo. You could even take revenues and fluff that number everywhere despite having poor year with an exponential increase in expenses. The problem is, what you compare is legitimate subscribers/prepaid card numbers with a puny, insignificant anonymous online petition of ~50k signers. Despite Blizzard's 10mil subscribers, how many are on their free trials? Those numbers are included, but whereas for that online petition, how can you measure? You can't say John Smith has signed, double signed or triple signed repeatedly because he wanted to inflat the numbers on the petition. What about people who can write scripts to autonomously sign the petition repeatedly? How about the people who signed, but then completely feel wrong about their initial perception of the game and have buyers remorse about signing it? Those are just some of the reasons of why you falling back on that petition as a given mandate is completely moot and unarguable with common sense.
I signed the petition, but I added a note saying "I just want light radius back." I was actually like the 7th or 8th person to sign. But then they explained why light radius wasn't returning, and I totally understand why they wouldn't want to cover up a majority of the screen with pitch black nothingness.
I signed it somewhere around 30,000 or something, but yeah, when Blizzard actually responded and explained what they were doing, it made sense to me, so I don't really care any more because I know they don't dump money in to a failing project.
The world is transitioning from a time of prosperity and peace to an age of hellish invasion- you're not going to see corpses hanging off trees and rivers of blood right off the bat. It's going to take time. That's why I have every reason to believe and no reason not to believe that it will get more "gruesome" and more "dark" as the game goes on. They only showed us the very beginning setting (though using a pre-fabricated dungeon, they admitted it was using the tilesets of that area.)
Synthaza exactly right, Fluffing up big numbers is always great when trying to go IPO, it’s also great when merging. That is exactly what Blizzard did I stand corrected they are public. Their merger was consummated just last month Symbol ATVI having just lost the D on the end of the ticker, and that would explain why Blizzard is pumping its numbers.
Look clearly there are many, many out there not happy with the look and feel we can debate numbers until we are all blue in the face. You can’t deny though there has been backlash and to suggest it’s just a few people whining is no more verifiable than proving there were double entries on the petition. There is no right or wrong here, just peoples views and we’re entitled to them.
All I can tell you is I haven’t plunked down money on most of the dungeon themed games because IMO they look like my description above. Granted the flaming hammer and charged axes are better then the foo foo fluff magic of many games but its one step towards being less realistic. To me what makes fantasy games fun is they walk that fine line between realism and fantasy.
By itself the barbarian looks cool with the flaming hammer but when you go online and there are a thousand characters all magically glowing from some part of their body its looks utterly ridiculous. Hey look everyone has rare glowing items and freakish floating things revolving around them, ooh aah. In that setting it you might as well have Dee Dee dance across the screen singing with her pet unicorn.
Of course people are entitled to complain about the look of a game, however demanding changes be made based on uninformed statements about the current art direction is something that many feel is wrong.
Creepsville agreed, my wife taught me years ago making demands is futile. Like I've said, I know there will be few if any changes to D3, all I can do is sit back, rant occasionally, OK frequently, and hope they do good a good job.
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I used to run my own online store. I know a bit about this stuff. And I don't think that Blizzard needed to research the market in order to create a sequel to their own IP. I think that is a silly statement to make, as it implies that Blizzard shapes their games around current trends - when all they've ever done with their games is stuck to a simple, unintimidating, easy to pick up game that even Mom can enjoy playing.
The characters in D3 aren't cartoony. They are stylized.
I stop to comment on this alone: HOLY SHIT THANK GOD!!
I have gold pickup OCD. Whenever I clear the Tower key hunting, I pick up every single piece of gold.
Fuck you, I'm a dragon.
Blizzard doesn't make games for 300 players. I think you're confusing a niche market with niche players. As per your definition of a 'niche fan,' it would mean the players that will attend Blizzcon, buy the miniature figurine and purchase the Diablo novels. That definition of niche would actually constitute as hardcore in this case. Those are the very hardcore Diablo lovers that will follow in Blizzard's footsteps. Despite any graphical overhaul, those very same hardcore players will continue to buy Blizzard merchandise because they want more Diablo simply because they love it. Those 'niche fans' won't suddenly hate and give up Blizzard because just they changed the graphics of the game.
You can find the vocal minorities very easily. There is an easily accessible example right on these very forums. Look through the threads and look for people that aggresively argues for an overhaul of graphical design. Those are your vocal minorities. People who signed the petition are not vocal minorities because they are purely statistics -which cannot even be cited as a valid source because of anonymous signers and repeated signers- not noise. People who create the noise can be found on the forums.
Is it alienation if the 'fans' don't want to change and adapt? Every sequel to popular games undergoes this process. CS1.6 to CS:S, SSBM to SSBB, and so on. In the end, players that don't make the change stick with the old game, despite buying the newer sequel regardless of their 'hatred' for <Developing Studio>'s direction.
gamma11 > east
Would any of you snub 53,000 sales a year? I wouldn't. Let's see 53,000 x $25.00 (guestimating wholesale price) is a paltry $1,325,000. Yeah who needs that chump change.
gamma11 > east
Fuck you, I'm a dragon.
That and how many of those 53,000 were individual ACTUAL people.
Not to mention they'll probably gain at LEAST 53,000 NEW fans to the series by making the game look more Blizzard like and familiar.
Some people may not like it, but I think all in all they'll be gaining more fans than losing. Which means more sales, more people to play with, more income for Blizzard which is going to lead to more updates and expansions and possibly sequels if it becomes real popular.
Of that ~50k, how many are real people? How many are repeated signers? How many will actually buy the game regardless? And it won't be ~50k sales per year because Diablo doesn't have a business model like that. It would only be far less than a couple hundred thousand dollars per year if D3 ran a subscription model, but they don't run subscription. They run a purchase-the-box F2P service, as with other b.net games. It'll be probably a few hundred people that won't buy it on release, create numerous hate threads about how awful D3 is, the general distaste for the art direction and minor scrapes and bruises, and will continue to purchase the game a few weeks/months subsequent into D3's release.
That one million dollars is massively inflated due to invalid sources. Online petitions don't mean anything as a real statistic and ultimately, I doubt if there are even 25k on that list, and moreso 7/8ths of them would purchase D3 regardless.
Its funny people are ready to believe Blizzards PR released 10 million online paying customers but question 53,000 signatures. It’s a private company and they don’t have to report anything, they can say anything they want. I helped start a .com in the 90’s and take it public. We embellished our subscriber numbers as much as possible (and yet be technically honest) so we could get investor money, it got us $40 million in investment dollars. Blizzard is trying to create excitement with their number, hey look we got 10 million, maybe that will make another 10 million join, that’s the point of that number.
Even if the petition numbers were flubbed I’ll bet you can find 100,000 real people to sign if one tried without any trouble. I know some here think the art is stylized and looks great, to me I see it falling (thankfully to a lesser degree) in the same direction of the overly polished polygon 3D characters that are on a load of games that made me put their boxes down and not buy them. DSII, WOW, NWN, EQ, and on and on. I made the mistake of getting DSII, I hated it, what a boring game.
The big problem with most of these games is the characters look too polished and frequently too sexy for the medieval setting they are in. OK, here I am in a dark medieval place, evil is covering the land peasants are getting racked in some dungeon by vile creatures and along comes the shiny 21st century sex kitten hero. Hey I’ll save your land, oh and check out my rack. Be amazed at my bubbly cotton candy magic I’ll thrash them with. FLMAO! Give me a break!
Fluffing up big numbers is always great when trying to ipo. You could even take revenues and fluff that number everywhere despite having poor year with an exponential increase in expenses. The problem is, what you compare is legitimate subscribers/prepaid card numbers with a puny, insignificant anonymous online petition of ~50k signers. Despite Blizzard's 10mil subscribers, how many are on their free trials? Those numbers are included, but whereas for that online petition, how can you measure? You can't say John Smith has signed, double signed or triple signed repeatedly because he wanted to inflat the numbers on the petition. What about people who can write scripts to autonomously sign the petition repeatedly? How about the people who signed, but then completely feel wrong about their initial perception of the game and have buyers remorse about signing it? Those are just some of the reasons of why you falling back on that petition as a given mandate is completely moot and unarguable with common sense.
Fuck you, I'm a dragon.
The world is transitioning from a time of prosperity and peace to an age of hellish invasion- you're not going to see corpses hanging off trees and rivers of blood right off the bat. It's going to take time. That's why I have every reason to believe and no reason not to believe that it will get more "gruesome" and more "dark" as the game goes on. They only showed us the very beginning setting (though using a pre-fabricated dungeon, they admitted it was using the tilesets of that area.)
http://www.blizzard.com/us/press/activision-faq.html
Look clearly there are many, many out there not happy with the look and feel we can debate numbers until we are all blue in the face. You can’t deny though there has been backlash and to suggest it’s just a few people whining is no more verifiable than proving there were double entries on the petition. There is no right or wrong here, just peoples views and we’re entitled to them.
All I can tell you is I haven’t plunked down money on most of the dungeon themed games because IMO they look like my description above. Granted the flaming hammer and charged axes are better then the foo foo fluff magic of many games but its one step towards being less realistic. To me what makes fantasy games fun is they walk that fine line between realism and fantasy.
By itself the barbarian looks cool with the flaming hammer but when you go online and there are a thousand characters all magically glowing from some part of their body its looks utterly ridiculous. Hey look everyone has rare glowing items and freakish floating things revolving around them, ooh aah. In that setting it you might as well have Dee Dee dance across the screen singing with her pet unicorn.