Jay Wilson said that Blizzard will probably monetize SOME features of the game, now I wonder WHAT features are these? I'm pretty sure the game itself will be free but i cant imagine what else could be charged.
Jay also said that "whatever the content would be, it would have an appropriate value to users."
I really didnt like this news, i dont have problem in paying but in most cases the fees of the services are too high for what they offer. (Like US$15 for WoW)
WoW justifies this cost by being massive, allowing 40 man raids, etc.
I refuse to pay a subscription fee for a glorified chat system and a 4-man player limit. What I would be amenable to is allowing users to pay for cosmetic enhancements that have zero gameplay effect, so if you want to pay to dress up your toon that's fine.
Plus, any content that is added that is pay to play opens up a host of problems with bot sellers, PvP imbalances and more.
I hope Blizz doesn't stray so far from the Diablo formula (which IMHO is near perfect for the genre) in a desperate bid to entice WoW subscribers to buy and pay for this as well. That's just greedy.
the only time ill pay for diablo3 is when i buy it. if its pay monthly or any time of pay 2 play...i aint getting it. its a rip-off. i love the diablo series, my favorite game of all time....but i refuse to pay 2 play on ANY game....i would hate blizzard if they did that
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(this build was before D3 launched... looking back on it now - i had no idea what i was doing)
"We are going to monetize features so that we get to make them," said Wilson. "We kind of have to."
Wilson noted that whatever the content would be, it would have an appropriate value to users.
Kind of have to? WTF does that mean? As in "we have to squeeze every last drop of blood from the stone that is the playerbase!" Good job on being as inarticulate and obfuscating as possible. And if I remember from the merger, Blizzard retained its autonomy, so it should not be getting pressure from Activision.
Fans of map hacking and other Diablo II modifications have little to look forward to with the sequel, as Wilson shot down any talk of mod support.
"We don't have a lot of plans to do that. It would make our lives so much harder" he said, adding that despite the fact that he and many other designers got their start in modding, the team takes a strong stance on the hacking of their games.
So much harder? How so? Every game I own that is moddable has gigantic mod communities that serve only to make the game better and extend its replayability, something that any game developer should desire. And 'HACKING" the game? Have they even looked at the amount of mods the average WoW player has downloaded to improve the horrible standard UI?
Funny how Blizzard devs are big-timing the playerbase. They used to be like us, talented modders who got a break, and now that they're in the money, step on the people that helped them get there. Sad.
I would really doubt that any of you who say you wont pay a monthly fee would stick by that statement.
As for me, if they charged a monthly fee for d3 - than I would aspect strong enforcement on no hacking or duping as well as updates and additions to d3 on a regular basis. If this was the case than I would gladly pay with a smile for a montly fee.
As for those who dont agree - do you aspect blizzard to maintain a game for a long period of time while receiving no additional revenue for it? And really how much would it cost? - you pay lets say 50 for the game and lets say 120 a year to play it. Are you serious that you cant find 120 bucks (10 bucks a month) to play d3 for a year? How many years do you plan on playing d3? 10? Like most people probably for a few years and probably not every single month for those years. So if it costed me lets say 290 (2 years at 120 bucks a year plus the 50 for the game) bucks for d3 to have a great game for2 years with no hackers no duping and updates on a regular basis - I wouild gladly pay the 290 bucks. But thats just me.
Just imagine what blizzard would accomplish with continued revenue with d3. Battlegrounds, guild areas, expansions, strict no hacking policies, payed gms, anything would be possible with continued revenue. I think what we all can agree on is that what we dont want is to pay a monthly fee and get no benefit from it but I really really doubt that would ever happen when it comes to a great company like blizzard.
When you get Diablo thats exactly what you buy, the right to play at battle.net... if there is a monthly fee or any kind of one time fee i wont be buying this.
I can deal with pk being out, i can deal with crapy graphics, i can deal with auto-stats, i can even deal with pvm being completely lame as it is. But i refuse to pay more than once for this game.
Get real, folks, the diablo you all knew is dead, a few years ago i said right here in this forum that D3 had a pretty good chance of being blizzard first bust (i was flamed to death ofc), and what you know, its not even beta and its already looking that way.
I think what he means is that the development costs for D3 requires more than just a $50 boxed price.
Computer games cost what they do because that is what the market will bear. If development costs go over budget, that's the fault of the developer, not the consumer. And that's a rediculous statement, since developers to not bankroll their employees and operations with hope of the future, they use cash. And with the profits made from 9 million people paying USD$15 a month for WoW, I'm sure they're not too worried about development costs. Its routine for sucessful developers to use proftis from one game to pay forward the development of another.
Think about it, the whole reason they are splitting Starcraft2 into 3 seperate games is that the amount of resources devoted to make Starcraft2 is too high for a $50 game, so they said that either they cut the game down or do split it up.
No, wrong. You don't understand corporate nature apparently. The reason they split it up is to do two things; first, they can extend development time to reduce bugs on staggered releases, and two they make a LOT more money for nearly the same amount of work. Its all about the greenbacks.
SO.... assuming that Diablo3 requires at least the same amount of development resources as Starcraft2 then they would need to somehow charge more than $50.
Again, this is a naive statement. Take Bethesda's Oblivion game for example. $50 out of the box, company turns a nice profit. Then, in a departure from their normal routine of occasionally offering free plugins and community support, they refuse to release certain content to the mod community AND begin to charge for "DLCs" that come out every few months.
Problem is, the DLC they develop in house is rediculously inferior to what the mod community produces, both in terms of quality and quantity. They lose customer confidence, and the support of the mod community. All you have to do is look at the Fallout 3 forums to see the uneasiness felt at Bethesda's "going rogue" so to speak. Like I said, a game is paid for before its released, generally by the publisher, who expect to recoup costs after sales.
Its similar to the concept of movies, a movie might take $50 million or $500 million to produce, but you pay the same amount at the box office, adjusted for inflation of course.
You guys sound like a bunch of whiners, giving blizz ultimatums ("if they charge any fee at all I won't buy it!"). This isn't like making a harry potter game, keep in mind D3 has been in development for 5years so far and then add the running costs of battle.net, it isn't cheap so get real guys.
Its not whining to voice concerns, and strong language is necessary to get otherwise uncaring developers a reason to read and listen. If enough people voice their concern, things can change, if everyone just follows lockstep and eats whatever is spoonfed to them, nothing changes.
As to the Harry Potter comparison see my comment above. Why do you think nearly every new released game in the US always retails for $49.99? Because that's the going "industry rate." And besides, with the profits from WoW rolling in every month, I'm pretty sure the upkeep of Battle.Net and paying their employees is of little concern.
One of the few companies not horribly impacted by the economy, due to such things as WoW subscribers, their stock price is actually UP 22/100ths of a percent from the same time last year and is on the rise!
He said they will charge for the new content that they develop. Wtf did you think?? That they would just give it to you for free??
Note the word 'CONTENT'.
Wow, thanks for saying absolutely nothing. Your comment could apply to expansions, in game or fully developed, cosmetic upgrades available over a DLC style system, or even patches, as that's "developed content." Try thinking prior to posting.
The problem is, all developers are moving to the DLC style system as it generates more money, and tends to alienate fewer people than it is assumed will happen by forumites.
The trend is similar to the old adage about the frog and the frying pan, turn up the heat to full and the frog jumps out immediately, but raise the heat slowly enough and eventually said frog will boil alive in its own juices.
So all we have to look forward to in the future is game companies always pushing the envelope of what the market will bear, and as I said, try to squeeze every last drop of blood from the stone that is the playerbase. Rather than just trying to put out a decent game and expect a fair price, minimum content and quality is delivered at maximum cost.
Just ask yourselves this, back in the day before giant development houses, games were released without the ability to be patched over an internet, so had to be released without bugs (or as few as possible) and as complete as possible. With the advent of the internet, accountability goes way down because content and patches that SHOULD have been in the original development cycle can always be released after going gold, frequently with an additional price tag. Is this the way things should be progressing?
I've got a nifty idea. How about we wait and see what said features are before starting a bonfire to burn Blizzard for heresy. The way it sounds is that you'll be able to play D3 for free but that some features can't just be allowed without paying a regular fee. No point in getting worked up over something we don't know about yet.
I've got a nifty idea. How about we wait and see what said features are before starting a bonfire to burn Blizzard for heresy. The way it sounds is that you'll be able to play D3 for free but that some features can't just be allowed without paying a regular fee. No point in getting worked up over something we don't know about yet.
Amd that's the kind of attitude that will allow the development cycle to continue as is and cement the pay to play system in place. Its only BEFORE everything is finalized that change can be effected, so the only logical course is to raise a ruckus before things are in fact finished.
And the idea that a feature in a game can't be allowed without additional cash flow is rediculous. If they develop said feature, and no one pays for it (worst case for them) they're out the money anyways. They have to develop with the idea that all content is equally accessed, otherwise you marginalize and segment the playerbase, further reducing popularity and replayability.
ESPECIALLY considering the fact that on a monthly basis they're receiving over $108 million from their WoW subscriber base. I challenge anyone to dispute that that kind of cash flow would someone be eaten up by the product development cycle of a video game, especially considering that all the people working on WoTLK, D3, SC2 and others are all paid employees and have minimal profit sharing at best. I'm pretty sure that their development costs for several games are WELL covered into the forseeable future already.
Lets not worry about it and assume its going to be free to play and be happy. When it comes out and you read the box and it says p2p then you can throw it on the ground and piss on it
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www.myspace.com/mpotatoes for all your Trans Siberian Orchestra listening pleasure
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
The reason they are trying to go a different route with charging for features is because of the fan backlash against any fee. But whatever they decide, the'll squeeze the same amount of money out of the playerbase whether its subscription or microtransactions or whatever.
Well that's just stupid. A bunch of people complain and they go ahead anyway? Sound strategy there.
What's sad is that for the first time in their development history, Blizzard is going to have to convince me to buy one of their games. I played WoW only briefly, and couldn't stand the idea of P2P as well as it being a mindless grindfest with every character out there solely distinguished by gear.
But Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo were all brilliant and I bought them without hesitation.
But now, I'm going to wait several months past their release date to see what corporate shenanigans they're planning, both for D3 and SC2. If they start big-timing the playerbase like Bethesda did with Oblivion, they won't get my money I guarantee.
oh i will piss in every copy on the store, and then run away giggling like little girl with all the police running after me with a sily music on the background like in one of those crazy Benny Hill moments
Lol thats the way to do it :thumbsup:
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www.myspace.com/mpotatoes for all your Trans Siberian Orchestra listening pleasure
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
Amd that's the kind of attitude that will allow the development cycle to continue as is and cement the pay to play system in place. Its only BEFORE everything is finalized that change can be effected, so the only logical course is to raise a ruckus before things are in fact finished.
And the idea that a feature in a game can't be allowed without additional cash flow is rediculous. If they develop said feature, and no one pays for it (worst case for them) they're out the money anyways. They have to develop with the idea that all content is equally accessed, otherwise you marginalize and segment the playerbase, further reducing popularity and replayability.
ESPECIALLY considering the fact that on a monthly basis they're receiving over $108 million from their WoW subscriber base. I challenge anyone to dispute that that kind of cash flow would someone be eaten up by the product development cycle of a video game, especially considering that all the people working on WoTLK, D3, SC2 and others are all paid employees and have minimal profit sharing at best. I'm pretty sure that their development costs for several games are WELL covered into the forseeable future already.
There's a small problem though, you don't know what you are complaining about. That's kind of, well, asinine. There's people pretty much cutting their wrists about this "possibility", and over what? A comment that they want the game to be free and that there are certain features they are thinking about that if they do enable access to would require people to pay a monthly fee? That says nothing. What would be a problem with features possibly being added on as an additional option instead of not at all when we don't even have the slightest idea as to what these "optional features" are?
If they had said they were thinking about asking for a monthly fee for regularly added content, extra storage space, or exclusive items then by all means, yell and scream to your heart's content, I don't blame you. But as it stands there is nothing to yell about. For all we know these features could be something good that wouldn't compromise the game for people not willing to pay.
Several MMOs have had such an additional service. Such as a site that keeps your character's data on it in a nice portfolio with a player finding system along with player/character biography and history tracker (such as what quests had been completed and when) as well as several other useful features that had no impact on the game itself whatsoever for a small monthly fee.
Which is why I say before throwing tantrums let's see what they are "considering".
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Jay Wilson said that Blizzard will probably monetize SOME features of the game, now I wonder WHAT features are these? I'm pretty sure the game itself will be free but i cant imagine what else could be charged.
Jay also said that "whatever the content would be, it would have an appropriate value to users."
I really didnt like this news, i dont have problem in paying but in most cases the fees of the services are too high for what they offer. (Like US$15 for WoW)
WoW justifies this cost by being massive, allowing 40 man raids, etc.
I refuse to pay a subscription fee for a glorified chat system and a 4-man player limit. What I would be amenable to is allowing users to pay for cosmetic enhancements that have zero gameplay effect, so if you want to pay to dress up your toon that's fine.
Plus, any content that is added that is pay to play opens up a host of problems with bot sellers, PvP imbalances and more.
I hope Blizz doesn't stray so far from the Diablo formula (which IMHO is near perfect for the genre) in a desperate bid to entice WoW subscribers to buy and pay for this as well. That's just greedy.
I'll gladly pay once. Monthly... not so much.
Kind of have to? WTF does that mean? As in "we have to squeeze every last drop of blood from the stone that is the playerbase!" Good job on being as inarticulate and obfuscating as possible. And if I remember from the merger, Blizzard retained its autonomy, so it should not be getting pressure from Activision.
So much harder? How so? Every game I own that is moddable has gigantic mod communities that serve only to make the game better and extend its replayability, something that any game developer should desire. And 'HACKING" the game? Have they even looked at the amount of mods the average WoW player has downloaded to improve the horrible standard UI?
Funny how Blizzard devs are big-timing the playerbase. They used to be like us, talented modders who got a break, and now that they're in the money, step on the people that helped them get there. Sad.
he said Prob not,(then people cheered) and if there possibly is It won't be monthly charges
As for me, if they charged a monthly fee for d3 - than I would aspect strong enforcement on no hacking or duping as well as updates and additions to d3 on a regular basis. If this was the case than I would gladly pay with a smile for a montly fee.
As for those who dont agree - do you aspect blizzard to maintain a game for a long period of time while receiving no additional revenue for it? And really how much would it cost? - you pay lets say 50 for the game and lets say 120 a year to play it. Are you serious that you cant find 120 bucks (10 bucks a month) to play d3 for a year? How many years do you plan on playing d3? 10? Like most people probably for a few years and probably not every single month for those years. So if it costed me lets say 290 (2 years at 120 bucks a year plus the 50 for the game) bucks for d3 to have a great game for 2 years with no hackers no duping and updates on a regular basis - I wouild gladly pay the 290 bucks. But thats just me.
Just imagine what blizzard would accomplish with continued revenue with d3. Battlegrounds, guild areas, expansions, strict no hacking policies, payed gms, anything would be possible with continued revenue. I think what we all can agree on is that what we dont want is to pay a monthly fee and get no benefit from it but I really really doubt that would ever happen when it comes to a great company like blizzard.
Athridar
When you get Diablo thats exactly what you buy, the right to play at battle.net... if there is a monthly fee or any kind of one time fee i wont be buying this.
I can deal with pk being out, i can deal with crapy graphics, i can deal with auto-stats, i can even deal with pvm being completely lame as it is. But i refuse to pay more than once for this game.
Computer games cost what they do because that is what the market will bear. If development costs go over budget, that's the fault of the developer, not the consumer. And that's a rediculous statement, since developers to not bankroll their employees and operations with hope of the future, they use cash. And with the profits made from 9 million people paying USD$15 a month for WoW, I'm sure they're not too worried about development costs. Its routine for sucessful developers to use proftis from one game to pay forward the development of another.
No, wrong. You don't understand corporate nature apparently. The reason they split it up is to do two things; first, they can extend development time to reduce bugs on staggered releases, and two they make a LOT more money for nearly the same amount of work. Its all about the greenbacks.
Again, this is a naive statement. Take Bethesda's Oblivion game for example. $50 out of the box, company turns a nice profit. Then, in a departure from their normal routine of occasionally offering free plugins and community support, they refuse to release certain content to the mod community AND begin to charge for "DLCs" that come out every few months.
Problem is, the DLC they develop in house is rediculously inferior to what the mod community produces, both in terms of quality and quantity. They lose customer confidence, and the support of the mod community. All you have to do is look at the Fallout 3 forums to see the uneasiness felt at Bethesda's "going rogue" so to speak. Like I said, a game is paid for before its released, generally by the publisher, who expect to recoup costs after sales.
Its similar to the concept of movies, a movie might take $50 million or $500 million to produce, but you pay the same amount at the box office, adjusted for inflation of course.
Its not whining to voice concerns, and strong language is necessary to get otherwise uncaring developers a reason to read and listen. If enough people voice their concern, things can change, if everyone just follows lockstep and eats whatever is spoonfed to them, nothing changes.
As to the Harry Potter comparison see my comment above. Why do you think nearly every new released game in the US always retails for $49.99? Because that's the going "industry rate." And besides, with the profits from WoW rolling in every month, I'm pretty sure the upkeep of Battle.Net and paying their employees is of little concern.
http://finance.google.com/finance?q=blizzard
One of the few companies not horribly impacted by the economy, due to such things as WoW subscribers, their stock price is actually UP 22/100ths of a percent from the same time last year and is on the rise!
Note the word 'CONTENT'.
Wow, thanks for saying absolutely nothing. Your comment could apply to expansions, in game or fully developed, cosmetic upgrades available over a DLC style system, or even patches, as that's "developed content." Try thinking prior to posting.
The problem is, all developers are moving to the DLC style system as it generates more money, and tends to alienate fewer people than it is assumed will happen by forumites.
The trend is similar to the old adage about the frog and the frying pan, turn up the heat to full and the frog jumps out immediately, but raise the heat slowly enough and eventually said frog will boil alive in its own juices.
So all we have to look forward to in the future is game companies always pushing the envelope of what the market will bear, and as I said, try to squeeze every last drop of blood from the stone that is the playerbase. Rather than just trying to put out a decent game and expect a fair price, minimum content and quality is delivered at maximum cost.
Just ask yourselves this, back in the day before giant development houses, games were released without the ability to be patched over an internet, so had to be released without bugs (or as few as possible) and as complete as possible. With the advent of the internet, accountability goes way down because content and patches that SHOULD have been in the original development cycle can always be released after going gold, frequently with an additional price tag. Is this the way things should be progressing?
Amd that's the kind of attitude that will allow the development cycle to continue as is and cement the pay to play system in place. Its only BEFORE everything is finalized that change can be effected, so the only logical course is to raise a ruckus before things are in fact finished.
And the idea that a feature in a game can't be allowed without additional cash flow is rediculous. If they develop said feature, and no one pays for it (worst case for them) they're out the money anyways. They have to develop with the idea that all content is equally accessed, otherwise you marginalize and segment the playerbase, further reducing popularity and replayability.
ESPECIALLY considering the fact that on a monthly basis they're receiving over $108 million from their WoW subscriber base. I challenge anyone to dispute that that kind of cash flow would someone be eaten up by the product development cycle of a video game, especially considering that all the people working on WoTLK, D3, SC2 and others are all paid employees and have minimal profit sharing at best. I'm pretty sure that their development costs for several games are WELL covered into the forseeable future already.
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
Well that's just stupid. A bunch of people complain and they go ahead anyway? Sound strategy there.
What's sad is that for the first time in their development history, Blizzard is going to have to convince me to buy one of their games. I played WoW only briefly, and couldn't stand the idea of P2P as well as it being a mindless grindfest with every character out there solely distinguished by gear.
But Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo were all brilliant and I bought them without hesitation.
But now, I'm going to wait several months past their release date to see what corporate shenanigans they're planning, both for D3 and SC2. If they start big-timing the playerbase like Bethesda did with Oblivion, they won't get my money I guarantee.
Lol thats the way to do it :thumbsup:
If you want to arrange it
This world you can change it
If we could somehow make this
Christmas thing last
By helping a neighbor
Or even a stranger
And to know who needs help
You need only just ask
There's a small problem though, you don't know what you are complaining about. That's kind of, well, asinine. There's people pretty much cutting their wrists about this "possibility", and over what? A comment that they want the game to be free and that there are certain features they are thinking about that if they do enable access to would require people to pay a monthly fee? That says nothing. What would be a problem with features possibly being added on as an additional option instead of not at all when we don't even have the slightest idea as to what these "optional features" are?
If they had said they were thinking about asking for a monthly fee for regularly added content, extra storage space, or exclusive items then by all means, yell and scream to your heart's content, I don't blame you. But as it stands there is nothing to yell about. For all we know these features could be something good that wouldn't compromise the game for people not willing to pay.
Several MMOs have had such an additional service. Such as a site that keeps your character's data on it in a nice portfolio with a player finding system along with player/character biography and history tracker (such as what quests had been completed and when) as well as several other useful features that had no impact on the game itself whatsoever for a small monthly fee.
Which is why I say before throwing tantrums let's see what they are "considering".