DiabloFans

They didn't miss the launch window for the new consoles because of any obsession with quality - they missed it for the same reason they shipped a mediocre game, never really made PVP, and will be lucky to ship an expansion in under two years.

But this is inevitable when a corporate culture spends a dozen years moving away from actual focus on their products and promotes people based on their ability to play politics.

Now we only need offline and the arena-style pvp they showed off years ago!

Jay still has a job and we still don't have PVP.

Ho ho ho!

"We also don't want to raise false expectations"

That is an ironic statement, seeing as how they recently made a half-billion dollars based on them.

Not a spoiler if you've seen the datamined in-game model in question. That's been around for at least few months, hasn't it?

Basically admiting that much of the coolest stuff in '08 was a demo that will never see release. Shocking.

I thought that TL2 and D3 would at least have different mechanics, making for a different-feeling gameplay experience at the cores.

With today's news, I guess that isn't the case. What's next? A permanent pet in D3?

protip: D3 is not a subscription game, and the government regulators just ensured that it won't have any RMAH stream in SK...



special bonus english-as-first-language protip: you're

As of early 2008, 9.5 million copies of StarCraft were sold worldwide, and Korea accounted for 4.5 million copies of those sales.

http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-is-starcraft-popular-in-korea.html

From the business perspective, China market is not essential to Blizzard. (the above teamliquid link)

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=98273

Wished, I'm feeling charitable, so I'll try one last time, please read slowly.

There is no way to monetize a non-subscription game in the PRC in china, and even when you do have a hit MMO, like WoW, you need to work with a partner - you can't own a majority stake in a PRC company. So that means your upside, despite many potential players, means much, much less cash than south korea - a country where Blizzard made tons of cash going back to Starcraft in the 90s.

Hence, any normal person whose business experience went beyond yours - as an fetal-oxygen-deprived teenager - would call the market where you could potentially sell a hundred million bucks worth of d3 instead of maybe, hopefully a few million a bigger market.

The fact that I'm bothering to educate you despite your confident assertion that SK was a smaller asian market for bliz than indonesia speaks to my deeply humanitarian and truly magnanimous nature. Have a good weekend.

Wished, if you had even the smallest business experience with the PRC, you would know that no foreign company can own an outpost there outright. You would also know that Bliz has had plenty of drama with regulators, has moved on from their old partner, only makes pennies relative to dollars on WoW timecards, hasn't really monetized the other titles like SC, while they have made hundreds of millions in SK and have a 100% owned office there... But you don't. Because you don't know your ass from your elbow about any of the above subjects.

"regardless of SK being higher then japan"


Uh... by a truly huge multiple, whether or not you know how to google.

You're just embarassing yourself. Please, educate yourself a little on the fact that Blizzard products have been a significant part of Korean culture for the past dozen years, and try to learn about the fact that Blizzard needs to work with a partner by law in China before digging even deeper.

protip: mongolia is a much "bigger" asian country than SK, but still not much of a market for blizzard. you're welcome.

Quote from WishedHeHadBeta

Quote from Gheed2010

Blizzard surrenders after six bitter months, gives up RMAH in smallest asian market

There, fixed the headline.

biggest asian market? troll much?

china...japan...india...indonesia... geography much either?

lol

Please, wished, enlighten us once again with your superior knowledge and illuminate why india, indonesia and japan are more important than korea, despite SK having over 10x the blizzard players of all of those countries combined.

Feel free to share how blizz can circumvent the need to have a partner in the PRC and can run the RMAH there while you're at it.

Blizzard surrenders after six bitter months, gives up RMAH in biggest asian market

There, fixed the headline.