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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Blizzard in the past ten years has ALWAYS opted to do a sequel or a 're-imagining' of successful previous work, and I think the designers have grown increasingly worried and frustrated with the quality and design gap between the vintage stuff, some of which goes all the way back to 2001, and the latest material. So, a "cataclysm" which means a similar yet changed Azeroth makes sense.
So, here's my question for the peanut gallery - how will this be structured in terms of new players after this is released? Will there be 1.0 and 2.0 Azeroths, and newbies will just get the old one with the vanilla game? Will it just be an alternative Azeroth much like any other "new" zone which exists side-by-side with the old one?
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They are actually quite intelligent. WoW makes a steady BILLION dollars in revenue a year (assuming a box ships every at least every two years - and almost that without it). About 60% of that is PURE PROFIT. No one has margins like that. Most big retail businesses are happy with margins in the high single digits.
Do YOU think it would be smart to take a big chunk of that subscription-paying audience and replace it with a one-time box sale? Hell no. Especially because a big chunk of that WoW fanbase has never experienced a REAL game like Diablo II - give them a taste of a game that isn't incredibly boring, and they might leave forever. That's why they take their own sweet time - the whole idea is to keep fans waiting and 'loyal' to the Blizzard brand, while they keep raking in that WoW subscriber cash on a game largely developed over 5 years ago.
It is the WoW customer base they don't want to lose, especially on a product THEY paid to develop, test and market.
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I think one of the artists on the team could have made at least one 2H axe WD animation in the time it took you to put that together. Maybe two. And WoW probably cleared at least a few hundred grand in profit in that same timespan.
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I just hope it gets a good director.
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Is it just that they don't want to compete with their own cash cow with their own games? And who can blame them?
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That's a better guess than the folks dreaming of 2010 (and with an assumed target of 30 hours of gameplay plus Blizz-level balancing, a competing release of SC2.1 and 2.2, that is just a dream), but if they can't hit 2012, cancellation becomes more likely. The engine will just be too old at that point.
This wouldn't be such a bad thing for Blizzard's bottom line - WoW will probably have better margins than ever at that point, easily still making 600-700 mil sub revenue a year on a development budget which will probably have dropped to well under 100 mil annually by then (if not much less than that).
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http://playmagazine.com/index.php?fuseaction=SiteMain.MediaPlayer&videoid=76
It also sounds like this may be the longer Uelman track that the trailer music was taken from.
I'd imagine that the modder aspect will sell as many downloads as the game itself, which should be plenty, especially if they can keep it closer to 20 bucks than 30 bucks.
- Sweet, stable DIY mod/level/character kit
- Less than 1/2 the price of most AAA game boxes
- Out in 2009
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Interview with the lead and gamplay video (starting at 2:00). Judging by this and the trailer, they have quite a few different levels already done. With the modder, they should do pretty well with this at twenty-thirty bucks a pop.
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http://www.perfectworld.com/modules/e3_2009/swf/tl.swf
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http://www.perfectworld.com/e3_2009
The music sounds like that Uelman guy has gone back to more of a rock sound. Fine by me.
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WoW has generated a cool BILLION in profits in the past 16 months... would YOU really want to get people excited about a competing product?