Now as much as most people hate Blizzard Entertainment and look at the Failure of Diablo 3 and the Ageing of World of Warcraft , Im still in love with the company . Because even though D3 was a flop and WoW is in its twilight years , Blizzard has also released Starcraft 2 , an extremely enjoyable RTS , and D2 , A hack in slash that has a place in most peoples hearts.
As well as that , WoW is still by far my favourite MMO and I have pre-ordered MoP because I still find enjoyment in playing WoW... Im hoping that Titan takes the torch from WoW and keeps Blizzards MMO scene alive and still allows me to proudly say "Blizzard are the best gaming Devs to date"
Possibly off topic, possibly not as it directly equates to what you consider success.
I know that D3 generated a lot of complaints, there were bugs and connection problems but in what universe is selling 3.5 million copies in 24 hours, 6.3 million in a week, over 10 million to date, the fastest selling PC game to date receiving scores of 8-9/10 by virtually every major publication and critic considered a flop?
Depends on what context one is discussing flop. Did it sell a lot of copies? Sure it did and you provide plenty of evidence to support your view. But what about discussing it in terms of value and entertainment, did it meet expectations? To many (me included) that is a huge no and I'd go as far as to say that to many people who have supported Blizzrd products in the past, this was a slap in the face. I don't think that just because box sells were high, the state and content of the game should be overlooked and this, as far as I am concerned, may have been the last Blizzard product I buy after what I feel has been shoddy products for years. I bought them on reputation and past games I enjoyed by the company but that has become a thing of the past in my eyes. Titan would have to be pretty damned amazing for me personally to want to buy it because I really have zero problems with nostalgia when I think about Blizzard. Numbers don't tell the whole story.
See my statement above.
See the portion I added before you quoted.
Opinion isn't something you can argue as factual, it's an opinion. There is only one context when you label something as a flop, and that is it didn't sell or sold considerably less then it's predicessor, neither of which happened in the case of D3.
You're attempting to argue your opinion against facts. The guy your trying "prove wrong" gave you facts that can't be argued against with opinions.
Just because you didn't like D3 doesn't make it a flop because you inject opinion into it. 10 million copies sold is a fact, and it's a fact that any game that sells that many copies is a success.
Few games manage to sell 10 million copies, let alone 10 million in a months time. Some of you here, where people are notoriously critical and have a general dislike of Blizzard, may not of liked the game, however it didn't sell all of it's copies in the first week. People were still buying it several weeks later. You don't sell a couple million copies of a game a few weeks after it releases because most people that purchased it disliked it. If so many people didn't like the game, it wouldn't have managed to reach 10 million boxes sold, it would have sold heavily in its initial release and then simply died off.
The fact is the game was received very well by the general gaming public, even if many people found some faults in it, and your opinion is entirely irrelevent to that fact.
MoP is not Titan, Blizzard has stated that it's an entirely new IP and not like WoW.
The OP did not make any assumptions about Titan, he stated his HOPES that it will be a good game that will continue Blizzards record of succesfull development.
People around here are so full of spite and vinager that people can't even make a simple post expressing an opinion with anything to do with Blizzard without a bunch of people jumping on them to condemn their post and feelings.
I am chastised.
My own opinion is that I hope Titan will be good. The only thing I have to go by is WoW, I've enjoyed it off/on for many years. Funny enough I still don't have a max level player in it. I just take my time, do my own thing. Wow let me do this.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
I want Titan to be Blizzards ace because I want to play a good game.. it has nothing to do with Blizzard succeeding or failing. Who the hell cares what happens to the companies? I'm here to play good games.
Game companies are being treated like celebrities or summat these days. It's embarrassing gamers and is an insult to how the industry used to be.. they were better times.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Originally posted by Vannor I want Titan to be Blizzards ace because I want to play a good game.. it has nothing to do with Blizzard succeeding or failing. Who the hell cares what happens to the companies? I'm here to play good games.
How do you know it will be a good game though? IMO, blizzard used to get a free pass but that was before D3. D3's suckiness (yes I just made that word up) made me revoke my free pass. Blizzard will now be scrutinized.
Originally posted by Vannor I want Titan to be Blizzards ace because I want to play a good game.. it has nothing to do with Blizzard succeeding or failing. Who the hell cares what happens to the companies? I'm here to play good games.
How do you know it will be a good game though? IMO, blizzard used to get a free pass but that was before D3. D3's suckiness (yes I just made that word up) has revoked my free pass. Blizzard will now be scrutinized.
I didn't say it would be good.. I said I want it to be good. Hell, I want every game to be good.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
I don't know why people hate on D3 so much. I played through it only once because, guess what, it's not an MMORPG. The story was mediocre, but the combat was fun. There have been far worse games out there.
I would love to see the D3 rune system in an mmo. I think it is the best replacement for the talent system.
Edit: Blizzard kinda went that direction with MOP, and I think it's an improvement. However, it didn't go far enough, imo
Originally posted by apocoluster What is Titan? No seriously do you know? Why make assumptions just yet? For all we know its an expansion to Hello Kitty Online.
Titan will be Blizzard's next game designed entirely around a Real Money Auction House.
Mark my words.
Diablo III was just a beta test for the RMAH, just like The Foundry in Star Trek Online is a beta test for the upcoming game Neverwinter.
Originally posted by Vannor I want Titan to be Blizzards ace because I want to play a good game.. it has nothing to do with Blizzard succeeding or failing. Who the hell cares what happens to the companies? I'm here to play good games.
How do you know it will be a good game though? IMO, blizzard used to get a free pass but that was before D3. D3's suckiness (yes I just made that word up) has revoked my free pass. Blizzard will now be scrutinized.
I didn't say it would be good.. I said I want it to be good. Hell, I want every game to be good.
My bad then. As gamers, everyone should want a game to be good.
Originally posted by Vannor I want Titan to be Blizzards ace because I want to play a good game.. it has nothing to do with Blizzard succeeding or failing. Who the hell cares what happens to the companies? I'm here to play good games.
How do you know it will be a good game though? IMO, blizzard used to get a free pass but that was before D3. D3's suckiness (yes I just made that word up) has revoked my free pass. Blizzard will now be scrutinized.
I didn't say it would be good.. I said I want it to be good. Hell, I want every game to be good.
My bad then. As gamers, everyone should want a game to be good.
Do you want Titan to be the best game in the market once it is released
Doesn't matter whether it's considered the best game or not. If it's good, I'll play it. My original point being, I look at the games.. not the name attached it or how successful or unsuccessful it is.
This threads OP isn't about Titan, it's about Blizzard. I just think that's the wrong angle to take.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
D3 did sell a ton of copies. Most of that was based off previous like of D1-D2 + expansions and trust in Blizzard as a developer. Not everyone was happy with that purchase. The same could be said for Starcraft 2. More people are not enjoying the WoW changes either. Buyers remorse is worse than low sales figures. It has a much greater effect on future sales. So does poor changes to an existing game you are/were playing(WoW and it's declining subs). Disappointment is worse than not knowing.
A lot is hinging on their next games. Some of us are already lost as customers. Others are still hanging in the balance. If they disappoint again, it could be very very bad for them as a company.
Originally posted by Vannor I want Titan to be Blizzards ace because I want to play a good game.. it has nothing to do with Blizzard succeeding or failing. Who the hell cares what happens to the companies? I'm here to play good games.
How do you know it will be a good game though? IMO, blizzard used to get a free pass but that was before D3. D3's suckiness (yes I just made that word up) has revoked my free pass. Blizzard will now be scrutinized.
I didn't say it would be good.. I said I want it to be good. Hell, I want every game to be good.
My bad then. As gamers, everyone should want a game to be good.
Want and presume are definitely two different things.
D3 did sell a ton of copies. Most of that was based off previous like of D1-D2 + expansions and trust in Blizzard as a developer. Not everyone was happy with that purchase. The same could be said for Starcraft 2. More people are not enjoying the WoW changes either. Buyers remorse is worse than low sales figures. It has a much greater effect on future sales. So does poor changes to an existing game you are/were playing(WoW and it's declining subs). Disappointment is worse than not knowing.
A lot is hinging on their next games. Some of us are already lost as customers. Others are still hanging in the balance. If they disappoint again, it could be very very bad for them as a company.
The intersting thing about a shared sentiment, is that even when few people actually feel the same way you do it can seem as though a much larger number of people share your feelings even when they don't. Especially so when you're able to get that shared sentiment from a community that has a tendency to already feel as you do.
Unhappy people are also much more vocal then happy ones. Even on blizzards own website you'll see more people saying "game sucked" then you will people saying the game was great.
Nor is there a single product in the world that everyone liked, there is always going to be people that are unhappy with their purchase.
Buyers remorse is also never worse then low sales figures. You're arguing that something that has already made you money is worse then something that didn't make you money, in a medium that doesn't require people to continually pay in order to play the game. Blizzard isn't depending on people using the RMAH in order to make money off of D3; I'm fairly certain that with more then 10m copies sold they've already made money off of it. No company has ever built a product and factored in "buyers remorse" as a variable of potential loss in sales.
And let us not forget, the more people that purchase your product, the more people that will actually dislike it. Word of mouth carried the product beyond it's initial offering, not past products or the maker of the product. By week four D1, D2, and the Blizzard name had very little to do with people buying D3, and everything to do with word of mouth and game reviews.
Yeah, a lot of people weren't satisfied with the game; which would be expected of any game that sells over 10 million copies.
No game ever sold 8.8 million copies in THREE MONTHS just because of it's name or the name of the maker, let alone because an overwhelming number of people didn't like it.
If it was as easy as a name, then Duke Nukem Forever would have sold a lot more then 73,000 copies. A game has to be generally accpeted as good in order to reach 8.8 million sales in three months.
D3 did sell a ton of copies. Most of that was based off previous like of D1-D2 + expansions and trust in Blizzard as a developer. Not everyone was happy with that purchase. The same could be said for Starcraft 2. More people are not enjoying the WoW changes either. Buyers remorse is worse than low sales figures. It has a much greater effect on future sales. So does poor changes to an existing game you are/were playing(WoW and it's declining subs). Disappointment is worse than not knowing.
A lot is hinging on their next games. Some of us are already lost as customers. Others are still hanging in the balance. If they disappoint again, it could be very very bad for them as a company.
The intersting thing about a shared sentiment, is that even when few people actually feel the same way you do it can seem as though a much larger number of people share your feelings even when they don't. Especially so when you're able to get that shared sentiment from a community that has a tendency to already feel as you do.
Unhappy people are also much more vocal then happy ones. Even on blizzards own website you'll see more people saying "game sucked" then you will people saying the game was great.
Nor is there a single product in the world that everyone liked, there is always going to be people that are unhappy with their purchase.
Buyers remorse is also never worse then low sales figures. You're arguing that something that has already made you money is worse then something that didn't make you money, in a medium that doesn't require people to continually pay in order to play the game. Blizzard isn't depending on people using the RMAH in order to make money off of D3; I'm fairly certain that with more then 10m copies sold they've already made money off of it. No company has ever built a product and factored in "buyers remorse" as a variable of potential loss in sales.
And let us not forget, the more people that purchase your product, the more people that will actually dislike it. Word of mouth carried the product beyond it's initial offering, not past products or the maker of the product. By week four D1, D2, and the Blizzard name had very little to do with people buying D3, and everything to do with word of mouth and game reviews.
Yeah, a lot of people weren't satisfied with the game; which would be expected of any game that sells over 10 million copies.
No game ever sold 8.8 million copies in THREE MONTHS just because of it's name or the name of the maker, let alone because an overwhelming number of people didn't like it.
If it was as easy as a name, then Duke Nukem Forever would have sold a lot more then 73,000 copies. A game has to be generally accpeted as good in order to reach 8.8 million sales in three months.
The vocal minority arguement. Yes, unhappy people are very vocal. But, you can't just say all people who are not vocal are happy. Some are. Some aren't. Ask Blizzard themselves how they feel about people who quit without ever saying a word that indicates why. Don't presume or assume one way or another about the "quiet majority".
Disappointment is very much harder to overcome. It's easier to buy the next game that looks like it might be fun if you didn't buy the last one because it didn't look like fun than it is to buy the new one if you bought the last one expecting good things and being very disappointed. Doubt is not easy to overcome. Future sales are important.
I think you vastly underestimate customer loyalty and name recognition. Have you ever worked in sales? Been trained for sales?
The key aspect of the disappointment is buying and expecting one thing and then not getting what you expected/wanted. Buyer's remorse is after the sale, not before it.
Originally posted by Terrorizor Titan shows nothing more than vaporware, coming at a time where Activision is trying to sell off Blizzard. Who would buy a game development company that doesn't have some project they are working on. I think it's just a ploy to keep the potential sales value higher. I doubt we will ever see anything more than what we already know - nothing.
Activision isn't selling off Blizzard. Vivendi is trying to sell off their 61% holding in Activision/Blizzard.
Yes, you're right. I mixed up Activision with Vivendi.
I think I get what the OP is trying to allude to and hopefully recapture. There was a time when Blizzard seemed unable to miss. They had a certain creative ethos that did nothing but create great gaming experiences. I think a portion of their current woes are a result of their current size. The monet machine often stifles the creativity of any particular design team. When "failure" is not an option, uncertainty frowned upon, and sales numbers and revenue are the ultimate measuring stick --- fun takes a back seat.
Starcraft 2 has been a great game but the BNet 2 platform has much to be desired in terms of community creating. I don't understand why Blizzard thought that adding social media tie ins could substitute for a truely integrated game community. The SC2 community has almost completely moved to the streaming sites and the pro-sites.
World of Warcraft was an awesome game! I have wasted more of my life playing WoW than any other game. Unfortunately, everyone else thought it was a great game too...for the most part. Blizzard began panda-ring to all the complaints of the newcomers to the MMORPG genre and tapped the cash shop keg so that everyone could have a taste of the brew. World of Warcraft is still a good game today...I just don't have much interest in it anymore because the immersion went into the toilet.
Then there was Diablo 3...
Biggest disappointment of all time in my opinion. Two major failures:
1. Game systems suffered from a disgusting amount of indecision. They could never get the most basic game systems to reflect the philosophy they were aiming for. Stats and skills were still being changed substantially all the way up to release. Customization became non-existent. Sure...you can play your character however you like, but after level 50 you will play it the same way as everyone else. Because there is only one way to deal with any encounter in late hell/inferno levels.
2. Auction House instead of trade channels destroyed the community that previous versions of the game had and also marginalized the item hunt. If you can buy what you need at anytime then you only essentially are searching for one thing the whole time --- gold/cash. Congratulations, you eliminated the item hunt.
Ultimately, this game only gives you an illusion of difficulty or variety. (The story was predictable and sucky too.)
Diablo 3 was not a financial failure but it made damn sure D4 will be. I, like the OP, still like SC2. but I do know that if "Heart of the Swarm" comes out and is a waste of money (like D3) then Titan's future could easily be destroyed by word of mouth for Blizzard in general. I can't speak to MOP, because I haven't played WOW in years.
Diablo 3 was not a financial failure but it made damn sure D4 will be. I, like the OP, still like SC2. but I do know that if "Heart of the Swarm" comes out and is a waste of money (like D3) then Titan's future could easily be destroyed by word of mouth for Blizzard in general. I can't speak to MOP, because I haven't played WOW in years.
Current rumor is that Blizz is wanting to take a f2p approach to SC. A lot of people were not happy with how they split up SC2 and how much they are charging for each section instead of the expansion style sales of SC1. I don't know how they plan to make f2p work with SC, but no one will want to play with inferior or less units. I guess they could sell style with the same stats, but I don't see that working out as well either. Who knows.
I agree with the D4 comment and it's essentially what I was describing above. But, on a larger scale than just Diablo.
Now as much as most people hate Blizzard Entertainment and look at the Failure of Diablo 3 and the Ageing of World of Warcraft , Im still in love with the company . Because even though D3 was a flop and WoW is in its twilight years , Blizzard has also released Starcraft 2 , an extremely enjoyable RTS , and D2 , A hack in slash that has a place in most peoples hearts.
As well as that , WoW is still by far my favourite MMO and I have pre-ordered MoP because I still find enjoyment in playing WoW... Im hoping that Titan takes the torch from WoW and keeps Blizzards MMO scene alive and still allows me to proudly say "Blizzard are the best gaming Devs to date"
Why? (You did not adequately answer that for me in your post)
I'm Praying Titan is Blizzards ace because I really love Blizzard and want to continue seeing them do well in the MMO scene
But why do you want that?
Because its good for the genre as a whole? More successfull titles bring more investor money into the gaming market? because while many people like to hate on Blizzard they still have made some great games int heir time and aren't any more money grubbing them say SOE, or EA?
because titan can well be better then anything currently being offered on the market to include GW2 and Daarkfall2.0 (the game of continued pushed back release dates and changed names :P)
So my question is why do you seemingly want titan to be a bad game?
2. Auction House instead of trade channels destroyed the community that previous versions of the game had and also marginalized the item hunt. If you can buy what you need at anytime then you only essentially are searching for one thing the whole time --- gold/cash. Congratulations, you eliminated the item hunt.
Unless you use the RMAH, you cannot afford any of the items on the AH, unless you find a item with comparable value. The really good items .. those costs 10M+ ... you can only afford to buy if you sell something similar.
You will never be able to afford by picking up gold or vendoring stuff.
You are always searching for that big ticket item .. so it does NOT eliminate the item hunt. Just that you do not have to hunt for YOUR class.
Now as much as most people hate Blizzard Entertainment and look at the Failure of Diablo 3 and the Ageing of World of Warcraft , Im still in love with the company . Because even though D3 was a flop and WoW is in its twilight years , Blizzard has also released Starcraft 2 , an extremely enjoyable RTS , and D2 , A hack in slash that has a place in most peoples hearts.
As well as that , WoW is still by far my favourite MMO and I have pre-ordered MoP because I still find enjoyment in playing WoW... Im hoping that Titan takes the torch from WoW and keeps Blizzards MMO scene alive and still allows me to proudly say "Blizzard are the best gaming Devs to date"
Why? (You did not adequately answer that for me in your post)
I'm Praying Titan is Blizzards ace because I really love Blizzard and want to continue seeing them do well in the MMO scene
But why do you want that?
Because its good for the genre as a whole? More successfull titles bring more investor money into the gaming market? because while many people like to hate on Blizzard they still have made some great games int heir time and aren't any more money grubbing them say SOE, or EA?
because titan can well be better then anything currently being offered on the market to include GW2 and Daarkfall2.0 (the game of continued pushed back release dates and changed names :P)
So my question is why do you seemingly want titan to be a bad game?
I don't know why people hate on D3 so much. I played through it only once because, guess what, it's not an MMORPG. The story was mediocre, but the combat was fun. There have been far worse games out there.
I would love to see the D3 rune system in an mmo. I think it is the best replacement for the talent system.
Edit: Blizzard kinda went that direction with MOP, and I think it's an improvement. However, it didn't go far enough, imo
This .. the rune system is much more fun any MMO talent system out there, for me. You actually get to choose a skill that does a different thing, as opposed to put some points here and there to up your damage.
And i also agree MOp is not doing it enough. In D3, you have MANY choices for 6 slots. In MOP, you have 3 choices for each of the FIVE slots.
There will be many more builds and variations in d3 than in MOP.
Lastly, people have double standard when they bought a BOX game, played for a MONTH, then claim disappointment. A month is longer than MOST SP game will last. If a person spend a hundred hours in D3, he has no cause to complain unless he admit he wasted time to play a game he does not like.
Originally posted by Aelious Titan illedgedly has had +/-90 people working on it for who knows how long. Completely different team than other Blizz games I imagine so comparisons would be apples/oranges. Hopefully Titan is good, why would anyone not want it to be?
I dare them to steal my excitement for EQN however. Talk about the two most maligned companies battling for the title of next big MMO! Lol, kind of funny if you ask me.
Yes, EQ2 is a great game and worth anyone checking out. Very deep with a lot to do.
We all have opinions I used to Love EQ2 played it for at least 5 years untill recently when IMO they just stared doing stupid stuff. The dumbing down by saying more then 2 stats is too hard for players to handle so we'll just have a power and a health stat. The lets give wings to every race, and of course our players can't actually count or do math so lets have a free to play model thats actually far more expensive then the subscription
SImply put SOE thinks their customers are Morons. (No need for firewall protection on credit card info no no no need at all, if it gets hacked we'll just give the suckers a free month and say we sorry)
Now as much as most people hate Blizzard Entertainment and look at the Failure of Diablo 3 and the Ageing of World of Warcraft , Im still in love with the company . Because even though D3 was a flop and WoW is in its twilight years , Blizzard has also released Starcraft 2 , an extremely enjoyable RTS , and D2 , A hack in slash that has a place in most peoples hearts.
As well as that , WoW is still by far my favourite MMO and I have pre-ordered MoP because I still find enjoyment in playing WoW... Im hoping that Titan takes the torch from WoW and keeps Blizzards MMO scene alive and still allows me to proudly say "Blizzard are the best gaming Devs to date"
Why? (You did not adequately answer that for me in your post)
I'm Praying Titan is Blizzards ace because I really love Blizzard and want to continue seeing them do well in the MMO scene
But why do you want that?
Because its good for the genre as a whole? More successfull titles bring more investor money into the gaming market? because while many people like to hate on Blizzard they still have made some great games int heir time and aren't any more money grubbing them say SOE, or EA?
because titan can well be better then anything currently being offered on the market to include GW2 and Daarkfall2.0 (the game of continued pushed back release dates and changed names :P)
So my question is why do you seemingly want titan to be a bad game?
How did you get that inference?
CAll me weird but if someone states they hope a game will succeed and another keeps asking why would they want a game to succeed one tends to assume the asking player wants the game to fail. Hope I'm clear enough. true no facts there and assuming is bad, but generally a neutral player probably wouldn't ask so many times why another player wants a game to be good.
Comments
I am chastised.
My own opinion is that I hope Titan will be good. The only thing I have to go by is WoW, I've enjoyed it off/on for many years. Funny enough I still don't have a max level player in it. I just take my time, do my own thing. Wow let me do this.
I want Titan to be Blizzards ace because I want to play a good game.. it has nothing to do with Blizzard succeeding or failing. Who the hell cares what happens to the companies? I'm here to play good games.
Game companies are being treated like celebrities or summat these days. It's embarrassing gamers and is an insult to how the industry used to be.. they were better times.
How do you know it will be a good game though? IMO, blizzard used to get a free pass but that was before D3. D3's suckiness (yes I just made that word up) made me revoke my free pass. Blizzard will now be scrutinized.
I didn't say it would be good.. I said I want it to be good. Hell, I want every game to be good.
I don't know why people hate on D3 so much. I played through it only once because, guess what, it's not an MMORPG. The story was mediocre, but the combat was fun. There have been far worse games out there.
I would love to see the D3 rune system in an mmo. I think it is the best replacement for the talent system.
Edit: Blizzard kinda went that direction with MOP, and I think it's an improvement. However, it didn't go far enough, imo
http://f.cl.ly/items/3n15423i0G2i111y3c2b/computer.gif
Titan will be Blizzard's next game designed entirely around a Real Money Auction House.
Mark my words.
Diablo III was just a beta test for the RMAH, just like The Foundry in Star Trek Online is a beta test for the upcoming game Neverwinter.
My bad then. As gamers, everyone should want a game to be good.
Doesn't matter whether it's considered the best game or not. If it's good, I'll play it. My original point being, I look at the games.. not the name attached it or how successful or unsuccessful it is.
This threads OP isn't about Titan, it's about Blizzard. I just think that's the wrong angle to take.
D3 did sell a ton of copies. Most of that was based off previous like of D1-D2 + expansions and trust in Blizzard as a developer. Not everyone was happy with that purchase. The same could be said for Starcraft 2. More people are not enjoying the WoW changes either. Buyers remorse is worse than low sales figures. It has a much greater effect on future sales. So does poor changes to an existing game you are/were playing(WoW and it's declining subs). Disappointment is worse than not knowing.
A lot is hinging on their next games. Some of us are already lost as customers. Others are still hanging in the balance. If they disappoint again, it could be very very bad for them as a company.
Want and presume are definitely two different things.
The intersting thing about a shared sentiment, is that even when few people actually feel the same way you do it can seem as though a much larger number of people share your feelings even when they don't. Especially so when you're able to get that shared sentiment from a community that has a tendency to already feel as you do.
Unhappy people are also much more vocal then happy ones. Even on blizzards own website you'll see more people saying "game sucked" then you will people saying the game was great.
Nor is there a single product in the world that everyone liked, there is always going to be people that are unhappy with their purchase.
Buyers remorse is also never worse then low sales figures. You're arguing that something that has already made you money is worse then something that didn't make you money, in a medium that doesn't require people to continually pay in order to play the game. Blizzard isn't depending on people using the RMAH in order to make money off of D3; I'm fairly certain that with more then 10m copies sold they've already made money off of it. No company has ever built a product and factored in "buyers remorse" as a variable of potential loss in sales.
And let us not forget, the more people that purchase your product, the more people that will actually dislike it. Word of mouth carried the product beyond it's initial offering, not past products or the maker of the product. By week four D1, D2, and the Blizzard name had very little to do with people buying D3, and everything to do with word of mouth and game reviews.
Yeah, a lot of people weren't satisfied with the game; which would be expected of any game that sells over 10 million copies.
No game ever sold 8.8 million copies in THREE MONTHS just because of it's name or the name of the maker, let alone because an overwhelming number of people didn't like it.
If it was as easy as a name, then Duke Nukem Forever would have sold a lot more then 73,000 copies. A game has to be generally accpeted as good in order to reach 8.8 million sales in three months.
The vocal minority arguement. Yes, unhappy people are very vocal. But, you can't just say all people who are not vocal are happy. Some are. Some aren't. Ask Blizzard themselves how they feel about people who quit without ever saying a word that indicates why. Don't presume or assume one way or another about the "quiet majority".
Disappointment is very much harder to overcome. It's easier to buy the next game that looks like it might be fun if you didn't buy the last one because it didn't look like fun than it is to buy the new one if you bought the last one expecting good things and being very disappointed. Doubt is not easy to overcome. Future sales are important.
I think you vastly underestimate customer loyalty and name recognition. Have you ever worked in sales? Been trained for sales?
The key aspect of the disappointment is buying and expecting one thing and then not getting what you expected/wanted. Buyer's remorse is after the sale, not before it.
Do you really trust review sites?
Yes, you're right. I mixed up Activision with Vivendi.
I think I get what the OP is trying to allude to and hopefully recapture. There was a time when Blizzard seemed unable to miss. They had a certain creative ethos that did nothing but create great gaming experiences. I think a portion of their current woes are a result of their current size. The monet machine often stifles the creativity of any particular design team. When "failure" is not an option, uncertainty frowned upon, and sales numbers and revenue are the ultimate measuring stick --- fun takes a back seat.
Starcraft 2 has been a great game but the BNet 2 platform has much to be desired in terms of community creating. I don't understand why Blizzard thought that adding social media tie ins could substitute for a truely integrated game community. The SC2 community has almost completely moved to the streaming sites and the pro-sites.
World of Warcraft was an awesome game! I have wasted more of my life playing WoW than any other game. Unfortunately, everyone else thought it was a great game too...for the most part. Blizzard began panda-ring to all the complaints of the newcomers to the MMORPG genre and tapped the cash shop keg so that everyone could have a taste of the brew. World of Warcraft is still a good game today...I just don't have much interest in it anymore because the immersion went into the toilet.
Then there was Diablo 3...
Biggest disappointment of all time in my opinion. Two major failures:
1. Game systems suffered from a disgusting amount of indecision. They could never get the most basic game systems to reflect the philosophy they were aiming for. Stats and skills were still being changed substantially all the way up to release. Customization became non-existent. Sure...you can play your character however you like, but after level 50 you will play it the same way as everyone else. Because there is only one way to deal with any encounter in late hell/inferno levels.
2. Auction House instead of trade channels destroyed the community that previous versions of the game had and also marginalized the item hunt. If you can buy what you need at anytime then you only essentially are searching for one thing the whole time --- gold/cash. Congratulations, you eliminated the item hunt.
Ultimately, this game only gives you an illusion of difficulty or variety. (The story was predictable and sucky too.)
Diablo 3 was not a financial failure but it made damn sure D4 will be. I, like the OP, still like SC2. but I do know that if "Heart of the Swarm" comes out and is a waste of money (like D3) then Titan's future could easily be destroyed by word of mouth for Blizzard in general. I can't speak to MOP, because I haven't played WOW in years.
Current rumor is that Blizz is wanting to take a f2p approach to SC. A lot of people were not happy with how they split up SC2 and how much they are charging for each section instead of the expansion style sales of SC1. I don't know how they plan to make f2p work with SC, but no one will want to play with inferior or less units. I guess they could sell style with the same stats, but I don't see that working out as well either. Who knows.
I agree with the D4 comment and it's essentially what I was describing above. But, on a larger scale than just Diablo.
Because its good for the genre as a whole? More successfull titles bring more investor money into the gaming market? because while many people like to hate on Blizzard they still have made some great games int heir time and aren't any more money grubbing them say SOE, or EA?
because titan can well be better then anything currently being offered on the market to include GW2 and Daarkfall2.0 (the game of continued pushed back release dates and changed names :P)
So my question is why do you seemingly want titan to be a bad game?
Unless you use the RMAH, you cannot afford any of the items on the AH, unless you find a item with comparable value. The really good items .. those costs 10M+ ... you can only afford to buy if you sell something similar.
You will never be able to afford by picking up gold or vendoring stuff.
You are always searching for that big ticket item .. so it does NOT eliminate the item hunt. Just that you do not have to hunt for YOUR class.
How did you get that inference?
This .. the rune system is much more fun any MMO talent system out there, for me. You actually get to choose a skill that does a different thing, as opposed to put some points here and there to up your damage.
And i also agree MOp is not doing it enough. In D3, you have MANY choices for 6 slots. In MOP, you have 3 choices for each of the FIVE slots.
There will be many more builds and variations in d3 than in MOP.
Lastly, people have double standard when they bought a BOX game, played for a MONTH, then claim disappointment. A month is longer than MOST SP game will last. If a person spend a hundred hours in D3, he has no cause to complain unless he admit he wasted time to play a game he does not like.
We all have opinions I used to Love EQ2 played it for at least 5 years untill recently when IMO they just stared doing stupid stuff. The dumbing down by saying more then 2 stats is too hard for players to handle so we'll just have a power and a health stat. The lets give wings to every race, and of course our players can't actually count or do math so lets have a free to play model thats actually far more expensive then the subscription
SImply put SOE thinks their customers are Morons. (No need for firewall protection on credit card info no no no need at all, if it gets hacked we'll just give the suckers a free month and say we sorry)
CAll me weird but if someone states they hope a game will succeed and another keeps asking why would they want a game to succeed one tends to assume the asking player wants the game to fail. Hope I'm clear enough. true no facts there and assuming is bad, but generally a neutral player probably wouldn't ask so many times why another player wants a game to be good.
I know there is a good Rick Astley meme out there somewhere.
All the hungry little kids in the world.
and you're praying for a video game.
lol.