Diablo 3 Still Selling “Very well” – Expansion Planned
Posted 8 November 2012 by Elly
Blizzard Product Slate
In Activision/Blizzard’s latest Q3 investor financial call there was little in the way of new Diablo 3 information but 
Bobby Kotick stated that “investing in key talent in our top franchises is worth the wait”, following great sales of over 10 million for Diablo 3 which they reported in the last conference call back in August. There was no update to those sales figures in this latest call so I would hazard a guess it hasn’t got close enough to the 11m mark just yet, perhaps by the next call.
Mike Morhaime added that Diablo 3 had continued to sell “very well” riding the momentum of the launch back in May (3.5m in the first day!) and that the new changes to the game have been “received well by the community”.
In a final note, Mike confirmed an Expansion pack will be developed but they have no timeline available for release as the “quality” will determine the release schedule. Long time visitors will remember the product schedule slide supposedly leaked from Blizzard China back in December 2010. That showed the first expansion releasing in the 2nd quarter of next year but even the most optimistic of you won’t be placing bets on that I hope.
At this stage we can only speculate what it will consist of but a new Act would no doubt feature, but we have PvP/1.1 to look forward to first.
World of Warcraft continues to hold its own with over 10 subscribers, up from 9.1 last quarter no doubt boosted by the release of Mists of Pandaria
good for them. I still won’t buy the expansion no matter what
Very, very interesting, thanks for sharing!
Hey now! My future purchases depend on these kinds of replies. The first thing I do when pondering my forthcoming gaming endeavours is to navigate to a discussion on the Internet and listen to people who don’t care for however good/bad a game will be, and where they have already made up their mind. Then I stay a while and listen with perked ears to what they have to say.
Very excited for the expansion! Can’t wait.
I have the same feeling, which is a problem because wait we will. And for a long time also
That leaked product chart matches what Blizzard said publicly later on, that they were aiming for 18 months between SC2 and the first expansion. SC2 came out late July 2010, and SC2X is now projected for first half of 2013, so clearly that 18 month thing was wildly optimistic. Looks like it’ll be more like 30-34 months from release to first expansion.
We all remember that D3 was targeted for 2nd half of 2011 (Just like the chart says) but it didn’t launch until May 2012. Pre-release, Blizzard said on a conference call (in mid-2011, best I remember) that we’d seen two D3 games within the next 3 years. D3 was released May 2012. Fastest possible 18 months would be December 2013. More realistic would be similar to the SC2X cycle, and 2.5 years from launch would be Dec 2014. Merry Xmas!
I also can’t wait! One word, people: Malthiel.
One more word: Adria.
Hopefully the xxpansion won’t have any fing cut-scenes or dialogue pop-ups from bosses all the time.
Unless the villain is Handsome Jack.
lurrrve Handsome Jack.
Nope, same villain as the vanilla game – not-so-handsome Jay.
Diablo 3 will truly begin when the expansion comes out. Try playing D2classic without LOD. yeah, its like that.
This describes exactly how it is!
I’ve been saying that since day 1 one people were flaming, even in it’s original state D3 was probably better quality than D2 at launch. Everyone remembers the game after 6-10 years of development when it became an absolute milestone for gaming. DEFINITELY not bashing D2 here, but I’m stating that Blizzard is a company who releases something good and then over time refines it to the best…Most of the time. I only say most of the time because WoW departed from what I wanted, I see why they did it from a business stand point it just didn’t align with my tastes, however I guess it is probably the best MMO on the market, Pandas was fun imho.
In its original state, D3 had an over-the-top cornball story pushed along by obtrusive click-through sequences, levels that are ridiculously predictable and only random in the most superficial way, a non-soundtrack that does nothing for atmosphere and/or progression, and itemisation, which, while being patched from being horrible to being merely bad, still gives the sense of being designed around an auction house.
I doubt any of these will change, despite patches that improve some of the more glaring design mistakes of the original release, and I wouldn’t say any of them about D2 on day one.
Diablo 1 and 2 were at launch already epic in these areas: music, sound, plot, dialog, voice acting, lore, cinematics, atmosphere and art style.
Diablo 3 is abysmal in everything besides gameplay. That is what represents the failure of Diablo 3. A soulless uninspired game.
If you seriously think there is any crossover between “diablo fans” and Mike and Bobby fans, you really don’t know either group.
The stock rallied 20 cents after hours on the good earnings. Yay. There’s your enthusiasm.
New class please!
I would like a new Follower in addition to a new class
Rather than introducing a new class, I think it’d be cool if they let us play as the Followers. You choose either the templar, enchantress or scoundrel, and one you get to accompany one of the five (vastly more powerful) D3 classes on their adventures in Sanctuary. You also get to choose between 6 different skills per spec (most of which have 30 second cooldowns) and occasionally shout things like “Glorious!” or “Look! More hidden footprints”.
On second thought, maybe not.
Character builds plz! j/k I’m not buying this. I’m still enjoying TL2 and my D3 refund check.
It will sell like **** I bet.
lol and they said we wont have to pay for pvp…
Not excited, just curious.
I would be excited if itemization and the way stats worked was completely revamped. Give us back rune ranks and good useful skill synergy and modifiers through items.
As the game is now I can’t even play it anymore and I have a paragon 74. Dumbed down pile of dog sh*t as others have said.
The only way I see myself buying the expansion if the itemization isnt completely reworked and skills tweeked to be useful… is if a dungeon/map/monster modifier was included. I would use that to no end. Too bad Jay wilson and company want to decide HOW I play d3 and what is fun.
/end rant. Not likely to buy it, but I would love to if they made crucial changes.
Eh!? If you’ve sunk enough time into it to get to Paragon 74 then it really cannot be that bad.
“Man, this game sucks, I totally lost interest after 500 hours!”
Word of mouth got out eh…
In fact both patch 1.04 and patch 1.5 were very well received. Yeah I think in the long run D3 can be declared a huge success if they keep pushing new things to it every 4-5 months or so.
It is only a matter of time before these in game opinion leaders will be heard against the usual hating trolls of Blizzard.
At the moment Diablo 3 blows its competitors out of the water in LONG term playing sessions (see recent Xfire) and end game and the PvP patch isn’t even out yet.
July-
Fanbois: xfire stats mean nothing! You haters are grasping at straws. No one has used it for years!
November -
Fanbois: look! The patches are awesome and xfire population has doubled!
Haters: Look how much Diablo 3 drops in activity on Xfire; it even made the Forbes news by some Blizzard nerd hater. The fact that ALL newly launched games loose activity in HOURS played after the first week launch was just ignored.
Haters now: Xfire means nothing. Now that Diablo 3 has established itself after the usual shake off after launch and Diablo 3 is 2nd RPG (equal played as GW2) on the Xfire tables, Xfire means suddenly nothing.
Get a grip: by the time the PvP patch will come Diablo 3 will be 2nd most played RPG on those samples, just behind WOW.
http://www.xfire.com/genre/rpg/role-playing/
Thanks, Thrall, but we got your flip-flop the first time around.
And, yes, it is still behind GW2 despite a multiple of the marketing muscle, and the use of the name “Diablo” which is fradulent at worst, misleading at best, and ten million “sales”*.
Anyhow, shouldn’t you get off fanboi patrol and back to work? Chinese farmers and dupers need to eat, and Bobby K needs to plug that hole in the impressionist part of his collection.
*a third of which were freebies in a desperate attempt to keep wow subs afloat