Mike Morhaime on Blizzard and Diablo 3 in latest financial results

Posted 8 February 2013 by Rushster

Activision Blizzard released their latest financial figures over night and as usual Mike Morhaime was on hand to bring us the latest from the Blizzard camp.

According to Mike, WoW subs are down on the last quarter to 9.6 million with the majority of lost players coming from China. He also confirmed, which we know already, that Blizzard All Stars is in development along with a new MMO. On Diablo 3, Mike added:

“Launching the game back in May had a tremendous impact on Blizzard and our community. Diablo 3 broke PC game sales records, and as of the end of the year has sold more than 12 million copies world wide.

Whole this is a humbling achievement we’re not satisfied with merely breaking sales records. The development team has worked worked aggressively adding new content, game systems, features and other improvements.

A new update is in testing now which will add dueling and other new content.

Diablo is extremely important to Blizzard and we will continue to invest aggressively to support the franchise and the community.”

No huge revelations this time but it’s nice to hear they are 100% behind Diablo 3 and we can hopefully look forward to lots more in the future. They do however need to pick up the pace of updates which have been pretty slow since release.

By August 2012 Diablo 3 had sold more than 10 million copies. By November it was still selling “very well” but no advance on the 10 million figure was given but since then Diablo 3 has gone on to surpass 12 million copies sold.

Tagged As: , | Categories: Financial, Mike Morhaime
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72 Opinions have been expressed on “Mike Morhaime on Blizzard and Diablo 3 in latest financial results”
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  • By adding new content and systems they mean simply adding features that were already in D2. Way to play catch-up for 8 months Blizz!

  • Pretty slow with updates? They’ve been extremely slow. I do still think it’s because most of their work force is instead working on an expansion.

  • “Launching the game back in May had a tremendous impact on Blizzard and our community. Diablo 3 broke”

    – up to this point he was on track, then he completely lost it:

    “worked aggressively adding new content, game systems, features and other improvements”

    – is the part where he finally drifted into utter BS.

    • Well, they are working on adding new content and features, which are mostly seen as improvements. I don’t see how his statement is “utter BS”. He may have exaggerated by saying “working aggressively” – but then again you definitely are exaggerating by saying “utter BS”. I guess this makes your post utter BS; see what I did there?

      • And I would guess by your post you have not played Diablo 3 at all.

        • yeah, yeah…
          OR maybe he enjoys the game which is a fun one, has gotten past the “omg I miss D2 SOOO much, where are my point buttons” tearful nostalgia, adapted to the new systems, is happy about all the stuff added over the continous patches and is looking forward to future content

          just MAYBE

          • seems very unrealistic to me

          • Its not about adapting or d2 nostalgia, in fact the parts I like the most about d3 arent even present in previous games, its just straight up that alot of systems in the game are poor, boring, and have ****ty replay value,
            Everyones a cookie cutter, theres no customization besides dyeing items, etc.

          • You lost me when you said everyone’s a cookie cutter. This is a major fallacy. Most are, but seeing I know many who are not I think you’re wrong to say it. I think one of the main flaws right now is that it is almost necessary to be cookie cutter until you have the gear to support experimental setups.cookie cutter builds also change depending on patches. People were using bladestorm and sword and board monk builds before cyclone overawe came about. I personally don’t think many at all are built anything like my monk and I can tell by ah prices.

  • Blizzard are all mouth and no trousers, I shall believe if they deliver, which is, in all probability quite doubtful.

  • They plan to do 2 expansions, right?

    • I think that was a maybe. But judging by the sales figures, it would seem wise.

      • well that said , i think there arent going to be 2 expansions.
        I mean srsly who will buy the fu*k*ng expansion when they just add content (items acts ect).i want something gamechanging otherwise i wont buy anything from that franchise again.

        MY BET only 10% of the buyers of the original game are gonna buy the expansion.

      • Wait to see the financal results for D3EXP.It’ll be hilarious.I wont buy it for sure!If they sold 12mln D3 copies,i predict arround 3-4mln D3EXP copies sold.The whole conception is wrong.The “systems” are pretty much lame.

    • Instead of ripping us off once they want to rip us off two more times!

  • Way to leave out how many of those 12 million copies are still active users.

  • Hahaha Morhaime should look up the definition of “aggressive.”

    He just made himself look like a JW style ass.

    Developers working? YEA RIGHT

    • YEAH BUDDY , you just got him wrong. They are working aggresively to ruin the entire Lore, Gameplay + they bring a pvp that is absolute bs.

      They are working very hard on that!

      • The word is Insulting.This PvP is insulting to me. Diablo 3 = botfest; Diablo3PvP = 1hit fest.

  • D3 gone winds for me most likely. PoE is everything D3 should have been mechanics wise, so 95% sure won’t be investing expansions/DLC’s anymore.

  • I am being 100% serious when I say I wish they would take a page from the comic book movies and just have another go at D3. The expansion should totally throw out all of D3′s story. How much better would it be if they just held up their hands and admitted sheablo was a terrible idea. Cain can be alive again, I don’t have to think about the lord of tearror in high heels. The stupid kid emperor disguise and all that crappy dialogue. Lets just get rid of all of it.

  • It’s pretty obvious that the game is doomed to forever live in the shadows of its predecessor. The company has become so interested in its image and blinded by profits and figures, that it is (at its inevitable peril) ignoring the other lasting qualities of its titles that they owe all their success to. They really do need a wake up call they can understand. I suspect it will come somewhere down the line in the form of an unsuspected poor sales figure on a title they expect to do well. Until then, we can just hope they don’t butcher another franchise the way they did with the realm of Diablo.

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