I cannot believe no one has answered this queston...

[slovek]

I've seen no official question about this, nor an official response. Not even a vague reference to "We don't know yet".

"Will it cost anything per month to play Diablo 3?"

If anyone knows of a "blue" response to this, please let me know.

[mibir]

You are by no means the first person to ask this question, or even make a thread devoted to its sole discussion.

From the faq on Blizzard's Diablo 3 site:

"Pricing and availability for Diablo III will be determined and announced closer to the release of the game."

There's your "we don't know yet"

[slovek]

There's your "we don't know yet"

Not even close.

I don't care about pricing of the retail merchandise. I want to know if it will cost/month to play. This isn't a pricing queston. I know the game will cost me money. I just want to know if it will cost it per month.

[Dorfoumous]

One could assume that since its on Battle.net v2, launched with StarCraft 2, that it will be free.

Unless BnetV2 requires a montly payment to get on..

Then that would make SC2 a P2P.

So, with that assumption I seriously doubt that Diablo 3 will be a P2P

[mibir]

Then don't expect an answer, because that's all we have besides assumptions. Go get a Blizzard employee drunk or something.

[SmittySixTen]

I've seen no official question about this, nor an official response. Not even a vague reference to "We don't know yet".

"Will it cost anything per month to play Diablo 3?"

If anyone knows of a "blue" response to this, please let me know.

My general assumption is that D3 will not be outright pay-to-play. However, I haven't ruled out the possibility of Blizzard releasing extra content for a fee here and there.

[Dorfoumous]

My general assumption is that D3 will not be outright pay-to-play. However, I haven't ruled out the possibility of Blizzard releasing extra content for a fee here and there.

Highly unlikely.

I'm guessing your referring to the sytem that Oblivion had, were if you wanted content you could Pay and have it.

That system would not work with the Bnet forum, because you would have uber elite people who paid for their extra content, and then you would have non-uber elite who don't want to pay for the extra content all in the same server. Thus How could you trade, assuming they are items, those items with a non payer?

My guess is expansions, and more than one.

[CarsV]

My general assumption is that D3 will not be outright pay-to-play. However, I haven't ruled out the possibility of Blizzard releasing extra content for a fee here and there.

Honestly I wouldn't mind that at all. One thing I can't stand is playing the same acts and areas for 8 years, like in D2.

[sbn]

It is highly doubtful that this game and SC2 will be pay to play. Unlike games like WOW, most are free to play. Again, I can not stress this enough, Battle.net game service IS a profitable component of Blizzard's business. In fact Blizzard was primarily the first to actually make a free online game service profitable.

Remember two things. First, there is those little ads we all see. I strongly suspect that a vital component of Bnet 2.0 will be internally for Blizzard a better advertising aspect. Might I even say targeted advertising even?

The fact remains that outside of a group of hardcore/diehard fans, many will simply not pay to play D3 online. Blizzard is not the only game company out there, they have a huge market to compete in. The markets have pretty much dictated that games like WOW can be pay to play, but games like D3? Nope.

Also keep in mind that the minute D3 is released, it will be pirated like you never seen before. But, to play online....you need an authentic CD-Key something that the pirates do not provide. Free to play will not only provide Blizzard with more game sales, but the higher the count of players online simply means higher advertising revenue. In short, it is in their best interest to have a free to play. So no, I can 110% say that D3 will NOT cost money to play online. But then again, Blizzard is kind of a dysfunctional company

[PullTheTricker]

Pretty much what sbn said.

I very much doubt Diablo III will require subscription fees. So don't worry about it.

[Jcakes]

I think that a Blizzard employee said that BNet will allways be free to play on and as D3 is on Bnet I would assume it is not Pay to Play.
Even if it is you could always play single player / Open Multiplayer with friends.

[Apocalypse]

whats the over/under on how many times we will get a thread like this before bliz announces thier plans?

[5zigen]

My bet is that the new battle.net v2.0 or whatever will have a small monthly fee associated with it, similar to Xbox LIVE where you will pay the monthly fee then be able to play any games you want over it that are supported on battle.net 2.0.

Why do I suppose this? They cant go with the stupid Windows LIVE service because mac availability is a huge part of Blizzards market/gameplan, however, these types of services are the future of gaming. Plus Windows LIVE probably sucks. And so long as the games / information is hosted on the servers I would say it's largely justified (unlike Xbox LIVE where the games are hosted on peoples Xboxes)

Another intuitive reason that at least Diablo will have some monthly fee is that if it doesn't and has robust online support it will hurt their income. Diablo is in competition with WoW even if it isn't direct competition many people will be leaving WoW for Diablo. The box price of Diablo is only 4 months of WoW (probably). so if Diablo (and SC2 to a lesser extent) has no Pay to play aspect of it then I don't think the people at Vivendi will like the idea. The argument that people would still keep their WoW accounts and play D3 is good, but on the whole I Think we'll see a lot of account cancellation when D3 comes out. And why release a game that doesnt improve your bottom line, from a business standpoint?

I think that a Blizzard employee said that BNet will allways be free to play on and as D3 is on Bnet I would assume it is not Pay to Play.
Even if it is you could always play single player / Open Multiplayer with friends.

well technically this isn't the same battle.net. We'll always be able to play D2 and D1 and SC on Bnet for free, and that's probably the context that quote was in.

My guess is that Access to the new Bnet features will have a nominal fee, otherwise, there will be single player and TCP/IP for D3 and SC2.

The fact of the matter is modern games, particularly RPG's demand a lot more than old games, and Online ones demand even more. Not just bug fixes but balance fixes and content updates. These things are expensive and people want them, and I have a feeling blizzard will have a way to get paid for them and still be able to deliver them.