All-time low

[Moik]

Not "rushing", "doubling".
From my personal context that would mean the two items I sell a week would become four items a week. That's all I'm expecting.
Sales would "jump" to basically a quarter of what they used to be pre-1.03 rather than an eigth of what they used to be (as they are now).

BL2 and TL2 are for sure going to cut away market share. TL2 is already on my Steam wishlist, and BL2 would be there if it was posted.
GW2, this weekend was a beta weekend, and the last two races were added, so it's a big one. We'll have to check XFire tomorrow to see what kind of impact that can have.

Do AC3 and FC3 have strong multiplayer? My gut says the market overlap on those and D3 isn't too-too heavy. If they're largely single player, their impact might only be minor or brief.

[Vahlk]

That's a good argument. Howerver, you should take into account the possibility that some or even most of these games won't live up to their players' expectations and many will realize Diablo isn't half as bad as people make it out to be - it's just bearing the weight of a decade's worth of hype and expectations.

Most games nowadays, even the better ones, provide content for no more than a week or a month at max, unless their PvP works great which is very hard to achieve.

Borderlands 2, Torchlight 2, Guildwars 2; will provide content for way more than 2 weeks. Where as technically speaking, in terms of content, D3 has only provided possible prospect; thus, giving us the illusion of 'more content'.. but lets be honest here. I'm bored of act 1-4; done with it. Still waiting on the 'pvp patch' and that's just because I love competitive play but still, even that will be pay to win. Where as Borderlands, Torchlight, GW will be free, and just way funner because real money isn't involved =\ D3 just feels like that game Blizzard dug up just to fill that slot for source of income.

All in all, the fan boys can keep on hoping; but this economy has no fix. Ban all the accounts you want; gold sellers will still find a way to inject large amounts of gold into the system. I myself, will play Borderlands II, GW II, and definitely Torchlight II - (What D3 should have been; by the Devs that created the ever so addicting D1/D2) (http://www.cinemablend.com/images/se...1342990167.jpg) Don't mean to advertise but c'mon =\ why can't blizz do that? Oh wait because Blizz lost their original Diablo Team... now known as Runic ZIIIINGGG... Everyone's expectation of D3 were not met, and it's just been a great disappointment. I'm just waiting for my RMAH slots to fill up to sell all my MNK gear Then I'll save that for my GW copy

[jamesL]

I think people will definitely play GW2 for 100's of hours, but I don't think the same is true for the other games

but then, it doesn't have to be
all any of those games have to do is provide an alternative (no matter how short) to playing D3 with the new patch

so you play you play Borderlands 2 a little, then you play TL2 a little, then maybe you try GW2 (maybe you don't like it), so you try Assassin's Creed 3; and before you know it 2013 has rolled around and there are other new games to try

sure, there will always be a bunch of people who think of D3 as their primary game and view those other games as time-wasters until the PvP patch, but there are others who, once they leave D3, won't come back

if Blizzard doesn't hook these casual players in the next couple of months they're going to have an even more difficult time once all these other choices come out

[mesafalcon]

I'm not touching GW2 or Borderlands2, but I will be playing Torchlight 2 like crazy.

I'm a Diablo fanboy, and it seems Torchlight 2 will be more "Diablo" than Diablo 3 is.

so, basically for me, Diablo 3 has until Torchlight 2 comes out to "fix" some issues, not gonna give up on it that fast.

[katzmotel]

Just about everyone on my friends list has been offline a month or more. Unless PvP is a hit in a big way this game is dead by the end of the year.

Ayewyn nailed it. It's a mediocre game and I would go so far as to say that it has reached the point of no return. A quick visit to D3 forums will prove this point. There will be no comeback with the PVP patch, nor will it be with any other. The game is already dead and Blizz knows it, therefore any further investment of resources would be redundant. Also, consider the release of GW 2, which is heavily PVP oriented and received incredibly good feedback from the community.

[Nagafen]

People won't revive the market after the semester if they have no faith in the game. Nobody will want to invest in a sinking ship. Blizzard has one chance to turn this around if they come out with some kind of miracle patch, but I'm hugely skeptical. I think the game's fundamental problems stem from design decisions that can't just be patched away, and I doubt they'll care for the added expense of further development anyway. They already made a lot of money from simply releasing the game, and considering the way Blizzard operates nowadays (contrary to the Blizzard of the past) I can see them just leaving the game to its own devices with an inconsequential token patch every few months. I mean, if you look at the game as a whole, you can already deduce that PvP will be worthless, so that certainly won't save it. Considering the resounding failure of D3's post-launch period, I can't see them making a valiant effort to turn around a non-susbcription game.

[viledevil]

dont confuse fan boys on sites like this for the majority of players if you want to find out whats really going on wait till the aug 2 conference call. my guess is people will **** bricks when they see how much atvi is making on the rmah.

[jamesL]

if you want to find out whats really going on wait till the aug 2 conference call.

I seriously doubt the conference will tell us what's really going on

how about a graph of number of items sold per week on the RMAH (has it increased, decreased, remained the same)
then break the graph up into chunks of items between $1-$10; $10-30; $30-$50; $50-$100; $100-$250
(so we can get an idea if price is going up or down)

also a graph of the number of players actually playing the game between the hours of 7pm - 1am NYC time (4pm-10pm Blizzard time) per day since release

nah, I think the only real number we're going to get is "8 million copies sold, fastest selling game of all time, continues to do well"

I expect more detail and attention to be paid to the soon to be released Mists of Pandaria

[viledevil]

i think you will be surprised - they are making a lot more money than people realize and will want to mention it. what you're asking for is great data that they have but will never release :(

[Nicodemus]

dont confuse fan boys on sites like this for the majority of players if you want to find out whats really going on wait till the aug 2 conference call. my guess is people will **** bricks when they see how much atvi is making on the rmah.

Investor conference calls are for investors, not for gamers. And usually even for investors, conference calls are filled with puffery and cheerleading, with little substantive connection to reality.

That's why there are a number of finance websites dedicated to cutting through all that, basically telling the reader "Here's what they said on the call, but now let's talk about the actual truth".