What is particularly interesting, and Diablo related are these two points:
VentureBeat: The World of Warcraft Annual Pass was a big announcement. It’s an ambitious decision, especially to give away Diablo III. Does it tie back into reports from earlier this year of declining subscribers for World of Warcraft?
Paul Sams: Honestly, what it ties into [is that] we always are looking for ways to show an amount of, I guess … gratitude or what-have-you to our player base. We talk about, all the time, how can we do something cool for our players that’s going to benefit them, benefit us, and that they’ll feel is a give-back of sorts. That’s where this started. There’s a variety of benefits that come from it. Certainly the players get DIII, which is pretty exciting. That doesn’t mean they get the expansion sets, it means that they get DIII, right? So we get people excited about playing that … they get to touch it, feel it, experience it. And then from our perspective, it also is a situation where they aren’t necessarily going to leave WoW to play our own game. We don’t want to take players from our universe and shift them over from World of Warcraft. There’s a lot of players playing WoW that have huge amounts of friends and family that they play World of Warcraft with, so [giving Annual Pass subscribers Diablo III] says, enjoy both of them. You don’t have to pay any more than you already do for WoW.
VB: Is the potential profit that Blizzard stands to make from the real-money auction houses in Diablo III an incentive to try and get more people into Diablo, by giving away the base game?
PS: Yeah, I guess it could. That hasn’t been the primary focus, to be honest. We thought it would be a cool thing to have our players be able to experience that game without having to leave WoW. We really view it as a give-back to the players. Will that mean that there’s more people potentially playing DIII? Maybe. Does that mean more people might engage in the real-money auction house? Possibly. That could be very positive for the organization, and I think for the players.
i feel like this thread is going to be bombarded with people claiming "thats BS its the whole reason they did it bla bla fuck wow bla bla". i hope not :/
Of course we will say that because its the damn truth. He won't go around saying "Yes...we lost thousands and thousands of subscribers so we lure you in with this neat idea to help us be #1 mmorpg a little longer" At least thats what i think.
I don't understand why people think this is a bad thing. They're losing subscribers, so they start this promotion. What's wrong with that? That means more people get DIII, and more people get a chance to play it, and possibly make the community bigger. Of course any company at all would do something like this. There's nothing wrong with it. And what's wrong with them wanting more people to use the auction house? OF COURSE THEY ARE GOING TO PUSH IT. They will make more money! What's wrong with Blizzard making more money? It just gives them more money to spend on development of their games and paying their employees! I don't see what is so wrong about any of this.
You got to admit... this is a bit of a fail on Sam's part.
"We don't care about money... its all for our fans."
I will agree, that is kind of a fail. I mean I'm sure and do believe to an extent that they genuinely enjoy satisfying their fans, maybe because it makes the fans happy, but ALSO because satisfied customers are returning customers. He should have just been up front. Of course, we're a company, we're going to do these things to make money, it's what keeps this business going and making games for the fans.
I just don't see why people see anything wrong in promotions like these. They seem pretty standard to me. What's wrong with Blizzard making money? LOL I wonder sometimes if people expect that this company can run without money...
You got to admit... this is a bit of a fail on Sam's part.
"We don't care about money... its all for our fans."
I will agree, that is kind of a fail. I mean I'm sure and do believe to an extent that they genuinely enjoy satisfying their fans, maybe because it makes the fans happy, but ALSO because satisfied customers are returning customers. He should have just been up front. Of course, we're a company, we're going to do these things to make money, it's what keeps this business going and making games for the fans.
I just don't see why people see anything wrong in promotions like these. They seem pretty standard to me. What's wrong with Blizzard making money? LOL I wonder sometimes if people expect that this company can run without money...
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Blizzard wanting to make money. Its just the way they make it.
- Separating Starcraft 2 into 3 different games instead of 1
- Using the excuse of shady 3rd person websites for the RMAH (which btw I am a fan of) instead of plainly saying that they want to generate a consistent income from D3
- Using D3 as a means of making money on WoW and not admitting it.
Like you said, if Blizzard took an honest and clear approach to the way they say these things, there will be a lot less complaining. =)
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Blizzard wanting to make money. Its just the way they make it.
- Separating Starcraft 2 into 3 different games instead of 1
- Using the excuse of shady 3rd person websites for the RMAH (which btw I am a fan of) instead of plainly saying that they want to generate a consistent income from D3
- Using D3 as a means of making money on WoW and not admitting it.
Like you said, if Blizzard took an honest and clear approach to the way they say these things, there will be a lot less complaining. =)
Are you 100% positive of that statement I mean, from what I've learned about human beings in my short life, I feel it would be exactly the opposite, with a ton of comparisons to D2 and to how "Activision corrupted Blizzard".
Are you 100% positive of that statement I mean, from what I've learned about human beings in my short life, I feel it would be exactly the opposite, with a ton of comparisons to D2 and to how "Activision corrupted Blizzard".
I think there would be complaining either way. Instead of mistrustful, "Blizzard is trying to pull the wool over our eyes" complaining, we would have genuine, "Blizzard is such a greedy company" complaining
You would placate one group only to stir up the other. I think Blizzard could have made their statements about it a little better (reguarding the RMAH). But look at it this way, they COULD have just added a monthly fee and called it a day. Instead they went through the "trouble" of adding another feature to the game that also allows US to make [real] money. People "should" be happy it's not worse.
As for the WoW annual pass, it is clearly a way for them to salvage some WoW subscriptions and to call it anything other than such would be preposterous. Of course, Blizzard isn't going to come right out and say that, as that would be just plain silly.
Blizzard is a company, they need money to survive and keep making games, also if you recall the last 3 years blizzcons have been complete losses for them in terms of money, but they still do it for the fans, they are a very community oriented company, they take a lot of our feedback, they are a very good company i think, and the answers in this interview seem pretty honest, i mean why deny that they are going to probably get some more money out of it?
sorry for the stupidly massive sentence :/
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I don't see many people buying a WoW pass just to get Diablo 3. In order for someone to do this, they would have to have an inactive WoW account that they are considering coming back to. Otherwise they'll just buy D3 and foget WoW.
On the other hand, there will be people who would be paying for WoW next year anyways, who now get D3 for free. Some of these would have also bought D3, and Blizzard just lost those sales. Plus Blizzard now has to support all these WoW players on their D3 servers.
Would your opinion change if the deal were worded "Buy D3 and get the ability to get a year of WoW for $40"?
All Blizzard is doing here is enlarging their empire. Creating a black hole of gaming, such that players only play Blizzard games, or play no Blizzard games. And eventually everyone will be in the former.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Blizzard wanting to make money. Its just the way they make it.
- Separating Starcraft 2 into 3 different games instead of 1
- Using the excuse of shady 3rd person websites for the RMAH (which btw I am a fan of) instead of plainly saying that they want to generate a consistent income from D3
- Using D3 as a means of making money on WoW and not admitting it.
Like you said, if Blizzard took an honest and clear approach to the way they say these things, there will be a lot less complaining. =)
Are you 100% positive of that statement I mean, from what I've learned about human beings in my short life, I feel it would be exactly the opposite, with a ton of comparisons to D2 and to how "Activision corrupted Blizzard".
That may be, but honesty has a greater chance of gaining a positive response than being subtle about responses to questions and/or accusations like these ones. =)
Really, I'm indifferent about how Blizzard approaches there fan-base and market strategies, as long as I get the game I want. =)
Its just I would have more trust and faith in Blizzard rather than question everything new they let out as an instinctive reaction.
Would your opinion change if the deal were worded "Buy D3 and get the ability to get a year of WoW for $40"?
MUCH better than the current deal
I probably wouln't go for this either of course, but for argument's sake...Considering a year of WoW is about $160 and Diablo 3 is $60, I'd be spending $100 for both. With the current "deal" I'd be spending $160 for both. No thanks, on either account (then again, I most likely getting the Collector's Edition so I'll be spending $100 either way :P)
Really, I'm indifferent about how Blizzard approaches there fan-base and market strategies, as long as I get the game I want. =)
Same here
Third that. I will be using the auction house and proud of it. I am THRILLED they are internalizing this. I have used D2items.com many times and always felt shady for doing so...now, its in the game and the market will be a little better IMO as there will be WAY more cash sellers than just a few legit shops. Also, WoW is a product they want to keep alive and thriving so why not offer this promotion? Its no different than videocard companies throwing in free games with new graphics cards...incentive to choose this over that...really simple. I also want the community to be as large as possible and this is a great way to do so....believe me, being a 30yr old Diablo fan since the first offering, I can say that the younger crowd will get hooked to the loot and gambling feel to this game...its seriously like crack...the good kind, not that hood shit.
I never bought anything off of real money websites. Toward the very end of my D2ing days (about six months ago or so) I used D2JSP... but I just sold stuff to gather forum gold rather than buying it.
For those of you that went through websites, weren't they insanely expensive? Weren't certain items upward of $30?
I'd have to think with the RMAH implemented that it will help drive down costs on certain items... but at the same time without duping/hacking/botting as out of control as it was, I feel the price on certain 'perfect' items is going to be insane.
For instance, let's use D2 as an example as far as items go.
Getting things like a Viperskin, SOJ, Stormshield, Shako, etc. would probably be rather 'cheap' real money wise. After the game is around long enough and enough are found, they'll sell for a couple of bucks at most.
But those 'perfect items' that are really hard to find... like the hardest of rune words with max stats rolled, etc. I bet are going to cost an arm and a leg.
The people in the community who complain don't understand the world and are closed minded in every possible way. you expect a company to constantly do everything 100% for the customer and lose millions just to make every last little spec of the community happy? lets just make wow and diablo free. and no monthly fee, thats crazy to CHARGE for a video game. everything should be free. (epic sarcasm)
People will complain about anything and everything forever. people don't realize how much of the community ACTUALLY has a problem with the RMAH. they see youtube videos with 50/50 likes and dislikes. tons of threads in forums saying this and that hating on it. even polls and surveys saying "40% have an issue with it" and you think "wow A LOT of the community of D3 must hate this". WRONG. actually not even close, quite the contrary. just because there are very LOUD members of the community does not mean its a very LARGE portion. its a select group, maybe 10-15%, of the actual community who has a problem with it. the rest of the community 80%+ either doesn't care and/or likes it. they just aren't trolling/flaming the forums and youtube about it constantly, the MASS majority of the community for ANY video game do NOT even use the forums period. this specific website has an insanely small fraction of the actual D3 community visiting it. because the real number is in the millions. and these polls/surveys and such have maybe some thousands? ya not even close. ten thousand people don't speak for millions, sorry. lol
people don't realize how much of the community ACTUALLY has a problem with the RMAH. they see youtube videos with 50/50 likes and dislikes. tons of threads in forums saying this and that hating on it. even polls and surveys saying "40% have an issue with it" and you think "wow A LOT of the community of D3 must hate this". WRONG. actually not even close, quite the contrary. just because there are very LOUD members of the community does not mean its a very LARGE portion. its a select group, maybe 10-15%, of the actual community who has a problem with it. the rest of the community 80%+ either doesn't care and/or likes it. they just aren't trolling/flaming the forums and youtube about it constantly, the MASS majority of the community for ANY video game do NOT even use the forums period. this specific website has an insanely small fraction of the actual D3 community visiting it. because the real number is in the millions. and these polls/surveys and such have maybe some thousands? ya not even close. ten thousand people don't speak for millions, sorry. lol
True, I got at least 5 friends who don't care about the RMAH (and 2 who hate it) but none of them "wastes their time" (on their words) voting stuff or participating in any community forums, so in essence, even if we gathered every single fansite and official website user, we'd probably only have 15-20% of their expected playerbase.
Some of them aren't even casual, they're pretty hardcore, and most of the casual playerbase of course doesn't care about this either, probably.
EDIT: Wohooo! I've just unlocked the achievement "Thousand Pounder Poster" 1k posts on diablofans! Next objective, 2k posts
True, I got at least 5 friends who don't care about the RMAH (and 2 who hate it) but none of them "wastes their time" (on their words) voting stuff or participating in any community forums, so in essence, even if we gathered every single fansite and official website user, we'd probably only have 15-20% of their expected playerbase.
Some of them aren't even casual, they're pretty hardcore, and most of the casual playerbase of course doesn't care about this either, probably.
EDIT: Wohooo! I've just unlocked the achievement "Thousand Pounder Poster" 1k posts on diablofans! Next objective, 2k posts
exactly. out of the 10-15 friends of mine who are going to play literally ALL of them SUPPORT the RMAH, so not only don't hate it but love it. lol. i think the main issue is people put that "pay 2 win" on D3 and I'm like "O RLY >_<? so you can WIN something in D3?" lol. because in actuality right now there is no ranking system, no ladder, no real form of competition what so ever. so its like "pay 2... play? oh wait theres no monthly fee..." so they don't have a leg to stand on. xD
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http://venturebeat.com/2011/10/22/blizzard-coo-paul-sams-talks-mobile-games-and-giving-away-diablo-iii-for-free/
What is particularly interesting, and Diablo related are these two points:
VentureBeat: The World of Warcraft Annual Pass was a big announcement. It’s an ambitious decision, especially to give away Diablo III. Does it tie back into reports from earlier this year of declining subscribers for World of Warcraft?
Paul Sams: Honestly, what it ties into [is that] we always are looking for ways to show an amount of, I guess … gratitude or what-have-you to our player base. We talk about, all the time, how can we do something cool for our players that’s going to benefit them, benefit us, and that they’ll feel is a give-back of sorts. That’s where this started. There’s a variety of benefits that come from it. Certainly the players get DIII, which is pretty exciting. That doesn’t mean they get the expansion sets, it means that they get DIII, right? So we get people excited about playing that … they get to touch it, feel it, experience it. And then from our perspective, it also is a situation where they aren’t necessarily going to leave WoW to play our own game. We don’t want to take players from our universe and shift them over from World of Warcraft. There’s a lot of players playing WoW that have huge amounts of friends and family that they play World of Warcraft with, so [giving Annual Pass subscribers Diablo III] says, enjoy both of them. You don’t have to pay any more than you already do for WoW.
VB: Is the potential profit that Blizzard stands to make from the real-money auction houses in Diablo III an incentive to try and get more people into Diablo, by giving away the base game?
PS: Yeah, I guess it could. That hasn’t been the primary focus, to be honest. We thought it would be a cool thing to have our players be able to experience that game without having to leave WoW. We really view it as a give-back to the players. Will that mean that there’s more people potentially playing DIII? Maybe. Does that mean more people might engage in the real-money auction house? Possibly. That could be very positive for the organization, and I think for the players.
good interview though, thanks for the info
lmao... and so it begins...
"We don't care about money... its all for our fans."
I just don't see why people see anything wrong in promotions like these. They seem pretty standard to me. What's wrong with Blizzard making money? LOL I wonder sometimes if people expect that this company can run without money...
There is absolutely nothing wrong with Blizzard wanting to make money. Its just the way they make it.
- Separating Starcraft 2 into 3 different games instead of 1
- Using the excuse of shady 3rd person websites for the RMAH (which btw I am a fan of) instead of plainly saying that they want to generate a consistent income from D3
- Using D3 as a means of making money on WoW and not admitting it.
Like you said, if Blizzard took an honest and clear approach to the way they say these things, there will be a lot less complaining. =)
You would placate one group only to stir up the other. I think Blizzard could have made their statements about it a little better (reguarding the RMAH). But look at it this way, they COULD have just added a monthly fee and called it a day. Instead they went through the "trouble" of adding another feature to the game that also allows US to make [real] money. People "should" be happy it's not worse.
As for the WoW annual pass, it is clearly a way for them to salvage some WoW subscriptions and to call it anything other than such would be preposterous. Of course, Blizzard isn't going to come right out and say that, as that would be just plain silly.
sorry for the stupidly massive sentence :/
On the other hand, there will be people who would be paying for WoW next year anyways, who now get D3 for free. Some of these would have also bought D3, and Blizzard just lost those sales. Plus Blizzard now has to support all these WoW players on their D3 servers.
Would your opinion change if the deal were worded "Buy D3 and get the ability to get a year of WoW for $40"?
All Blizzard is doing here is enlarging their empire. Creating a black hole of gaming, such that players only play Blizzard games, or play no Blizzard games. And eventually everyone will be in the former.
That may be, but honesty has a greater chance of gaining a positive response than being subtle about responses to questions and/or accusations like these ones. =)
Really, I'm indifferent about how Blizzard approaches there fan-base and market strategies, as long as I get the game I want. =)
Its just I would have more trust and faith in Blizzard rather than question everything new they let out as an instinctive reaction.
I probably wouln't go for this either of course, but for argument's sake...Considering a year of WoW is about $160 and Diablo 3 is $60, I'd be spending $100 for both. With the current "deal" I'd be spending $160 for both. No thanks, on either account (then again, I most likely getting the Collector's Edition so I'll be spending $100 either way :P)
Third that. I will be using the auction house and proud of it. I am THRILLED they are internalizing this. I have used D2items.com many times and always felt shady for doing so...now, its in the game and the market will be a little better IMO as there will be WAY more cash sellers than just a few legit shops. Also, WoW is a product they want to keep alive and thriving so why not offer this promotion? Its no different than videocard companies throwing in free games with new graphics cards...incentive to choose this over that...really simple. I also want the community to be as large as possible and this is a great way to do so....believe me, being a 30yr old Diablo fan since the first offering, I can say that the younger crowd will get hooked to the loot and gambling feel to this game...its seriously like crack...the good kind, not that hood shit.
For those of you that went through websites, weren't they insanely expensive? Weren't certain items upward of $30?
I'd have to think with the RMAH implemented that it will help drive down costs on certain items... but at the same time without duping/hacking/botting as out of control as it was, I feel the price on certain 'perfect' items is going to be insane.
For instance, let's use D2 as an example as far as items go.
Getting things like a Viperskin, SOJ, Stormshield, Shako, etc. would probably be rather 'cheap' real money wise. After the game is around long enough and enough are found, they'll sell for a couple of bucks at most.
But those 'perfect items' that are really hard to find... like the hardest of rune words with max stats rolled, etc. I bet are going to cost an arm and a leg.
People will complain about anything and everything forever. people don't realize how much of the community ACTUALLY has a problem with the RMAH. they see youtube videos with 50/50 likes and dislikes. tons of threads in forums saying this and that hating on it. even polls and surveys saying "40% have an issue with it" and you think "wow A LOT of the community of D3 must hate this". WRONG. actually not even close, quite the contrary. just because there are very LOUD members of the community does not mean its a very LARGE portion. its a select group, maybe 10-15%, of the actual community who has a problem with it. the rest of the community 80%+ either doesn't care and/or likes it. they just aren't trolling/flaming the forums and youtube about it constantly, the MASS majority of the community for ANY video game do NOT even use the forums period. this specific website has an insanely small fraction of the actual D3 community visiting it. because the real number is in the millions. and these polls/surveys and such have maybe some thousands? ya not even close. ten thousand people don't speak for millions, sorry. lol
Some of them aren't even casual, they're pretty hardcore, and most of the casual playerbase of course doesn't care about this either, probably.
EDIT: Wohooo! I've just unlocked the achievement "Thousand
PounderPoster" 1k posts on diablofans! Next objective, 2k postsexactly. out of the 10-15 friends of mine who are going to play literally ALL of them SUPPORT the RMAH, so not only don't hate it but love it. lol. i think the main issue is people put that "pay 2 win" on D3 and I'm like "O RLY >_<? so you can WIN something in D3?" lol. because in actuality right now there is no ranking system, no ladder, no real form of competition what so ever. so its like "pay 2... play? oh wait theres no monthly fee..." so they don't have a leg to stand on. xD