Tuesday, June 13th 2023
Diablo IV Crosses $666 Million Sell-Through within Five Days of Launch
Diablo IV had the best-selling opening in Blizzard's history, crossing an auspicious $666 million in global sell-through in the first five days following its June 6 launch. The latest installment for the Diablo series, and Blizzard's fastest-selling game ever, is the box-office equivalent of the biggest opening week of the year. The heroes of Sanctuary, the world in which Diablo is set, have already played more than 276 million hours, or more than 30,000 years.
"On behalf of Blizzard, we want to thank the millions of players around the world who are immersing themselves in Diablo IV," said Mike Ybarra, President of Blizzard Entertainment. "Diablo IV is a result of our incredible teams working together to craft and support genre-defining games, build legendary worlds, and inspire memories that will last a lifetime. We're humbled by the response, proud of the team, and remain committed to listening to our players and ensuring Diablo continues to exceed expectations for years to come."
So what are players doing with all this time spent in Diablo IV?
Blessed Mother Lilith is pleased with your devotion, mortals.
Diablo IV is available now, featuring cross-platform play and cross-progression on Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, plus up to four player co-op, including two player couch co-op on consoles.
"On behalf of Blizzard, we want to thank the millions of players around the world who are immersing themselves in Diablo IV," said Mike Ybarra, President of Blizzard Entertainment. "Diablo IV is a result of our incredible teams working together to craft and support genre-defining games, build legendary worlds, and inspire memories that will last a lifetime. We're humbled by the response, proud of the team, and remain committed to listening to our players and ensuring Diablo continues to exceed expectations for years to come."
- 276 billion demons killed since Early Access: nearly 35 times the global population.
- Players have been vanquished over 316 million times
- …over 5 million of those vanquishings were at the hands of the Butcher.
- But they're not falling alone - players have created a party with friends over 166 million times.
- 163 players have made it to the maximum level in Hardcore mode, where deaths are permanent.
Blessed Mother Lilith is pleased with your devotion, mortals.
Diablo IV is available now, featuring cross-platform play and cross-progression on Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, plus up to four player co-op, including two player couch co-op on consoles.
52 Comments on Diablo IV Crosses $666 Million Sell-Through within Five Days of Launch
There is a BIG however to that though. These ARPGs are designed to be not too long, while the scaling and end game should carry it for those who want more. D2 had that. D3 lacked a solid end game until expansions, and even then suffered from extremely limited build options and itemization. All other ARPGs aren't that much longer either. Even Path of Exile with its initial set of Acts wasn't a long game to finish story wise. But then there were Maps to follow up on that. And even today, finishing all those Acts can be done pretty quickly too. Torchlight and even Grim Dawn aren't that much different, even with all expansion content you are supposed to run multiple difficulties - just like in Diablos. Its repetitive nature is and has always been its strength, not its weakness. If you play these games for story, well... you do you, but that's not where the value is or has ever been.
2. It doesn't, you just assume that and wrongly so. Content isn't segmented from the game - what you get in the Store is nothing that is integral to the game at all. Cosmetics and transmogging can be done without the shop, you can get any outfit you have ever salvaged for parts. What's in the shop, is on top and completely optional. As it should be. I can freely choose, as a customer, to stay away from it and still enjoy the full game. Everything else is a weird entitlement - its how you end up with 800 dollars spent on Apex for example. Season Passes are also completely optional - you can still do Seasonal content without them. The only paid content integral to the game and 'actual game content' here, is going to be brought through Expansions. I think I clearly said this in the prior post too - and this is exactly what gamers are asking for. MTX can have its place, just don't bother us with it. Apparently there is market for cosmetics, power to those who love spending money on digital fashion. Heck, there are entire games built on it these days like Warframe.
3. The whataboutism isn't the point, the real point is that employers who suck and still keep a workforce, are not going to keep their best and brightest. If workers want rights and power in the workplace, they have ways to go about it. Unions for example. Or voting with their feet. But public social media outcry to get something done? Give me a fucking break. What is this, kindergarten? I don't know what your idea of professionalism is, but we are talking about well educated IT workforce here. When even Amazon workers dó manage to get things done IN the workplace and simply take a stand, I think that puts it all in the right perspective. Apparently the situation at Blizzard isn't bad enough to do the same - or put differently, the benefits outweigh the idea of taking any personal risk.
It seems our perspectives differ on this matter entirely :)Oh? Pray tell, how does change work in your country then, exactly, when no one is willing to take a risk to effect a change? I live in a similar country (NL), where lots of people have far too comfortable lives to get shit done and speak the truth. The result? All public systems are degrading. The sad reality is that for humans it needs to get really bad before it can become really good again.
Read some history books. Or look at recent events in Europe. We thought, collectively, and behind a safe wall of wealth and prosperity for decades, that we wouldn't have to make sacrifices anymore to keep the peace. Here we are today.
Do you see the main story arc in this post? Choices matter, but even more important is the perspective you're basing those choices on. I've explained my perspective here. We are where we are, in the current state of things, I think D4 is in a pretty good place. Games won't go back to costing 50 bucks. They won't be losing their shops. But at the same time, D4 shows us that our customer noise has been heard, in many ways. You can't win everything ;)Of course. They are triple-dipping with this game and its obvious. But, as a player you can choose to dip once, and that's what matters. There is always something you can buy. But do you have to? And at the same time, if I just buy the game and its expansion and not spend a single dime in the store, how am I contributing to some 'bad practice'? Am I not supporting just the good one and excluding the bad one?
I don't think anyone is defending twenty dollar skins. Fools and Money - that is all.
As for the gameplay - Diablo 3 and 4 have the smoothest engine underneath them. The combat isn't average, its extremely good, and dodging made it better now. No single other ARPG is this smooth to play even with dozens of mobs and effects on screen. It doesn't stutter or drop your FPS like a rock. Grim Dawn and Path of Exile do, even if they're both (after MANY optimizations, mind) in a good place too. Itemization wise, I think D4 is stronger than D3, even if the gap isn't large, it might just be enough to keep it fresh for that much longer. And I think you're right when you do the straight comparison to PoE. Value wise, PoE is a few thousand times better in every possible way. At the same time though, its PoE and all things get boring at some point. Good ARPGs aren't released every year.
Just so damn much misinformation about the whole ARPG genre in general on this forum for some reason.
I wanted to say the same I just didn't want to be blunt about it but yes if someone is playing these games only for the story and complains about the grind/stat chasing aspect of the game then I'm sorry to say but this game or genre is not for you but don't blame the game design for it.
I've been playing ARGPs for 20+ years and looter shooters since 2009 and its the main reasony why I still play them.
Eventually all of these games end up being the samey once you reach end game. Sure some are better designed or better/more fun to play than the others but in overall this is what this genre is about and D4 does exactly that just with a more modernized setting/design that apparently appeals to a fair ammount of ppl.
The in game store in its current form does not bother me at all either even tho I've paid for the Deluxe edition, if the game had shitty in game gear design or no transmog then I would say that yes it does bother me but thats not the case. Right now I like my Sorc's in game transmog gear look better than whatever is offered in the cosmetics shop currently.
Its entirely optional just like the battle pass, if ppl feel like buying cosmetics then I don't see anything wrong about it as long as there are good ones offered for free in the game itself.
Rest part of the discussion I won't even bother getting into.
For example look up Rockstar and their work conditions where the devs worked 100+ hours on RDR 2 at times /week just to finish the game in time so might as well stop buying any game from AAA companies cause they sure do some crap/shady stuff anyway.
Anyway this was my last post in any of the D4/Blizz related news on the main site, tired of all the samey pointless and borderline 'dumb' discussions in these topics.
btw, I just checked Steam, it's actually $653, apparently:
Divided by 1800 hours that turns out to be $0.36/hr over a time span of 3 years. I'll agree that from that viewpoint, 72 isn't much, but I never dropped that much cash up front on Apex. It's always been building a balance over time. Add that to:Plus the fact that I want the deluxe edition for obvious reasons, I'll just really wait for a sale. If it never happens, oh well - sometime down the road, at least that way I will be having a solid product.I don't think it is that simple, don't like the place don't work there, etc.
I'm definitely not boycotting ActiBlizz, though I will admit that I consider the toxic company culture a negative when I'm being asked to put down a larger amount of cash than usual for a game.
Most ARPGs follow the same formula of grinding or RNG but what many of them don't realize is that you can vastly improve the genre by adding additional elements of skill to the gameplay. Series like borderlands already do this to a very small extent with their staged boss fights but it only rises to the level of taking the game from completely generic bosses to palatable. It's odd given that both Gunfire reborn, Hades, and even games like darksouls incorporate concepts from bosses in WoW yet blizzard itself has yet to do so in a significant manner. D4 does have boss stages (same as D3) but they are very underwhelming and not memorable. Have more dynamic regular mods would go a long way as well. Not every fight has to revolve around throwing more numbers at the problem, that's just the easy way to do things.That's really not comparable to what Acti-blizzard has done. Most every game company has crunch, most every company does not have a "Crosby" suite among other issues. Those are just the ethical issues, people quickly forget that Acti-Blizzard has been picking up grievances related to their games quickly the last few years. People seem to have completely forgotten the D3 auction house or Diablo Immortal (I could also write a 3 essays on how Blizzard screwed OW players over but I'll refrain for now). In fact D4 is basically some of the mobile concepts from Immortal applied to a AAA title. They are pretty clearly testing the limits of what people will tolerate and it seems they've found it. When Diablo 3 had the auction house, quite literally the drops were setup so that you would specifically get a very low drop rate and mostly got drops for other classes than the one you are playing, in essence forcing you to use the auction house to buy / sell. I have a couple thousand hours in D3 to prove that. Surely this same company, which has only gotten worse since then, won't take D4 sales as a node of affirmation that they can crank up the monetization. I got a pinky promise from Bobby. My words are a warning from experience, I can only hope that people listen.
While there's technically some player power behind the battle-pass, what people ignore (probably by choice as they love to hate on anything blizzard) is that it's all in the FREE tier of the battle-pass, you can get everything in there by just playing the game, the paid part is purely cosmetic.
The rest is repetition, I've already covered the whole affair at length ;)
If you like ARPG's, D4 is a fine title. If you never really did, but just casual'd your way through some of them in your days, D4 is more of the same and it won't grab you. I think I can see that distinction and I'm with you on that too - D4 'as a game with a story' is pretty weak. D4 as an ARPG with lots of replay value though is pretty strong and it has some elements other ARPGs just don't have, such as vibrant online activity which could matter especially towards the end game. And there is nothing monetized in it or on it that wasn't before. Seasonal content IS AVAILABLE without buying passes. Its the same thing as an Apex battle pass - you get extra bullshit to feed some emotional need for progression bars that fill up and 'levels gained' that aren't actually levels at all. Again, you're avoiding the crucial distinction here in what makes MTX unacceptable combined with a full game purchase, and what makes them acceptable. You may not look at it that way, that's fine. I do.
I don't give a shit about any of the extra monetization options and I never did, despite playing several dozen games heavily pushing all of the above. I pay for actual content. And D4 has a lot of that - in its $70,- base game. They populated a world with dungeons and somewhat repetitive environments, correct. Welcome to the ARPG? This isn't new. D2 is chock full of repetitive dungeons, what makes it tick is the randomized nature of them. What's new is that I'm now 30+ hours in, still not max level, still unlocking new things and still with 4 Acts of Story to go. The world is still half undiscovered on my end. That's not bad at all. I'm not bored either, despite samey dungeons where yes, you can see they're stitching together pieces of road to make a map - again... what's new?
People seem to act like the world is burning with every AAA release now, D4 isn't the right candidate though. You're really making mountains out of moleheaps here to get D4 in the outrage category imho, when the fact is we have an expansive game with pretty ok content. Is this the next GOTY? Far from it. Is it a solid ARPG? Most definitely. And that's all it is. There are five classes to play around with and you can take them really, really far in terms of playtime. If that progression curve is what you want in a game, D4 has it. Its really that simple and everything else, from Store to whatever side quests you do or don't do is secondary. You grind mobs and that's the game. Could they have innovated more? Sure. Would that have been a smash hit? We can't say. What I can say is that what IS innovation in the game, such as its dodge, or some new keywords and effects, so far works well. I'll take small improvements that work over reworked systems that don't, to be honest.
Comparisons to other Blizzard screwups of late... myeah. Ever since Immortal I've taken the position that Blizzard had D4 as its final saving grace to be worth any further look in the future. I don't forget. Never. You assume too much.
I said this in the What are you playing topic too... I'd rate D4 a 7/10. Whether that means $70,- worth of good is personal :) But the monetization angle or the 'Blizz bad' angle... pfffff get a life.Well... in fact, what Blizzard has done is try horrible things and a massive banhammer was returned to them, upon which they altered course.
Diablo Immortal was the PR screw up of the century. Its not going places either.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Immortal
"Immortal received mixed reviews, with praise for its combat, graphics, and the adaption of Diablo to mobile, while criticism targeted the plot, voice acting, and the game's focus on microtransactions. It became the lowest user-rated game on Metacritic in response to microtransactions and the progression system."
Blizzard, like Microsoft, has been known to make drastic changes when they get it wrong. And most of the time they still end up with a product that is high quality, high polish, and always backed by the most solid patch and balancing pass regime in games known to man. You were asking what you're paying for with all those MTX. That's it. The patches never end, tweaks happen all the time.
You say you have thousands of hours in D3. That just means you're burned out from this formula perhaps ...
If I understood correctly, it's the former. At least for the time being.
Not sure if those count as AAA games back then, but maybe you can tell which ones are, because I still have the original boxes with the price tag on it. ;)
So no need to be rude.
That to me appears like a common thing to know especially if you lived those days. Gaming was nerd & niche territory. Was that so different over where you lived? Sorry for jumping to conclusion there..
(I'm 37, btw)
- Sega Game Gear
- Super Nintendo
- SNK Neo Geo .
- Atari Jaguar
- Sony PlayStation
- Nintendo 64
- Sega Dreamcast
- [LEFT]Game Boy Color
Maybe AAA had a different meaning back then to the limited processing power and storage available, but that doesn't mean that there were no games sold in millions.[/LEFT]
Before the big publishers' plague was upon us, games weren't categorized based on how many textures you could shove into them. A great game back then was when John Carmack had a good day and cared to invent another engine. Or, and this concept may be alien to many today, a game was based on a novel idea (think Lemmings or Supaplex).
And even more importantly, back then it was the players who decided what a great game was. Today, a game is classified as AAA based on its budget and money spent on marketing, at least one year before it's even launched.
Apparently, and clearly, we've crawled towards higher pricing over time. I'm absolutely flabbergasted, such unseen events! :D
The fact simply is, when commerce and big publishers pushed profit maximization over the actual content, is the moment we got triple A content. It is THEM telling US what we're looking at, not the other way around. Big budgets and shiny marketing to sell ever bigger games at ever bigger price. The focus went away from the content itself and more into the fluff around it. That's how we landed at those shops with cosmetics too, eventually. Gradually. Today, indie proves the point: lower exposure, less marketing, more game for your money. The same applies to many other branches of products, gaming is just one of many where these things have progressed the exact same way. Music is another such thing where this dynamic is clear and constantly happening.
From the wiki:
"for example Halo 3 is estimated to have had a development cost of $30m, and a marketing budget of $40m"
Just look at those numbers. 30+40 = 70.
Spending more on marketing than on what you're selling. And we wonder why gaming in triple A is so shitty... its obvious if you consider where the priorities are, clearly. That extra 30-40 bucks you're paying over indie, is YOU paying for the marketing to believe the dream that this pretty weak piece of content is more than it really is.
And that drives my point home, none of the examples you gave up here are content like that. They're games that are just good games.
There is a rare occasion of talent found in the first group too, but still, those people are highly malleable, and it always shows in the final product.
This divide between types of workers is exactly the divide you see between AAA and indie content, even though triple A can still present its small splashes of true originality or brilliance, the overwhelming amount of innovation does not happen there. Its inherent to people who feel safe in their line of work, safety breeds laziness.
"-What recommends you for this job?"
"-I've always been passionate about being able to afford food."
I'm a strong believer though of the idea people should do something they really want to do. I've done my share of work on the other side of the fence, and... well. Its not healthy. Especially not in somewhat creative professions. It sounds very manager-y, but its really important people do something they excel at. For everyone involved.