Now, ever since Activision and Blizzard merged, I had a feeling that moneytalk will take over. Sure enough, listen to Activion’s boss, Bobby Kotick: “Next Blizzard MMO will have a “more broad appeal”…
I can’t believe 10+ million subscribers is now considered marginal for a MMO! For some perspective, LOTRO has about 250,000 and Warhammer online is seeing a decreasing 300,000 or so.
The other point is … how is WoW not appealing enough for everybody? It has purple (gay?) elves, orcs on motorcycles… it’s as cartoony as a Disney picture.
It looks like Activision-Blizzard is definitely pursuing a strategy of attracting the lowest common denominator and putting “niche” products like Diablo 3 on the backburner. Just 40 people are working on Diablo when the support team for WoW alone is something like 3000?



Òh come on….Is Diablo 3 going to be delayed even more? Meh…
I have been a Diablo player for a long time. I can safely say I would have bought the next version of Diablo, but I think Blizzard has strung us along too long. They have really taken their core customers for granted for too long.
Hasta la vista Blizzard, I have just got too bored and irritated with you guys
40 people is fairly normal for a game that isn’t in the finishing or testing stages.
Throwing more people at Diablo 3 wouldn’t make it happen any faster.
Also… Diablo 3 hasn’t been “delayed” at all. It won’t be out in 2010 but that’s not a delay — that’s just how long these things take to develop.
I agre with Matt up there it may not be a delay but it could. What I dont understand though is how WoW is sooo great.It cost a crap load of money and for what? The same basic thing every day. Yeah it looks fun but not for the price. I am very irritated that the new WoW is coming out first but what can wedo about it? Nothing. More people want that so that is were blizzard is going. Im patient and can wait. One thing I want to know is how are they going to follow diablo when him and his bros are dead and gone? Anyone else see my point? It might be just another MMO and nothing new not even another “real” diablo.
re: Isaac, Matt,
The problem is that Activision-Blizzard is moving away from “niche” products like Diablo. In their eyes, even WoW doesn’t hold “a broad appeal”!
So games that made Blizzard great like Starcraft and Diablo will get progressively less resources and management time.
Duke 4 Never?! comes to mind!!!!!!!!!!
this wait is rediculous other great games come out with like 3 versions by now
Broad appeal = less fun games. Lets face it, its been proven over and over. All the games i know that i would buy 3x over just to play it are all 30man developed “niche” games.
All we can hope is this “40″ people stay on track with thier visions and not add moterbikes, pets, generally cave in for making thier “broader appeal” as long as it has focus and freedom for these 40 people’s own ideas, it will be great.
I dont care how long it takes, as long as they get it done. There are always other great games to play. in the meantime.
@Lin – my feelings exactly!
I agree with Lin as well!! Hit the nail right on the head duke
I agree with Lin but play other game for almost whole 4 years while waiting for diablo 3 to come out.
i feeling that blizzard is making the diablo fan get irritated while they make the warcraft fan more and more things in WoW.
But that doesn’t mean that WoW is going the way it should go.
When i heard that WoW got motorbike i was like What the hell?
This game isn’t a game like reality man…
Is should be like they riding or monster or something like that right?
I hope they make diablo better than WoW making lesses thing like that in WoW, as they took a very very long time for the game to release.
Honestly, WOW is not a good game in my opinion. I tried to play the game because i am a loyal blizzard gamer. I played WoW for 1 month, i made a Paladin, i just never got into it. If i had made a Paladin on even diablo 1 i would have been into it within 10 minutes. The story is just much better and it is interesting. If they increased the reality and made a good PVP aspect in diablo three, it could go down as one of the best games in history and i will one hundred percent play it and be addicted (24 yr old accountant).
I feel that diablo is one of the greatest games i have ever played. Dark Age of Camelot was also an amazing game in my opinion, however they ruined it when they came out with the second expansion. Blizzard should put as much as they can into diablo 3 and also a great amount of time in maintaining the diablo feeling. Its in blizzard best interest to put all their time into diabo 3, they can always come out with new patches and versions of d3 to make more money. It will be the most successful game guarenteed.
@Isaac
No one is probably looking at this anymore, but it seems that you haven’t read the lore.
If you read the series “The Sin War”, in one of the books it is stated “There are things even the lord of terror fears”, and before diablo was sealed in Tristram by the Horadrim, he and his brothers were thrown out of The Burning Hells by 2-3 other demons, one called Belial, cant remember the others.. Anyway in conclusion Diablo might have been very terrifying, but the lore states that there are far worse demons in The Burning Hells..
If I made a drink to please all the people all the time, it would be water. Guess what, that’s boring!
I hate blizzard, I don’t have to wait, I’m the damn customer not the other way around and that’s not how long it takes, look at every other company, do they take so long? Blizzard take so long new consoles come out and their games looked dated new. And why are there people on these blogs who sound like company reps? “they take so long because it’s a quality product, I don’t mind waiting ten years, it’s charming how they cancel delay the crap out of everything even though the company has billions of dollars.”
F’em and starcraft 2 selling them by races, warhammer dawn of war games had all the races in one game, charging you three times for one game is beyond greed, I don’t know why people stick up for blizzard, I count on people giving me a backlash response to this, I don’t care, I’m not coming back to answer it so don’t bother. Blizzard suck, they treat their fans like sht, and I’m not under contract to buy their stuff, guess what blizzard, shove it up your ass! I’ll go with the upcoming 40k warhammer online and dawn of war games, the series you ripped off to begin with done better than you do it!