[blue]The Evil Question
I just think about old Diablo games and new one connected to server. We don’t have to pay for service. Just buy game and play it… I just thinking how long it will be supported – maintained? I just hope they will release serverless version of the game if they will shut down this original one. What things going to be? Some people spending all life there…
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I can only presume that Blizzard will have servers in place for many years to come.
Vaneras: That is a safe presumption I would think 🙂
Diablo II has been out almost 15 years now for an example, and you can still play that on battle.net. [source]http://diablo.incgamers.com/blizzard-tracker/devthread/eu/13122975059[/source][/blue]
True, except D2 hasn’t seen any real support since about 2003, in terms of patches with new content. And during the run up to D3, the devs repeatedly said it wasn’t realistic for Diablo 3 to be like Diablo 2, running for free on B.net servers forever. Perhaps that plan has changed, or perhaps sales of the various console versions, and ongoing expansion packs are sufficient to keep Diablo 3 profitable, but the whole “ongoing source of income” thing was one of the main motivations for the Real Money Auction House. That system was revealed back in August 2011 (to general fan support), and then and during the next years, much of the fan debate was in terms of, “okay, RMAH might not be your thing, but they have to fund the game somehow, and an optional RMAH beats a mandatory monthly fee or a cash item shop.”
A thrown out comment from a CM on the EU forums obviously doesn’t constitute a formal declaration of corporate policy, but since the RMAH shut down I’ve been curious how they were going to keep the lights on. I asked Travis Day about that during my interview at Blizzcon 2014, (check transcript at the 4:00 mark) but failed to follow up on the larger financial issue after he answered the part about why they don’t just sell us more stash space.
Running secure servers with character storage and regular content updates from a dev team is expensive and capitalism is merciless, which is why virtually every other online game has an old-school WoW-style subscription fee, or, more likely, operates one one of the never free, F2P models with revenue paths that vary from “ethical and optional” to “vampire squid.”
Will Diablo 3 remain free and playable online (only?) forever? Even after the expansions end and the devs have all moved on to Overwatch Diablo 4? I think we can rule out the return of the RMAH, but if/when the game needs more revenue to keep going… what will the devs do? Will we see some of the milder F2P features like an item shop that sells aesthetic improvements (like transmogs or pets or capes), or microtransactions for more stash space or additional character slots? Or paid DLC with new levels and items, like a shooter selling new map packs?
I’m curious what you guys think, so let’s survey on Diablo 3’s Long Term Financial Plans:
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Click through for the results of past votes we ran about the RMAH and related issues in Diablo 3.
Loading ...Should Blizzard develop Diablo 2 Resurrected beyond v1.14?
- Yes, more QOL improvements and balance tweaks (66%)
- Yes, but only minor tweaks and fixes (20%)
- No, let mods make any further changes (14%)
Vote Started on: March 17, 2021 @ 1:30 pm
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