Verno wrote on May 23, 2012, 11:40:
I don't know, I think that's one way of looking at it but there's another - that only a company like Blizzard with this kind of brand power combined with a decade of pent up demand could pull it off. Others have tried and failed already even. You do have a point though, everyone continually tries to ape WoW for example despite only Blizzard really having that sort of success with an MMO.
I don't really link the sales figures with the DRM anyway, they're two separate things. I think D3 would have sold really well even if they asked for a copy of your drivers license Its just fluff for the forum fanboys to spout "Hurr ppl didnt put their money where their mouth was me was right durf durf" while they ignore the large kind of consumer base this appeals to. If this had failed to sell I don't really believe it would have been due to the DRM either but because of changing/unpredictable market conditions.
It's not so much that the sales figures are linked to the DRM, but it's about what the public is willing to put up with. Any time you get the public to put up with something it becomes that much easier for the next game to do the same thing. It's moving the mountain by inches.
Again, look at what EA is planning to do with SimCity 5 (assuming that's the name they use). The plan is to "integrate" multiplayer functions into the game in order to justify the always online requirement. Getting people to accept that when they already accept it in a game like Diablo 3 will be considerably easier.
You're right that what reasons they'd look at for the failure might not be accurate, but in terms of trending, it's not hard to look at where DRM has gone over the years, and how they've managed to get customers to put up with (or not) the various schemes they've implemented. Think of Spore as a good example - sure, the gameplay was a letdown, but the outcry over the limited activations actually managed to drown that out. And how many games use limited activations these days?