Diablo III Claims Sales Record

[May 23, 2012, 11:07 am ET] - Share - Viewing Comments

Blizzard Entertainment is claiming a new sales record for Diablo III, their action/RPG sequel, saying it is the biggest PC game launch in history. Of all time. Ever:

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that as of the first 24 hours of Diablo® III’s release, more than 3.5 million copies had been sold, setting the new all-time record for fastest-selling PC game.* That number does not include the more than 1.2 million players who received Diablo III as part of signing up for the World of Warcraft® Annual Pass promotion. Altogether, more than 4.7 million gamers around the world were poised to storm Sanctuary on day 1 of Diablo III’s release -- representing the biggest PC-game launch in history.

“Regarding today’s announcement, we recognize that setting a new launch record is a big achievement” As of the first week of the game’s availability, that number had already grown to more than 6.3 million.* The above figures also do not include players in Korean Internet game rooms, where Diablo III has become the top-played game, achieving a record share of more than 39% as of May 22.†

“We’re definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo III and jump in the moment it went live,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so. I want to reaffirm our commitment to make sure the millions of Diablo III players out there have a great experience with the game moving forward, and I also want to thank them for their ongoing support.”

“Regarding today’s announcement, we recognize that setting a new launch record is a big achievement,” Morhaime continued. “However, we’re especially proud of the gameplay feedback we’ve received from players worldwide. We’re pleased that Diablo III has lived up to players’ high expectations, and we’re looking forward to welcoming more players into Sanctuary in the days ahead.”

Diablo III went live on May 15, with more than 8,000 retailers throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, South Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau opening their doors to players at midnight or concurrently with the local release time in celebration of the launch. In addition to being able to buy the game at retail stores, gamers in the regions above as well as in Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil are also able to purchase Diablo III digitally via the official Diablo III website (http://www.diablo3.com).

Commenting on the game’s sales achievement, Bob McKenzie, senior vice president of merchandising at GameStop, stated, “Diablo III was one of our biggest PC launches ever and will help make this a record year for Blizzard at GameStop.”

According to John Love, director of video games at Amazon.com, “Not only did Diablo III break the record for most preordered PC game of all-time on Amazon.com, but it also shattered the record for best day-one sales for any PC game ever on Amazon.com.” Blizzard thanks its retail partners around the world for their support and commitment to the Diablo series.

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150 Replies. 8 pages. Viewing page 4.
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90.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 18:26

ASeven

MajorD wrote on May 23, 2012, 18:09: WaltC wrote on May 23, 2012, 17:56: I'm gratified the PC version of the game is selling so well! As consoles continue to get longer in the teeth and the much-more capable PC hardware continues to drop in price, I'll bet we'll see a lot more of this in the future. It's likely the PCs best days are in front of it, and I think that will be the case for a long, long time. PCs will only continue to do well until the next generation of consoles hit the market. The only way PCs will hold their own is if the hardware continues to be competitively priced and game developers embrace the PC platform. I wouldn't bet much on that for the next generation.

89.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 18:19

Fletch

NegaDeath wrote on May 23, 2012, 13:50: Darks wrote on May 23, 2012, 13:36: If you haven’t figured it out by now, Tuesdays have always been reserved by Blizz as Maint days. And anyone trying to login when Maint is going on is just a glutton for their own punishment. Did Diablo 1 & 2 work on Tuesdays? Yup. LOL. Some people are just fine being told when they can and can't play the game they leased for SIXTY FUCKING DOLLARS. Talk about gluttons for punishment... I bet most of them are playing it with gamepads.

88.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 18:17

Slippy

eunichron wrote on May 23, 2012, 18:14: Wait, you haven't* purchased Skyrim yet? Good god man, do yourself a favor and go buy it right now.* Nope... my older bro recommended it to me on Steam but I just never purchased. Graphics look good... videos look good... saw some posts when it released that it had some issues at that time and just never pulled the trigger... Like I asked before, does it 'compare' to Fallout 3?

87.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 18:14

eunichron

Slippy wrote on May 23, 2012, 18:05: Hey Walt, Been thinking about purchasing Skyrim... Didn't have any time to game when it came out and then just never got around to it. Use Fallout 3 as a comparison... I love that game... do you think I would like Skyrim? Thanks for your input in advance! Wait, you haven't purchased Skyrim yet? Good god man, do yourself a favor and go buy it right now.

86.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 18:09

MajorD

WaltC wrote on May 23, 2012, 17:56:

I'm gratified the PC version of the game is selling so well! As consoles continue to get longer in the teeth and the much-more capable PC hardware continues to drop in price, I'll bet we'll see a lot more of this in the future. It's likely the PCs best days are in front of it, and I think that will be the case for a long, long time.

PCs will only continue to do well until the next generation of consoles hit the market. The only way PCs will hold their own is if the hardware continues to be competitively priced and game developers embrace the PC platform.




http://www.youtube.com/user/M4jorDICK

85.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 18:05

Slippy

Hey Walt, Been thinking about purchasing Skyrim... Didn't have any time to game when it came out and then just never got around to it. Use Fallout 3 as a comparison... I love that game... do you think I would like Skyrim? Thanks for your input in advance!

84.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 18:05

eunichron

Optional nickname wrote on May 23, 2012, 17:38: Blizzard is deleting all my posts in tech support, and here too. I wrote stuff about how their game has melted some of my hardware components, due to the repeated shut downs that tens of thousands of players are also experiencing, (but have no alternate system to post on) all my comments deleted, and here at blues too, the Nvidia driver update story, GONE. good riddance failed sequel attempt that is Diablo 3, totally believed my gut feeling that this was going to be a disastrous dumbed down sequel, waiting all this time, for what, lol COMON GRIM DAWN!!! TAKE US OUTTA HERE. Actually, your post here at Blues is still there. So I'm going to go with the problem exists between keyboard and chair.

83.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 18:00

NegaDeath

I suppose it could happen if he had that bad set of Nvidia drivers that disabled the fan and melted cards. Not like running recalled 2 year old drivers is an excuse though.

82.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 17:56

WaltC

I'm so happy I passed on D3--not one thing in that game of enough "redeeming social value" to make me think twice about passing it up.

I'm just a little disappointed that in the trailer Blizzard released a few days before the game went online, a Blizzard employee definitely states that "there's a single player game in D3." To be fair though, he did say the game's emphasis is on multiplayer, and he did say that single-player mode also required an always-on Internet connection. And he did say that even in the single-player version a lot of things would be restricted to server side and would never be parked on a client's local machine at all.

Most of the people who bought this game did so because they enjoy multiplayer gaming, and so they are used to buying games that require being online before you can do anything of note. Heck, that all started way back there with Quake III and Unreal Tournament. If you didn't go on line you could shoot local bots all day (but you could play in a LAN)--but that was all you could do with either game. I bought both those games but lost interest in them quickly--I'm just not a multiplayer, "always online" kind of guy, I guess...;)

I'm gratified the PC version of the game is selling so well! As consoles continue to get longer in the teeth and the much-more capable PC hardware continues to drop in price, I'll bet we'll see a lot more of this in the future. It's likely the PCs best days are in front of it, and I think that will be the case for a long, long time. Most of the people buying D3 are multiplayers at heart--and those folks could care less about being "always online" because that's how they most often play whatever computer games they own, anyway.

Thank goodness for Skyrim...;) Here's a great single-player game that can be played entirely OFF LINE and with 100% of the game elements stored on my computer. I mean, I bought the game, so it follows I'd like it *all* to sit inside my box at home. Skyrim looks as if it will easily sell as many copies as D3 will sell, and perhaps more over the long run, as interest in D3 may well begin to wane drastically in a few months after everyone has had whatever multiplayer goodness he wants served up until they grow sick of the repetition and they've simply tired of it and are ready for the next great multiplayer ripoff to come their way...;) I think Skyrim has much, much longer legs than D3. (But, I will admit to being prejudiced towards great single-player games like Skyrim.)

It's too bad Diablo 3 did not have an offline, single player mode of play. I would have bought it. At least with StarCraft II I can *play the game* if I need to be offline, and that's a relief. I'm not giving that privilege up as it is one of the crucial things I paid for when I bought the game. I want to be able to fire it up when I want to--not just when Blizzard's servers are up to the task.




It is well known that I do not make mistakes--so if you should happen across a mistake in anything I have written, be assured that I did not write it!

81.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 17:53

Slippy

Optional nickname wrote on May 23, 2012, 17:38: Blizzard is deleting all my posts in tech support, and here too. I wrote stuff about how their game has melted some of my hardware components, due to the repeated shut downs that tens of thousands of players are also experiencing, (but have no alternate system to post on) all my comments deleted, and here at blues too, the Nvidia driver update story, GONE. good riddance failed sequel attempt that is Diablo 3, totally believed my gut feeling that this was going to be a disastrous dumbed down sequel, waiting all this time, for what, lol COMON GRIM DAWN!!! TAKE US OUTTA HERE. Melted your hardware?!?!?!?!? WTF? Dude you would have to have some serious hardware issues for something like that to happen... I like Blizzard personally but I'm not saying this for any other reason than hardware doesn't 'melt' unless you have some kind of serious physical problem with your rig. Don't get me wrong, it can happen, but not unless you jam a memory module in backwards or something really lame like that. Even CPU's will shut themselves down under extream heat to avoid exactly those types of issue. Sorry but I can understand a company deleting posts like that if you were posting them... omg... What were your posts about nVidia drivers... that they caused global warming??? Dude, take a basic computer course at your local community college or something... lol

80.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 17:47

Tim Collins

I'v been trolling the damn interwebs all day and I havnt seen shit about melting components lol......your 460 died get over it.

79.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 17:38

Optional nickname

Blizzard is deleting all my posts in tech support, and here too. I wrote stuff about how their game has melted some of my hardware components, due to the repeated shut downs that tens of thousands of players are also experiencing, (but have no alternate system to post on) all my comments deleted, and here at blues too, the Nvidia driver update story, GONE. good riddance failed sequel attempt that is Diablo 3, totally believed my gut feeling that this was going to be a disastrous dumbed down sequel, waiting all this time, for what, lol COMON GRIM DAWN!!! TAKE US OUTTA HERE.

78.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 17:36

Slippy

The only real issue I have experienced with D3's AH (the gold based one) is when I try to purchase gems... Everything works fine until I do a buy out then it either errors out or times out and still takes my gold. It is usually refunded shortly afterwards but I think they still keep a cut... is anyone else having the same issue? I use the AH daily but this is the only real bug I have noticed.

77.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 17:06

theyarecomingforyou

The auction servers have been unavailable for hours now in Europe. They went down briefly in the US but are apparently back up again. The European servers have had more downtime than the Americas and Asia servers put together. It's getting to be ridiculous. People have even lost hardcore characters due to server issues.

I love the game but Blizzard isn't even close to providing a decent level of service.




Core i7 2600-K (4.6GHz) \| 12GB DDR3 \| GTX680 SLI (1215/1605) \| OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD \| Windows 8 Pro Hazro HZ30Wie 30" \| Saffire PRO 40 \| Razer Mamba \| Coolermaster RP1000W SteamID: theyarecomingforyou

76.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 16:52

Cutter

DrEvil wrote on May 23, 2012, 15:39:
Except, you do have a sense of entitlement; you appear to believe that a special group of people should work once and get paid for it the rest of their life.

You also appear to believe that developers are entitled to lock games down as much as possible to maximise their profits while still shipping products that are bug-ridden, violate their user's privacy, and have end-user agreements that require legal counsel to properly understand and strip away the most fundamental expectations of resale.

Perfecly stated, sir. Nicely done.

Blizzard has become a lot like Apple. They make very well crafted and unique products that come with unreasonable terms of use that customers wouldn't tolerate from any other company.

Spot on, and yet another company I loathe and will never support because of their arrogant attitude towards consumers. It really does boggle my mind that people not only take this sort of abuse from companies, but pay a premium for it. And then some people wonder why I'm cynical.




"Are you crazy? Is that your problem?" - Jack Burton

75.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 16:52

MajorD

Gridphoenix wrote on May 23, 2012, 15:40:
They censored my post on Battle.net. I complained about the auction house (which ruins my game experience) and they just deleted my post. This never happened to me before. I am really not happy (and I did not use rude language or so....).

I think if companies start using there power to censor things we are getting into real big trouble.

I will stay away from Blizzard from now on...

Everyone should really take note of that! If that doesn't wake you up, then you're positioning yourself right where they want you and you'll have nobody to blame but yourself!




http://www.youtube.com/user/M4jorDICK

74.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 16:38

Orogogus

entr0py wrote on May 23, 2012, 15:50: Blizzard has become a lot like Apple. They make very well crafted and unique products that come with unreasonable terms of use that customers wouldn't tolerate from any other company. To be fair, people just recently put up with something similar for Mass Effect 3.

73.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 15:50

entr0py

Blizzard has become a lot like Apple. They make very well crafted and unique products that come with unreasonable terms of use that customers wouldn't tolerate from any other company.

72.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 15:49

Gridphoenix

@DG Well, lets say I believe in the good (or: I start optimistic...). But, I never thought that such a big company like Blizzard cannot stand critics. And I would understand if they delete the usual "I hate this '*****ing game!". But in this case it was a post related to a feature of a game, i.e. a functionality discussion. Thats odd. We have to live now with the official design philosophy of the publisher and "How dare you to discuss this in public". For me thats new..... Maybe I am really too naive. Thanks Michael

71.

Re: Diablo III Claims Sales Record

May 23, 2012, 15:45

Gridphoenix wrote on May 23, 2012, 15:40: They censored my post on Battle.net. I complained about the auction house (which ruins my game experience) and they just deleted my post. This never happened to me before. I am really not happy (and I did not use rude language or so....). I think if companies start using there power to censor things we are getting into real big trouble. I will stay away from Blizzard from now on... I'm still kind of weirded out how everyone goes onto official forums for a game nowadays. Then bewildered that people are surprised when bad things happen to negative posts.

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