Diablo 3 the MMORPG?

[Vault Dweller]

Make sure you place this in the wildly-unfounded-random-internet-rumour category...WoWGuru is claiming Diablo 3 will be revealed at BlizzCon as a MMORPG - as apparently exposed by an ex-Blizzard staff member:

Chris Hartgraves from WasteLandsGaming.com, former employee of Blizzard Entertainment, has sent us word that Diablo 3 will be aired at Blizzcon.

From what we've heard Diablo 3 is going to be an MMO, as massive as World of Warcraft, with the concept of Hell invading Heaven. One rumor going around with Diablo 3 is that there will be Guild Housing included. The game is said to be looking brilliant and will be showcased at Blizzcon as their big suprise.

From RPG Dot

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Blizzard is probably hoping to tap the online console gaming market by releasing this for the Xbox 360. I'm not even a big fan of Diablo and this still pisses me off. It's a sign of VU and Blizzard phasing out their biggest market (PC games) in favor of next-gen consoles.

 

[vazquez595654]

Diablo with no single player? I was addicted to Diablo2 and its deceptive simplicity.

Put this in the I'm-never-going-to-buy-it category.

Having a company suck 15 dollars from me every month so they are nice enough to keep their servers on is joke. An MMORPG is the ultimate revenue model and it is the closest thing to a game company urinating on your face.

 

[Surlent]

Well world of warcraft expansion was just announced in Blizzcon. More cash for Blizzard. Wouldn't be surprised if they made D3 MMO. It might take players from wow though, but all the same, Blizzard would still have their hands in players' pockets.
Wonder if they have capacity to host it ? Wow has huge amount of servers and bad lag issues from time to time.

 

[Jason]

This story smells like the shitting of the bulls to me. The WoW cash well is still far from dry and a D3 MMO would fracture the WoW community. A few years down the road would be a different story, though.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Besides, they pretty much ended the Diablo story with D2. Sure there was that whole mystery about what was going to happen once the worldstone got destroyed, but Diablo and his bros are gone. Finished. Kaput.

So, in essence, even IF they do a sequel, they would need to come up with something else other than Diablo 3. Personally, I don't want another game in the series.

What I do want is Blizzard to at least continue making games rather than shifting all their attention to the MMORPG crowd now. I've been leery since WoW that Blizzard was going to forget us non-MMORPGers.

 

[xemous]

$ 15 / mo isn't too bad considering all the servers they host, the bandwidth costs, administration costs, legal costs, the teams working on the game for patches and content updates, and then the profit of course. All that hosting and administration doesn't come free.

 

[dunduks]

I would be somehow remotely interested if Blizz made a StarCraft MMO/RTS hibrid, or better yet a normal StarCraft game.

$ 15 / mo isn't too bad considering all the servers they host, the bandwidth costs, administration costs, legal costs, the teams working on the game for patches and content updates, and then the profit of course. All that hosting and administration doesn't come free.

Yeah, those poor devs are practically robbing themselves

“Massive multiplayer games are a revolution for the electronic game industry. Their profit potential is unlike anything the game industry has known before,” said Rick E. Bruner, principal, Executive Summary Consulting, Inc. “The key for game publishers to the incredible revenue possibilities of this model is one word: subscriptions. The fees for the current hit titles in the U.S. market are all in the $10-13-per-month range. That means games can earn $120-156 per customer a year for several years. In Asia, where MMOG is already huge, those fees are upwards of $20 a month. When you run the math, you only need a few million people worldwide playing regularly to add up to a multi-billion dollar market." Source

Yup, those porr little devs

 

[vazquez595654]

I would be somehow remotely interested if Blizz made a StarCraft MMO/RTS hibrid, or better yet a normal StarCraft game.

xemous wrote:
$ 15 / mo isn't too bad considering all the servers they host, the bandwidth costs, administration costs, legal costs, the teams working on the game for patches and content updates, and then the profit of course. All that hosting and administration doesn't come free.
Yeah, those poor devs are practically robbing themselves Laughing

Quote:
“Massive multiplayer games are a revolution for the electronic game industry. Their profit potential is unlike anything the game industry has known before,” said Rick E. Bruner, principal, Executive Summary Consulting, Inc. “The key for game publishers to the incredible revenue possibilities of this model is one word: subscriptions. The fees for the current hit titles in the U.S. market are all in the $10-13-per-month range. That means games can earn $120-156 per customer a year for several years. In Asia, where MMOG is already huge, those fees are upwards of $20 a month. When you run the math, you only need a few million people worldwide playing regularly to add up to a multi-billion dollar market." Source

Yup, those porr little devs

Thank god you responded to xemous before I did. I wouldn't have been so nice. No business, if they can help it, would operate on slim profit margins. I don't need any sources to know Blizzard is making large amounts of profit.[/quote]

 

[Tiliqua]

15 bucks a month is nothing. The monthly fee covers not just the considerable cost of developing and running the game, it's also takes into account the failure rate of mmos. It's like making movies, the big block busters subsidize the clunkers.

I spend more a month on newspapers, or magazines or coffee for that matter. If you can't afford $15pm how could you be expected to own a decent computer or pay for broadband?

If you don't like the economic model that mmos currently use I suggest to go to North Korea and taste the fruits of their economic endeavours. Of course things are cheaper there but mmos are a bit thin on the ground.

 

[MINIGUNWIELDER]

I would be somehow remotely interested if Blizz made a StarCraft MMO/RTS hibrid, or better yet a normal StarCraft game.

xemous wrote:
$ 15 / mo isn't too bad considering all the servers they host, the bandwidth costs, administration costs, legal costs, the teams working on the game for patches and content updates, and then the profit of course. All that hosting and administration doesn't come free.
Yeah, those poor devs are practically robbing themselves Laughing

Quote:
“Massive multiplayer games are a revolution for the electronic game industry. Their profit potential is unlike anything the game industry has known before,” said Rick E. Bruner, principal, Executive Summary Consulting, Inc. “The key for game publishers to the incredible revenue possibilities of this model is one word: subscriptions. The fees for the current hit titles in the U.S. market are all in the $10-13-per-month range. That means games can earn $120-156 per customer a year for several years. In Asia, where MMOG is already huge, those fees are upwards of $20 a month. When you run the math, you only need a few million people worldwide playing regularly to add up to a multi-billion dollar market." Source

Yup, those porr little devs

Thank god you responded to xemous before I did. I wouldn't have been so nice. No business, if they can help it, would operate on slim profit margins. I don't need any sources to know Blizzard is making large amounts of profit.

[/quote]
why not starcraft 3!

 

[vazquez595654]

The monthly fee covers not just the considerable cost of developing and running the game

I thought the 50 dollar price tag was for the development of the game.

...it also takes into account the failure rate of mmos. It's like making movies, the big block busters subsidize the clunkers.

So now I have to pay for their insecurities? If they are so sure their game is going to be awesome what do they have to worry about?

If you can't afford $15pm how could you be expected to own a decent computer or pay for broadband?

I didn't say I couldn't I said I won't. Didn't WoW sell over a million units? Even if say only 200,000 people are actually paying the math would be 200,000 X $15 = $3,000,000 a month. I know servers are expensive but it does not take 3,000,000 million dollars a month to run servers (even with the guys getting payed 10 dollars an hour for support).[/quote]

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

why not starcraft 3!

Haven't you heard? It's going to be an MMORPG as well!

 

[truekaiser]

sad to say but once a company goes mmorpg they rarely if ever go back.

 

[Nutcracker]

Not to mention that the support for Warcraft 3 with regards to patching/balance issues is shit by all accounts.

MMORPG's are whores (expensive ones at that), and the developers are the pimps.

15 a month is way too much, given that you pay the full price for the actual game as well.

 

[kingcomrade]

You know, I was talking about this in the Strategy Forum. I don't want a Diablo 3 or Starcraft 2. Too many fucking sequels. Make something new. Then again, have they made anything in the past 5 or 6 years that wasn't a sequel?

 

[Tiliqua]

Bioware is making Dragon Age, thats a game I'm looking forward to.

 

[DarkSign]

People who complain about MMO prices have no clue what goes into them. On the other hand, MMO developers are usually bad about pumping more content back into them.

At the Austin Games Conference, I stopped by the OGSi booth to get some hard figures about bandwidth and server costs.

A game with 300,000 subscribers can expect 60-100,000 concurrent users. At 3000 players per server, thats around 25 servers needed give or take. The hardware costs would be $2500 and the bandwidth $10-12,000. This is with "FPS bandwidth" of 40-60 meg per second.

Constant marketing, customer service (which EASILY starts at $100,000 a month) and other costs make MMOs cost a hell of a lot.

Thats not to say they dont have a high ROI. If you do well, they can have a huge return. A return that should be put back into the game imo.

But to simply say they cost too much is easy for someone who hasnt done the numbers.

 

[Atrokkus]

Not to mention that the support for Warcraft 3 with regards to patching/balance issues is shit by all accounts.

Proof, please.
Yes, some patches I would wish they had more balance-tweaks in, but there were lots of patches and a lot more are coming, and the balance is getting pretty stable.


ANyways, I think strategy department is still good and going to keep on making great games.
Other than that, I don't really like Blizzard's endevours... Ghost, Wow Expansion and all that...

 

[Crnobog]

sad to say but once a company goes mmorpg they rarely if ever go back.

mmorpg is like the digital equivalent of gay

 

[MINIGUNWIELDER]

Bioware is making Dragon Age, thats a game I'm looking forward to.

a port of a crappy snes game?

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

Wouldn't THAT be funny. Especially if it was just a port.

 

[dunduks]

People who complain about MMO prices have no clue what goes into them. On the other hand, MMO developers are usually bad about pumping more content back into them.

At the Austin Games Conference, I stopped by the OGSi booth to get some hard figures about bandwidth and server costs.

A game with 300,000 subscribers can expect 60-100,000 concurrent users. At 3000 players per server, thats around 25 servers needed give or take. The hardware costs would be $2500 and the bandwidth $10-12,000. This is with "FPS bandwidth" of 40-60 meg per second.
Constant marketing, customer service (which EASILY starts at $100,000 a month) and other costs make MMOs cost a hell of a lot.
Thats not to say they dont have a high ROI. If you do well, they can have a huge return. A return that should be put back into the game imo.
But to simply say they cost too much is easy for someone who hasnt done the numbers.

Ok, from your own numbers:
server hardware: 25x2500 = 62500
bandwith: 20000
custumer care/marketing/ lazy programmers : 500000
add some extra unexpected costs and it all adds up to, say, a 1 mil a month.
income 300k X 15 = 4.5 mil
profit = very huuge, you could cut the monthly price in half and still have reasonable profit, so I do think that this all looks like some overpriced scam.

 

[Nutcracker]

You could always hedge your losses and buy Blizzard shares...

 

[DarkSign]

Ok, from your own numbers:
server hardware: 25x2500 = 62500
bandwith: 20000
custumer care/marketing/ lazy programmers : 500000
add some extra unexpected costs and it all adds up to, say, a 1 mil a month.
income 300k X 15 = 4.5 mil
profit = very huuge, you could cut the monthly price in half and still have reasonable profit, so I do think that this all looks like some overpriced scam.

You forgot advertising among other things..but yeah you're right. The Return on Investment is huge.

If you have one that's successful (people like your brand) then yes, it's a license to print money. But if you flop its one hell of a cash suck.

There should be a lot more content that gets pumped back into these for sure.