Good Guy Blizzard Saves GAME Customers

Some developers might hear about their loyal customer-base getting a raw deal the day before the launch of their game and say “That’s unfortunate, but what can we do?”

Upon hearing that GAME Australia has entered administration and may not honour some Diablo III pre-orders, Blizzard said “No, this simply will not do.”

Blizzard has announced via an official forum post that they can purchase the digital download version of Diablo III and receive full credit from Blizzard for their original pre-order with GAME:

Australian GAME customers with a valid preorder/prepurchase receipt dated before May 15, 2012 can do the following:

1. Purchase the digital version of Diablo III from http://www.diablo3.com now or anytime before May 21, 2012.

2. Download and start playing when the servers go live!

3. Submit your GAME Australia preorder/prepurchase receipt to us before June 30, 2012.

4. Receive a credit from Blizzard, for the amount you paid in advance to GAME Australia for Diablo III. This credit will be applied to the payment method used for the digital purchase.

Blizzard Entertainment: Champion of the People

PS Just 17 minutes to go until the Diablo III servers launch!

Diablo III: Wrath Animated Short Released

After weeks of developer diary videos and custom banner sigils, Blizzard has unveiled the final unlock of their build-up campaign for Diablo III - an animated short titled Wrath.

Wrath focuses on the Archangel Tyrael and his angel buddies, most of whom we’ve only heard of and never seen, and their war with the denizens of Hell. It seems the angels are going to play a bigger part in Diablo III than they have in the previous games, so Blizzard wants to make sure we’re all familiar with how they roll before things kick off on the 15th.

The animation is a collaboration between Blizzard, cartoon studio Titmouse Inc. (of Metalocalypse fame) and Peter Chung (creator of Æon Flux *nerd gush*) so you know it’s going to be packed with beautiful, stylised imagery and awesome action. Once you’ve watched it, check out the behind the scenes episode where they discuss the process that went into creating Diablo III: Wrath.

Diablo III’s Launch Approaches

Time is a funny thing. “One week to go” could be considered short, such as one week to go until your holiday ends, or it could be an excruciating expanse of time that never seems to end and makes you want to freeze yourself.

With a whole 7 days to go until the gates of Hell open and Diablo III is unleashed on the world, I’m open to anything that makes the time pass quicker. I’ve already chosen my class, booked time off work, run through a refresher course on Diablo’s lore and now it’s time to prepare for launch day.

Blizzard have just announced that they will be unlocking the Diablo III client install at 11:00PM WST on May 14th to allow everyone to install the client, download the initial patch and get everything ready for when the game goes live.

The article also explains the process for reserving your Battle.net username (if you haven’t already) and mentions that any congestion problems with the login server on launch day will be identified by the innocuous “Error 37″ description.

Clearly Blizzard is a company that’s had plenty of experience in dealing with the zerg nerd rush associated with launch days. Hopefully they have more plans in the works to make the next 7 days go as painlessly as possible.

Diablo III Class Overview Videos

Hello, my friend. Stay awhile and listen.

Diablo 3 hits the stores in less than 2 weeks, so it’s time to get things in order. Pre-order, check. Time off from work to “visit Uncle Deckard”, check. Which class to play first, not checked.

This is a big problem, because I really can’t decide. The Wizard has lasers, the Monk gets to fly-kick stuff in the face, the Witchdoctor throws exploding frogs, the Demonhunter looks like Vayne and the Barbarian has a sweet loincloth.

Thankfully Blizzard have finished their series of Class Overview videos showcasing the backstory and the abilities of each option. If that’s not enough, you can also look through all the different skills and abilities of each class using the official Skill Calculator.

Hit the magic button below to check out all five Class Overview videos.
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Diablo III Will Be Released on May 15th

Stay a while, and listen! Blizzard has finally locked in a release date for Diablo III!

On May 15th, eager adventurers will be able to pick up a retail copy of the game for $89.95, or a digital copy of the game for $79.95 straight from Blizzard. The special alabaster-white Collector’s Edition will only be available from retail stores and will set you back $139.95.

The extra fancy rich-man’s edition will include a behind-the-scenes Blu-ray/DVD two-disc set, the Diablo III soundtrack CD, a 208-page Art of Diablo III book, and a 4 GB USB soulstone (including full versions of Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction) and corresponding Diablo skull base, as well as exclusive in-game content for Diablo III, World of Warcraft, and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.

World of Warcraft players wanting to take advantage of the Annual Pass promotion and snag a free digital copy of Diablo III will need to grab it before the offer expires on May 1st.

Blizzard Drops PvP From Diablo 3 Launch

Blizzard has announced that the PvP component from Diablo 3 will not be included with the game’s initial launch as they feel it isn’t ready.

Today, we wanted to let you know that we’ve made the difficult decision to hold back the PvP Arena system and release it in a patch following the game’s launch. After a lot of consideration and discussion, we ultimately felt that delaying the whole game purely for PvP would just be punishing to everyone who’s waiting to enjoy the campaign and core solo/co-op content, all of which is just about complete.

The PvP Arena system will be released in a post-launch patch including multiple Arena maps, PvP-centric achievements and a matchmaking system.

I actually don’t mind this plan. At least this way, by the time they release the PvP content we’ll all be mid-way through the Nightmare/Hell difficulty run-through and ready to mix it up in PvP.

Besides, anything that gets the game released ASAP is okay in my book.

Blizzard and KeSPA Court Case Settled

Blizzard announced on the 17th that their court battle between KeSPA, OnGameNet, and MBC Plus Media is over and will allow them to host and broadcast Starcraft eSports in Korea.

“We are glad to work with partners who have contributed fostering Korean eSports industry. It would be the first step toward long term and positive relationship, and we are looking forward to providing exciting eSports entertainment with new partners.” – Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment

The 2 year license contract will see Blizzard receiving an Annual Fee and their Logo on all content generated in return for OnGameNet and MBC Plus Media being able to broadcast Starcraft officially.

More Information can be found over at TeamLiquid.

Source: TeamLiquid

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World of Warcraft Experiences Subscription Drop

Cataclysm might have sold 4.7 million copies within the first month of its release, but during yesterdays Investor Conference Call, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime announced that the game had fallen from the 12 million active subscriptions down to 11.4 million active subscriptions, a loss of 600,000 players.

Although these numbers might be due to the game being out for just over 5 months and the content has been consumed by a good portion of the player base, or that the players who have left could have been lured away by new games such as RIFT.

Either way 600,000 subscribers isn’t really going to hurt Blizzard in the long run, especially with Patch 4.2 coming out shortly which will be adding new daily quests and raid content, plus the recently released 4.1 patch which saw the Zalandri dungeons return as 5-man heroics.

Source: Activision Blizzard

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Diablo 3 External Beta Coming

During Activision Blizzards quarterly earnings call today, Blizzard CEO, Mike Morhaime said that the company had begun internal company-wide testing of Diablo 3 last week.

“We began internal company-wide testing last week. The game looks great, and we’re currently targeting a Q3 launch for external beta testing.” – Mike Morhaime

Morhaime didn’t mention if the game would see a 2011 or 2012 release but seeing that they are going to be doing external beta testing chances are we will see Diablo 3 in the very tail end of 2011 or the start of 2012 at the earliest.

Source: Game Rant

Activision Blizzard – Q1 2011 Results

Activision Blizzard released their First Quarter 2011 Financial Results today, announcing that it had made $1.4 billion in revenue, an increase of $100 million from the year before that. The net income for Activision Blizzard also saw an increase going from $381 million in Q1 2010 to $503 million in Q1 2011.

During the first quarter of 2011 Activision Blizzard held three of the top-10 PC titles, with Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, and Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops.

Activision Blizzard also mentions that Call of Duty: Black Ops had a increase of more than 33% unique gamers playing online within the first five months than Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and since the release of the First Strike DLC back in February 1 the average time a player spends online playing per day has risen to an average 58 minutes – more than the 55 minutes an average user spends on Facebook per day.

Source: Activision Blizzard

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