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.

Blizzard: No Diablo 3 in 2010

In a recent interview, Blizzard’s Rob Pardo commented that “We always announce all of our games too early,” he says. “I think it’s safe to say that, yeah, [Diablo 3] is not going to be out next year.”

With other major Blizzard titles due out next year, with Starcraft II pushed back to 2010 (originally slated for 2009) and the next expansion for World of Warcraft – Cataclysm due out next year as well, next year would be a rather crowded affair for Blizzard games given the fanbase down have a fair amount of overlap.

So that of course poses the question – if not next year, does that definitely mean 2011 for Diablo 3?  Blizzard’s response to such questions is of course the standard “it’ll be released when its ready”.  No doubt details will be leaked in financial statements closer to the actual release date that usually reveal the quarter that a major title is due out.
Via:  Joystiq

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