Diablo III Coming on May 15
by Craig Getting on March 15, 2012 9:29 AM ESTAfter a few delays and many recitations of Blizzard's "We'll release it when it's ready" mantra, Diablo III finally has a release date: May 15th. On that date, Blizzard's click-heavy action RPG will be available on PC and Mac for $59.99 USD in almost every region. Latin American and Russian players will need to wait until June 7th.
Digital presales for Diablo III start today, World of Warcraft players interested in picking up a free copy may still do so by purchasing a WoW Annual Pass before May 1st.
For interested parties, Blizzard will also be selling a Diablo III Collector’s Edition for $99.99. The retail exclusive package includes a behind-the-scenes Blu-ray/DVD set, a soundtrack CD, a 208-page art book, and a 4GB USB trinket carrying full versions of Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. It will also come with exclusive content for Diablo III, World of Warcraft, and Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty – most likely in-game items along the lines of a WoW minipet.
The press release touts Diablo III’s real money auction house and robust Battle.net-based matchmaking, yet it makes no mention of the planned player-versus-player arena. This is likely because Diablo III will be launching without it. “The PvP game and systems aren’t yet living up to our standards,” Blizzard’s Jay Wilson wrote on Battle.net last week. “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.”
Source: Blizzard
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cknobman - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Dont spout inflation is the reason with your cocky tone. Inflation varies greatly depending on the good/service in fact there are many things that experience deflation.Im not going to go into a cost benefit analysis over the entertainment value of games because I dont deny the value you get when the game is a quality product.
But its people like you with your smug attitudes and justification for skyrocketing prices that fuel corporate greed.
Unless your a developer yourself then dont pretend to know jack squat about what they feel. I AM A DEVELOPER and DLC has nothing to do with "developers feel like they have to do DLC" and everything to do with publishers wanting to nickel and dime the consumer to death for more money.
Are you naive enough to think developers get some cut of the DLC profits??? LOL know your facts before you make assumptions.
zanon - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
>But its people like you with your smug attitudes and justification for skyrocketing prices that fuel corporate greed.I think you're the one with a smug attitude. The objective fact is that effective game prices have not gone up. Few things are more a Free Market then video games. Spouting stuff like "corporate greed" makes you sound ridiculous in this situation.
>Unless your a developer yourself
I am.
>I AM A DEVELOPER and DLC has nothing to do with "developers feel like they have to do DLC" and everything to do with publishers wanting to nickel and dime the consumer to death for more money.
That's your problem, not everyone's. Lots of us who are entirely independent use DLC too, particularly in the mobile world. Your "nickel and dime the consumers to death" ranting over *ten bucks* illustrates the problem perfectly. You don't mention flops at all (which regrettably happens even to excellent games), you don't mention ballooning budgets for big titles, nada. It's just classic Armchair General.
Things like Steam and the Humble Bundle show there is plenty of healthy experimentation going on with low prices too. That some publishers of very expensive AAA titles decide to keep up with inflation is totally reasonable.
mcnabney - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
FYI - Xbox and Playstation games have to pay a big fat licensing fee to the console maker for every game, generally $5-10. That is why PC games stayed low for so long, because they didn't have to pay a console license fee.Expect PC games to get even more expensive. Win8 Metro games MUST be sold through the Microsoft Store and MS will get somewhere between 15-30% of the cost. $75 games are probably only a year away. The next generation will certainly have $75 game.
DanNeely - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
Conventional retail markups are 50% of list price....Does anyone know what Steam, Impulse, etc charge?
B3an - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
Dont be stupid.Metro app games will be sold through the new app store, but most PC games, and all the AAA titles will not be on this store. You will still get these games from all the same places for the same price. Do you really think a developer will want MS taking up to 30% of there money when theres absolutely no need for it? Not only this but Metro games use different API's and ways of doing things, all these developer would have to first spend ages figuring out how to make a AAA game that works inside the Metro UI.
And have you actually seen the games currently on the app store? They're like phone/tablet games, they will be very cheap and simple.
Another example would be to look a crApple's app store, do you see any $75 games on that? lol.
Reality check.
Golgatha - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
No, games MUST cost whatever price the market will bear while still turning a profit. $75 games will kill the market for games. I know I wouldn't pay $75 for any game, and for $60 I'm still very selective. On average, I'd say I pay around $20-30 for a new game, and I buy a lot of $10 or less games that are only a year or so old.ionis - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
$10 is not dirt. By that logic, you could keep adding $10 to the price and get it to $300. It's just $10. It's just $10. It's just $10. etc.And to all those claiming inflation, this must be your 1st Blizzard game. They've been $60 since at least WC3. The price isn't due to inflation. Look at PC games on Steam and even Amazon. You can usually buy them between $5-$30. Is inflation the reason laptops now cost $1,000,000 each?
zanon - Friday, March 16, 2012 - link
>$10 is not dirt.For something providing dozens of hours, if not hundreds of hours, of enjoyment? Yes it is.
>By that logic, you could keep adding $10 to the price and get it to $300.
Um, no. $300 != $10. You notice how one of those is bigger then the other? 30x bigger? On Planet ionis they may do things differently, but back here on Earth, the only number equal to a number is, in fact, itself. So $10 + $10? That's $20, which is not $10. See how that works? We can help you out with that a bit more if you're still having trouble!
>And to all those claiming inflation, this must be your 1st Blizzard game.
No, I still have my original copy of The Lost Vikings actually.
>They've been $60 since at least WC3.
And they were $50 back in the 90s, which still makes inflation reasonable as one factor amongst a number. Every software title has a different budget, different expected sales, and different market strategies. That so many companies have increased efficiency and held off on expected price increases is impressive, but that doesn't make it "wrong" or "greedy" when the inevitable happens, or a company decides to go for higher value products with bigger budgets and longer dev cycles.
>Look at PC games on Steam and even Amazon. You can usually buy them between $5-$30.
An utterly asinine point devoid of context. Are the games brand new? Are they AAA titles with ten million+ budgets?
And of course the ultimate arbiter is the market itself: if your game is better and in higher demand, you can charge a premium for doing a good job and making something people want. If you've built up a brand over years or decades that people trust, well obviously that's going to be worth something too (although the brand can lose value as easily or more easily then it can gain it). There's nothing immoral about that either.
Bottom line: there is nothing inherently unreasonable about a $60 game in 2012. It's cheaper then a $50 from 2000, let alone from 1990. If you don't feel a particular title delivers on value, then don't buy it (I certainly won't be), but that's the fault of the individual title, not the price.
Tetracycloide - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Stuff costs more than it used to!Young people use curse words!
Your social security check is late!
slickr - Thursday, March 15, 2012 - link
Inflation. This is not 2006 anymore!That said Diablo 3 is the most DRM heavy game out there. You will be required to constantly be online to play the game even offline!