The main reason I will go to Diablo 4:
" D4 works exactly like POE in terms of monetization after original sale. They need people to come back every season and buy the battle pass and possibly a skin or class or it isnt worth it for them. Completely different scenario to D3. The diehards of POE come back every season have already bought the stash spaces and buy the battlepass and maybe a skin and complete all the maps in 2 weeks. If they like the league they continue playing. |
|
" I think his point was how some people talk about retention as proof poe is bad and ignore when you try to make the same argument for D Theres little point in talking about what it means for the survival of the company: its OBVIOUS a mainstream title is not gonna be a flop unless its a special kind of dumpster fire. Devil may cry 4 was considered a "flop" but it still got revenue companies on the size of GGG would consider success. Yeah, its obvious blizzard is not gonna go upbelly and die, if nothing else, they can still survive on legacy games back when the company made good titles despite reforged-style disasters. Will they endure another decade? Probably(almost certainly, activison is doing quite nice, if nothing else...) but its obvious the fate of D4 will not impact on it Retention DOES make as much sense to be discussed as it does on poe for another point: How good the game actually is, wich i think is far more relevant to everyone on this forum than what will be the future of blizzard. Our opinions are irrelevant for the latter(no matter how much we bash any company on a forum, that will not make or break the company), but since many of us share similar tastes for dungeon crawlers, our opinions CAN be relevant when gauging the former. Popularity is an awful metric to gauge quality(even twilight was a massive hit and... well... the quality of the books is just... yeah...). How much money it will make dont really mean a damn for us or for the quality of the game, how will player retention go, on the other hand, does lets us gauge how good the game actually is Also, even if blizz talks "its not supposed to live forever", well, that dont align with the kind of game D4 is. You could make a strong point D2 was that kind of "play once and discard", but D4 looks like they are planning to recieve regular updates and all points towards wanting to replicate something on the lines of wow(everything i heard about the game kinda reminds me more of wow than D, in fact...), that is the polar opposite of a game the developer seriously expects players to play once and forget, so bringing player retention for D4 is actually as legit as it is for poe. They can say wathever, the game they produced and at least the starting philosophy are speaking the opposite and what you do speaks louder than what you say | |
" I just don't really think casual+ players needing 2+ months to fulfill their goals are necessarily spending more money than the hardcore players, spending 3 weeks. I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that the first days before and after launch are where GGG makes the majority of sales, but I might be wrong here. People returning each league is far more important than people staying the entire league - and if a break helps them do that, I just can't see the negative here. It's not like people spending 3 months are necessarily "enjoying the game more" than people spending 3 weeks. It's all about goals and playstyles. Sometimes, just sometimes, you should really consider adapting to the world, instead of demanding that the world adapts to you.
| |
" Yeah I'm talking retention rates league to league as comps as to how well they are performing. If they were retaining 70% of players before expedition, and then it dropped to 50% subsequently, and maybe now even lower, it's something to at least consider in their metrics. People wont' spend if they are not even playing. That said I think you are correct, that CW indicated a significant portion of revenue comes the first two weeks of every league launch. Not all obviously, but a big chunk. If they maintain that perhaps it's less important. This next particular league will be more interesting because we don't know how many will be returning after a record concurrency in Crucible. I would think lower... but who knows. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
- Abraham Lincoln |
|
" Don't confuse "live forever" with "play forever". D4 isn't trying to have endgame loops forming endless replayability. They want players to feel like they have finished a season goal or whatever, and then return again for another season, and then again for a big paid expansion. Maybe a character reroll, but certainly not like PoE grinds and burnouts. I honestly don't think money or solvency is going to be an issue for D4 with this model. That's just my view, but I cannot imagine a crash and burn scenario for the Diablo Franchise, and I'm sure their expansions and seasons will do well from a marketing and sales standpoint. Obviously I can't see the future, but seems reasonable to me. How players will feel about it? Well that will always vary wildly. The same was true for D3, as some folks think that game was a disaster, while many others, myself included, were content for 10 years. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
- Abraham Lincoln |
|
" That is of course true. And people won't play if they're burned out. Look, we all know that certain leagues perform better than others in terms of retention, and that often translate into the quality of the league. And I don't really think anyone can deny that there have been quite a few stinkers the last two years. And I would love to compare PoE's league retention with Diablo 3's season retention - or any other game for that matter. Because sure, we can compare a "bad retention" PoE league to a good one, but how bad is really the worst PoE leagues compared to other "seasonal" games? What is really achievable for a game that has been doing seasons/leagues for 8(?) years? And how much of a drop is "normal" after that amount of time? Sometimes, just sometimes, you should really consider adapting to the world, instead of demanding that the world adapts to you.
| |
" Kinda begs the question is poe is actually different and if they really have a philosophy of "play non-stop forever" From what i remember from most of the numbers, the VAST majority of people on poe are returning players that play story and quit. And not only "just play story and foget the game exists", but they come back, kill kitava and return next big patch to check the new mechanics. I dont have the statistics, but i would say its quite reasonable to think GGG gets its profit from these kind of players who comes and goes Yes, there are the crazy people who get 40/40 every league and buy tons of suporter packs, and yes, most free-to-play games thrive on the back of these people, but i said it many times before and again: GGG have a very different model of monetarization from your average free-to-play-pay-to-win game. Unless there are people buying literally every suporter pack per week for some reason, you cant compare the "whale" from poe and the whale on the average freetoplay. The whales of poe dont fork enough money to suport a company(unless im really oblivious to how many packs per week they buy and there are weirdos who get a voidborn pack every week) and thinking from there, it dont make a whole lot of sense to place the focus on these people. More likely, GGG have a similar model of periodic new content and makes the profit from players that come and go. Their model just isnt compatible with whale-focused design that wants players to keep playing until the sun goes nova " The D franquise will be fine even if D4 implodes. Blizzard dont have tons of franquises to work with, nor they have a philosophy of purchasing titles from other developers. They cant discard franquises the way companies like EA or capcom can, for these types of companies, it usually takes at least something like triple hard failures to make a franquise die How players will feel? Well, LOTS are kinda sick from the company as the last title that blizz made that got legit universal praise was overwatch over a decade ago, you was content for 10 years with D3, but i also had that game and i saw firsthand it devolve into a ghost town, i also saw the same happen to SC2, hearthstone and HotS so i can say you are not the majority Since you seem to care a great deal about the finantial state of the company, ill tell that nope, it will not matter. People are also sick of EA, sick of ubisoft, sick of epic games. Every title they push foward still sells super well and as i mentioned in other topic, we live in a weird moment where even people who are sick from a company still ends buying from them(even labbel as "protest" because destroying an item you got after forking god knows how many lootboxes can be considered a protest somehow...), if you have doubts for the future of the company, dont. For the forseeable future, blizzard will be fine-even if blizzard makes nothing but flops, activison is on a good string and can carry them | |
" Yeah Idk how to exactly measure D4 success over time. Returning players each season and expansion will matter, but Blizzard rarely provides data beyond sales figures. Maybe there will be infographs and things like that, but those will be heavily controlled in terms of messaging. If D4 is struggling Blizzard wont' be advertising it. I also don't know how to view PoE in this specific timeframe either. Was Crucible really the greatest league in PoE history for example? All fair to ask and wonder about. "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
- Abraham Lincoln |
|
" You can play standard. Just occasionally eat two stacks of dirt-cheap regret orbs on a char you're no longer using, instead of leveling a new one. It's so weird to me how this seems to never, ever occur to all the people whining for years and years about "having to" replay the campaign. Unless you only play to brag on social media about how well you're doing this economy reset compared to others. Or unless you act like the current league mechanic is the only reason to play and that the previous twent still exist is worth nothing. Yeah, then you can't play standard. But I actually don't wanna assume you're that shallow. You probably just fall for the anti-standard rethoric of people who are that shallow. |
|
|
Interesting story, nice cinematic, no genderlock character and peculiarity for every class, fun combat are what bring me to D4. But after i'm done with its main story, my only reason to keep playing it is pvp, the pvp is kinda meh for me because they nerfed my favorite class - rogue too much, so i switched to poe recently.
|
|
