Originally posted by JimmyYO

D3 and the 4th Pirates of the Carribean have much in common. Both were popular at first..............i'll let you fill in the blanks.

PotC 4 was worth my money to see it in the cinema. Diablo 3 was also worth my money. Both are entertaining in their own rights. Plus, people have their own tastes. Hell, I still don't understand why people paid money to see Transformers 1 & 2, let alone buy the BD/DVD's. Apparantly because they like it.

You know what else they got in common? They sold damn well, which is pretty important for the companies involved I might add.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

 First what do you mean hold? It's not a subscription game and since it's single player/co-op population is irrelevant. People still play the first Diablo btw. Second hold what? Sales are already over 7 million and rising.

It may not be subscription based, but if you think they aren't looking at retention rates, you're nuts. The only way their RMAH is going to succeed the way they want it to is if the retention rates are pretty high. Second, that's a really nice number, at least  for anything that isn't going to have to directly deal with WoW numbers. Being a Blizzard game, you can bet that at some point D3 numbers will be compared to WoW's, and not just the initial sales, either. Everyone from fans to anti-Blizzard folks to the investors behind Blizzard are going to be doing it, and it will have an impact.

Originally posted by sunshadow21

Originally posted by zymurgeist

 First what do you mean hold? It's not a subscription game and since it's single player/co-op population is irrelevant. People still play the first Diablo btw. Second hold what? Sales are already over 7 million and rising.

It may not be subscription based, but if you think they aren't looking at retention rates, you're nuts. The only way their RMAH is going to succeed the way they want it to is if the retention rates are pretty high. Second, that's a really nice number, at least  for anything that isn't going to have to directly deal with WoW numbers. Being a Blizzard game, you can bet that at some point D3 numbers will be compared to WoW's, and not just the initial sales, either. Everyone from fans to anti-Blizzard folks to the investors behind Blizzard are going to be doing it, and it will have an impact.

 They don't look at retention rates. They look at quarterly profits. They also know most players, no matter how much they play the game, won't use the RMAH more than a  few times if at all. So after you've done that keeping you playing isn't a consideration. People can compare cabbages to moonbeams for all anyone cares. Without population data, and there won't be any, the only hard data is sales.

Originally posted by zymurgeist

 They don't look at retention rates. They look at quarterly profits. They also know most players, no matter how much they play the game, won't use the RMAH more than a  few times if at all. So after you've done that keeping you playing isn't a consideration. People can compare cabbages to moonbeams for all anyone cares. Without population data, and there won't be any, the only hard data is sales.

If you don't think that Blizzard isn't keeping track of who is logging in to Battlenet, when, and for what game, you're completely missing one of the biggest advantages they find in online only. They may not release the data publicly, but the population data will be there, at least for the folks at Blizzard. And retention is still important. Most people won't even think about using the RMAH until Inferno level, and considering the casual crowd they are aiming for, that means a fairly significant amount of time playing that they need to hold the player for. Not as long as a full blown MMO, but still a lot longer than the developers of say Torchlight 2 are going to care. And that is going to be difficult with a hack and slash game. They generally aren't designed to hold players for a long time; the fact that D2 did was more of a thing of luck and timing than a planned thing, just like WoW will likely never be matced in it's category. Neither D3 nor their Titan project is going to realistically be able to match the high water marks set by their predecessors, but Blizzard's investors and money managers may still expect them to, and that comparison will limit their own perceptions of how successful the games ultimately are.

Originally posted by sunshadow21

Originally posted by zymurgeist

 They don't look at retention rates. They look at quarterly profits. They also know most players, no matter how much they play the game, won't use the RMAH more than a  few times if at all. So after you've done that keeping you playing isn't a consideration. People can compare cabbages to moonbeams for all anyone cares. Without population data, and there won't be any, the only hard data is sales.

If you don't think that Blizzard isn't keeping track of who is logging in to Battlenet, when, and for what game, you're completely missing one of the biggest advantages they find in online only. They may not release the data publicly, but the population data will be there, at least for the folks at Blizzard. And retention is still important. Most people won't even think about using the RMAH until Inferno level, and considering the casual crowd they are aiming for, that means a fairly significant amount of time playing that they need to hold the player for. Not as long as a full blown MMO, but still a lot longer than the developers of say Torchlight 2 are going to care. And that is going to be difficult with a hack and slash game. They generally aren't designed to hold players for a long time; the fact that D2 did was more of a thing of luck and timing than a planned thing, just like WoW will likely never be matced in it's category. Neither D3 nor their Titan project is going to realistically be able to match the high water marks set by their predecessors, but Blizzard's investors and money managers may still expect them to, and that comparison will limit their own perceptions of how successful the games ultimately are.

 Oh they keep track of everything. They just don't care. D1 held people for years. (people still play it) D2 did too (people still play it). D3 will be even better at it because of the extra expansion. They just aren't planning on making major money from retention. It's almost all going to come from sales and they know it. Battle.net is meant to build brand loyalty so people will buy all their games not increase the population of any particular game.