"So, if (or should I say when) runes as an item are removed, expect a very wide variety of +skill item modifiers."

Just an interesting note about this subject. This was not announced in the recent Jay Wilson Rune Changes post, and most players are not even aware of it yet.

However, recent data mining of Patch 13 has revealed that +skills are indeed a new Affix for items.

Ancient Spear Increased by 3-5 (Barbarian only)
Bash Increased by 4-5% (Barbarian only)
Seven-Sided Strike Increased by 3-5 (Monk only)
Sweeping Wind Increased by 4-5% (Monk only)

These are not "skill points" in the classical sense, like in Diablo 2.. but rather smaller (and stacking) modifiers to increase the skill's effect, whatever it might be. For example, increasing damage, duration of the skill, number of targets, total number of projectiles, length or range of the skill, healing effects, etc. So, the number will either be a percentage (damage) or a number (time).

It's sort of their way to still have "itemized runes" that can be sold in the Real Money Auction House. Now, these are just items that come with a mandatory Affix, but consider ultra rare drops (like one-use-only item enchants or unrevealed gems, that can also be sold on the RMAH) that can apply +skill effects to any weapon or armor of your choice.

Even though the Mystic has been removed from the game, expect it to make a re-appearance later in the future. For example, they have enough professions for the retail, so they're cutting out content now to save it up for the next expansion pack rather than dreaming up a new profession. (Blizzard has done this before.) And, with the Mystic might also come low end +skill enchants for any item of your choosing, rather than "Diablo Vanilla" only having the fixed +skills on gear.

For any new Affix they create, it will further increase the vast pool of total items, and therefore increase the total number of successful RMAH sales. Creating more items (even though they're really just the same) will be one of Blizzard's priorities given the new direction of the RMAH. It won't be just limited to weapons or gear; consider aesthetics for yourself or only for your followers, cool glowing or color-changing dyes, companions/pets, many new recipes, and even new gems. If the RMAH is great success, expect new items to start coming through patch updates (even in minor ones) or maybe even a rush of some things I just mentioned that they were saving up for D3 X1.

(Note: None of this has been officially announced yet, and many users on the Battle.net forums don't believe that this is going to happen.)

If you've been reading older comments, I've been anticipating another little "something something" this coming week (Mon Feb 20 - Fri Feb 24). I figure that if I commit to a prediction closer to the date in question, there's a less likely chance of plans being altered due to one particular individual who "runes" surprises. :)

As you've known for a while now, Bashiok and Zarhym announced an upcoming trip to Paris, to "trade strategies" with the EU CM team. They're in Paris right now, and traveled a couple days ago.

Exchanging strategies is something that could easily have been done over email or video conference, though, and considering how frugal Blizzard is with things like travel expenses, I think there's another reason they're in Paris other than "just to exchange ideas". It's more likely that they're in the EU with a specific purpose, and they're probably working with the teams to prepare them for something big.

Bashiok is denying, in regular Bashiok fashion, that they are not there for anything to do with beta testing in the EU.

I didn't think about that. People are going to think we came out to plug in EU beta servers. Funny.

However, that just makes me even more suspicious and I think it's actually a cover for something else going on.

Seeing as how they traveled before the weekend, rather than at the start or middle of next week, there's a very high probability of an announcement early in the week (Monday most likely.) It won't be a release date announcement, mind you.. even though they have an internal release date scheduled, it's still too early to announce it so close to this past Shareholder's meeting.

Because they are visiting Paris, I suspect that it will be an EU specific announcement or something EU related happening. And because EU has been promised beta keys in the near future, this is probably the best time to do it with all of the other excitement taking place in NA.

Back on February 6, Nakatoir hinted that there will be "more information in the following weeks about the global giveaways as well as for regional betas for you." There's a very high probability that this will happen within the next few days, and ideally early in the week since Bashiok and Zarhym need to hop on another plane at the end of the week to travel again.

Don't expect beta keys to be immediately available though. It will probably be much like the US giveaway; there will be various contests, sweepstakes, instructions, region specific stuff, twitter stuff, a lot of rules (regional restrictions), and starting & ending dates.

(Just a note, they're not technically "physical beta keys" that are being given away. It will be just like the US contests where you submit your email address, the fansite forwards their account lists to Blizzard, and Blizzard upgrades your Battle.net Account with "the beta key.")

There are also hints in that same Nakatoir posting that NA was used primarily for heavy server performance testing, which tells me that they're not going to worry about the same so much in EU. Meaning, that you should not expect as many beta keys to be given away in the EU that were given away in NA. And, they will probably be divided up (Network Team's choice) into multiple regions for varied testing (and latency) metrics.

* UPDATE (02/20/12):

Confirmed! Diablo3x.com via their Facebook account, just confirmed that they received 150 beta keys from Blizzard France and that they will be providing an update soon.

And, svenskadiablo.se also confirmed that they have received 225 beta keys that they can give away on February 20 (today) and more on March 5.

Dear www.svenskadiablo.se,

We're happy to tell you that from the 20th of February, we have 150 Diablo III beta slots for you to sacrifice to your community through contests and / or sweepstakes. Additionally, from the 5th of March, you can offer a second wave consisting of 75 slots.

Something tells me that they weren't supposed to announce these until today though and it was supposed to be after Blizzard had already made their own official announcement (just like they did in the US.) Have any other EU fansites announced (leaked?) that they have received beta keys?

* UPDATE:

Diablo3.gamona.de have just posted their official announcement, and rules for their contests. So, they're giving away their (150) beta keys now.

Now, it's just sitting tight for the Official EU Battle.net forum post. I think some of these giveaways were a little premature. :)

* UPDATE:

And.. diablo3.ingame.de just announced the start of their own contest (150 keys) too! (Thanks anonymous.)

Here's a list of their authorized/official fansites, so they should be receiving keys in various quantities. I'll update the list when (if) they make their announcements.

English / D3Expert.com: http://www.d3expert.com/
English / Diablo3X.com: http://diablo3x.com/ (150 keys)
English / Gosugamers: http://www.gosugamers.net/diablo
Danish / Diablo3x.dk: http://www.diablo3x.dk (TBA keys)
Finnish / Goblin Explosives Network: http://www.goblinexplosives.net
Hungarian / Diablo III Hungary: http://diablo3.hu
Serbian / Diablo.rs: http://www.diablo.rs/
Swedish / Svenskadiablo.se: http://www.svenskadiablo.se (225 keys)
Turkish / Blizzturk: http://blizzturk.com/diablo
German / Diablo-3.net: http://www.diablo-3.net
German / InDiablo.de: http://www.indiablo.de aka ingame.de (150 keys)
German / DIII.de: http://diablo3.gamona.de (150 keys)
German / Diablo 3 Source: http://diablo3.4fansites.de/
French / GamersOrigin: http://diablo3.gamersorigin.com/ (100 keys)
French / JeuxOnline: http://diablo3.jeuxonline.info/
French / Judgehype: http://diablo3.judgehype.com/ (225 keys)
French / Millenium: http://www.millenium.org/diablo-3/accueil/news/ (TBA keys)
French / Mondes persistants: http://diablo.mondespersistants.com/ (TBA keys)
Spanish / Diablo 3 ESP: http://www.diablo3-esp.com/ (150 keys)
Russian / BlizzGame.ru: http://diablo.blizzgame.ru/
Russian / Warcry.ru: http://www.warcry.ru
Italian / BattleCraft.it: http://www.battlecraft.it (100 keys)
Polish / Battlenet Network: http://diablo3.net.pl (150 keys incl. 25 reserved)
Polish / Diablo III Poland: http://diablo3.com.pl/ (150 keys)

Unofficial, but too big to ignore:

http://tweakers.net (400 keys)
http://mygaming.co.za (450 keys)

Also, most of the sites who have "150 keys" might actually have received 225 or more. These are just the ones they're giving away for the first wave, but there's still a second.. plus the ones they reserve for staff members and friends.

I'm surprised no one from Reddit has picked up on any of this yet.. it's been a few hours now. So, if you're look for some free karma, you may want to link to this useful information in /r/diablo.

* UPDATE:

Apparently, Bashiok updated his US post this morning (02/20/12 @ 8:38AM PST) with additional (non-NA) beta giveaways:

D3Downunder: http://d3downunder.com (100 keys)
AusGamers: http://ausgamers.com (125 keys)


* UPDATE (02/21/12):

And there it is.. official Blizzard announcement regarding the EU fansite beta giveaways. :)

You can continue using that link instead of the ones I created above now.

Funny how so many fansites launched the official Blizzard contest, before Blizzard even made the announcement. And, as you can see, they aren't giving away as many keys as they did in NA.

They're still updating, and trying to collect information from the various fansites. It's still going to take a lot of time, manpower, and organization to manage all of these contests and sweepstakes from so many fansites in the EU. This is the job of Community Managers. Still think it's a coincidence that 2 CMs from HQ experienced with these contests paid them a visit? :)

I don't think they have much time to exchange strategies and pal around during the craziness this week (plus, with all of the forum outrage over the lack of keys.) I think Bashiok and Zarhym are there to help out.

Just went live less than 10 minutes ago. Diablo 3 Skill and Rune Changes by Jay Wilson (comments are disabled on their blog post by the way.)

Here are the important parts:

First, they’re now called skill runes, and they’re called skill runes because they’re no longer a physical item, but built directly into the skill system.

With the new skill rune system, you’ll be unlocking new skills as you level up just like you always have… but in addition you’ll also be unlocking skill runes.

Before I wrap up, I did want to cover that one of the added benefits of the new system is that you’ll be unlocking something every level all the way up to the level cap (60).

Just as we set different skills to unlock at specific levels, skill rune choices unlock at different levels as well.

Here's a good part about how they were trying to force the skills into items that could be sold on the RMAH. When you're trying to be creative, you shouldn't be "forcing" anything..

We fully expect that some of you will be disappointed that runes won’t be part of the itemization system. Internally, it took us a long time to let go of that notion too and stop trying to force them into being items, and instead embrace the intent of the system. Integrating runes with the skill system directly gave us a bunch of great benefits, and even without runes we’re launching with more item types than Diablo II had.

My past predictions were just based on public information and potential challenges to itemizing runes. However, there was apparently an internal leak that also appears to be confirmed due to some of the other, very specific, information just announced.

That Blizzard Leak

Disargeria, from the SomethingAwful forums, had a lot to say on the subject of runes yesterday, claiming that it was inside information from within Blizzard.

I do know for a fact that there are a lot of Blizzard employees with registered accounts on SA. I see them visit my blog all the time.

This leaked information by Disargeria and "Lammy!" ended up on Reddit and other sites, so Disargeria eventually went back and deleted all of his posts, and asked others to delete their quotes.. so, some members simply decided to repost them even more.

Here's what they had to say yesterday:

Runes are no longer items, but are now inherently tied into the skill system. You pick your skill, then your accompanying rune to go with it. Rank 1 runes start unlocking as of level 6 (!!!)

Skills are now going to be further divided into categories (defensive, technique, etc.) Initially, unless you specifically tell the game what you want, it's going to lock you into a recommended 'type' of skill for each slot. Presumably this is to keep noobies from making unviable builds, but allows you to do whatever you want once you're comfy with doing so.

My misinterpretation, apparently there are no more "ranks", they've all been normalized to around what rank 4 or 5 used to be. We unlock individual runes as we level. We'll get something new every level.

This leaves open the potential to boost the rune effects through gear. Previously the rune power was tied to the item, but if it's tied to the character, they can bring in stats on items that boost the rune effects.

They've set an internal release date.

I think the release date has an internal release date, too.

I'm surprised he didn't mention the Bola Shot change. DH feel weak at the beginning and one of the first things they did in the recent cycle was change Bola to round up 3 targets and pull them together before exploding. It does the 100% weapon damage to all three targets, making it a lot less frustrating to use. This also sets targets up to be more susceptible to other AoE like grenades and Chakram and gives the DH some needed control.

It's just the way he references +rune effects. I made that up, it wasn't leaked to me. He also isn't sure if you can opt out of it. Everything he posted is included in this thread, and there is more information to go that hasn't been leaked that for some reason he doesn't know about.

They're not moving back to skill trees, no. They're... making a change for them in normal difficulty. And it's well-intentioned but will upset a lot of people until they realize everyone graduates from normal mode.

Runes are now tied to the skills themselves, and you'll "learn" these runes as you level up. Like, at level 20 you learn the alabaster rune for Crippling Wave. I don't know how easy it is to change, but I'm guessing you can change the runes at the alter.

I think it's like, left click has to be a spammable offensive attack or rage builder or something, 2 has to be offensive, 4 is utility, something like that. And after you beat normal that goes away. Maybe even before normal, they might've changed it to something you can opt out of.

Would you guys mind unquoting me please?

Uh, and by lies I was referring to the bola shot

Reddit linked to this thread.

I'm not trolling, the problem is it's true and I don't want to be connected to it.

Most importantly, this is a very good confirmation now that this information did indeed come from a Blizzard employee and that it's well known internally that there is a Diablo 3 Release Date set.

And, they had a release date a mere week after the Q4 2011 call. Given other evidence, it appears that they even had this release date planned before the Shareholders Meeting (Bashiok had said it was discussed during that week, and it was delayed to Q2.)

In Other News..

Apparently, the RMAH Currency Cap is lower for accounts without Authenticators attached. Meaning that Blizzard will be "strongly motivating" many users to buy the authenticator. Make sure you familiarize yourself with this older post which confirms that Authenticators really do generate revenue for Blizzard.

And it appears that another prediction also came true. Blizzard has added a ton of new item affixes. :)

New item affixes have been added!

Chance on hit to:
Fear
Stun
Freeze
Immobilize
Chill
Blind
Slow
Knockback

And they have also made some changes to affixes to further increase the variety of randomly generated items:

The following affixes now have a chance to appear twice when crafting items:

Min damage
Max damage
All Elemental damage types

Expect more, like double or triple affixes to increase item variety (e.g. multiple Chance On Hit modifiers.) There will be a gentle balance though.. once they collect actual RMAH metrics, they can tweak the total quantity of item variants and either increase them or scale them back.

Now, I just need to test Public Chat when I get a chance so see if it's truly trade friendly (ie, it allows item linking.)

The new rune & skill system is supposed to be announced this weekend.

There's some very strong evidence now that the runes won't be sellable items anymore too. I had touched on this subject before, back in January ("Selling Skills") and then again in early February. I had thought I made a large post all about "monetizing skills" through the rune system, but it must be sitting as a draft somewhere and I just never published it.

So, I figured I would briefly get this out in the open before the big day on Saturday or Sunday. :)

Other than the RMAH and gambling related issues, and a possible B.Net Balance/PayPal integration delay, I believe that there's been an internal "fight" going on regarding the rune system. I think that the D3 development team was told to monetize as many things in the game as possible, especially the rune system because of how valuable skill upgrades were. Because of this restriction, it choked their creativity and they couldn't design the rune system the way they wanted. There was a breaking point of course.. if they couldn't pull it off, then they would have to go back to their basic rune concepts (e.g. a simple skill level up system.)

With the stash size changes, and the recent 10 active item limitation to both Auction Houses, there's a very good probability now that the runes are no longer items, but rather skills that level up as you approach 60.

Previously, there was a dead zone after level 30 which didn't really encourage players to advance. In this new "rune" system, the skill upgrades unlock all the way to level 60 now, so that players will have milestones and rewards to look forwards to. (The old system was not very rewarding and pushed RMAH rune sales instead as the "leveling" mechanism.)

It's something to look forwards to this weekend and it's another big change that I will be very pleased with.

I also have another post planned that discusses why they have a 10 item active limit now. It also relates really well to the old "rare drop" rune system. If you've read earlier comments, though, I might have spoiled it for you already. :)

Bethesda finally announced the outcome of their Interplay/Fallout legal battle in a press release today:

FALLOUT® MMO RIGHTS RESTORED TO BETHESDA SOFTWORKS® IN INTERPLAY LITIGATION

All Fallout® Intellectual Property Rights Belong Exclusively to Bethesda

January 9, 2012 (Rockville, MD) –ZeniMax® Media Inc. today announced that a settlement had been reached in the lawsuit filed by its subsidiary, Bethesda Softworks®, against Interplay Entertainment Corporation in 2009, Bethesda Softworks LLC v Interplay Entertainment Corp., seeking cancellation of the license granted to Interplay to develop a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) based on the Fallout brand. Bethesda maintained in its complaint that Interplay had failed to meet the conditions for the license and the license was therefore of no continuing validity.

Under the terms of the settlement, the license granted to Interplay to develop the Fallout MMO is null and void, and all rights granted to Interplay to develop a Fallout MMO revert back to Bethesda, effective immediately. Interplay has no ongoing right to use the Fallout brand or any Fallout intellectual property for any game development. ZeniMax will pay Interplay $2 million as consideration in the settlement, each party will bear its own costs of the litigation, and Bethesda will continue to own all Fallout intellectual property rights. Interplay will be permitted to continue to sell the original Fallout ®Tactics, Fallout® and Fallout® 2 PC games through December 2013, after which time all rights to market those games revert to and become the sole property of Bethesda. Under the original agreement pursuant to which Bethesda had acquired the Fallout property, Interplay was granted certain merchandising rights to sell those original Fallout games, but those merchandising rights will now expire on December 31, 2013.

Blah blah blah.. Interplay did bad things "allegedly"..

If you might recall, here's what I was predicting several months ago:

I think Interplay is just playing the long game. They might not have any money, but they're thinking ahead and they just need to hold out longer then Zenimax can in facing their private investors.

There's probably no real development happening, and Interplay has no serious plans to produce a Fallout MMO, so they're just waiting for Bethesda to fold and finally purchase the Fallout IP unconditionally with an outrageous price tag. This recent legal game is just demonstrating how desperate and unplanned Bethesda is in dealing with the situation. I think, in the end, Bethesda will completely own the Fallout IP but they'll pay an arm and a leg for it.

Interplay originally sold the Fallout IP for $5.75 million, and now they're selling it back to them again for an additional $2 million. (I wonder if there is anything else undisclosed in the settlement?)

Plus, Q4 ends December 31 (I guess that makes it FY2012 Q1 in the US?) and quarterly shareholders meetings will be held in late January to early February 2012.

Nailed it. :)

Even with the rights to the MMO, it's not like Bethesda is even planning on creating a MMO. They just wanted the full IP to move forwards with their single player adventures. Although, even without a MMO, multiplayer features are still very likely for future installments. There are a lot of problems creating a MMO of this genre, and it's something I'll be talking about soon.

(By the way, I'm guessing that the Diablo 3 Release Date announcement will be made before Activision Blizzard's early Feb shareholders meeting if they intend on releasing it by March. They'll want something nice to tell their shareholders, but they won't be revealing any pre-order numbers or anything. Cataclysm was announced 1 month before the shareholders meeting, but SC2 was announced just 3 days before the meeting. Cataclysm had Digital Pre-Downloads though.)

On Dec 21, I was sitting around waiting all day for Bioware to brag about their "First 24 Hour" sales figures. It's been 4 days now, and still nothing.

Typically for a major AAA release like this that has been so heavily promoted, hyped, and anticipated, other publishers or developers release sales details within a couple days.

I'm not really surprised in this case though. If we do get a sales figure announcement, it will probably be a "First Week" or "First Month" sales. As you already know, when sales are less than expected, companies will often make their first sales announcement the one with the beefiest numbers. Really good sales though will get the "first 24 hours" announcement.

Sometimes companies can cover figures up (or massage them) with special wording to give the impression of more sales than they really are. Here are some examples:

• The most common is "Shipped" rather than "Sold". Companies will announce "Shipped over 4 million copies", but that only means that they shipped unsold copies to retailers for sale. That doesn't mean any of those copies will sell however.
• Using "Registered Users" or "Registered Players" instead of actual sales numbers. "We have over 3 million registered accounts!" which anyone can, in fact, include free registrations, forum user registrations, demo users, and beta players. Plus, any number of other definitions for "Subscribers", "Users", or "Registered Players".
• New forms of Digital Downloads, where players can purchase, download, and install the game months before release. That technically puts the "First 24 Hours" on the first day it was made available, but they include the first couple months as their "First 24 Hours".
• In addition to #3, they'll use the wording "Sold Through As Of". That's more deceptive wording to pay attention to. Why is it "Sold Through" instead of just "Sold"? :)
• They'll disguise the period of sales and geographies sold in. If, for example, the game is launched in NA and then 4 days later in EU, they'll say "First 24 Hours", but they'll include NA, the full 4 days of sales in NA, and then 24 hours in EU. Sometimes they'll even launch a smaller country (with very little sales) last, so that they can include several days of sales from major countries.
• And, of course, when companies are embarrassed to release first day sales, they'll do first week or first month. Even then, they can use options from above to beef up the number even further. :)

Usually it's not a good sign when companies do this. They need to be deceptive to hide real numbers, possibly because it fell short of minimum expectations.

A while ago, I had made some SWTOR Sales Speculations of my own, and I estimated that first day sales would be around 900k (+/- 100k). Professional analysts predicted 1.5 million pre-orders and 3 million total sales within a little over a week after launch. So, many readers here thought I was crazy to estimate so low and many probably questioned my sanity.

After all, there's already been so much hype from Bioware about their figures, that 2-3 million sales was anticipated for the first day of release. Everything pointed to AT LEAST 1.5 million on the first day. And even pre-order numbers were apparently 950,000 two weeks before the launch. Anything less than 1.5 million was inconceivable.

Now, BioWare has recently announced "player figures" though. They're reporting "one million registered players" 3 days after the launch. If this was a normal game, and they had 1 million sales after 3 days, that would mean that first day sales were probably around 600-800k. (There's also a blog entry about it here.)

Bioware is also calling it the "fastest growing subscription MMO in the history of our industry." Meaning the Star Wars MMO industry history, not MMO history. :)

Something really bothers me about their wording and statistics though. Here's what Bioware wrote in their Press Release:

To date, players have:

• Logged 28 million in-game hours – roughly equivalent to watching all six Star Wars movies, two million times
• Averaged well over five hours a day playing the game
• Created more than 3.8 million characters; 510,000 Jedi Knights and 550,000 Sith Warriors
• Killed more than 2 billion non-player characters in the eight days since Early Game Access began

If the average player spends 5 hours per day playing the game, and they have 1 million players, shouldn't that be 15 million in-game hours since "launch" or 50 million in-game hours since the retail game has been live (Early Game Access + 3 days before announcement.) It looks like they're picking and choosing numbers, and jumping back-and-forth between statistics for Early Game Access, first 8 days, first 10 days, and even using Beta player statistics.

It might also have something to do with the recent lock out. There are 1 million registered users, but only a certain number are allowed to play. You can still buy the game and register, but you just can't play the same.. Bioware could still using those "registered" numbers though as vanity figures.

I'm getting the feeling that they won't be releasing sales figures at all.. for good reason too. Apparently, it was a wise idea after all to estimate low. :)

The 2-3 month period should be an interesting one: will there be actual growth or more deceptive press releases?

Here's something Lon-ami alerted me to that I didn't know about.

It actually relates to some of my earlier posts (and comments) where I was expecting Diablo 3 to have regional payment restrictions.. even though it's a region free game.

Usually games are region-locked, and can only be installed or used in certain countries. Diablo 3, however, will be region free. You can buy it in China, and then play it in Australia and on Australian servers.. or play it anywhere else you want, who cares. :)

Apparently, Blizzard had already addressed this a long time ago (2009) by way of a minor forum post. This was actually a pretty big deal, with long reaching and long lasting impacts, and it appears that Zarhym intentionally kept it was a "minor" update on the forums to keep it low key.

These were just virtual items, and there were no legal restrictions in place preventing them from selling these "region free" virtual products in any region that players selected. Locking them down to specific regions was a decision made by Blizzard, and it was completely unnecessary UNLESS they wanted more money (players could no longer shop around for better pricing) AND/OR they had future plans to eventually convert the Pet Store into a "Blizzard Store" where they where they could also sell other stuff (like games, expansion packs, digital downloads, or game time) instead of just virtual pets. :)

I don't use this word too often, but that move was just plain greedy.

Most players didn't even know about the cross-region pricing differences, and hardly any players even took the time to take advantage of it. Even with such a small number of players actually buying virtual pets cross-region, and most not even knowing about it, Blizzard still wouldn't leave it alone. They needed to tightly squeeze that sponge just to get a little more water out of it.

This is the main reason why they'll never adopt a global payment system like PayPal. That is, unless, they can develop a new method to truly lock players down to their regions and prevent users from shopping around in other countries. Blizzard wants all players to use their own local payment methods and only purchase "local" games, forcing you to pay more.

You know what's funny about the Diablo RMAH? Blizzard is encouraging players to engage in a global market of selling items back and forth between regions. It's perfectly okay for users to engage in cross-region sales, as along as Blizzard prospers. But if Blizzard sells something to you, it's locked down regionally and players will, on average, pay the absolute most for the product. :)

Anyone getting the impression that the SWTOR Beta NDA isn't going to be lifted until just a couple weeks before retail or maybe even not at all? (ie, once retail hits, then everyone is free to post their reviews.)

I always figured that NDA's were probably lifted late, on purpose, if the developer/publisher knew that the reviews might do poorly. And companies like Blizzard that make great games would typically lift their NDAs much longer before the actual release date.

So, I looked back at some of the major releases over the past few years for comparison:

Age of Conan - NDA lifted May 1 2008, Released May 20 2008 (PVP specific NDA was lifted on Apr 19, but the General/Technical beta remained intact.)
RIFT - NDA lifted Dec 22 2010, Released Mar 1 2011
Earthrise - NDA lifted Jan 25, Released Feb 4 2011
Warhammer Online - NDA lifted Aug 19 2008, Released Sep 18 2008
Hellgate London - NDA lifted Oct 19 2007, Released Oct 31 2007
Matrix Online - NDA lifted Feb 14 2005, Released Mar 22 2005
Tabula Rasa - NDA lifted Sep 7 2007, Released Nov 2 2007 (Early Rls: Oct 30 2007)
Darkfall Online - NDA lifted Feb 18, 2009, Released Feb 25, 2009
DC Universe Online - NDA lifted Dec 6 2010, Released Jan 11 2011
Fallen Earth - NDA lifted Aug 18 2009, Released Sep 22 2009
Champions Online - NDA lifted Aug 17, 2009, Released Sep 1 2009
COD Elite - NDA lifted Aug 16 2011, Released Nov 8 2011
Cataclysm - NDA lifted Jun 30 2010, Released Dec 7 2010
Wrath of the Lich King - NDA lifted Jul 18 2008, Released Nov 13 2008
Starcraft 2 - NDA lifted Aug 17 2009, Released Jul 27 2010
DOTA 2 - NDA lifted Sep 22 2011, TBA 2012 Release Date
Diablo 3 - NDA lifted Aug 1 2011, TBA 2012 Release Date

(I would have liked to include Aion Online, but that game had multiple release dates, name changes, and NDAs for different geographies and it was just too weird.)

Are you beginning to see a pattern? Games that have done poorly (bad reviews) typically had very short periods of time between NDA lift and release (1 month or less). Average games would be about 2 months. And games that the publisher knew would do very well have their NDAs lifted 6+ months in advance.

NDA vs Release Date timing is a very good indicator of how much trust a company has in their game and a good determining factor of success.

It's sort of like preview trailers. If they show more pre-rendered videos and bullet point features than actual gameplay, it's not a very good sign.

If you can think of any other online or MMO games to add to the list, let me know.

It's a fun show and I will definitely continue to watch it (the first 20 minutes were the best). I couldn't help but pick apart the show as I watched it though, it had a high cheese factor, many cliches and annoying bits, and they borrowed a little too many things from the Jurassic Park films unfortunately.

• They have the "brainy daughter" who needs to explain everything. When a narrative isn't available, writers do this to explain things to the audience. Unfortunately, they're treating the audience like stupid children, and they're assuming that no one has watched scifi before. But, that's who the targeted demographic for this show already is.. so it makes no sense.


• They explained way too soon about the "separate time stream". Most people would have figured that out already, and it was completely unnecessary.


• They had too many mixed signals. In the future, it's shown as an extremely dangerous dystopia where overpopulation means death. So, ultra-violent overpopulation control stormtroopers break into homes armed with guns, completely destroy and rip apart the place hunting for children. They're about to take a child for presumably disposal purposes when the father intervenes to protect his child. Then, suddenly out of nowhere, you find out later that he could have just paid a fine. That's it.. a small fine, and he could have avoided prison. Where the hell did that come from? At first, it was a very cruel future, with everyone selfishly escaping the the past and destroying the timeline. After they leave the future, they suddenly start making it sound like a nice place and everyone was kind.


• The father (Jim) was only in prison for about 2 years.. that's it. And yet, somehow the family had to fend for themselves and survive while he was away. That made no sense at all. The mother (Elizabeth) was the breadwinner in the family.. her husband hardly made anything on a cops salary. She was a doctor, the family had MILLIONS, they had wealthy and influential connections, she was the best and brightest in her field, and she was personally selected by the government to travel back in time (out of 0.000001% of the population.) How in the hell did they need to "survive" after dad went to prison?


• I didn't have a problem with any of the characters except for the annoying teenage son (Josh). This character is all over the place, and his existence makes no sense.
  
  First, he couldn't wait to leave the terrible future, then he does nothing but complain about paradise and talk about how great the future was.
  
  Next, he's on a brand new world with sights he's never seen before in his entire lifetime, amazing new plants and animals, non-poisonous fresh air, real food.. and he's apathetic towards all of it. (Although, all of the pilgrims were guilty of this too.. they freak out over seeing a real orange in the future, but when they're surrounded by paradise and unlimited food it doesn't affect them in any way.)
  
  In the future, he tells his girlfriend he'll "find a way to come back and get her." Is this how teenagers really talk? Shortly after he complains about leaving his one true love behind, it only takes him ONE DAY to start dating a new girl. Guess this proves that he never cared about "future girl" at all.
  
  Then, he blows off his mandatory duties, orientation, and survival training. Apparently, the future was so easy going that he was expecting the same on Terra Nova. The new girlfriend (who is supposed to be bright and have leadership qualities) doesn't seem to be concerned about this at all.. she also doesn't seem to care when he flips out and acts crazy around his father.
  
  He also constantly risks his own life to impress the new girl. And, he reveals himself to be a totally incompetent and useless coward with no common sense.
  
  My opinion? They seriously need to remove all of this soap opera drama from the show, it's a tragedy, and I hope "Josh" dies painfully.


• There were also no stars in the sky during nighttime. Terra Nova has a Hollywood sky. If you ever lived in the country, you'd know what the sky really looks like when you're away from city lights. And this entire planet has no artificial lighting emanating from Earth.


• The muzzle-flash-strobe-light-effect-on-dinosaur-scales-and-eyes was borrowed way too much from Jurassic Park. Most of the scenes were recreated from the films.


• Dinosaurs are apparently completely immune to thousands of bullets, sonic blasters, and laser cannons.


• I'm happy that they introduced some mystery into the show. The mathematical equations and geometry by the waterfalls (that looked like they had been there for a while) was a very nice touch. But then they ruined it at the end of the episode, when they revealed who wrote them and pretty much why. They were "the real reason for Terra Nova's existence."


• I hope they show more scenes from the future, or have new characters but shown from the future. They should have flash forward sequences that show different activities taking place in the future. But, they probably won't.


• It would be very cool, and redeeming for the show, if they introduce more mystery and scifi elements. More time travel, but possibly ancient civilizations from even before them. I doubt they'll ever bring aliens into the show..

Speculation Time

• The mathematical equations by the waterfalls were either a timeline chart showing divergence or the creation of a paradox (e.g. it wasn't actually a separate timestream they were in, but rather the same one and they have destroyed the future or it's simply part of the timeline) or he was analyzing star charts and orbital drift, and determined that they weren't in the past but in fact transported to the far future (e.g. long after their old advanced civilization was destroyed and nature recovered without human intervention.)


• They had to explain the different time stream, so I wonder if they'll revisit that sometime later. If selfish bastards from a cruel society in the future traveled back in time to destroy their old future, they would be viewed as evil human beings. But the audience would be left sympathizing for them if they had no idea of the damage they caused.


• They also dropped a lot of hints about the locations of celestial bodies, and how everything in the sky looked wrong (even though they had never seen the sky before amazingly). If "brainy daughter" does the math, like she said, then she might come to the same conclusions as Nathaniel's crazy son.

More Speculation: Future Episodes

• Much of the production budget was spent building the compound set and buildings. So, get used to it. It will be in every episode in S1, and it will never change. If you were expecting a Swiss Family Robinson thing to happen, it definitely won't happen in the first season.


• There will be "raptors chasing the kids" scenes. "Raptors" meaning any kind of vicious small creature.


• There won't be any more future scenes, unless it's an old flashback showing the family's life while Dad was in prison or while he was a cop on the beat. Actually.. I'm going to upgrade this to "not sure". They had some really decent sets and props, and it would be complete shame to waste them.


• There will be family conflict episodes. Teenage son does even more jackass things, he will betray the family and seriously screw them over, he'll put others in danger, or he'll run away.


• Before watching Terra Nova, I pretty much knew there would be different factions outside the compound. But this was already revealed in the first episode. The "Sixers" are just one group.. there will be more.


• The "Sixers" will at first be the evil enemies, but eventually they will all become friends and work together against a "new enemy" once the "Sixers" get boring. They will commit very evil acts, and then just one day, they will totally be forgiven.


• There will be internal conflict and strife within the family, and within the Terra Nova main group.


• A secret hidden faction will be discovered.. possibly time travelers from the future that came even longer before Nathaniel. There might even be a time traveling group from the very far future (when things get even worse) made up of criminals who killed for the technology.


• She acts very distant from her husband, so the wife (Elizabeth) probably had an affair while Dad was away in prison for (only) 2 years. She had to do it to "survive", because her millions weren't enough I guess. An early S1 episode will reveal one of her ex-boyfriends on Terra Nova too. He won't be around long though. (Probably gets killed by dinosaurs.)


• There will be viral outbreak episode. Some strange new disease, bodies aren't used to new parasites, different immunities, etc. etc.


• There will be a bottle episode where main characters will be trapped in a sunken vehicle or a cave. They can't leave the cave due to predators.


• The compound will run low on a desperately needed resource, so a strike team is created (with a couple scientists) to sneak out and get the resource.


• Many extras (adult soldiers & scientists - but no children) will be eaten by dinosaurs. Adults will get eaten whole, teenagers will be scratched and cut but survive.


• There will be super smart dinosaurs.

Guess we all knew this was coming.

At the beginning of this year, Daeity got the feeling that DCUO would be merging servers, lowering prices, and then converting into a F2P game.

Everything has happened just like he predicted.

Funny note too; back in January Sony also said that F2P was very unlikely. That was around the time they also promised major content releases every month too.. :)

An observant reader noticed the well-timed delivery of my recent World of Warcraft "Cheaters Survey" here. =]

The thing is, Blizzard is very predictable in regards to their ban waves.

They've been collecting user details for months, but wait until a certain time before banning all players at once. Banning still occurs on a regular monthly basis, mind you, but those are for high visibility infractions (e.g. botting that's noticeable by other players.) They want to keep their customers as happy as possible, so exploits/bots that are more visible are dealt with more expediently.

There's a significant amount of revenue to be made from banning accounts.. for one, the players purchase WoW and the expansion packs again, and they pay for a new subscription. It also looks good on paper because it counts as 2 "active subscriptions" since the banned account was already paid until the end of the month.

Blizzard will have large ban waves when revenue is typically lower than expected. They want to make sure their quarterly returns are as high as possible (to impress their shareholders), so bans typically take place during certain quarters.

This well-timed ban wave takes place right before their first quarter ending March 31, 2011. It's also taking place right before pay day. Coincidence? I don't think so. =]

(Note: It's not a very good sign that this took place so soon after Cataclysm sales either.)

As you're aware, Activision Blizzard prepared their shareholders during their last conference with the knowledge that they shouldn't expect any major game releases this year. With that in mind, they still need to drive revenue as best they can - meaning this year, you should expect either new paid services (or existing services with a twist like special discounts) and/or new virtual pets or other items that can be purchased. We might see some new merchandising, or other cool little things to increase revenue. You can also expect increased banning and re-activation of accounts. =]

This applies to all of Blizzard's games, not just World of Warcraft.

And if that wasn't interesting enough, look what Blizzard just posted (Source):

I'll take that as a confirmation.

So Homefront launched today, I forgot all about it actually. =]

It will be a couple days before THQ releases sales figures information (if it's not doing so well, though, they won't release many details or even make an announcement at all.) The revelation of the Single Player mission being only 5 hours long couldn't have helped matters.

I'm always interested in future predictions made by industry experts, but that sort of information is very difficult to come by. No one wants to make educated guesses any more (for fear of being incorrect), and most analysts wait until the last minute (eg 24 hours after launch to make a "prediction of first week's sales") or wait until they can see Pre-Order numbers before making any predictions.

Here are the most prominent sales predictions for Homefront, for example:

1. Lazard Capital analyst Colin Sebastian predicts 1.5 million sales by the end of this month.

2. Michael Pachter doesn't expect Homefront sales to do very well, but he never provided any figures and kept his comments as vague as possible (he's been doing this more often unfortunately).

3. And then there's "HULIQ", they forecasted that sales figures for Homefront will hit 1.25 million in the first 6 months and 2 million by 12 months. Provided, of course, that they release one high-quality DLC, and offer a stable multiplayer experience, etc. I've never heard of HULIQ before, but the webpage looks a little sketchy and needs some major updates.

Most recent reviews of Homefront have made one thing very certain: the multiplayer experience isn't anything like Black Ops. In BO, an inexperienced camper can just stand in one place and get a 20-kill streak. Homefront is different, leaving brainless gamers very frustrated with the game since they won't survive as long as they could in BO (or earn achievements as quickly). Experienced players are finding the multiplayer experience quite refreshing and fun however. It's like Cataclysm Heroics for FPS players.

So, although initial sales won't be as high during the first week - I think the game can have some real staying power thanks to it's multiplayer experience (the "perk" system looks very cool too).

I wish that there were more industry experts out there predicting this kind of stuff though, even if they're wrong at least they can give a reason as to WHY they made their prediction. The best articles I've read are the ones with figures, past comparisons, trends, and logical reasoning as to why they picked that number.

For example, consider LA Noire.

I make a lot of decisions based on what people are saying about the game, and the general consensus is that LA Noire is going to be an awesome game. But, I'm getting a very bad feeling about what people are really saying about it.

Most are saying it awesome, but they're not saying the gameplay or story is awesome, they're praising the setting and new facial capture technology. It's not, "You gotta play this game, it's brilliant and so fun!", instead it's "OMG. Check out that facial capture technology! Look at their faces, they're so real! The faces! The faces!".

For those fortunate enough to have played the LA Noire demo, they played the best parts: the clue gathering and interrogation mini-games. However, 20 minutes isn't enough time to make a decision about the game.. did they consider that they would be playing the same mini-games over and over and over throughout the entire length of the game?

The game has been described as Rockstar's most adult oriented or "serious game". It's a slower paced game than their other lineups, and a lot of time has been spent on facial capture and voice acting. So, you can anticipate a LOT of cut scenes and player conversations.

From what I've seen, it appears to be a very linear (and slow paced) interactive detective novel, with conversational mini-games, and a lot of cut scenes that could potentially interfere with gameplay. Once the novelty of their faces and voice acting wear off, that's what you're left with.

Word is that it's impossible to fail a case too (all of the cases are pre-determined too, it's not like Clue where there are random killings, random scenarios, and random evidence.)

I know that I'm going to enjoy the game myself, but I'm getting a bad feeling that many players are going to be disappointed after playing the game "for real". Re-playability is also a big concern in it's present state, but it can be solved through DLC.

Bethesda's games for example (Fallout 3, Oblivion, Morrowind, etc.) I absolutely loved, but I _hated_ the same old NPC interactions and vendor menus (which they replicated across all of their games). It's the one thing I never really like about the game, but fortunately they weren't a significant part of the game. In LA Noire, player interactions ARE a big part of the game. When questioning suspects, I suspect that players will start seeing the exact same facial cues and "looks" over-and-over, which kills a lot of the fun in try to determine guilt, innocence, or deception (of course, they need to dumb it down though so as not to frustrate inexperience players.)

Pachter said that he would never underestimate Rockstar again, so whimsically predicted that LA Noire would sell as many games as Red Dead Redemption had. Problem is, Rockstar is publishing the game this time around.. Team Bondi is developer. The reason he underestimated RDR the first time is because he thought the genre/setting was too limited. I think this is true for LA Noire though, a western shooter has a tremendous market size compared to a detective game.

Is it mostly an interactive detective novel though? Do most people realize that it's not like GTA/RDR in terms of gameplay? I don't know.

What I do know is that I'm getting the same old SPORE-like vibe from this upcoming game release. Screenshots and demos are showing off the best parts (to control perception of the game), there's a huge amount of hype, gameplay videos are limited, players are expecting one thing (but they're going to get something different), and gamers are forgetting about re-playability and repetition (e.g. mini-games) within the game.

Anyways.. I think there's going to be a big explosion of sales during the first month, as people will be expecting the currently promoted game (the perception is RDR in the 1940's), but they'll be getting something completely different out of the box. Once the initial novelty wears off though, sales will decline and I don't think they'll reach the same heights as RDR. Either way, though, first day sales are definitely going to be highly successful for Rockstar.

Not sure if you've read older posts, but way back in September of 2010 I had said that the ZG mounts would be making a comeback. I couldn't find any other posts to the contrary.. all of the news and WoW sites were all saying that the mounts were gone for good.

I had heard something else though. =]

Glad to see that everything I wrote about so long ago has finally come to fruition - the mounts, the Insane title, and the Qiraji Battle Tank available for more players and outside of the instance.

In regards to new Cataclysm realms, it appears that everything was all setup internally for new realm deployments too. But, the "Cataclysm experiment" failed to meet Blizzard's expectations and it looks like it has actually resulted in a reverse flow of subscriptions unfortunately. =[

This is good news for their next expansion pack however (or even content patches between now and then.) It means that they'll really have to do something awesome to bring players back. I'm hoping for a couple new Hero classes, a new crafting profession (create relics/wands/bows/fletching or elemental poisons for rogues), class-specific quests (like a Rogue's Den that issues daily assassination quests that require cunning), and/or maybe a third faction (with all brand new classes/races "from another dimension" to adjust the lore.) Paid class changes, larger backpack, more character slots, or progression servers might be interesting too.

An interesting read on 1UP following those most recent Take Two announcements.

Our favorite Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter is predicting that GTA 5 will be released this year. You'll recognize his name from earlier posts, he's the same gentleman who made the prediction that Cataclysm sales alone would push Blizzard's Earnings well over $600 million for this past quarter (that was only for Cataclysm sales during a one month period too, and excluded pet sales, older WoW sales, and Paid Services. In fact, it probably would have been a prediction of $350 million plus the usual $300 million subs if they were included.)

Oh! A while back, Pachter also predicted GTA 5 would be released in 2010. =]

Here were some of his other past predictions/comments:

1. Mafia II unlikely to be profitable and would not recoup the cost of game development. (Source)

Take Two still has DLC development underway for Mafia II this year. On Steam, it was in the Top 10 of best selling games for 2010 (even though Mafia II came out just 4 months before the end of the year.)

2. Starcraft 2 would sell 6 million units on opening day, however it ended up being 1.5 million instead. (By the end of the first month, they sold 3 million units worldwide and by end of February they sold 4.5 million units.)

After first day sales were released by Blizzard, he adjusted his prediction and made it 5 million total copies within 2-3 months. However, it took 7 months before it reached 4.5 million units. =]

I didn't think it was really fair though, making such a big change after seeing all of the sales details. Not that it helped either though..

3. He was highly skeptical of Red Dead Redemption, and stated that it was not blockbuster material.

4. On a related note, he's predicting that LA Noire will be comparable in sales and just as successful as Red Dead Redemption (after he apologized for underestimating RDR in the first place.)

Personally, I have my doubts about LA Noire though.. it looks like a great game, but it's like releasing a natural disaster movie in the middle of vampire film/TV season. I've been watching Google/Twitter trends and monitoring other various patterns, but there's very little interest in LA Noire so far (especially in comparison to other big name releases coming out during the same period).

I'm worried that the game might end up being too linear or storyline driven, with most of the game taking place with cut scenes and NPC interaction (after all, they spent a lot of time and money on voice acting and facial imaging). If there are too many NPC conversations and detective mini-games that are impossible to lose, it takes away from the freedom and excitement of exploring in RDR and GTA. What if there's little in the way of side quests (errr... "investigations") and everything in the game is based on one single storyline or one investigation after the other? Then it just becomes an interactive visual novel.

The other thing that worries me is that people are mostly talking about how "great it looks", but very little about the actual gameplay, story, characters or music. I still think first month's hypetastic sales will be very good mind you (I'm predicting ~2.5 million worldwide for the first month), but I don't think they will be as high as RDR in the long run. I also think Michael Pachter will be left disappointed with his own sales predictions. =] Hopefully, Team Bondi is developing a very stable game too.. this game is going to make or break them.

5. He thought that Ubisoft DRM was a good idea.

6. He said Borderlands would fail badly.

7. He's predicting that the Activision-Bungie game will sell 10-15 million on opening day. I'll have to come back to this one at a much later date.

His predictions, of course, have a lot of IF's and BUT's. IF it's as popular as Halo, IF it's released on multiple platforms, IF they have a good sales day.. blah blah blah. Come on, where's the hard science and figures?

From what I've seen online, he wasn't too bad going back 5-7+ years ago but things have gone very bad for him since late 2008. So, it's probably a good idea for him to leave his predictions more open ended like he did with the Activision/Bungie unannounced game.

Hopefully, you read my earlier post entitled "My Crystal Ball", so you'll understand how funny this is.. maybe even spooky?

It's just been announced that Homefront has been delayed. They want to release all of them simultaneously after all, so all 3 are being held back (although I suspect it's just one platform version that's causing the delay.)

Wouldn't it be _really_ creepy if it gets delayed one more week. =]

Guess that extra crunch time wasn't enough, but at least they're trying to fix as many bugs as possible before launch. If they need to delay further, maybe they'll just release the two console version first and then the PC later?

Anyways, that puts my prediction at 5 for 8 so far. Guess we'll find out after launch if I nailed the 3 other predictions. Should be fun. =]

A little bit of light humor here, triggered by the recent announcement of a new Zombie TV series. =]

If you recall, back in early November, I made a light-hearted blog entry post-dated to the future (March 26, 2011).

It turns out that a lot of what I wrote about is coming true. =]

- The cost of the game was going to be $59.99 (the main purpose of the post was because THQ's CEO complained that the standard price of $59.99 was too much for games, and that they were going to change.)
- Homefront was going to sell around 4 million copies.
- The PC version would get pushed back.
- There would (will) be a UK expansion pack.
- Cataclysm would sell about 3 million copies.
- A major WoW nerf following Christmas sales.
- Another new zombie-based TV series would be in the works due to the success of The Walking Dead (which first premiered the week earlier).
- And homefront DLC with zombies (ie, an announcement of the future release).

Not bad so far.

The CW is developing a zombie apocalypse series entitled "The Awakening" and NBC is developing "Zombies vs. Vampires".

The PC version hasn't been delayed _yet_, but as you recall they're having a lot of issues finishing off the game. Lots of overtime and stressed workers. It hasn't been pushed back yet.. they might still, or release it with bugs and patch later (to meet commitments). For now, March 8 is still the official release date for all 3 platforms (PC, PS3 & X360).

(UPDATE: IT GOT DELAYED!)

Now I'm just waiting for launch day to see their sales figures, expansion pack info, and maybe a mention of a Homefront DLC with zombies. =]

In other "spooky" news,

- I nailed that Active Subscription Count estimation using Blizzard's own geography based subscriber statistics. That was a nice vindication.

- I anticipated something really big happening within Take Two in November and just two days before they announced major "restructuring" and the TTWO CEO stepping down, etc. I also anticipated even more layoffs by TTWO, which has just happened (publicly) in the UK with more coming. There were even some silly stock trader enthusiasts from some Yahoo Finance forum that called b.s. on all of that.. I wonder how much money they lost by not watching the signs? =]

- And then there was a post where I talked about the "Insane in the Membrane" title and the return of the Zulian Tiger & Qiraji Battle Tank. I forgot all about that actually, until someone recently reminded me. Those were several months before the official announcements and before anyone else knew. Although.. those weren't really predictions.. I received more of a confirmation from a source. =] (The new Zulian Tiger isn't out yet - but there's still a plan for it by the way.)

I'm not sure if I missed anything else. I usually forget what I've written about and just move on to new posts. Often I need to go back over old posts to remember. =]

- Oh right! This isn't really a prediction, but if you had wisely followed my Gold Making Guides on collecting rare recipes from opposite factions, you would now be proud owners of the most expensive cooking recipes known to man. =] They're easily selling for 10-20k each now, and they'll be selling as high as Dirge's Epic Recipe eventually. I have about 100 recipes (that are impossible to get post-Cataclysm) that will easily sell for 100-250k gold in a year or so. =]

Sometimes I scare myself.

* UPDATE (03/16/2011):

LOL - They're dropping the price of Homefront from $60 to about $40 on the second day of release. They should have done this from the beginning, but many game studios use inflated prices to give the perception of quality.

Looks like they not going to even go over 1M sales on the first day, even after all of that hype. The game leak (almost 2 weeks early) and various information reveals (e.g. single player campaign length) certainly didn't help. Piracy can't be blamed here though, it was all about quality. During the first 24 hours, they sold 375,000 copies in North America alone.. normally the other countries would sell at least the same amount or more, but since it launched in NA first gamers are seeing all of the bad single-player reviews (which is why it's always a good idea to launch worldwide simultaneously). Multiplayer is looking pretty good though, and it should do well in the long run.

Blizzard announced their Sales Figures today, and all of the major media organizations (IGN, Joystiq, Gamepro, etc. etc.) are reporting that Cataclysm sold 3.3 million copies within the first 24 hours.

In actual fact, all of that information is completely false. It's like they just read the Subject Header without actually reading any of the factual information.

Blizzard sold a "record 3.3 million copies sold through as of its first 24 hours of release*". There was even a asterisk pointing to a small little caption at the bottom of their announcement, but no one seems to be paying attention. =]

Normally, Pre-Sales are included in industry announcements - but the new Digital Download process makes this a very different case. It's like heavily hyping a game, pushing it's "first" release date, allowing players to buy the game and install it on their PC, then have a "second" release date but say all of the sales were actually made on the "second release date". Most if not all other developers can't do this, making this a special case.

That 3.3 million sales figure was based on ALL sales over the past several months and included Pre-Order Sales and Digital Downloads (which went live Nov. 3, 2010). Blizzard is a master in the communication arena and it's like what I've always been saying - it's all about wording. Sales during the first 24 hours were probably significantly less than 2.5 million, but there's no way to tell since Blizzard opened up Digital Downloads during the same quarter as the release. Very sneaky.

Jay Allen Brack originally stated, "We expect the Cataclysm sales to exceed the levels of the previous versions, but we do not have an exact target." So that new announcement needed to be worded in such a way that it didn't make him look bad. I'm really disappointed with the lack of transparency.

But it gets even more sneaky..

1. Let's ignore all of Digital Downloads (over one month prior to retail launch day) for a moment.

Blizzard didn't actually count sales during the first 24 hours of Dec. 7th. In fact, they included sales from Dec. 7th, Dec. 8th, and Dec. 9th. Dec. 10th was the actual "ending date" of the 24 hours sales period. =]

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm was simultaneously released in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand on December 7, and became available in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on December 9.

Cataclysm became available in Korea and parts of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on December 9th. So, they counted the 24 hour sales period from geographies that contained the smallest number of sales but added in 3 WHOLE DAYS OF SALES from their largest subscriber based geographies. Nice.

That's a HUGE amount considering the daily trends of average game sales. For example: 5M sales opening day, 3M sales next day, 1.5M next day, 750k next day, etc. If Cataclysm sales were based on previous Expansion Pack sales (and there was never a Digital Download), that 3.3 million number was actually calculated over a 3 day period, and it would have ACTUALLY been closer to 2 million on the first day, 1 million the second day, 300-500k on the third day, and so on.

2. Blizzard stated that Cataclysm sales made "it the fastest-selling PC game of all time.*". However, that statement also had a little caption attached. It was, in fact, the "fastest-selling PC game" based on Blizzard's internal lineup of games and the use of special calculations from their own "internal company records". Meaning that they included 2 months of sales, but are classifying it as "sales in 24 hours".

3. They also called it a "PC game", but Cataclysm is not a stand-alone video game. It's an expansion pack (it could even be classified as a large patch or DLC) with a much cheaper pricing model than a real PC game purchase. I don't know if you could even classify the retail DVD as a large patch.. it's just the 4.0 update which players can (and already have) download for free. Really, if you get technical, you're just paying for a code to "unlock" new stuff for your account.

Sales did not actually "shatter" anything and if you've been reading earlier posts you'll know that 3.3 million sales over a 2 month period are not good at all. It also looks like this little prediction came true. =]

So yeah.. Cataclysm is out tonight.

For the past couple weeks, there's been a lot of hype about the game and all the "amazing new changes" to starter leveling zones.

It's funny listening to all of the forum comments. For example, "Wow! There are so many AWESOME changes in the Undead starter area.. this is my first time starting an Undead character, but I can tell that they made a lot of changes! This is great!"

I even noticed that some people were complimenting the massive changes made to the Blood Elf & Draenei zones. /sigh

Based on the amount of time spent working on Cataclysm and all of the features removed, I think people should stop sucking Blizzard's dick for a moment and be a little more critical. Now that I've personally had a chance to see all of the changes done to Azeroth, I have to say that I'm a little disappointed.

Sure, there are some cool areas and some fun new quests but for the most part nothing has changed at all. All of the zones are the exact same, but with new NPCs, grass, trees and textures sprinkled in. I still remember the excitement built up when Cataclysm was first announced. Blizzard promised that the "world would be devoured by rage", "Azeroth would be shook to it's foundations", "the lands torn asunder", "Azeroth re-forged", "classic zones forever changed by the cataclysm", and that the "face of Azeroth will be changed forever by the awakening of Deathwing."

What happened, Blizzard?



I was expecting some pretty exciting and massive changes, but it looks like all of the best parts (ie, the biggest visual changes) were already displayed in the Cataclysm teaser video. It still funny to watch though.. I think everyone was more excited about flying mounts in the Old World then anything else.

Cataclysm File Size

The Cataclysm game isn't as big as some people are expecting. For the most part, you already had Cataclysm installed with those 4.0.1-4.0.3a patches. =]

The Cataclysm retail DVD mostly contains old files and patch data to make sure your version is most up-to-date... to 4.0.0 that is. If you install Cataclysm from the Retail DVD, it will in fact downgrade your entire install to 4.0.0 and you'll have to go through all of the updates from scratch again. There's going to be a lot of pissed off players when they realize this.

Here's a faster way if you purchased the retail copy. You can actually do this too without purchasing Cataclysm, but you'll still need the upgraded key to play Cataclysm.

With your existing 4.0.3a patch, it's also possible to upgrade your game client to the Cataclysm retail with about 327MB of data and even then, some of that data is just replacement information too. The new Cataclysm Digital Download [expansion3.MPQ (632.3MB), expansion3-speech-enUS.MPQ (55.5MB), expansion3-locale-enUS.MPQ (1.0MB)] is a little less than 700MB size, but it contains a lot of replacement information that's about as superfluous as a third nipple.

All of the Cataclysm data files amount to about 1/4 the size of WOTLK, but it should increase as Blizzard Blizzard applies for fixes, patches, and content updates to Cataclysm over the next several months.

Cataclysm Sales Predictions

Surprisingly, there really haven't been a lot of predictions made for Cataclysm.. possibly because they learned their lesson from the last expansion pack (overestimates.) Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia predicts that Cataclysm will sell between 3.5 and 4 million copies in their first month of sales. Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter predicted instead that Cataclysm will sell over 6 million copies in December (and 6 million for SC2).

For the sake of comparison, WOTLK sold 2.8 million copies in it's first 24 hours and TBC sold 2.4 million copies.

Even Blizzard themselves made a prediction, which I haven't seen in a really long time! Jay Allen Brack said, "We expect the Cataclysm sales to exceed the levels of the previous versions, but we do not have an exact target."

Very interesting indeed, but it shouldn't surprise me since Blizzard really went ALL OUT for this expansion pack and are trying to push as much revenue as possible this time around.

So, what exactly has Blizzard done?

This year, Blizzard has done quite a number of things to push sales of their new expansion pack while also driving revenue for the quarter across the board. It's quite a big deal too.. maybe they're trying to prove something to their investors. =]

- Cataclysm was designed from the ground up for intro-level players, and is a way for new players to join without fear of too many high-leveled or experienced players. It's sort of a "reset" to bring everyone back to the same level ground. It also encourages veteran players to invite more friends since they will be creating new characters (possibly on new servers too.)
- Cataclysm was also designed to bring back old players who miss the "good ol' days" and want Classic realms to make a return.
- Introduced the new Digital Download system for Cataclysm.
- Paid Faction and Race Changes available on the FIRST DAY for the new race/class combinations.
- New [Moonkin Hatchling] and [Lil Ragnaros] pet sales "for charity".
- Special Christmas (limited time) offers: Blizzard lowered the cost of WoW to $5, TBC to $5 and WOTLK to $10.
- Heavy media and email campaigns to bring back players, friends, and family members.
- Offering 7 days of free game time to all non-active players (right up to the day before Cata - Note: the expiration date was actually extended). These game offers actually concern me sometimes.. whenever Age of Conan, SWG or another failed MMORPG tried to get players to "Come Back!" it just came off as a sign of desperation.
- New forum system - completely cleaned house and made it easier to remove negative comments and old critical posts, while also further crippling search capabilities.
- The new Blizzard Digital Sales system will now obscure true sales numbers (since retails sales are tracked by NPD) and Blizzard is under no requirement to release sales figures to the public. They can pretty much announce anything they want - e.g. "biggest sales yet!" without actual figures or breakdown of Cataclysm vs previous expansions.
- And of course, the game was released right before Christmas during the largest sales period of the year.

All of these activities were planned for years in advance and deployed simultaneously to drive revenue as high as possible for the quarter. It will be very interesting the see the results. Their MMO revenue for this quarter should be at minimum in the $600 million mark based on analyst's predictions. (WoW currently makes about $270-300 million per quarter on average by the way.)