Will Diablo 3 come out first before SC2's expansion?

[TheEconomist]

release is imminent given that HOTS must come out this year.

Except it doesn't have to, so it won't?

[vicml21]

It won't even be close lol. D3 already had beta, and we're not even sure how close we are to getting a HOTS beta. I still think it can come out this year, barring any major delays. I would have assumed by now that the campaign is on track and the multiplayer is looking a lot different from blizzcon. I hope they give updates on the game soon though, through that dustin browder developer update thing on SC2.com

[hyde]

Except it doesn't have to, so it won't?

Yeah I was wrong on that, I glanced over their report too fast. But I'd imagine Blizzard will stick to this Q2 Diablo 3 release ETA since it's been delayed already, plus they removed PVP arenas features from launch.

Recently, Blizzard has announced its intention to ship Diablo III in the second quarter of 2012, released a trailer showcasing the multiplayer aspect of its StarCraft II expansion, Heart of the Swarm , and announced plans for the fourth World of Warcraft expansion pack— World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria . In addition to developing these games, Blizzard is currently developing a new massive multiplayer online game.

Source: 2011 Q4 report http://investor.activision.com/secfi...775&CIK=718877

But I think they will strategically try to time the release of HOTS yielding to the WoW panda expansion.

[RamiZ]

It is just announced that Diablo 3 will be out on May 15, exactly two months from this day.
I would call that a great news, since with this, SC2:HOTS can be out in 2012(I hope).

[TheEconomist]

Yeah I was wrong on that

Hyde is on a roll!

[Asfastasican]

I guess this discussion has basically changed to "Will HotS come out before MoP?" That question saddens me though. If HotS comes out in 2013, it means a couple of things.

1. A Starcraft 2 expansion might take 3 years to release. WoW expansions take 2 years on a consistent basis.

2. It's possible that they are spreading out their releases, by spacing out their games and perhaps even delaying them for the sake of revenue smoothing.

[solidsamurai]

1. A Starcraft 2 expansion might take 3 years to release. WoW expansions take 2 years on a consistent basis.

2. It's possible that they are spreading out their releases, by spacing out their games and perhaps even delaying them for the sake of revenue smoothing.

Ah, actually that isn't so depressing, considering that's what just about every big company does now. Which is fine, because y'know... it works. And big companies gravitate towards this tendency to survive. What makes them big? Spending money.

In every other respect, they're slower - they can't really develop their own titles. If blizzard becomes a publisher with it's own development teams (it's probably already secretly this way), then that'd be interesting. As it stands, the company has way too much money.

Consider this: MAssive excess revenue stream means a company naturally gravitates towards growth, because it's the job of certain people within the company to make it grow (particularly any inside investors). In order to grow, the first decision may usually to hire more people, make a team larger and tries things out. If a manager of the team says 'no', then you gotta create a new team, meaning there then has to be communication between the two teams - unless of course you want each team to work on different projects. Also, what if they hired the wrong people? They need to start developing a reputation with publishing and making multiple better games.

Revenue smoothing is fine - but only as long as there isn't a gap of a year or more. Maybe even only a six month gap would be fine.

If blizzard only wants people to only ever play one game at a time though - then that's obviously a bad thing, because it means that they don't know how to look after development as a publisher properly enough to get any reasonable revenue with constant releases.

It's painful to consider that they have to look at experienced and huge publishers like EA or Capcom, though.
----

The most depressing thing about Blizzard is how big they've become, really. Now, they just have to learn to live with it.

That said, I still can't find any reviews for StarCraft 2 on metacritic. :P

[Alar]

I guess this discussion has basically changed to "Will HotS come out before MoP?" That question saddens me though. If HotS comes out in 2013, it means a couple of things.

1. A Starcraft 2 expansion might take 3 years to release. WoW expansions take 2 years on a consistent basis.

2. It's possible that they are spreading out their releases, by spacing out their games and perhaps even delaying them for the sake of revenue smoothing.

I think it's likely to come out late this year around November/December, simply because they've stated how its their intention to put out a game for every IP this year. It's possibly HotS will get pushed back to early 2013, but we won't know until we see a beta. As it stands, D3 will be out first, then MoP, and then HotS.

[Hawki]

Heh...when Titan is released, do you think they'll go for 4 games in one year?

[Asfastasican]

Heh...when Titan is released, do you think they'll go for 4 games in one year?

God knows. I used to think Titan might claim more years than the medieval plague, but for all I know at this point it might be another Blizzard title on my list that I'll just skip. Stuff like that depends on whether or not there will be a Diablo 4.

Titan is probably 2 years away, at the very least.