World of WarCraft is a huge cash cow that rakes in money via the pay for online play. Blizzard does not really need to make any more games. Just sit back and WoW will bring in huge amounts of revenue.
Another reason for the slow release schedule is the haemorrhaging of staff from Blizzard North, followed by its subsequent closure and cancellation of the work it did on Diablo 3- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_North
Without that, it's likely that Diablo 3 would have been released already.
I really hope Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 live up to expectations. The RTS and RPG worlds have moved on a lot since their prequels were released and people will be looking for a lot more than a clickfest and a traditional sci-fi RTS. Hopefully, the extended development time and the fact that WoW's enormous success means they don't have to release anything until they're absolutely happy with it, will mean they're excellent. I feel they do need to do something different for subsequent games though. Warcraft 4, Diablo 4 and Starcraft 3 in 2012 isn't exactly something to get excited over.
I will have Wrath to keep me plenty busy until Star Craft 2 and Diablo 3 come out, so personally, I dont mind.
The decline in popularity of PC gaming has not helped in regards to games coming to the PC, increased time and developments costs for games and the best developers are moving to work on console games because it is more profitable than PC gaming. Console gaming market is mainstream whereas PC gaming is for hardcore gamers.
What decline? Even if there was one, what's that got to do with Blizzard, who are insanely profitable?
Or are you just trolling?
@papflesje: Thanks. The reason why i mentioned the game, was because it has eaten resources and delayed other games releases.
Ei Kiinasti.
Eikä Japanisti.
Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.
Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.
| bdbdbd said: What happened to Starcraft: Ghost? Was it a console release or did it get scrapped? What games have Blizzard put out on consoles? This is one thing to take into consideration, if they release games on other platforms too, it's straght away from their PC developement. Besides, there's also things as rising developent costs, which effect the developement times. |
There was an N64 version of Starcraft, but I think that was ported by another set of developers. Also, the original Diablo appeared on the PS1. Both of those came out pre-2000 from memory, and I don't think they've released anything for consoles since.
| Rock_on_2008 said: The decline in popularity of PC gaming has not helped in regards to games coming to the PC, increased time and developments costs for games and the best developers are moving to work on console games because it is more profitable than PC gaming. Console gaming market is mainstream whereas PC gaming is for hardcore gamers. |
Really Rock on? Really? I could have sworn that NPD just said that PC gaming was more popular than console gaming, and America isn't even the biggest PC gaming market. We will have to get ssj12 in here I think and he can quote sources for you about (if I remember right) PC gaming revenue is $46 billion and all consoles combined is $47 billion. That would be without counting graphics cards and would be counting console sales. Also, developing on PC is easier because you don't have set parameters for your game (can only use so much ram, cpu clock speed, etc.) and the developers are very familiar with PC coding. It is also more profitable because you don't have to pay a licensing fee to Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony and you can digitally distribute games to get the full $50 revenue. Also, everyone has a PC, and anyone who bought a PC within the last four years can play a Blizzard game, so consoles are definately more "hardcore" than PC gaming is.
/end rant
| Ickalanda said: Since Blizzard has created World of WarCraft they have seemed to have slowed their release of games, possibly due to the success of World of WarCraft releasing a new game isn't as urgent since a constant stream of lots of money is constantly coming in every month.
Here is a list of Blizzard releases and their years leading up to World of WarCraft, I will just list their three main universes WarCraft, Diablo, and StarCraft and only those games that have been released.
WarCraft: Orcs and Humans - 1994 WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness - 1995 WarCraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal - 1996 Diablo - 1996 StarCraft - 1998 StarCraft: Brood War - 1998 WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness - 1999 Diablo II - 2000 Diablo II: Lord of Destruction - 2001 WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos - 2002 WarCraft III: The Frozen Throne - 2003 World of WarCraft - 2004 World of WarCraft: The Burning Crusade - 2007
As you can see, excluding expansion packs, Blizzard had always released a new game at the least every 2 years and sometimes even just one year. But since Blizzard released World of WarCraft we have had no new games other than WoW Expansions released since 2004 and it is now 2008 with StarCraft II and Diablo III not being released until 2009 or 2010, which is 5 or 6 years after the last release of a new game. World of WarCraft is great and all but I wish they would put a lot more development time into their other games as well so that we can continue to have a continuous stream of great Blizzard games.
I hadn't even really noticed this huge gap until I was playing WarCraft 3 and started thinking about all the times I had played the game and the different custom maps that were popular at different times and when I beta tested The Frozen Throne and I just thought to myself: "wow, this game really is 6 years old isn't it?" |
Ummmm we know...
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