The problem with Diablo and Starcraft is that they aren't supported enough by Blizzard the way the Warcraft franchise is. You should also account for those who have pirated either of these games, I don't know a single person that consider themselves PC gamers that didn't played Diablo 2.

Warcraft is probably the strongest gaming franchise of all times, no game generated such income as World of Warcraft, and the only games that are able to generate interest from investors beside Warcraft 3 are Starcraft and Counter Strike.

Also the funny thing is that unlike Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft and Counter Strike, Halo is forced heavily by marketing. Except for World of Warcraft commercials, noone of these games had any kind of marketing push, Counter Strike even beeing fanmade mod for Half Life (It's the most played FPS game of all times, by many considered the greatest).

Fixed.

When compared to PC shooters, all Halo games get completely lost in the shuffle.

Edit: And oh yeah, Starcraft is essentially the unofficial national sport of South Korea. I'd say that's something Halo doesn't have, or any other game for that matter.

Well I know that you by "not supported" mean new games within a reasonable time period. Atleast that's what I expect. As for support for the released games they still patch diablo 2 and starcraft. Though the servers for diablo 1 has been taken down to my knowledge.

I ment the franchises, not games. While Warcraft universe is getting books, mangas, memorabilia, collectibles, movies, music, artwork collections and what not, Starcraft never had such things and Diablo got I think two books back in it's days. Too bad that Blizzard got bought by Activision, since you'll be paying for battle net with SC2 + D3, if they can squeeze out one fuckin cent, they will do it. I just hope that my dear old W3 will stay free.

Well actually vivindi is the major shareholder which owns 51 percent and were the old owners of blizzard. The problem as I see it, was to keep activisions ceo as the ceo of the company.

And I hope they don't try to make the new battlenet pay to play as you expect they will. I do see it as a possibility though. :\

http://starcraftbooks.com/books.php

Starcraft used to get all sorts of tie in, I vaguely remember figurines and all sorts of random stuff.... it just hasnt in a while. Because yeah, the furor dies down when you havent released a flagship game for the franchise in a decade =/ Never forget the stuff the Koreans probably get and we dont.

 I think this will change with SC2 though.

 Also, I agree that Acti making Bnet p2p is a worry.... I think they might hold off for now. I think instead this is why we are going to be buying 3 copies of SC2... they seem to be following the Guildwars model, instead of a subscription - sell you the same game 3 times. I hope this is the case anyhow, I did not mind buying all the GW expansions - at least the first two. They added to the game in meaningful ways.

 If you are right though, its going to suck. Honesty, my guess is that they will keep basic play free - but if the game is actually wholeheartedly adopted in Korea, find ways to create paid value-added features and leagues etc.. which will probably be available in the States, but targeted at the hardcore Korean audience.

Halo.  The Harry Potter of FPS.  Lol.

Ballmer makes me laugh.

What Harry Potter is to fantasy novels. Gosh I hope he meant to say Lord of the Rings.


Now although I think Halo is a big franchise, I don't know if you could say it is THE gaming franchise that defines the rest. That would be quite a stretch.

Yes there can be a dispute.....but alas I have no time for this stupid comment such as these.

Maybe Console First Person Shooter, but even then, I think Call of Duty takes the crown for that, even though its on PC too.