This week the team discusses some of the worst aspects of the Diablo franchise as well as the latest news.
Xbox Game Pass and Diablo 4 are a match made in heaven, with the hellish RPG series blazing a path for ActiBlizz’s future on the service.
“Last month we added our first Activision Blizzard title, Diablo 4, to our Game Pass service,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says during the company’s latest earnings call. “Subscribers played over 10 million hours within the first 10 days, making it one of our biggest first-party Game Pass launches ever.”
Sarah Bond announced this a few weeks back. That's the gamepass effect I suppose.
If that was even the case since you don't know anything, let's entertain that it's no different than 1 million ppl buying a game and playing for 10 hours and quitting. Though it doesn't matter to the pub since they bought the game for 70$ they don't care if you throw your disc like Frisbee. Same with subscription, they got the money so a completion rate doesn't matter. 50% of the ppl didn't even play past the first lvl in Baldurs Gate. What does that mean?
If you troll me you get put down I don't put up with that just FYI, not sure if you're new or not I'm just letting you know.
@S2 No different than HD2 killing 1 billion bugs or whatever.
@Zeke68
Im not sure why they get defensive. Its a fair assessment since this is a service. I also wonder if they round up the hours. Say I only played it for 10 minutes to try it out. There is no telling how they come up with these.
@Lightning77
"If you troll me you get put down I don't put up with that just FYI, not sure if you're new or not I'm just letting you know."
If that was for me , I joined this site at least 5 years before you.
And put down? Is that a threat for my life?
Not sure if I should report you to your local police or invite you here to my country for a real paratrooper knifefight?!
Last man standing kind of fight 🤷😉
Just an advice, watch out behind your keyboard challenging people you don't know anything about. Someone might pick you up on that offer.
So many different kinds of people out here in the real world. Just saying.
Take care. 🙂
That was exactly my case, and find it quite boring... I rather play diablo 2 remastered. The game is all grind and all about the end game, you level up so quickly that I think it's pointless, they should let you choose the skills from the begining of the game, it's all about the loot anyway so what's the point of the level up system?
@lightning
Huge difference...can't believe you actually think you outsmarted anyone.
The big difference which you mention but ignore is that one is successful and the other not necessarily.
Also a big difference here is genre. 10 hrs of another game could mean it was completed and everything was done...whereas 10.hrs of diablo 4 doesn't amount to much.
@Lightning
Lol that comment was so cringe. You are going to “put him down”? Haha please do show us so we can all have a laugh.
They would not be in the mess there in if they sold all those copy’s of games instead
Guess they had to find at least one glimmer of positive news to combat the poor Xbox hardware sales trends. GamePass stats on game from a 1st party studio that they spent $70bn to acquire are kind of useless IMO, especially when other than Act/Bliz the entire XBOX division was flat. I hope that spike on Diablo 4 was worth having to the XBOX brand go multi platform for.
You mean with out ABK they would be flat with nearly no growth.
They actually made allot of money only because of ABK. With out it they would suffer and slowly be obsolete.
Xbox Content & Services Revenue +62%
- Gaming Revenue +51%
- Revenue $61.9 billion +17%
- Operating income $27.6 billion +23%
- Net Income $21.9 Billion +20%
- Cloud Revenue $35.1 Billion +23%
- Xbox Hardware -31%
ABK is Microsoft.... Sonys profits have dropped from 12% to 9% to 6% three consecutive years... At this rate they will also be unprofitable in just a short while. Games cost too much to make because people are drunk on visuals and performance instead of innovative gameplay ideas. Games are all going multiplatform to the benefit of developers and gamers.... Only corporation lusting gamers are still shilling for the exclusive model.
They probably all fell asleep due to severe boredom and left their consoles on overnight.
I really don't get the obsession with these stats. So what? Is always my response.
If 10 million people bought the game, it doesn't matter at all how long they played it for. It's irrelevant. The sale is made, the revenue is earned. The person can take a year to finish the game for all the developers care.
If 10 million played the game on a sub, what does it achieve? They could play 1 hour and delete it as quickly as they downloaded it. I've done this with games like Need for Speed Unbound or Immortals of Aveum, I just don't have the time for every single game.
Unless Games Pass generates developer and publisher revenue for every hour spent, this is meaningless.
In case of a gaas game, hours played is an important indicator for the succes of the game imo. The game needs to generate money AFTER purchase (when bought) or when the game is on a sub.
This is a non-point, because in-game purchases generate revenue and can be tracked. Number of players is a meaningless statistic unless you're talking about a PURE multiplayer game. Otherwise you can make that point about any game that has DLC or microtransactions.
It's irrelevant how many baterangs are thrown in Arkham Knight or how many hours people spent playing The Witcher 3. A sale made five years ago or a sale made now is a sale.
why are you even comparing witcher or arkham to d4? They don't have the same business model. Your punchline "a sale is made" is cool and all, but d4 is not an offline, single player rpg. It has a battle pass, cosmetics to buy and by the look of it yearly expansions. Every 3 months the game gets changed up and they try to incentivize you to buy things because the cosmetics you can earn ingame look dogshit.
Your logic is super flawed, diablo 4 is a gaas game.
"They could play 1 hour and delete it as quickly as they downloaded it. I've done this with games like Need for Speed Unbound or Immortals of Aveum, I just don't have the time for every single game."
So you just proved it doesn't matter if it's on sub or bought full price, half price whatever, you still deleted those games, allot less ppl beat or stick with games unless it's LS like Fornite, Minecraft etc you always here about a backlog of games. That's just a world we live in, doesn't matter if it's sub service or bought anymore. It's made worse with sub because you have access to many other games of course but the metrics are still not that distinguish from sub to fully own since backlogs are a growing issue regardless.
People don't beat games like they used to that's just facts.
Did you read my comment? Your response is literally nothing to what I wrote? I got Need for Speed Unbound and Immortals of Aveum off PS Plus, I paid nothing for them. Me playing them for an hour generated nothing for the developers. However if I had bought them, even for a dollar, my playtime would be utterly irrelevant because a sale was made. People not beating games is exactly the point - if they bought it, it doesn't matter how long they played it for. Hence, hours played is a meaningless statistic, yet Microsoft keeps peddling it.
It literally does matter if it's played off a service or bought - you're buying into Microsoft philosophy now. Game Pass monthly sub revenue goes to Microsoft, it isn't going to lead to better games unless it's a small indie studio getting a payout from MS.
On Diablo IV, if I buy it off Steam for 50% off, developers get revenue. If I download it from Game Pass and then delete it after an hour, worthless statistic and nothing else.
Diablo IV generated over $600 million in revenue from sales. Do you think MS' compensation package would match this if it was released exclusively on Games Pass and nowhere else for sale?
Not true yet again.
It matters for the success of a game. A sub does not equal a purchase.
It matters depending on type of game...10 hrs of gas means little but 10 hrs of a single player means much more.
People do beat games...there's a huge pool of additional gamers compared to before when gaming was much less popular.
Backlogs aren't really an issue. People will put down whatever they're playing unless they were truly enjoying it. You couldn't have paid me to put down hollow knight for instance...
More gamers means the percentage that used to beat games gets smaller.
@Michiel1989 As per my comment above: "in-game purchases generate revenue and can be tracked" That aside, however, Diablo IV generated millions in revenue from sales and was a huge financial success, which is a metric that can be measured. I reiterate that the hours it was played on Games Pass means nothing. If they tell me that millions of $ was spent on in-game cosmetics, that obviously means something.
My point is little other than Microsoft repeatedly peddling worthless statistics and they've been doing it for months. They won't tell you how many Xbox units were sold (until financial results forced this), but they'll certainly tell you how many locusts were killed in Gears of War.
By the way, I'm not comparing Diablo IV and The Witcher 3 or Arkham. I'm comparing the difference between playing a title on Games Pass for some time and buying it at any point it's on sale.
I don't get why people argue this. I bought A Plague Tale: Innocence and enjoyed it. I then played A Plague Tale: Requiem on Game Pass and cancelled my sub soon after. Which scenario helped the developer? I don't see the long term sustainability of the Game Pass model, and adding all these high profile triple A games to it from mega publishers is going to come crashing down in the next few years unless Microsoft releases its games on all platforms, which they're clearly setting themselves up for.
Requiem is fantastic. Beat it on Gamepass...you're right...Ive been meaning to purchase it in order to support them but haven't gotten around to it...since I've already gotten to play it for free.
@Crows90 Absolutely! Requiem was one of my favourite games last year and the only reason I subbed to Games Pass for a month. I'm in exactly the same boat as you are. I have it on my wishlist to buy it at a discount to support the developers, but haven't been in a hurry because I played it on Games Pass.
Pity because it was a superior sequel in every possible way, and playing both games in French was a treat for the story.
"I got Need for Speed Unbound and Immortals of Aveum off PS Plus, I paid nothing for them. Me playing them for an hour generated nothing for the developers. However if I had bought them, even for a dollar, my playtime would be utterly irrelevant because a sale was made."
You made no mention of getting of Plus not like it makes a difference because those games come with your subscription. Those games are part of your paid subscription, so Sony gets your money and whatever cut they're giving to Immortal and NFS devs. These things aren't for free and devs aren't going bankrupt from it either.
Plus you literally just made my point. When you said play time is irrelevant when a 70$ transaction was made. Which is 100% true.
"Hence, hours played is a meaningless statistic, yet Microsoft keeps peddling it."
Attach rate/console engagement is important to MS. Having high attach Tate means more will spend in the echo system that's why they track that. They have high console engagement but can't sell Xbox's they have to pick their battle.
"Game Pass monthly sub revenue goes to Microsoft, it isn't going to lead to better games unless it's a small indie studio getting a payout from MS."
I dunno HB2, Indy Stalker 2, Avowed look pretty good this year and they're all on gamepass this year.
@Lightning77 Well I thought it was pretty clear I was talking about a sub service there based on the paragraph you're quoting, but if it was unclear I'll take it, it's been clarified.
You need to understand the difference between putting a game on a sub after the sales dry up, or putting it on a sub day one. You also need to understand the difference between having a sub as a supplementary offering and having it as your MAIN triple A selling point. Then if you can understand those differences, you'd realise what I'm saying when I state that it's not sustainable.
Personally, the only sensible ways these sub services can work is promotion of indie titles, where the compensation can benefit the developers who don't cost or pull triple A numbers, or putting games on where sales are flatlined.
Take Diablo IV. It generated $600 million in revenue from sales. Let's say Diablo V releases day one exclusively on Games Pass and nowhere else. Do you think play time will compare to the profits noted above? Do you think Microsoft will pay Blizzard $600 million as a compensation package for putting the game on Games Pass? How do they recoup the cost and turn a profit? There logically can only be two ways: release on other platforms where sales are made and get your cut from owning the publisher while the developer gets sales revenue, or monetise and incentivise microtransactions or in game purchases. Without that, Diablo VI becomes dubious as an investment.
You're bringing up games that have already been in development before the acquisition. And since we're on that note, neither Starfield nor Redfall appear to be phenomenonal successes, at least not near expectations. Do you seriously think The Elder Scrolls 6 and Fallout 5 can follow the same model?
Put it together with Xbox hardware sales being massively down: there aren't enough Xbox consoles out in the market to justify the mammoth investment required in triple A monsters like Call of Duty and Elder Scrolls. They have to release on other platforms - it's simply not sustainable to keep the PS market out indefinitely taking into account the kind of sales numbers these games pushed before the acquisition.
Microsoft is trying to have its hand in every pie, earning revenue through ownership. That's the point of these acquisitions. They don't care if Call of Duty releases on PlayStation, they care that they get their cut. They don't care about making GOTY titles, they care about their Game Pass revenue.
And no, high attach rate at best means a higher PROBABILITY that someone will spend on the game, it certainly isn't a guarantee. Again, "attach rate" is worthless. Because I am part of the "player base" and "attach rate" of Need for Speed Unbound and Immortals because I downloaded them off a sub and played for an hour. I played High Fi Rush on Game Pass for a couple of minutes too. I'm part of a statistic for those games, not part of the sales or contributors.
The Game Pass model will not result in better games or higher quality games. I'll be glad to eat my words, but don't think I will.
If you are considering getting Diablo 4, Steam offers an incredible discount, so now is the perfect time to do it.
The ray tracing update Diablo IV on PC has been released, and if you're wondering whether there's a noticeable improvement, read ahead.
This was fun and informative.