With all the games releasing that suffer from online issues, including Halo: The Master Chief Collection which is better following an update but still needs fixing, it’s important to remember Diablo 3. Blizzard Entertainment’s heavily hyped action RPG sequel is infamous for its launch woes where players had to wait in queues for hours to access the single-player since it suppoerted an always-online interface.
But this is Blizzard, which created and maintains World of Warcraft. What went wrong? As it turns out, during a GDC 2015 session, game director Josh Mosqueira talked about how the developer was completely wrong with regards to launch day popularity.
“The sales team had projected 6.666 million units to be sold in the first year; even our sales guys loved Diablo. We got that in the first couple of days – we just didn’t know what to think, it was mind boggling.
“Even our most outlandish estimates for day one, ended up being massively conservative in reality. And it hurt – people had been waiting for ten years to play this game, and the worse fear of an always-online game, is not being able to play. That’s exactly what happened.”
“The sales didn’t matter” for Blizzard in that respect since players couldn’t access the title. Since then though, it’s made amends and turned Diablo 3 into an amazing experience. What are your thoughts on the initial woes? Let us know in the comments.
