Also people like to be able to physically see, touch, and hold things they pay for, while in contrast they love not actually seeing the money leave their hands (credit cards yay!).
This suggests to me that direct digital download will be their primary distribution method for SC2 and D3, since it would have a directly proportional effect on their revenue share (similar to direct-to-end-user music sales, etc.).
Retail box copies will still exist and be plentiful, but who in their right mind would go through the hassle of midnight releases, etc., when you could have the client pre-downloaded and just wait for your authentication code to materialize at 12:01 a.m. the day of release?
Do you know the retail mark-up of games? From what I've heard, it's 100%. That would be huge for them if they can sell a lot of games as digital downloads instead of retail boxes.
If I bind multiple WoW accounts to a single battle.net entity will that disallow multiboxing since they will all be under the same single login? This wasn't addressed in the FAQ and I don't want to do anything hasty since it's irreversible.
Did anyone have any problems with the Email confirmation? For me it said that my email was invalid, though this might be de to the fact that I'm using a German email address. As somebody stated earlier, the new battle.net has only been released for the US so do you think that that could lead to problems?
Anyway, I am very controversial on this new platform. I would like it to be not browser based but, like Steam, be a program on your physical drive. I am not certain, but what if the server with the battle.net information goes down? Will one still have access to one's games or not? I suppose so since you could always execute the .exe, but since all your passwords will be "combined" with this system, you probably could not log on to any of your games whenever there is a problem with the battle.net server.
You can have up to 8 accounts merged into Battle.net account. Here is from the FAQ how you will log in with several accounts merged.
How do I log in if I've merged multiple World of Warcraft accounts?
After you log in to World of Warcraft using the Battle.net account, you will be prompted to select which of the merged World of Warcraft accounts you wish to play. Players with multiple World of Warcraft accounts are still able to log in and play them simultaneously.
Do you know the retail mark-up of games? From what I've heard, it's 100%. That would be huge for them if they can sell a lot of games as digital downloads instead of retail boxes.
Last I heard, wholesale was about 60% of retail. Yeah, it's a damn nice gig if you can get that directly from the customer, which is why DDL is so good for game companies.
It's also better for the consumer. Basically it's a win-win, unless you're EB.
It's a win for the customer in the sense that you get instant gratification. It's a loss as you're paying the exact same amount, typically, through digital distribution as you would going to a store and buying the physical media. The customer pays the same no matter what. The publisher makes considerably more off of the digital download as they are able to negate any inventory, manufacturing, shipping and retail costs. There is also the fact that should Bnet ever go away, your purchase is lost as there is no media to install from.
I'm not saying digital distribution is bad; far from it. Let's just not put on rose colored shades hearalding it as the next best thing. Technologically and conceptually it still has a long way to mature.
It's a win for the customer in the sense that you get instant gratification. It's a loss as you're paying the exact same amount, typically, through digital distribution as you would going to a store and buying the physical media. The customer pays the same no matter what. The publisher makes considerably more off of the digital download as they are able to negate any inventory, manufacturing, shipping and retail costs. There is also the fact that should Bnet ever go away, your purchase is lost as there is no media to install from.
I'm not saying digital distribution is bad; far from it. Let's just not put on rose colored shades hearalding it as the next best thing. Technologically and conceptually it still has a long way to mature.
Inability to lose physical medium, no need to go to the store, no sales tax, yeah, win win in my book.
Moreover, I think you're neglecting that I really LIKE publishers. I like companies who make good games. Them getting more of my money instead of Gamestop (God I hate gamestop) is my DEFINITION of a good thing. Some of us think rewarding the people who make quality games with our money is a good, good thing. And some idiots still pirate fallout 3 then wonder why all the decent games are MMOs or console exclusives.
I think the argument that "if Battle.Net ever goes away, I lose my games!" is pretty well a moot point, since if there's no Battle.Net, there's no servers to log in to. If Blizzard were to ever fold, and you had no back-up copies of the games you bought strictly through digital distribution, at most you would lose access to the solo play elements of a handful of outdated games.
As mentioned, this also rewards Blizzard more directly - even if Blizzard only sells their games for $5 or $10 less via download (or no savings at all, for that matter), lots of gamers would rather see that money in the hands of the developers than in the hands of a couple of poorly-constructed retail conglomerates.
I think the argument that "if Battle.Net ever goes away, I lose my games!" is pretty well a moot point, since if there's no Battle.Net, there's no servers to log in to. If Blizzard were to ever fold, and you had no back-up copies of the games you bought strictly through digital distribution, at most you would lose access to the solo play elements of a handful of outdated games.
Because there is no way to obtain offline-only copies of outdated games...
Because there is no way to obtain offline-only copies of outdated games...
That wouldn't change if battle.net went down. There would be pirate copies around and no company to pursue having their distribution being stopped. Morally, I have no objection to pirating a game if the developer is no longer around.
There are many examples of games that are still being sold where the developer no longer exists but the license to sell said game has passed on to independent publishers. Examples of these being the Fallout 1+2+tactics series by Interplay, or the Heroes of Might and Magic or Might and Magic series by 3DO. Neither company exist any more, but their games are not hard to come by at my local GAME or HMV.
Granted, this is a bit besides the point as Vectivus pointed out, without battle.net there probably won't be any servers to play on anyway.
If they plan monthly fees for SC2 and D3, then I would be up for paying a single monthly fee and be able to play any Blizzard title online. Rather than keep track of 3 separate subscriptions, having only one at a discount would be much more appealing.
I do not believe Blizzard will implement this kind of payment. I simply believe that Blizzard is trying to set a "Steam" based account management system.
What I would like to see Blizzard do is create a Battle.net client (like the steam one). With something like that created, I would be able to have one desktop icon that directs me to all my Blizzard games. Currently all I can do is log onto my Battle.net account and "manage" my games. I will certainly expect Blizzard to implement a "play this game" button one day. They are always coming out with new bandoleers for their games, so I would not be surprised.
This is all speculation though, and should never be taken to heart as the truth.
I remember reading that they were going to have an optional monthly fee for D3 that would, at a minimum, ensure all your characters were saved instead of being deleted after 30 days of inactivity.
I remember reading that they were going to have an optional monthly fee for D3 that would, at a minimum, ensure all your characters were saved instead of being deleted after 30 days of inactivity.
That doesn't make any sense. In essence you would be paying for not playing.
What we're paying monthly fee for in WoW is the servers (and support). Most of the actual calculations in WoW is run on the server and that takes immense amounts of computational power for the amount of players they have. This is also obviously the only way to construct an MMORPG with thousands of players logged into the same world at the same time.
Whether or not they will require monthly payments for SC2 and D3 basically comes down to how much will be done serverside. If it's gonna work the same way as with WC3 and D2 where the games are hosted by the players themselves, they're not really gonna be able to charge a monthly fee. That being said, the design of D2 was a disaster on many points with cheats constantly running rampant even on live ladder servers. We can expect something totally different for D3, maybe even all games being hosted on the server as in WoW. If they do that, they could easily charge monthly fees. For SC2 the only real benefit would be to disable maphacks, and maphacks aren't enough of a problem in WC3 for them to do this.
This being said, it's very possible that the base service of being able to play online will be free, but that they will provide premium accounts with enough benefits that all serious players will have a premium account at least for their mains.
That doesn't make any sense. In essence you would be paying for not playing.
There are people who still login to D2 once a month just to "refresh" their characters who haven't played in years. And such an optional subscription model would probably have secondary features (maybe you have to be a subscriber to participate in ladder seasons and get access to some "ladder only" stuff like the runewords in D2).
The way the D2 is, if you can't play for 30 days for whatever reason (in the hospital or out of the country or something) your characters are gone, and there's no other option than convincing someone else to login for you. You're not paying to not play, you're paying to maintain your data despite the fact that you cannot play. I'm not sure if Blizzard can justify indefinite character retention (from a logistical/economical standpoint) in D3 without some additional fee (maybe a one time fee per character instead of a monthly fee).
Originally Posted by MatsT
Whether or not they will require monthly payments for SC2 and D3 basically comes down to how much will be done serverside. If it's gonna work the same way as with WC3 and D2 where the games are hosted by the players themselves, they're not really gonna be able to charge a monthly fee.
I can't speak for WC3, but I know for a fact that D2 "realm" games were hosted by Blizzard. Any cheats or exploits on realm servers had to do with tricking the system into saving item/character data twice during a race condition (loading/trading simultaneously or something) or just straight up botting. At least, at the time I played, there were not cheats that went beyond duping, botting, or simple bug/design exploitation (similar to stat stacking bugs or teleport hacks in WoW).
"Open" games used the old D1 model of player-hosted games and on those you could cheat pretty much however you wanted if you were the server (god mode, instantly killing people, instant leveling up, etc. the type of stuff you'd see in D1).
Edit: Maybe it was just this that I read and the rest was just speculation. Either way, it's a useful discussion, I think. Well, useful for Diablo 3, maybe not for WoW.
It's not just being unable to play a game for some reason. Oftentimes, I'm playing something else and want to replay my characters sometime in the future. I don't want to have to start over in that case.
I'm not that big a fan of Steam. I bought Empire: Total War as my first Steam game and only play it offline. If I'm having Internet problems, which sometimes happen, I usually play single player games. That's not possible with Steam, I don't think.
If I'm having Internet problems, which sometimes happen, I usually play single player games. That's not possible with Steam, I don't think.
It is. Steam games can be played without any network connectivity, unless the individual game in question requires it. Note that this is true after the game has been activated -- network connectivity is required to activate the game to begin with.
It's not just being unable to play a game for some reason. Oftentimes, I'm playing something else and want to replay my characters sometime in the future. I don't want to have to start over in that case.
I'm not that big a fan of Steam. I bought Empire: Total War as my first Steam game and only play it offline. If I'm having Internet problems, which sometimes happen, I usually play single player games. That's not possible with Steam, I don't think.
Steam can run in Offline Mode - so long as you connect once when you install, you can play your games offline indefinitely.
"I've often not been in the fire!"
"No, what you've been, is not in the fire."
-from Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Raiders.
I remember reading that they were going to have an optional monthly fee for D3.
I don't believe you actually read anything of the sort. If you are going to start a topic that is quite honestly off subject, then links to what you read would be very much favored. Please and thank you. It's my opinion that if you are going to rant about Diablo Three payment options, then make a separate thread.
I really think that people in this thread screaming "Oh my God! They are going to charge us more fees!" is a mute point, since it's the most redundant speculation in this thread. Better kept to yourself than blurted out as a useless string of banter.
True, but at least they extended forum timeouts. I logged in from work six hours ago, and I'm still logged in. So you'll only have to do it once or twice per day.
I appear to not be logged out ever now. I logged in on Friday and I just hit up the forums today and I'm still logged in. Perhaps no need to carry the authenticator around after all.
I appear to not be logged out ever now. I logged in on Friday and I just hit up the forums today and I'm still logged in. Perhaps no need to carry the authenticator around after all.
I noticed the same thing, and I really hope it's a bug or something. Being logged in forever is not ideal from a security standpoint.
Based on popular feedback, we are temporarily removing the requirement to use an authenticator when logging into either the Armory or the forums. Looking forward, we are working on adding an option to Battle.net Accounts in the future that will allow players to enable use of the authenticator as a login requirement for these websites at their own discretion.
03/20/09, 6:43 PM
