Diablo 3 declared 'fastest selling PC game' ever

Blizzard has declared Diablo III the fastest-selling PC game of all time, selling 3.5 million copies within the first 24 hours, and boasting over 6.3 million players within the week.

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From the launch day server meltdown to the way everyone you know seems to be playing, it's pretty clear that Diablo III is quite popular. But just how popular? Blizzard announced today that it sold 3.5 million copies within the first 24 hours, which supposedly makes it the fastest-selling PC game of all time.

On top of those 3.5 million copies were another 1.2 million doled out free to World of Warcraft Annual Pass subscribers. After a week, Blizzard says, Diablo III was up to 6.3 million players--not including South Korean game rooms, where it's estimated to have a 39% share.

"We're definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo III and jump in the moment it went live," CEO Mike Morhaime said in the announcement.

"We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so. I want to reaffirm our commitment to make sure the millions of Diablo III players out there have a great experience with the game moving forward, and I also want to thank them for their ongoing support."

As well as rolling out sneaky little balance updates, Blizzard is investigating reports of nasty hacks, and preparing to launch the real-money auction house on May 29.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    May 23, 2012 6:30 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Diablo 3 declared 'fastest selling PC game' ever.

    Blizzard has declared Diablo III the fastest-selling PC game of all time, selling 3.5 million copies within the first 24 hours, and boasting over 6.3 million players within the week.

    • reply
      May 23, 2012 6:39 AM

      PC gaming is dead.

      • reply
        May 23, 2012 6:40 AM

        I dug up the corpse last week just to spit on it, then stuck it back in the ground where it belongs.

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          May 23, 2012 8:47 AM

          There is a Necromancer in D3?

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            May 23, 2012 9:11 AM

            there is one that is an npc that starts an event. it sounds like he is the protege of the necromancer from the 2nd game.

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        May 23, 2012 6:41 AM

        PC gaming is dead *

        * Excluding Blizzard, GOG, Valve, all the facebook games, MMOs, etc

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          May 23, 2012 6:59 AM

          * excluding any games made by companies that don't shit on their customers

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            May 23, 2012 7:07 AM

            I would say blizzard at least farted on its fans with this latest release.

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              May 23, 2012 7:25 AM

              And used a fucking dump truck on the Oceanic players. Was getting some good 1000+ms pings tonight.. awesome

              • Ebu legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
                reply
                May 23, 2012 7:53 AM

                Hell, I'm in amurrrca and I'm still pinging a nice healthy 400ms steadily, frequent spikes to 500ms+
                Borderline unplayable. >:(

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                May 23, 2012 8:47 AM

                Getting > 2000 ms in Europe too, so waah waah on you.

            • reply
              May 23, 2012 9:34 AM

              Lol, if you think the internet comprises 100% of reality, maybe.

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          May 23, 2012 7:22 AM

          Actually, we elitists don't count the facebook games either.

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            May 23, 2012 7:32 AM

            I only count indie games made by starving college students that haven't bathed in 5 months

            • reply
              May 23, 2012 7:58 AM

              But they cannot be assholes * (Fez guy) unless they're assholes to major publishers (Jonathon Blow).

            • reply
              May 23, 2012 8:03 AM

              Another fan of Cactus I see!

      • reply
        May 23, 2012 6:42 AM

        Not dead, just on life-support. A few titles like this one should help reinvigorate it ...

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          May 23, 2012 6:44 AM

          No, it's dead!

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          May 23, 2012 6:51 AM

          It's on online-support....

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          May 23, 2012 7:17 AM

          Our sense of entitlement to software forced companies to make games with dollar and cents in mind instead of just making killer games.

        • reply
          May 23, 2012 7:22 AM

          It's only mostly dead.

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          May 23, 2012 7:23 AM

          A few titties usually invigorate me too.

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          May 23, 2012 7:27 AM

          It's just shifted to having more smaller budget indie games instead of big budget ones like on consoles. I'm ok with that though since indie games are mostly the only ones doing anything unique and innovative these days.

          Still, having exclusive games like Diablo 3 on the PC is always nice too and helps it become a more popular platform.

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          May 23, 2012 7:42 AM

          Not dead. Just resting.

        • reply
          May 23, 2012 5:18 PM

          ahahaa. One of us, one of us!

      • reply
        May 23, 2012 7:06 AM

        Zombie dogs are the fears and dreams of console players.

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        May 23, 2012 7:10 AM

        I'm not dead! I feel happy! : PCGaming

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        May 23, 2012 7:21 AM

        You must have an old crappy PC that cant play current games....

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        May 23, 2012 7:29 AM

        That makes me think I haven't heard a developer say that in a year or so.

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        May 23, 2012 9:10 AM

        PC gaming is dead... long live PC gaming!

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        May 23, 2012 4:48 PM

        If all the games we will be getting in the future are Starcraft, Diablo, WoW and their ilk it might as well be dead in my eyes,

      • reply
        May 23, 2012 5:17 PM

        PC gaming is the worst kind of gaming except for all the other kinds.

    • reply
      May 23, 2012 6:55 AM

      [deleted]

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        May 23, 2012 7:05 AM

        why? the people who preordered would have bought it in the first day if there weren't preorders anyway.

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          May 23, 2012 7:22 PM

          a lot of people got the game for free by simply subscribing to WoW

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      May 23, 2012 6:55 AM

      That is an insane number. There's a Wiki list on best selling PC games and Diablo 2 is listed as 4 million copies sold.

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      May 23, 2012 6:58 AM

      There's something magical about the Diablo brand. I've had several friends who have all but given up on gaming in the last few years due to different reasons just go ape shit with D3, enraging their SO's and skipping sleep. A huge number of sequels for classic games have come out that these people just shrugged off, but not Diablo. Clickity click.

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      May 23, 2012 7:01 AM

      Hot damn, that's a lot of loot!

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      May 23, 2012 8:02 AM

      As soon as lists of sales start counting digital sales like those on Steam, then headlines like this will matter.

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      May 23, 2012 11:13 AM

      http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5152409863?page=1

      Thank you Blizzard, we shall continue trusting in you.


      What, Battle.Net Passwords ignore Lower/Upper Case? S'cool. really. We forgive ya. totally.

      • reply
        May 23, 2012 11:38 AM

        The funny thing is you think it matters a good goddamn. You want the same level of security (in complexity) in having a password with both upper and lower case passwords with your current non-case-sensitive password? ADD A LETTER.

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          May 23, 2012 11:41 AM

          "Strong" passwords are a scam.

          Nobody brute forces passwords in a field rife with keyloggers and trojans, it simply isn't worth the computational effort for the low reward that only amounts to large numbers in tremendous aggregate.

      • reply
        May 23, 2012 3:22 PM

        You get about 5.1 bits of entropy per character using a case insensitive alpha numeric symbol set.
        You get about 5.9 bits of entropy per character using a case sensitive alphanumeric symbol set.

        Using an 8-character random password? You're strength is ~41 bits using case insensitive, and ~47 bits using case sensitive. If you care, add a character, but neither can reasonably broken in your lifetime.

        Also, the difference is actually less if you include the symbol set as well, as Blizzard does.

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      May 23, 2012 3:11 PM

      but.... piracy!

      • reply
        May 23, 2012 3:23 PM

        Diablo 3 is thus far unpirateable due to it's always on architecture. So....

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          May 23, 2012 4:59 PM

          for now, yeah.

          there were bootleg WoW servers at some point (several years ago), so someone will undoubtably figure out a server daemon.

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            May 23, 2012 5:03 PM

            That will be very significantly harder with D3 than with WoW and at the end of the process they'll have a new game that can simply interface with the D3 client.

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            May 23, 2012 5:48 PM

            They were and are garbage and can not be compared to real servers in any way shape or form.

            • reply
              May 23, 2012 6:50 PM

              They were ok, the game generally worked. The biggest issue is that none of the WoW community exists on them so they're ultra boring. The mechanics work fine though.

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        May 23, 2012 5:20 PM

        If anything Diablo shows that extremely aggressive DRM is a good thing for sales!

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          May 23, 2012 5:22 PM

          If anything Diablo shows Diablo is a good thing for sales!

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            May 23, 2012 5:22 PM

            Diablo shows that the key to a successful PC game is using 3 vowels in the game title.

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              May 23, 2012 5:26 PM

              The key to Diablo sales is to say Diablo five times in a row.

              Diablo Diablo Diablo Diablo Diablo

              • reply
                May 23, 2012 5:27 PM

                Shit I did that thing where I looked at a word too much and now the spelling of it looks weird.

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                  May 23, 2012 5:40 PM

                  Semantic satiation. Although that's more about the meaning of the word.

        • reply
          May 23, 2012 8:52 PM

          Or good games from a great company will sell!

    • reply
      May 23, 2012 3:52 PM

      Good news I guess. But no Steam = no buy...

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      May 23, 2012 5:42 PM

      I'll pick it up when it's 5.99 in the "bargain bin".. guess I'll be waiting a looooong ass time with the way blizzard game prices go down.. :(

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        May 23, 2012 6:11 PM

        Diablo 2 is still $20, diablo 1 $10, so, yeah, I guess you'll be cold in the ground before D3 get's below $10

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        May 23, 2012 6:15 PM

        [deleted]

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        May 23, 2012 6:31 PM

        Good luck with that. Diablo 6 will be out before that mofo drops below $20

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        May 23, 2012 7:54 PM

        please look at me. here pay me attention lawls

      • reply
        May 23, 2012 8:02 PM

        If you buy it now, play it for 10 years, you will have enjoyed a game that will be getting support and updates all through those years and still won't be below $15 bucks at that point.

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        May 23, 2012 8:02 PM

        You can get TL2 for $20 which will give you a pretty fun time.

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        May 23, 2012 8:21 PM

        thanks for posting

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        May 24, 2012 12:22 AM

        Sweet we'll see you on D3 in 30-40 years.

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      May 23, 2012 8:13 PM

      im stil pissed that i bought diablo 2 full price and then when I went to find it a few years ago the cd key had rubbed off the cd case

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      May 23, 2012 8:15 PM

      Amazing.

      PC gaming is dead, no steam no buy and I'll buy it in the bargain bin all in the same fucking thread about Diablo 3 being the fastest selling game of all time. This game is in God mode. People love to hate it!

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      May 23, 2012 8:17 PM

      It's it as awesome as it sounds? I never played the first two, so I didn't buy this one.

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        May 23, 2012 9:36 PM

        Basically, if you don't like the dungeon crawler (or action RPG) genre then you won't like it. Those peeps are the only haters. As for me, I think its a fantastic game. But with that said, they're going to have to keep the patch updates and content flowing to keep it great.

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        May 23, 2012 11:19 PM

        I never played one and yes.

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        May 23, 2012 11:20 PM

        Try the starter edition first. It is fairly meh.

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        May 24, 2012 6:13 AM

        It is pretty awesome.

        D2 was more piece of art>game. A social experience where one could learn real life lessons (harshly) through the actions of others.

        This is just a great game: fun, addicting, nice looking. A monetary [corporate] experience where a facade of success and accomplishment is the main selling point.

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      May 23, 2012 11:22 PM

      Crack sells. Story at 10.

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      May 24, 2012 3:56 AM

      I would hope no one's surprised about this, D3 has been my most anticipated game for years and years.

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        May 24, 2012 6:03 AM

        Same here, yet it was so easy to pass up.

        I'll see you in hell diablo 3.

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        June 11, 2012 12:10 PM

        It was?
        I don't know anyone that owns a PC that bought this game and we all grew up playing Diablo.
        Must be little kids and posers that got caught up in the hype. Diablo 3 is the same game as Diablo 1 with some added crap.
        Blizzard aint even Blizzard anymore. Core team left eons ago. Guess they got tired of handing out the same shit.

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