First Post (Testing)

Testing Testing….

I would like to dedicate my first blog to my favorite corporation “Blizzard Entertainment” and discuss the computer gaming industry.

Since I was young, I was a fan of video games. I was fortunate enough to grow up with my uncle who was a very famous computer game programmer in Korea. I started gaming by playing DOS games like “Scorch” and later moved onto other well-known games like “The Secret of Monkey Island.” However, the game that really grabbed my attention was a game called “Dune 2,” which was a real time strategy game. Later, I moved onto better developed games like “Command and Conquer,” “Warcraft,” and “StarCraft”.

I wanted to write about the computer game industry as my first blog because Blizzard recently released a new game called “Diablo 3,” which could pave the way for developing new types of profit making.  As far as I know, there are 3 ways for the computer game corporations to make profit.

1.       Monthly Subscribers – After customers buy or obtain the game for free (depending on the game), they pay a monthly subscription fee to keep playing.

Example) World of Warcraft or GuildWar

2.        Bonus or Avatar Items – The customers can download and play the game for free. The game company sells items within the game that may help the players improve the rate of the game or add unique items to improve the appearances of their characters that no other players may have.

Example) League of Legend or games within www.ijji.com

3.       Software – The company makes profit by selling the software to play the game. The customer may download or buy a hard copy.

Example) any games that you do not play online are most likely to fit in this category.

On May 14, 2012, Blizzard released Diablo 3. So what is so different about this game?

Diablo games are all about trading. You pass different levels to gain different types of items. The probability of a good item dropping is very low; whereas the percentage of normal items dropping is little bit higher. In Diablo 2, (released 11years ago) people started to trade items for real money. So a lot of third party companies came into business creating websites to trade virtue items from Diablo 2 for real money.

Now, Blizzard came out with Diablo 3 with a new plan.

Blizzard created what is known as an “Auction House” inside the game (similar to ebay). In the Auction House, players are able to trade their virtue items with another player for real money. So how does Blizzard profit from this? When you use the Auction House to trade, 15 percent of what you sold goes to Blizzard. This helps Blizzard increase their profit, and it also help them get rid of all the third parties that benefit from Blizzard’s games.

(Complex.com reference)

According to Blizzard's calculations, D3 sold 3.5 million copies in the first 24 hours, making it the fastest-selling PC game in history. Adding the 1.2 million players who received the game for free after purchasing an annual World of Warcraft pass totals the number to 4.7 million players picking up the game on day one.

The big number, 6.3 million, is still growing because Blizzard's numbers do not yet include Korean internet game rooms, where players go to purchase PC games digitally. Nevertheless, they have said that, since its release, Diablo III has been the most purchased game from those services.