Diablo III

[Damz]

Got my copy for free as i'm still playing WoW and signed up for the annual pass. Not seen Blizzard release a turkey yet. The game has gone through a lot of changes since the beta was available to players. Either way it'll sell by the bucketload.

[Nagash]

giving away copies for free also :S. It might be a good game when it's release, but tbh... i've never seen one good thing in the media about this game, it's always negatives and how badly made it is. Screams "waste of money" to me... so congrats on getting it free

[Thaldarin]

giving copies away "free" makes great sense.

a) It promotes people to play WoW; one thing a lot of the Diablo crowd did not like in the first place, so you get a huge discount on the combination of both games over the year.

b) It rewards loyal Blizzard fans and keeps them tied to WoW for a year when it's possible they might leave it at any moment for any number of reasons

c) It's great marketing.

It's a recipe to drive financial gain, it makes sense and is more than profitable in the current climate than not offering that option with the WoW pass.

[Siege]

Yeah think free less as here have it for free and more free buy our phone contract for x months and get *free*!11!1 phone

[Nagash]

surely getting it that way encourages people to play WoW more than it does D3. Also surely people who play WoW is their target market, and so therefore they have lost a sale of the game, since people willing to pay for a year of WoW are likey very willing to pay for a copy of D3. Copies free with say a gfx card deal, that makes sense, since people who wouldn't normally play something like that have ended up getting the game. Way back in the day, i got Mirrowind for free with a GFX card... i wouldn't have got that otherwise, and likely wouldn't have got Oblivion and Skyrim as those purchases are directly related to me enjoying Mirrowind so much, and Morrowind was the first game of that type i played.

Anyway, doesn't matter now because from what zaH was saying, the games been cracked, and the servers have been cracked also, taking away all control Blizzard had over illegal copies of the game... and the games not even been released yet. I'm sure the game might be very good, but from a sales point of view, D3 is gonna be a huge flop if they're not careful.

[Siege]

If you say soooooooooooo

[Nagash]

ah yeeeeessssssah

[Thaldarin]

All their previous games got hacked and cracked to bits.. although the player base is strong and loyal to their servers so... conspiracy theorists go away please.

[Siege]

I played a leaked wow beta on a basic pirate server no mobs or anyhting was lol.
Only thing puting me off is the real money auction house, end of the day stops sites selling stuff but is still depressing pay to win!