Blizzard Entertainment Inc.’s blockbuster release of Diablo III brought in more revenue in its first week on the market than the company posted in each of the last three quarters.
The online role-playing game was released May 15 and chalked up 5.1 million sales in its first seven days, providing a revenue boost of more than $306 million. That outpaced Blizzard’s sales of $251 million in the recently ended quarter, $276 million in the fourth quarter of 2011 and $297 million in last year’s third quarter.
Blizzard recorded sales of $313 million in the second quarter of 2011—a figure Diablo III is likely to eclipse by the end of its second week in the market.
The game’s weekly sales total doesn’t include 1.2 million players who received Diablo III as part of their yearly subscriptions for Blizzard’s World of Warcraft series.
Analysts expected the title to sell 5 million copies by June 30. Beating that mark in just a week was a welcomed relief for a company that’s seen revenue slump during the past year on declining subscriptions for World of Warcraft.
Records
Diablo III’s sales set numerous records.
It sold 3.5 million copies in its first 24 hours on the market, breaking the record for the fastest-selling PC game. The previous record was held by another Blizzard title, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, the game’s third expansion set.
Cataclysm sold 3.3 million copies in the first 24 hours after going on sale in December 2010. Diablo III has already shattered Cataclysm’s first month of sales, which topped 4.7 million copies.
Presale Orders
Presale orders for Diablo III also broke a record for Santa Monica parent Activision Blizzard Inc., as nearly 824,000 gamers placed early purchases through the week ending May 12. That outpaced No. 2 Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier by some 451,000 units, according to VGChartz.
Blizzard has amassed some of the most loyal customers in the video game industry. But the company has tried to attract casual players or non-gamers through easy game play and navigation with the latest installment in the Diablo franchise, Chief Executive Michael Morhaime said.
“Diablo III is a great place to start,” Morhaime said a recent event at the Center Club in Costa Mesa. Blizzard games go through a gauntlet of prototypes, testing, tweaking and more testing before release. It typically takes 18 months to 2 years to release a title or expansion set, which causes big cyclical revenue slumps for the company.
Diablo III was in development since 2006. Its release had been set for last year until being delayed for additional testing.
Role Play
Diablo III players adopt a role such as barbarian, witch doctor, wizard, monk or demon hunter and fight evil forces in a labyrinth of supernatural encounters and settings.
The game, in a new twist, features an auction house that allows players to trade objects for real cash.
A dozen years have passed since Blizzard released Diablo II. The industry has gone through a sea change since then with the emergence of the wildly successful social-networking and app gaming market, evident in such hits as Finland-based Rovio Entertainment Ltd.’s Angry Birds franchise and San Francisco-based Zynga Inc.’s CityVille, Mafia Wars and Words with Friends.
Diablo II, released in 2000, sold more than 1 million copies in the first two weeks, making it the fastest-selling game in history at the time. The Diablo franchise has sold more than 24.5 million copies to date.
Blizzard, which is ultimately part of Vivendi SA in France, is the largest software maker in Orange County and employs about 1,000 people here.
