Epic action-RPG Diablo III will not be released in February. Rumors persist that the game is finished, but Blizzard will not launch it unless the game's real-money auction house, where players may buy their way up the loot ladder, can go live on day 1. The problem: it's been ruled illegal gambling in South Korea, the home of Blizzard's hardest-core audience.

  • Phillip Guyton

    clearly we need to invade South Korea! :p I need my Diablo III now!

  • http://twitter.com/a_w_young a_w_young

    They should just remove the “feature”. The last thing we need is something like that turning a serious casual game into something people take more seriously than games.

  • http://twitter.com/frederikvdz Frederik

    That’s not entirely true. It was never anounced for release in febuary, that date was entirely made up by retail chains. 
    Blizzard famously never releases a game untill it is polished to perfection and Diablo 3 was at best rumoured to launch somewhere this year. And the only place it would actually be delayed due to legal issues about the real money auction house is Korea. The rest world would not be effected.

    • Lobster

      Blizzard does have a reputation to delay a game until it’s done (by some rumors they’ve actually finished Diablo III three times but trashed two versions because it didn’t “feel right”), but now that they’re part of Activision there was no guarantee that would remain the case.

      I mean, no one expected Blizzard to push out Starcraft 2 in three installments. That particular decision smells suspiciously like Bobby Kotick.

      • http://twitter.com/frederikvdz Frederik

        Also not true. The first part of Starcraft 2 features as many singleplayer mission as SC1 did and infact even more multiplayer chalanges on top of that and free modding tools to make custom games and mods. It is absolutly a fully featured, full storyline game. At no point do you get a sense that Activision messes with them. And why woould they? Blizzard makes far too much money. They already showed that the next part, Heart of the Swarm, will be just as fully featured.
        This is a case of artistic choice going hand in hand with economic sense. 3 games earns more money but also gives them a chance to tell more story and add more units. Gamers are not getting short changed here.

        • Lobster

          Yes, I read that press release too.

    • franko

      ^^ THIS.
      blizzard has never announced the release date for D3. in fact, bashiok confirmed last week that they are still aiming for a Q1 release, but that nothing has been set in stone yet.

  • Ashen Victor

    This is the when a company put its efforts in a particular scheme of making money instead of doing money with the product itself.

    Was it too expensive to ask themselves if their main revenue would be legal or not in its most important market?

  • firefly the great

    I had been looking forward to Diablo III, but this whole real-money thing is a major turn-off.

  • corydodt

    Yes, god forbid they find a way to make money from it.

    • CG

      Like charge for it in retail stores?

    • Jubilex

      I have no problem with them making money however they choose to.

      Focusing a large amount of resources into something that really isn’t part of the ‘game’ when your market is people who enjoy the ‘game’ perhaps isn’t a wise investment?

      Trying to make money off of things unrelated to your core product which cause your core product to suffer smacks of too many MBA’s that don’t actually understand the core audience making the decisions…

      just my two cents.

  • https://twitter.com/Thejackthompson Jack Thompson

    The real-money auctionhouse is optional and is disabled for competition-level modes. If you don’t want to use it, feel free not to. But personally? If (as a caster class) I come across an item with strength on it, the idea of getting points towards my WoW subscription or a buck or two into my Paypal account is tempting. 

    • franko

      me too. playing could actually pay for itself? nice!

    • Aneurin Price

      Except that in order to make it a viable project they’ve had to add an extreme level of DRM in order to entirely prevent modding, thus significantly reducing the value of the game itself, which you still have to pay for. (Anyone remember mods like V&K for the original Diablo? That kind of thing is ancient history now)

      On the plus side, Blizzard have really managed to shoot themselves in the foot with this one. I’m sufficiently weak-willed that I probably would have bought it anyway at some point, despite strong philosophical objections to the direction of Blizzard as a company, but since they’ve made a permanent, uninterrupted internet connection a requirement, I won’t buy it simply out of pragmatism: a game with that flaw is pointless. It’s of no use to me, however much I might want it. It’s defective by design.

  • CG

    That should be “loot ladder”, I think.

  • Jwcorey

    Can someone please link me to the official Blizzard announcement of a Diablo III release date? Obviously, there has to be a publisher commitment to a specific date before it’s possible to say the product is delayed. Obviously Boing Boing wouldn’t run a story with “Diablo III Delayed” in the title unless an official date has been announced, so I’d be very appreciative if someone could show me that press release. Thank you.

  • the_engineer

    I really don’t want a single player game I need to be online to play. I also don’t want a multiplayer game where my opponents can just buy the best weapons/armor/whatever and game the system in this way. This whole thing is a huge turn-off for me. I really hope they just drop the idea completely and release a game for gamers that isn’t just a blatant money-grab. (If you start to argue with the premise that this is just a blatant money grab first remember that Blizzard and players are going to be selling “things” that do not exist at all, and never will.)

    • ialreadyexist

      They’re selling happiness, joyfulness, and love.

    • Heartfruit

      Well if you find a good single player PC game where you don’t have to be on line please let me know.  I haven’t seen one in years.   In addition, I’d argue (and I’m sure Blizzard would agree) that in Diablo II, opponents could already buy or hack weapons/armor/whatever… this way Blizzard at least know who, how much and gets their cut.

      • Aneurin Price

        “if you find a good single player PC game where you don’t have to be on line please let me know”

        What? I can’t even think of any others where you *do*[0]. Off the top of my head, these are the games I’ve bought in the last couple of years: Starcraft 2, Civ 5, Psychonauts (okay this is an older one), Portal (1 and 2), The Witcher, Dragon Age, Torchlight, Fallout 3 (also getting on a bit), plus a host of GoG games.

        [0](Actually, I’ve just checked, and apparently the Settlers 7 requires you to be online, so that and Diablo 3 are the only ones I’ve heard of)

    • togi

      “first remember that Blizzard and players are going to be selling “things” that do not exist at all, and never will.”So everything we interact with in a computer game ‘doesn’t exist’? Because I could have sworn playing a game was different to staring at the screen when it’s turned off. Of course, you’re making an argument against making money from abstract, ‘imaginary’ things, but then you’d have to concede that money, as an abstract concept, ‘doesn’t exist’. So really you’re just moaning that one person wants to swap something that doesn’t exist for something else that doesn’t exist.

      Philosophising aside, I understand that the gaming industry currently has an issue where the massive second-hand market means that a great portion of sales in gaming give no money to the actual creators. If developers and publishers can work out ways to ensure an income from within the game, while not impacting negatively on how it plays, the more power to them. 

      The emergence of new ways to provide income for creators can only be a good thing, considering the straits we’re in at the moment with the old models of income generation (SOPA, anyone?).

      • rydz

        In addition, trying to prohibit the sale of items in game is like trying to prohibit pot.  People are still going to buy and sell the items, so you have a choice between an open, semi-transparent economy, and all manner of shady “back alley” deals, the upshot of which is that by making the trading illegal, more people will be scammed.  I also agree with several other points made about how until a release date is announced, there is no such thing as a delay.

  • CH

    I haven’t been following the release rumors of Diablo III at all… but… how does the linked tweet “Retailers will not know a date until its officially announced through a press release.” translate to it being late and not being released in February? It says absolutely nothing like that… only states the official Blizzard policy, which has been the same forever, that it is ready when it is ready and they will announce it when it is ready to be announced.

    What I guess Bashiok point was is that the dates given by various retailers is just dates they have come up with all by themselves as Blizzard hasn’t announced yet the release date (which may or may not be in February). This is the same message they have said with other games, too, when people start to freak out over retailer given release dates (which they just put in to get people to buy the games in advance).

  • Fang Xianfu

    Oh come on, don’t stoke this fire any worse. The facts are that 1) the game hasn’t been “delayed” because there was never a release date, and 2) it hasn’t been ruled anything yet in Korea – the board hasn’t yet ruled. Some members feel it is gambling and there is disagreement, hence no decision. Whether or not that is affecting the schedule is anyone’s guess and nothing approaching the factual tone of this piece.

    It should read “Diablo 3 not out yet, and also it hasn’t yet been rated in Korea. Coincidence? I think not!”

    • ialreadyexist

      Blizzard doesn’t usually give release dates for their games until they are VERY close to shipping for this reason.  The media and various gaming outlets and blogs try to guess at release dates, but they’re just guessing.  The public often picks up these guesses and treats them as facts.

  • Brad H.

    I wonder if South Korea has a corporate lobbying power-sphere that Blizzard could tap into. 

  • teapot

    Call me old-school but I’d rather play WCII or SC than any of Blizzard’s latest offerings.

    SCII was good, but it seems like Blizzard are a bunch of money-grubbing jerks to not include LAN functionality. LAN is what made Blizzard’s games popular. WoW just seems like a bottomless time pit.

  • purple-stater

    The single reason I’m getting D3 is that it’s coming free with my WoW subscription, so I’m not too concerned about when Blizzard finally releases it.  WoW is my sole exception to a rule about not paying for software that I don’t get a physical copy of and doesn’t require some sort of registration to play.

    I grew tired years ago, of losing the ability to play games I enjoyed simply because the maker went out of business or decided it wasn’t worth their time to maintain registration servers.  If Civilization 5 ever becomes available separate from Steam, then I’d like to buy that.