d3 Double Goblin Event Coming November 6th!

[Starym 3,800]

 

It's been a while since we've had an ingame event, so it seems Blizzard remembered those were a thing and decided to give us something extra to do before Season 12 starts, with double goblins spawning from November 6th! In case you missed the patch 2.6.1 notes you can check out them out here.

Diablo 3 (source)

Patch 2.6.1 is now live worldwide, and Season 12 is just around the corner.

We want to help you stretch your muscles and get prepared for the latest patch with a special in-game event—double Treasure Goblin spawns! Each time you encounter a single Treasure Goblin, they’ll be hanging out with a buddy whose bags are overflowing with all your favorite treats and treasures.

This Double Goblin event will begin in the Americas region on November 6 at 5:00 p.m. PDT, and ends on Thursday, November 9 at 5:00 p.m. PDT.

Note: This buff does not affect the number of goblins encountered via a Bandit Shrine, Goblin “Rift” packs, or in the Realm of Greed.

We hope you’re excited for all the balance changes crammed into Patch 2.6.1, and we look forward to hearing about your upcoming Season 12 adventures. In the meantime, good luck, have fun, and we’ll see you in Sanctuary!

[Frogspoison 63]

These honestly should be rotating weekly, considering theres such a large number of them (Double XP, double gold, double keys, double gobs, double shrines, double drop rates, ect).

 

I mean, every SINGLE game EXCEPT Diablo has rotating weekly things. Hearthstone/Heroes has their weekly Brawl. WoW has BOTH weekly events AND bi-weekly PvP brawls. SC2 has mutations, and Overwatch has their Arcade.

 

Diablo has... just the challenge rifts atm.

[Guest]

Mh, I can't agree with you to be honest.

IMO the challenge rifts are exactly what Tavern Brawl or SC 2 Mutation are.

A challenge that differs weekly.

 

[Valks 2,375]

3 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

A challenge that differs weekly.

When they announced them, I was expecting something so much more from them. The loadouts are often so poorly made that they are basically half a build that's thrown together, rather than a proper build that can be used to do a higher rift. I do mine once, get the reward and leave it otherwise. I just don't think they're well executed.

[albabe 33]

17 hours ago, Frogspoison said:

These honestly should be rotating weekly, considering theres such a large number of them (Double XP, double gold, double keys, double gobs, double shrines, double drop rates, ect).

I mean, every SINGLE game EXCEPT Diablo has rotating weekly things. Hearthstone/Heroes has their weekly Brawl. WoW has BOTH weekly events AND bi-weekly PvP brawls. SC2 has mutations, and Overwatch has their Arcade.

Diablo has... just the challenge rifts atm.

I don't play any of these other Games but considering what you said, it seems D3 seems sorta more of an after thought to Blizzard.  At least they do something almost weekly with the other games?

They can't even fix all the crap that's wrong with the Console version for the last 3 Patches.  The Nemesis is busted so it appears and kills you without any Fanfare warning; after you kill monsters sometimes one or a few of them will still be there frozen in mid-action floating in the air; or his little glowing Yellow Circular foot thingie stays after he dies and disappears; sometimes the monsters are sorta frozen and you can keep smacking on them to get more points, yet the monster can't move... but wait, there's more... sigh...

They still haven't fixed the Keyboard Commands of the Mac PC version so you can toggle in and out of the game to compare Builds here at Icy.

Yea, we're definitely the ugly stepchild.

 

 

[Valks 2,375]

1 hour ago, albabe said:

we're definitely the ugly stepchild.

The tagline for Blizzcon 2017 :D

[Guest]

Well, D3 creates way less cash then all the other games.

Most cash is generated by Hearthstone (by quite a long shot), then WoW, HotS / SC2.

I don't know how much they make with Overwatch (has Overwatch an ingameshop with skins or new heroes and things like that?)

D3 is at the bottom, last year they earned next to nothing with it. Not sure how often die Necromancer DLC was sold this year.

 

Considering this it is not that surprising that more effort flows into other games.

[Valks 2,375]

3 minutes ago, WedgeAntilles said:

I don't know how much they make with Overwatch (has Overwatch an ingameshop with skins or new heroes and things like that?)

There are loot boxes for cosmetics, similar to the ones in Heroes of the Storm.

[Yridaa 490]

3 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Most cash is generated by Hearthstone (by quite a long shot), then WoW, HotS / SC2.

Are you really sure about that? I mean, those wow tokens are selling like iphones. Is this factual data that you're giving here or a hunch?

[Valks 2,375]

9 minutes ago, Yridaa said:

Are you really sure about that? I mean, those wow tokens are selling like iphones. Is this factual data that you're giving here or a hunch?

It's not something they'd include in their recent earnings reports, so I assume it's a hunch.

[Guest]

14 hours ago, Yridaa said:

Are you really sure about that? I mean, those wow tokens are selling like iphones. Is this factual data that you're giving here or a hunch?

Numbers are from last year (before the Overwatch release IIRC), they published sales figures of Hearthstone.

And they published how much money they earned in total.

What we don't know is the exact number of how much money they have to spend for Hearthstone - but in Software that is quite easy to determine:

You have costs:

- salary

- server

And that was it.

You just need to add a little for the bureaus and the equipment off it.

You have no resource cost (other then energy, which is included in server), you have no costs for patents (in Blizzards case). Those are the numbers that would be extremly hard to define.

Since it is known how many people are working for Hearthstone (at least approximatly) you can quite easily get a quite accurate figure of how much money it costs Blizzard to create Hearthstone.

 

That results in a figure that is around 50% of the total earnings.

 

In other words: All other products (HotS, WoW, SC2, D3) combined contributed around 50% to the total earnings, Hearthstone alone the other 50%.

 

Regarding the numbers of WoW Players it is a very safe bet to state that WoW comes second.

 

And then nothing for quite a long time, HotS + SC2 + D3 combined may sum up to 10 - 15% of Blizzards profit.

[Valks 2,375]

31 minutes ago, WedgeAntilles said:

That results in a figure that is around 50% of the total earnings.

I feel like this number is way, way off. From what I can find, Hearthstone in 2016 earned 395 million US dollars in revenue as the top online card game available. Blizzard earned a revenue of 2.43 billion US dollars in 2016. This would mean Hearthstone makes up around 15% of that. This is a lot less than that 50% you seem to have found elsewhere. There's also countless articles that discuss how Hearthstone's revenue has been falling this year on mobile and PC compared to previous years.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Blainie said:

I feel like this number is way, way off. From what I can find, Hearthstone in 2016 earned 395 million US dollars in revenue as the top online card game available. Blizzard earned a revenue of 2.43 billion US dollars in 2016. This would mean Hearthstone makes up around 15% of that. This is a lot less than that 50% you seem to have found elsewhere. There's also countless articles that discuss how Hearthstone's revenue has been falling this year on mobile and PC compared to previous years.

The 2.43 billion are the revenue, I am talking about the percentage of the net. earnings. And just of the net. earnings of Blizzard, not the whole Activision-Blizzard.

EBIT for the whole Activision-Blizzard complex were 1.4 billion for 2016. I haven't found just the numbers for Blizzard, but just for Blizzard they are way less. If you take a guess and half of the EBIT results from Activision and half from Blizzard you come to something like 700 Mio.

And if you now look at the 395 Mio from Hearthstone, subtract all the costs they had in producing Hearthstone you'll get the approx. 50% I talked about.

Because costs for Hearthstone-Development are quite limited. We have a team of less then 100 (https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Team_5)

I have no idea how much each of them earns, but let's budget this with 10 Mio.  (Which seems quite generous!)

Team5 is supported by some other Blizzard-staff. If we take the same number (around 100) we get another 10 Mio. (Again: Very generous! I doubt everyone at Blizzard earns 80k / year!)

On top of that you need server, some bureaus and working materials (PCs, paper, pens, software...) 

Never ever will you be able to add all this up to 100 Mio.

With 395 revenue and less then 100 Mio expenses, that gives you a netto winning of 300 Mio -> a little less then my stated 50%. (And the 100 Mio costs are way too much IMO, 50 Mio are way more plausible. And now we have my 50%)

 

 

Maybe I am missing something, but I can't think of anything.

EBIT 1.4 Billion for Blizzard / Activision - fact

How much of that comes from Blizzard? I can only guess, but around 700 Mio doesn't seem that wrong.

395 Mio revenue on Hearthstone - fact

How much had Blizzard to pay for Hearthstone in 2016? Based on the stated factors above below 100 Mio. Maybe I am missing something essential here. If not: EBIT for Hearthstone more then 300 Mio.

Which is a little less then my stated 50%.

 

If I did some bad thinking above, if I mad an error or forgot some important costs, I'd be happy if you point them out for me :)

 

[Yridaa 490]

1 hour ago, WedgeAntilles said:

EBIT 1.4 Billion for Blizzard / Activision - fact

And this is saying something entirely different:

https://www.polygon.com/2017/2/9/14568722/activision-blizzard-2016-earnings-record

Quote

2016 was a great year for Activision Blizzard — in fact, the publisher tallied revenue of $6.61 billion for the full year, a record in the company’s history.

 

Quote

Blizzard’s net revenue for 2016 came in at $2.43 billion, making up 39 percent of the entire company’s revenue.

Quote

Games like Overwatch and World of Warcraft, along with the Call of Duty franchise, played a big part in raising Activision Blizzard’s digital revenue for the year. 

Hearthstone is only mentioned as having a very active userbase and probably included in the "in-game purchases" in the same article.

 

 

Nowhere do I see any concise evidence that Hearthstone is "BY FAR" the top earner for Blizzard.

[Guest]

27 minutes ago, Yridaa said:

And this is saying something entirely different:

https://www.polygon.com/2017/2/9/14568722/activision-blizzard-2016-earnings-record

 

No offense, but you don't really know what EBIT is, do you?

If you sell something for 100 you have a revenue of 100.

But if you have to pay 99 to be able to sell the product (because you need to spent money on resources, wages...) you have effectivly earned just 1. And not 100.

EBIT is Earning Beforce Interests and Taxes. (To make figures easier to compare since taxes differ from country to country.)

In the end your earnings are the important part.

You can have 100 billion revenue and still loose tons of money. The aim of a company is to earn money. Not to create revenue. (well, obviously you need revenue to earn money, if you have no revenue it is quite difficult (not impossible) to earn money.)

 

 

Edited October 30, 2017 by Guest

[Valks 2,375]

1 hour ago, WedgeAntilles said:

No offense, but you don't really know what EBIT is, do you?

If you sell something for 100 you have a revenue of 100.

But if you have to pay 99 to be able to sell the product (because you need to spent money on resources, wages...) you have effectivly earned just 1. And not 100.

EBIT is Earning Beforce Interests and Taxes. (To make figures easier to compare since taxes differ from country to country.)

In the end your earnings are the important part.

You can have 100 billion revenue and still loose tons of money. The aim of a company is to earn money. Not to create revenue. (well, obviously you need revenue to earn money, if you have no revenue it is quite difficult (not impossible) to earn money.)

I don't understand where you are finding these figures though - I can't find evidence of them anywhere. They publish nothing about profits, other than a few statements about their profits in 2016 "being driven by Overwatch and World of Warcraft".

7 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

Numbers are from last year (before the Overwatch release IIRC), they published sales figures of Hearthstone.

I can't find this anywhere.

[Guest]

14 hours ago, Blainie said:

I don't understand where you are finding these figures though - I can't find evidence of them anywhere. They publish nothing about profits, other than a few statements about their profits in 2016 "being driven by Overwatch and World of Warcraft".

Blizzard-Activision is listed on the NASDAQ. They have to publish each year (to be more precise: even each quartal). It is required by the law.

You can find the most recent reports always on the homepage:

http://investor.activision.com/current-reports.cfm

Again: These numbers are Blizzard Activision. Not just Blizzard alone.

But looking at numbers before the merger and how the merger was done several years ago (52% for Vivendi, 48% Activision) it is very plausible that both (Blizzard and Activision) contribute around half to the total EBIT.

That is just a guess on my part, but it is an educated guess.

Sure, maybe Blizzard contributes more then 50%, maybe it es two third or something like that - that is possible, no question about it.

But even if you say Blizzard contributes the lion share, my guess that Hearthstone contributes to around 50% off Blizzards winnings isn't that way off. It will be less in this case obviously, maybe something like 35%.

[albabe 33]

On 10/29/2017 at 9:55 AM, WedgeAntilles said:

Well, D3 creates way less cash then all the other games.

Most cash is generated by Hearthstone (by quite a long shot), then WoW, HotS / SC2.

I don't know how much they make with Overwatch (has Overwatch an ingameshop with skins or new heroes and things like that?)

D3 is at the bottom, last year they earned next to nothing with it. Not sure how often die Necromancer DLC was sold this year.

Considering this it is not that surprising that more effort flows into other games.

I assume that's all true... but rather than "WHY that's not surprising that more effort flows into other games," maybe the Not "Efforting" Diablo is one of the reasons "Why the other games are more Popular."

[Valks 2,375]

4 hours ago, WedgeAntilles said:

But even if you say Blizzard contributes the lion share, my guess that Hearthstone contributes to around 50% off Blizzards winnings isn't that way off. It will be less in this case obviously, maybe something like 35%.

I meant the part about Hearthstone - the only thing I can ever find is statements saying that the mobile sales specific gains from King sales are offset by them losing sales in Hearthstone, which really doesn't seem like something that would be said time and time again about something making 50% of Blizzard's profits. Where did you find the thing about them publishing their Hearthstone profits? They seem to never publish game specific profit stats anywhere.

[positiv2 952]

On 30. 10. 2017 at 12:44 PM, WedgeAntilles said:

You have costs:

- salary

- server

And that was it.

You are forgetting not only e-sports, but mainly advertising, which is fairly expensive.

On 30. 10. 2017 at 12:44 PM, WedgeAntilles said:

Since it is known how many people are working for Hearthstone (at least approximatly) you can quite easily get a quite accurate figure of how much money it costs Blizzard to create Hearthstone.

There are also people doing work on Hearthstone outside of Team 5, so I don't think it is that easy. Team 5 consisted of "over 70 people" in January, but Ben Brode said the Team would grow significantly larger than that, saying that the team had been doubling in size every year. Team 5 could be somewhere around 120 people now, and there are many more that work on it outside of Team 5 and the company itself. 

[Valks 2,375]

13 minutes ago, positiv2 said:

You are forgetting not only e-sports, but mainly advertising, which is fairly expensive.

A-B spent 310 million on all their games' advertising in 2016, so I reckon a nice chunk went to Hearthstone too. 

15 minutes ago, positiv2 said:

There are also people doing work on Hearthstone outside of Team 5, so I don't think it is that easy. Team 5 consisted of "over 70 people" in January, but Ben Brode said the Team would grow significantly larger than that, saying that the team had been doubling in size every year. Team 5 could be somewhere around 120 people now, and there are many more that work on it outside of Team 5 and the company itself. 

Community Managers, Tech Support, Customer Support - you need more and more as the game grows. There's something like 10 community managers working on Hearthstone alone ATM, at varying levels. Everything you have, you probably have a second of for other parts of the game. Got someone working on this expansion's card creation? This guy's doing the same job for next expansion already. This guy's doing the same thing for the new PvE encounter. This guy's doing the same thing for the new Tavern Brawl, etc. etc.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Blainie said:

I meant the part about Hearthstone - the only thing I can ever find is statements saying that the mobile sales specific gains from King sales are offset by them losing sales in Hearthstone, which really doesn't seem like something that would be said time and time again about something making 50% of Blizzard's profits. Where did you find the thing about them publishing their Hearthstone profits? They seem to never publish game specific profit stats anywhere.

I must confess, I am a little bit confused - you posted how much revenue they had on Hearthstone 2016 yourself, didn't you?

From this revenue I tried to determine how much was actually earned. These numbers can only be guessed of course. I tried to show which numbers I chose and why I chose them.

 

 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, positiv2 said:

You are forgetting not only e-sports, but mainly advertising, which is fairly expensive.

There are also people doing work on Hearthstone outside of Team 5, so I don't think it is that easy. Team 5 consisted of "over 70 people" in January, but Ben Brode said the Team would grow significantly larger than that, saying that the team had been doubling in size every year. Team 5 could be somewhere around 120 people now, and there are many more that work on it outside of Team 5 and the company itself. 

Great point, marketing!

Jepp, that will be some serious money, I have no idea how much.

 

Staff: In September 2016 there ware 70+ members on Team 5 - that's why I used "10 Mio" as budget. Even if it were 100 (which wasn't the case for most of the year), that would still be quite a lot. I can't imagine everybody earning 100k or more.

And on top of that I used another 10 Mio salary for additional staff working for Hearthstone.

Sure, these numbers are debatable, but I honestly don't think that they are way off.

[Valks 2,375]

31 minutes ago, WedgeAntilles said:

I must confess, I am a little bit confused - you posted how much revenue they had on Hearthstone 2016 yourself, didn't you?

From this revenue I tried to determine how much was actually earned. These numbers can only be guessed of course. I tried to show which numbers I chose and why I chose them.

In your first two posts, you said that the most cash was generated by Hearthstone and you found the sales figures for Hearthstone that were published prior to the Overwatch release - the figure I used was from a report by an external company that analysed the entire market and then came up with a figure for Hearthstone based on their findings. It wasn't from Blizzard themselves. I thought you had some kind of figure that you had found from Blizz, since you said that before I posted the revenue amount.

My bad!

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Blainie said:

In your first two posts, you said that the most cash was generated by Hearthstone and you found the sales figures for Hearthstone that were published prior to the Overwatch release - the figure I used was from a report by an external company that analysed the entire market and then came up with a figure for Hearthstone based on their findings. It wasn't from Blizzard themselves. I thought you had some kind of figure that you had found from Blizz, since you said that before I posted the revenue amount.

My bad!

Ah, part of the fault lies on my part here.

I found some figures in the beginning of this year. I had in mind that they were from Blizzard. But now that I think about it, it is possible that it was just a figure from a external source.

I read your figure, it matched what I had in mind, and mistook it for a Blizzard source and didn't look for it myself.

But since it isn't possible to find a true Blizzard source, it seems quite impossible that my source in February was a Blizzard source.

Well, sorry for the confusion.