To complement our previous story bringing the announcement of Diablo III, here is a selection of screenshots we handpicked from the debut collection posted by Blizzard on the game's website today.

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Twenty years after the cataclysmic events of Diablo II - and eight years after its release in the real world back in 2000 - the long-speculated, and even longer-awaited sequel Diablo III has finally been unveiled today, at Blizzard's 2008 Worldwide Invitational event. Aside from the announcement itself, fans are already treated with dozens of screenshots, a few wallpapers, artworks and, best of all, the first three Diablo III trailers covering all of the above, and a whole lot more! Need I say they're a must-see?

We've already added the HD trailers locally, and we'll return in a bit with a selection of screenshots as well, but in the meantime all there is to know about the game can be found on the newly-opened Diablo III website. No release date yet, obviously, just some stuff about the game's story, locations, characters, monsters, and adventures awaiting you upon your return to the world of Sanctuary. Dig in!


Below we're including the gist of today's press release: (...)

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One must, with the power of mighty Thor, love Internet rumors. They are just fabulous. Recently, the dudes and dudettes (and all their little sisters combined) from Blizz Planet gave the fanboys some new wanking material, stating that the more-than-purple, legendary gaming guru magazine, PC Gamer, will feature a full fledged Diablo 3 announcement, from the golden mouth of Blizzard itself.

You have to realize the insanity this little thing spawned on the web. I bet if those people reading the said “news” had guns, they would have gone to some country in South Africa and start a revolution, proclaiming the Everlasting Empire of Diablo’s Left Kidney. Ah well, sadly, things are not so bright beyond the Looking Glass, since the ladies at Voodoo Extreme just received word from PC Gamer itself that the whole thing whas just a big, smelly fuss. More exactly, We're officially squelching the Diablo rumor. We've got two big announcements coming in our August issue, but neither is from Blizzard.

Rumors come and go, and folks should be accustomed by now that no rumor regarding Blizzard is true until they say so. As for the said two big announcements, who gives a crap.

Playing catch-up with some Blizzard news while patching WoW to version 2.4.2, I noticed something everyone else must have known about since two days ago: BlizzCon 2008 was announced this week, "now with 50% more hall space for your convention-going enjoyment". This will be the third edition of Blizzard's gaming convention, and for those interested in attending, the venue and dates are Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California, on October 10-11. Tickets will go on sale in the next few weeks, priced at $100 per person.

"BlizzCon will offer a wide variety of activities to help all attendees get the most out of the two-day event. In addition to serving as a gathering place for the different Blizzard Entertainment gaming communities, attendees will be able to enjoy:

- Hands-on play time with upcoming Blizzard Entertainment releases
- Discussion panels with Blizzard Entertainment developers
- Competitive and casual tournaments for players to showcase their talents
- Areas and activities devoted to licensed products such as the World of Warcraft - Trading Card Game
- Costume, machinima, and character sound-alike contests with great prizes
- Commemorative merchandise based on the Blizzard Entertainment franchises
- A silent auction
- More exciting activities to be announced"

The press release isn't hinting at any new game announcements during the event, but you never know...

That Zerg trailer was all fine and well, but a bit more detail never hurts. So here is the latest double-pack of StarCraft II screenshots issued by Blizzard this month, showing more diverse gameplay environments.



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And yet again, Mr. Kotick blows me up. Almost literally. Not only does Blizzard already have an extremely successful milking cow (actually, they have more of those, but one in particular here has 10 million subscribers), but the company will try, with the soon to be released Starcraft 2, to increase their earnings even further. Much further.

You’ve probably heard about in-game advertising, and if you didn’t you should be shot in a leg. Well, Kotick (which, for those of you who didn’t read the last Activision/Blizzard related news regarding a future CoD MMO, is Activision’s CEO), stated loud and clear that, although advertising in games hasn’t been a successful business yet (but sure as hell will be), his company is eyeing, while also salivating like a true Pavlovian dog, the big bucks that could come out if they implement it in Starcraft 2.

So prepare yourself for some nice Coca-Cola banners, while you try to take over Aiur, or whatever other planet hasn’t been yet obliterated by the Zerg. I’m feeling a bit sad right now.

"[Blizzard] has been thinking about how StarCraft, because it is a short-session experience, can actually be the model for in-game advertising and sponsorship and tournament play and ladder play for the future,"

IGN scoop.

There I was, getting my hopes (and other things) up that Blizzard will be allowed to carry on with its own franchises, after the merger with Activision will be complete. Well, me and the others who thought about that were tremendously stupid, to say the least.

Having a nice chat with some hungry for gossip analysts, Bobby Kotick, Activision’s almighty CEO, pointed out the “possibility” that Call of Duty, Infinity Wards’ awesome FPS, could receive the MMO treatment in a near future.

He started by taking a look at the MMO market as we see it today, and what he saw was a bit grim: after the dreaded World of Warcraft launch, most other companies that tried to fit in the market only managed low-selling titles, canceled titles, or failing titles. Of course, with some little exceptions. Now Kotick looks down into Blizzard’s yard, hoping that his team(s) will learn a good deal from their veterans, plus the fact that Activision has a chance to “borrow” some of Blizzard’s subscriber base.

In short, Kotick kinda said: “Fuck Blizzard’s projects, ours are more important.”

Which would explain why the vast majority of MMOs in recent years were relative failures, and why the situation won't change much for those upcoming hot-shots, either (I'm not giving names... *cough*). After all, who on Earth is so filthy rich to afford spending up to $1 billion, just to make a WoW-killer MMO, instead of buying a couple of African countries and playing a real-life war-game.

The billion-dolar figure was estimated by Activision's CEO, Bobby Kotick speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium 2008 Conference this Tuesday, as reported by GI.biz.

"We don't think that even if we made the USD 500 million or billion-dollar investment to get a product out [to compete with WOW] that we would even be successful doing it. (...) When you... Look at all the money that's already gone to these businesses that have failed (ed. - EA, Microsoft, Sony & co.), there didn't seem a likelihood that even a well-managed company like Activision would have the prospect for profit any time soon in this category."

When you look at it that way, Activision were really the smartest guys around. Honestly, why spend a crapload of money and waste people's time trying to develop a WoW-killer, when you can just merge with Vivendi-aka-Blizzard-aka-WoW itself. Kind of makes you wonder how much Funcom is investing in Age of Onan...

Well, gank me silly and call me a gnome! Plans for some kind of World of Warcraft mobile functionality really are underway over at Blizzard. Mind you, the idea of an actual WoW MMO on cell phones still sounds just as ludicrous as before, but that's not what they're aiming for at all. In fact, they don't seem to be aiming for anything in particular right now, just idly fiddling with a small team of mobile developers, to see what they can come up with. That, according to Blizzard co-founder Frank Pearce, quoted in an MTV article yesterday:

"We want to look at the mobile devices as something we can use to enhance the experience of our existing games. So we're going to have to look at ways to use the mobile device to enhance their 'World of Warcraft' experience. We'll see what kind of applications we can come up with.

(...) So as an example, one thing I think would be really cool - and whether we're going to be able to do this, I don't know, but it would be really cool - is if we could have a client on your mobile device like [Google Chat] that hooks you into your guild chat in the game. That would be really cool. Or the ability to view your in-game mail or view your in-game auctions. We probably wouldn't allow you to actually buy or sell via the mobile device, but you could certainly monitor."

If there's no hope for buying / selling at the Auction House, then seriously, what's the point?

- Red Faction III was confirmed during THQ's latest investors call. Exactly one year after CEO Brian Farrell practically said the same thing. Only this time, we know with relative certainty that it's developed for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. By Volition, duh.

- Steam reaches 15 million accounts. For some odd reason, players keep making new accounts after getting their asses banned, or forget their password. Or username.

- Activision confirmed various sequels for their top franchises, from Call of Duty, to Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, Spider-Man, Bond and other kiddie games. Or we could've just said "Activision confirms Call of Duty 5", since we don't give a crap about any of the others.

- The Club demo is out of for the PC. So is the full game, but only on the PS3 and Xbox 360 momentarily. Good luck clearing 2 GB for the demo!

- "We at EA blew it" (with Bullfrog, Origin and Westwood). No, you didn't blow it. You fucked it up. You fucked it up!

- Okami Wii is completely playable by now, but Capcom is still not giving a firm release date. March? Maybe. By the way, this game should've been made for the Wii from head start.

- StarCraft II and WoW: Wrath of the Lich King also playable, if you can hold your breath until the end of June, and find your way inside Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational event from Paris.