Back to 1995

Chapter 380

IGN is not a big website yet. It has been established for less than five months and has less than 15 registered users. Most of the people who attract IGN are local game users in America, and the daily active users are at most [-] to [-]. Forget it, it is simply incomparable with websites with millions of daily active users like Yahoo and ICQ.

The IGN forums that Cameron usually sees, there are at most hundreds of thousands of posts every day, but now the IGN forums in front of him make Cameron's eyes widen. He only sees that the original is slow and refreshes every few minutes. The IGN forum that posted a new post is like a splash screen at the moment, new posts are pouring out, and the hottest post has more than 1.8 discussions...

And these posts are almost all "Diablo" posts. Cameron never thought that there would be so many diving forum users. Even because of too many posts, Cameron's screen even started to freeze. After refreshing several times, it finally flashed back. Looking at the collapsed IGN forum page, Cameron couldn't help but look sluggish. There will be a day when the IGN forum will have too many users and the server will crash? !

Not to mention that Cameron didn't expect it, I'm afraid even IGN website, I didn't expect it. In just one day, IGN attracted more than 20 new users because of the popularity of "Diablo". The editor published a score of 9.1 for the Diablo game. After being reposted by Yahoo News, the forum immediately exploded!
The slogan of the IGN forum is to be the best game media in the world. Many media professionals and professionals in the game industry have been invited to analyze the game’s playability, sound effects, gameplay, and graphics. This time, IGN’s The editor gave "Diablo" a high score of 9.5, which is the game with the highest score given by IGN since its establishment!
"The subversive operation and subversive gameplay have redefined ARPG games. The game is no longer a stand-alone game, but can also be a networked game. There will be countless new games in the future, and "Diablo" is at that peak above!"

The editors of IGN gave Diablo a high score and an evaluation that is difficult to surpass and will be imitated by many games.

Xueleshan did not pay for IGN. In fact, such a small forum "hasn't" entered Xueleshan's eyes. The big websites such as Lycos, Yahoo, AOL, and Netscape are the places for Xueleshan's public relations news.

Moreover, IGN has just been established, and it is time to build word-of-mouth. It is impossible to tell nonsense with your eyes open just because of a meal. This evaluation, with a high score of 9.5, has already shown that IGN is optimistic about "Diablo" .

After finally entering the IGN forum again, Cameron looked at the webpage on the computer screen, all of which were users of the forum, comments on "Diablo", and various discussions.

"This is the best game I have played in the past two years. Except for the map and certain settings, this is the game that makes me scream out of God!"

"I broke out the dark gold equipment!"

"How to allocate attribute points?!"

Looking at the dazzling posts on the forum, there are also various ways to play. I played all day, patronizing the tasks to spawn monsters, and I didn’t even notice that there are so many ways to play. Just assigning one attribute point, every time the game character improves Each level can get five attribute points. The attribute points can be allocated to the four major attributes of strength, magic, agility, and vitality. Different attributes can create different game characters and allow game characters to grow according to different paths.

This set of attribute point allocation system, coupled with the "equipment random combination" in the game, will also produce different results, almost adding countless possibilities, so many game users are completely addicted to it, and it feels worse than wild upgrades. Much more exciting.

Apart from these, Cameron also saw other discussions, among which the most heated discussion was to download the Xueleshan online platform, where they could "form a team" to brush advanced dungeons.

Seeing this, Cameron knew what the official "surprise" meant, and many players were inviting people to form teams on the IGN forum, and even the prototype of the game "guild" appeared, and game after game appeared. team mix.

After playing solo for so many years, it’s not uncommon for a long time, but forming a team on the Xueleshan platform and fighting against real people together has made many players feel excited. You can't play tricks, but you can PK with real players, that is "too much fun to fight with people!"

Watching the word "PK" floating on the screen from time to time, and some players specialize in popularizing PK results, every time a player character is killed in the game, a prop "ear" that records the player's ID and occupation can be collected, Many players who are keen on PK are proud of collecting "ears" and regard them as spoils of war!
Looking at the discussion posts full of forums, strategies, online PK, etc., Cameron, who was already hungry, restarted "Diablo" by mistake, and downloaded a Xueleshan online platform by the way, ready to wait I will form a team to PK, collect some loot, and show off on the forum...

Not only IGN, but another company, which was established almost at the same time as IGN, and the news website CENT established by Hamisi Mina, launched GameStop, which also gave "Diablo" a high score of 9.7. One of the good games!

Comments on "Diablo" are constantly being released. There are professional game review forums such as IGN and GameStop, as well as some professional news media. Generally speaking, word-of-mouth is quite good.

Until the evening, Nielsen took the lead in announcing that the offline sales of "Diablo" on the first day were [-] sets!
This achievement is quite good in the game industry. After all, "Diablo" is not a sequel to a well-known IP, nor is it a game like Mario or The Legend of Zelda, which can sell millions of copies when it is released. .

"The game division of ICQ, "Diablo" released by Sierra Mountain, sold more than 480 sets offline on that day, and the daily revenue exceeded [-] million, setting the best record in the American game industry in recent years!"

The Wall Street Journal also made a report on "Diablo", thinking that "Diablo" performed well on the first day, but... that's all. You need to know that the release date of a game is the same as that of a movie. The hottest is the first week, and then sales begin to fall off a cliff.

"Diablo" sold 50 sets in a single day. No one can guarantee whether it can maintain this kind of sales tomorrow. If the sales volume does not exceed 3000 sets in the first month, then Xueleshan is actually possible. You will lose money, after all, the cost of development and publicity and promotion is close to more than [-] million US dollars!

There are also media outlets who directly pointed out that "Diablo" may be an epic defeat, and Sierra may become the second Atari.

"According to sources, Xueleshan Games has reserved more than 400 million sets of production capacity for "Diablo", and Xueleshan's single-day sales volume is only 400 sets. To sell these [-] million sets, it takes Xueleshan five In ten days, the sales volume of [-] sets has been maintained..."

CNN TV station news media secretly mocked Xueleshan, thinking that Xueleshan will be compensated this time. After all, it has maintained a daily sales volume of more than [-] in [-] days. This kind of thing has never happened before. once.

The ass decides the head. Song Yang’s ICNC News TV station is under preparation. The direct target is CNN. The two sides will be direct competitors in the future. It’s no wonder that CNN can say good things about Xueleshan. Yang here.

"Offline game distributors and game stores have basically completed statistics. In America, they sold nearly [-] sets, and overseas sold nearly [-] sets!"

Ken Williams reported that according to the statistical data, the executives of Sierra Mountain and the people at Blizzard did not show any joy on their faces. This kind of sales looks good, and it is likely to sell a million sets , became another representative work of Blizzard, but now I really can't laugh, after all, there are still millions of sets lying in the warehouse that have not been sold...

"The actual sales are much higher than the media reports. Amazon has sold more than [-] sets, eBay has sold [-] sets, and Yeadex in Eastern Europe has sold nearly [-] sets!"

Compared to the worried Xueleshan executives, Song Yang looked normal, waved his hand and asked, "Where is the Xueleshan online platform?"

Mentioning this, Ken Williams was a bit distracted, "The Sierra Online platform has more than 11 download users today, and it also sold 1000 sets, but the real top-up payment is less than [-] or [-] sets. The rest are exchanged..."

Xueleshan Online seems to be in full swing, and a lot of activation codes have been sold, but most of them are for activities, where people are exchanged for game coins.

"Continue tomorrow, don't stop the publicity, ICQ will provide Xueleshan with another promotional fund to continue the publicity and promotion!" Song Yang said to the crowd in front of him.

Hearing that Song Yang wanted to spend money on promotion, Ken Williams couldn't help but stop talking. If it was a film promotion company at this time, it would have already quietly stopped losses. There is no reason to continue to spend money , but Song Yang seemed to be going all the way.

Reports on the first-day sales of "Diablo" continue to appear, but the word-of-mouth ratings and sales of the game seem to be somewhat polarized, some "applause but not popular", and some media even directly put the title of "niche game". The number of media who watched the jokes between Xueleshan and ICQ began to increase. Even CNN's website directly published the famous scene of Napoleon Waterloo in the report the next day, implying that "Diablo" means Song Yang Waterloo. obvious……

However, according to the Nielsen data released on the second day, the total sales volume of "Diablo" was 18 sets, which was somewhat beyond the expectation of many people. That is to say, not only did it not fall the next day, but it bucked the trend and increased to [-] sets a day!
On the third day, total Diablo sales exceeded 30 units.

On the fourth day, Diablo’s global sales exceeded 51 sets, and overseas sales began to equalize with those in America…

(End of this chapter)