Diablo 4's Twitch viewership sees an all-time low as Diablo 3 continues to gain viewers amidst its new Season 29.
After witnessing one of the most successful RPG releases in recent history, Diablo 4 seems to have lost all its viewership online. Being Blizzard’s highest-sold game ever, many expected the fourth installment in the Diablo 4 franchise to prosper, but instead, Diablo 3 has surpassed it suddenly.
On June 6, Diablo 4 was released worldwide as the game sold more than 10 million copies within 3 days of launch. This made it Blizzard’s highest-selling game of all time. However, it seems like the game continues to lose traction, losing more than 90% of its viewership since its June launch.
Rather Diablo 3 has surpassed its successor, even though it was released 11 years ago. With its new Season 29, Diablo 3 now sits at a weekly average of 3,000 viewers on Twitch with a peak of 5,600 viewers on September 17. For context, Diablo 4 has a weekly average of 940 viewers at the time of writing.
Diablo 4 saw a peak viewership of 940,000 at the time of its release, ten times more than Diablo 3 ever achieved. However, it has lost almost 99% of its peak viewership and sits at a weekly average of 940 on Twitch.
All I know is that I own both D3 and D4 (as well as others), and I'm not playing either.
I played through the story of D4, and started a seasonal character and everything and I just stopped playing.
My main gripe is that my character rarely feels powerful. With level scaling in D4, enemies are consistently at or above my level. I level up, and nothing changes, the enemies level up with me. I might as well not be leveling, just unlocking my more advanced abilities.... the only time I feel the difference in power between me and my enemies is when they flatten me without effort. Then I realize they're 3-5 levels above me, elite, and I'm like, oh yeah, that makes sense.
Basically, I'm almost never a higher level than my enemies. I'm always the same level or significantly lower level, so I have to be done kind of expert to dodge everything they throw at me and I'm just trying to play a dumb game.
I switched to something else where I can pick the difficulty, and I play on the easier modes, I'm not playing games to get clobbered all the time, I just want to kill some stuff, do the things that need doing and get my dopamine hit and move on. D4 is a constant struggle. It gives me anxiety.
Something to keep in mind is that a new season of D3 has recently come out (more interest) while D4 hasn't had anything in a while (less interest). These two things will be bumping the numbers.
P.S I'm a long time PoE and formerly D3player. I'm stoked I didn't buy into D4. If anyone hasn't tried it yet, a D4 YouTuber called Darth Microtransactions described PoE as 'everything I wanted in D4 but more and free'.
I loved the server test. Totally hooked. Bought it on launch and after a week I was done.
After a few days it all seemed like a reskin with “retention” gimmicks and FOMO.
TBH after like a decade, and playing it for some 100h, it’s a weak offering for a studio of that magnitude. I often feel they spent more on marketing that making the thing.
I've no interest in the Diablo series, but am I the only one who hates streaming as a measurement of success? It's like the gaming media equivalent to when journalists report on Xitter hashtags... it's just the easiest, dumbest metric available.
Diablo 3 was incredibly boring to me, I played the beta for 4 and felt like they doubled down on everything that made 3 boring and uninteresting so I never looked back. I had a lot of fun with the remaster of 2, however. Blizzard, like almost all companies these days, is run by business majors who don't care one iota about the products they're making.
Everyone thinks they want to play the next new hit. We are not ready for it at all. We want consistency, something we know. We are not ready for anything new.We are too old. We as gamers should admit that to ourselves and the gaming industry should too.The next generation of gamers is in the starting blocks and is playing whatever they want. You should concentrate on those. But that's the door for the small indie studios and not the big ones.McDonald's recognized it decades ago: children are the customers of tomorrow.