They've sold it continuously over the last 20+ years, and continue to do so. I bought a copy this past year to try out Project Diablo 2[A], my second or third purchase of it, personally. They remastered it and sold that too, while selling D2, side by side. I also bought that to play with a friend. Quality sells.

It should be an example to all companies that a game made with passion can produce money for a long time. Diablo 2 was also one of the games that launched Blizzard into the stratosphere of popularity (which can be turned into wealth directly and indirectly). Awards. Prestige. The obsession with cash is out of control.

It might actually be a fat tail, if that's a thing, given how long it's been selling.[B] In fact, blizzard has probably made more money on me from D2, than D3, which I bought once, and I have not purchased D4 for a number of reasons.

[A] https://www.projectdiablo2.com/ - a lot of fun

[B] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_II#Sales

[Edit]

Wait, what exactly is a waste? Not charging a rent? aka a subscription?

They’ve sold millions of copies at $50 a pop.

You could say they left money on the table. You could also say they’ve profited tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

And most games fail to realize this while maximizing revenue.

When a company has a mission statement, that mission statement's core purpose is to define when you leave money on the table. It defines how you plan to achieve long term success, otherwise every single company would have one mission statement: "Increase shareholder value by maximizing next quarters profits" or "extract as much revenue from customers as possible, while minimizing investment into that extraction."

Here is blizzards:

  We create the most epic interactive gaming and entertainment experiences 
  on earth immersing players in new, unimagined worlds. Our products help 
  build community and create social platforms that bring people together.

Blizzard did that for years. Blizzard was an unstoppable gaming behemoth. WoW was culturally significant. Starcraft birthed, or at least popularized eSports. MOBA's came first from starcraft's "use map settings" maps, and later more directly from Warcraft 3's. Diablo 2 is still considered a better game than any of it's sequels.

It's quite hard to understate just how influential blizzard was to the gaming industry.

When blizzard was "leaving money on the table," they were arguably the leading game developer in the world. Lots of kids grew up dreaming about working for blizzard. I would bet money a large number of current day game devs were inspired by blizzards offerings. How many gaming companies have their own conventions?

Blizzard wasn't a company that just made money. They altered the industry. They defined the industry, and they did it by "leaving money on the table." They made fun games first, and money second. Now they make money first and games second, and it shows.

if you have long term fans that really love what you make I think making most of your money with merch is an area worth exploring. Most bands make their money that way, it's what made Star Wars rich, it's where most of the pokemon money comes from too. I don't think a game has to make money just from the game itself.

I'd say that they do still make money of the game.

The reason both Diablo 3 and Diablo 4 has sold well is because of the legacy of Diablo 2.

Developing a great game is a surefire way of gaining a dedicated fanbase, which will carry your company a long time.

(A shame that Blizzard is pissing away all that goodwill though.)

AoE2 seems to be finding ways to monetize the long tail in a good way. If whatever monstrosity is left of Blizzard had any positive intentions at all, they could release non-malicious remasters and expansions as well.

hahah what a fucking outlook. Grim. Just grim. What about the profits on a game from 2002 that sold millions that the developer could still milk!!???

Are you an MBA? I guess you got into tech for the money and not the love.

To your point I have bought the Diablo 2 Remaster but not yet played it :)

> Video game developers and publishers will look at this as an example of leaving money on the table, since people continue to enjoy the game without having to pay them any more money. Yes, the tail is long, but it doesn't end up with more money for the game company so they will see it as waste.

I understand where you are coming from - but it's not entirely true, that there's no additional money in it.

Blizzard had built a very strong reputation of making games all of which have this long life and thus are are always guaranteed to be worth buying straight at launch. Who knows how many of Diablo IIs lifetime sales can be attributed to that, but it sure had some influence.

And D2 again delivering on that Blizzard promise only strengthened that reputation - which again translated into a positive effect on sales on subsequent Blizzard releases.

Resurrected is another title that most obviously and directly benefited from the longevity of D2. The way D2 was designed surely did translate into sales of Ressurected.

But D2's longevity also contributed a LOT to the popularity of the franchise overall - which in turn surely had some influence on the sales of D3 and D4.

Then there's also the battle chest, which didn't sell badly to my knowledge - and don't even get me started on all the various Diablo Merchandise you can get. I'm pretty sure that made them a little bit of money as well.

It's not just the long tail of sales on the game itself - there's also a lot of additional, compounding long-term benefits. Publishers often disregard those benefits, because they aren't able to reliable measure those effects and put a number on it. And they generally often value short-time profit gains over nurturing a long-time fanbase.

And all off that of course leads down the path of yearly sequels that barely improve anything over last years game, but are still soooo expensive to make, that publishers need to sell loot boxes and battle passes and microtransactions and dlcs, just to make even - and then cutting short the long tail with next years' release. Rince and repeat until people get fatigued and the cash-cow is milked dry...

Maybe, just maybe, churning out a few less titles that each have a longer tail of sales and steadly grow a loyal fanbase and increase the sales-appeal of the franchise as a whole, is not that bad of a long-term strategy after all. Maybe this could serve as an example after all...

It’s not well known but the original pitch deck for Diablo included loot boxes in the form of buyable CDs that would have random items on it, like booster packs for card games.

HoMM3 is one of my favorite games, and I also enjoy its modern reimagining, Songs of Conquest. You might like it too.