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.
In D2 finding gear felt fun. Runes were rare but powerful and sets/legendaries offered different build paths. You also had control over magic find with the ability to lower your power to increase magic find.
D3 (much later) expanded sets so that a number of builds were viable per class, making it fun to find any piece of gear. They also added rifts to challenge yourself to no end. The devs liked watching people push higher tiers and celebrated it.
D4 does not have runes or sets. Every legendary effect can to removed from the legendary and added to any yellow piece of gear. As a result, you’re typically chasing random yellow items for a .1% increase that all feels very samey until you find a unique. Currently, uniques are not even close to all being viable. Also blizz activity monitors unique drop rates and decreases them/bans people for finding ways to increase drop rates. The devs do not like people pushing harder stuff because that means they spending less time looking at the intentionally shitty (free) transmogs. They want you to grind away for days to get incremental success so you tire of your looks and buy skins and battle passes. If that explanation sucks, then I have no fucking idea what they’re doing. Maybe they expect us to grind because they don’t know how to create more content?