Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. today announced that as of the first 24 hours of Diablo^® III’s release, more than 3.5 million copies had been sold, setting the new all-time record for fastest-selling PC game.^* That number does not include the more than 1.2 million players who received Diablo III as part of signing up for the World of Warcraft^® Annual Pass promotion. Altogether, more than 4.7 million gamers around the world were poised to storm Sanctuary on day 1 of Diablo III’s release — representing the biggest PC-game launch in history.

As of the first week of the game’s availability, that number had already grown to more than 6.3 million.^* The above figures also do not include players in Korean Internet game rooms, where Diablo III has become the top-played game, achieving a record share of more than 39% as of May 22.

I suspect some of those Annual Pass players purchased the Collector’s Edition. 4.7 million on launch day likely isn’t accurate since not every Collector’s Edition purchaser and Annual Pass player are different consumers.

With more than 6 million players in a week, that means Diablo 3 has more than half the players of World of Warcraft.

A week ago when Diablo 3 launched and servers were struggling, I suspected that the issue was that Blizzard *was* prepared but underestimated the demand… just like when World of Warcraft launched. The reason why Starcraft 2 didn’t have this issue likely had more to do with the game not being half as popular.

Starcraft 2 sold one million within the first 24 hours. After a month, it sold 3 million in sales. As of December 2010, it sold 4 million in sales.

Diablo 3 sold more in a few days than six months for Starcraft 2.

“Why is this, Master Malstrom?” asks the gentle reader.

I will never forget what the producer of EVE online said: “Women do not want to be a spaceship.” (I ought to frame that quote. It is forever relevant.) Diablo 3 is a fantasy based game and the player is an actual Human being. Thus, women are more likely to buy Diablo 3 than Starcraft 2. Starcraft 2 also doesn’t have much value as a single player or co-op experience. It is purely PvP. And in video games, it is PvE that sells. PvP sells for FPS games.

Diablo 3 is essentially a descendant of Gauntlet.

Above: The Mother of the Action RPG

Different classes of warriors playing solo or co-op against dungeons and mazes of monsters is the spirit of Gauntlet and Diablo 3 has it. However, Diablo 3 is very different from its ancestor.

Diablo 3 is not about arcade gameplay. There are some reflexes and patterns involved, but tactical use of abilities, potions, and simply gear overthrows monsters. Like other Blizzard games, Diablo 3 is more of a math formula with bells and whistles.

There is a HUGE and VAST market for a game with the Gauntlet spirit that is different from Diablo 3. Such a game would still be able to be played solo or multiplayer, still have maze like dungeons and fight a ton of monsters. The difference is that this game would be arcade gameplay based. You won’t be mindless ‘clicking’ everywhere. Battles encourage not just good tactics but good reaction time. And like Gauntlet, there are some light RPG elements.

“What game could this be, Master Malstrom?” asks the innocent reader. “Tell us!”

Such a game is Zelda. Zelda is the combination of arcade and computer RPG. It was a hit game when it was released. Unfortunately, the world no longer has Zelda because of certain ideologies coming from software developers at Nintendo. Their insanity said that Zelda was about ‘puzzles’, not RPG elements, that Zelda was about ‘story’, not arcade combat. And with that, Zelda died long ago and has been little more than a corpse full of cliches from the original classic games. Zelda no longer exists.

A damn shame as young children cannot grow up with it and have the game enrich their childhood. But then again, Nintendo didn’t give a damn about denying people 2d Mario for decades, so what if Zelda is denied?