Diablo III breaks PC-game launch record

Blizzard Entertainment

(CBS News) Diablo III, the highly-anticipated PC game, sold more than 3.5 million copies in its first 24 hours of release, Blizzard Entertainment announced Wednesday.

"We're definitely thrilled that so many people around the world were excited to pick up their copy of Diablo III and jump in the moment it went live," Mike Morhaime, chief executive officer of Blizzard, said in a press release.

Blizzard claims Diablo III is the fastest-selling PC-game launch in history. The game was so popular that the servers crashed on launch day. Morhaime reiterated a previous apology the company released.

"We also regret that our preparations were not enough to ensure everyone had a seamless experience when they did so. I want to reaffirm our commitment to make sure the millions of Diablo III players out there have a great experience with the game moving forward, and I also want to thank them for their ongoing support."

Diablo III is an action role-playing game (RPG) that is the long-awaited third installment of the Diablo franchise. Players are immersed in a dark online fantasy world where they will embark on an epic quest. The game will have all of the elements of a typical RPG, such as picking up items and character classes. The last iteration of the game was released in June 2000.

The game officially launched on May 15 in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia.

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I'd like to address the intense amount of criticism given Blizzard for some of the issues that customers have encountered.

Many customers were annoyed that Diablo III requires an internet connection for game play. Having played Diablo 1 I can assure you that it's WAY better to require an internet connection than to deal with the rampant cheating that ruined parts of Diablo 1 (e.g. The duping bug). Battle.net was, at least partially, born as a result of people hacking and cheating their way through Diablo 1. I would never have purchased Diablo III if it wasn't tied to Battle.net.

Also, some customers have had their accounts hacked. I feel for you if you're not an experienced gamer but if you ARE an experienced gamer "Shame on you for not using the authenticator!". I didn't even sign in one single time until I got the authenticator tied to my account. Experienced gamers should know better than to expect their accounts to be safe with a simple username and password. This is particularly true with the market system using real money. You guys knew the it would be hacker paradise and did nothing to prevent the problem when a quick an easy solution was available.

Lastly, given the large number of users it's hardly surprising to see allot of critics out there. If 0.1% of the people are upset that's allot of people given the huge number of copies sold. It does not, however, come even close to representing the view of the majority of customers.