Why would I want to level my character 100 more levels!?!
A week ago, Blizzard released patch 1.04 for Diablo III in an attempt to revive their newest game which was hugely successful during launch but bled huge numbers of players only a few weeks after. This may sound normal for many games where players quite after finishing the story, but Diablo III comes from a prestigious linage of games (and developer) where its predecessor, Diablo II, is still being play today despite being released 12 years ago. After building all five available classes to their max levels with good gear, I too felt no incentive to continue playing. Though I definitely got my money’s worth, Diablo III left me disappointed as the sequel to a game that I spent years and many more hours playing. Then it dawned on me. The game genre of item grinding is dead.
Item grinding as its best
When Diablo II was released in 2000, it was unlike anything else on the PC or home console with an addictive click-based gameplay revolved around upgrading your character’s gear through killing the same things over and over again in hopes of a better item dropping (i.e. item grinding). The lore, the characters, the items, everything about the game was innovative during a time when video game releases, particularly RPGs, were less frequent than they are today. For gamers, it was one of greats that you chose and stuck with for it required a large investment of time, but rewarded you with great challenging gameplay and no comparable games were coming out soon.
Flash forward to 2012, Diablo III is released in a completely different gaming environment with MMOs, free-to-play, and mobile game released on a weekly basis (not to mention TV shows, movies, online videos, etc.) You beat a game? Great, 20 others have just been released for you to try out. Even the most hardcore gamers today would find difficulty in playing all the great games that are released. So despite Diablo III coming out with the same magical recipe that made Diablo II a success and then some, the item grind reward system cannot compete with the short attention span a typical gamer will devote to any single title. Do I want to spend another 100+ hours to max my ‘Paragon’ levels on a single character killing the same monsters with the same skills I’ve been using for the last 30+ hours or try a new game that many are raving about (like Guild Wars 2 that just came out)? It’s clear most have chosen the latter.
This is the reality that all game developers, not just Blizzard, face today for basic gameplay systems like item grinding is no longer sustainable. Blizzard, call me when you release the D3 expansion. 😀
NERD SHOUT! 
I was under the impression Diablo III didn’t share the same sweeping success as Diablo II mainly because of some fundamental changes in gameplay mechanic and the battle/leveling system from Diablo 2 which weren’t popular with players, not primarily because of the gaming market or supposed outdated gameplay while I’m sure they come into play. I have no idea what the changes are, but that’s the impression I got.
Certainly there were issues with gameplay mechanics, but the primary concern I’ve read (and agree with) is the end game and feeling like you are not ‘progressing’. The paragon levels does add more levels to go through, but I find it weak and repetitive in a hypercompetitive gaming market. It appears to have done little to draw players (including me) back to D3.
As someone who doesn’t normally play these types of game, I can’t really comment on the changes and flaws of Diablo III. However, like many popular games of today people move on. They have other games that they want to play so when they finish one game they will move to the next. It is also well known that a lot of people these days don’t really finish games. Multiplayer is what keeps players playing, so that’s why so many games have multiplayer now. However even with multiplayer, people will only keep playing until the next big multiplayer game comes out.
Well the longevity of most MMOs is months if not years. D2 trumped most that followed even years after its release. It is unfortunately D3’s core system made the game very fun but very short in terms of gameplay, causing players to seek new content elsewhere.
Ugh, item grinding, no thank you. However, I will go through the monotony of breaking thousands of digital blocks just to find diamond so I can make an awesome Diamond shovel.