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Blizzard's collectible trading card game Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is now available for iPad. The free-to-play game was first announced at last year's PAX East event in March 2013 as a cross-platform, multiplayer strategy game intended for PC, Mac and iPad.

The World of Warcraft developer revealed details for the game's single player campaigh just last week. Hearthstone entered open beta on PC and Mac in January. [Image: Blizzard Entertainment]

Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, the first expansion to Blizzard's action-RPG, has sold 2.7 million copies on PC since its last week launch. According to Blizzard, the expansion's final boss has been slain 1.5 million times so far—a small number, considering you get to kill him over and over in Adventure Mode .Read more...

With Diablo banished once again, the people of Sanctuary have finally found themselves in a place of peace. Five minutes later ... The angel of death, Malthael, steps in as the latest evil force descending upon the land, once again raising the question of why Sanctuary's citizens never consider moving somewhere nicer.

Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls brings in a terrifying new villain with a frightening motivation. In a bid to end the eternal conflict between angels and demons, Malthael seeks to rid the world of demons by absorbing all of the demonic essence found in every living creature. Though it would bring some semblance of tranquility to the universe, humanity would be also destroyed, as a small part of each person's soul is demonic. Malthael, aware his plan will eviscerate all of humanity, in unfazed and torments anyone who attempts to stop him.

Just another day in Sanctuary.

Every time Hearthstone launches the first thing you see is a box. The camera lingers on the bevelled edges of the lid, gaining height before tilting to settle on a top-down view. The inset stone glows with restive energy, clunks backwards and spins – in a surprise twist, the lid doesn’t flip open but splits vertically. Hearthstone‘s roots are in the real-world, and a big part of the joy in card games is the physical pleasure of playing with them. This lovingly-crafted box is the opening volley in answering one question; can Blizzard make a digital card game that feels like a real one?(more…)

World of Warcraft is 9 years old, which is 1012 in MMO years. The old thing still has its wits about it, but in its dotage, we’re going to start seeing more changes like patch 5.4′s ‘Connected Realms’ functionality.

Expanding on existing tech, this will link servers together so that players on less populated servers can play with those from other servers without having to migrate their characters.(more…)

I always think of automated bots in MMOs as a type of game criticism. As in, if your players can, without mod tools, write scripts to easily automate some part of your game, probably that part isn’t as engaging as it should be. Probably there’s a reason why players want to bypass it.

I also understand why it’s bad for a game’s community for such things to carry on, so I don’t blame Blizzard for winning another lawsuit and a $7 million settlement against a World of Warcraft botmaker last week, as reported by WoW Insider.(more…)

We’re excited to announce that Diablo III: Reaper of Souls on PS4 will be making its public debut at BlizzCon 2013!

In our action-packed single-player and same-screen co-op demos, players will explore the haunted streets of Westmarch as one of our five original classes, or test their mettle as the unyielding Crusader.

Attendees of the convention will also be some of the first in the world to take on Death itself using DualShock 4, armed with all-new social features and touchpad technology designed to help keep heroes on focused on what they do best: killing monsters.

Head on over to BlizzCon.com for panel schedules, event maps, hotel and travel information, forums, and more, and be sure to stay tuned to diablo3.com for all the latest news on Reaper of Souls.

For those of you who are BlizzCon-bound, we salute you! If you can’t make the show in person, be sure to check out the Virtual Ticket which includes over 60 hour of HD footage so you can catch all the new details on Reaper of Souls at BlizzCon from the comfort of your home.

Following a PlayStation 3 release on October 1, Blizzard has now issued the 1.02 patch for the Xbox 360 incarnation of Diablo 3.

Most notably, this patch fixes a number of relatively common in-game scenarios that have been causing the game to crash. It also improves the item-handling abilities of your character's Followers, ensures that proper gems can be found in higher difficulty levels and fixes an issue that would cause a player's controller to vibrate indefinitely.

As with all Xbox 360 patches, this latest Diablo 3 update will be applied the next time you fire up your online-enabled console. A full list of changes can be found on the official Diablo 3 website. Just ignore the bit at the top stating the details only apply to the PlayStation 3 game; apparently Blizzard has yet to update that particular page.

The Diablo 3 auction house is being sent to the nether realm on March 18, 2014.

"It became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot," Blizzard Production Director John Hight writes. "With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we've decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo 3."

The company believes that this move, along with the upgrades in the upcoming Reaper of Souls expansion, will create a "more rewarding game experience for our players."

Greetings from Sanctuary! Our devilish team of developers has poured blood, sweat, and hellfire into bringing our epic action-RPG to consoles. While the reviews are still coming in, we’ve been excited to see that the critics are loving Diablo III on PS3.

I hope that you’ll love it too. You can pick the game up on Blu-ray disc starting today or save some gas money by downloading a digital copy from PlayStation Store. Either way, you’ll be primed for countless hours of fun with one of the most action-packed adventures around.

Don’t forget about the five PS3 -exclusive in-game bonus items you’ll score:

“The Hero’s Journey” – A Legendary shoulder item that includes a Journey style scarf
“Drake’s Amulet” – A Legendary amulet that bears a striking resemblance to the ring that Drake wears around his neck in Uncharted
“Leoric’s Gauntlets” – These Legendary gloves summon a ghostly skeleton to fight for you
“Crimson Angelic Wings” – Call forth a set of red Angelic Wings
“Leah’s Ring” – A Legendary ring that provides bonuses to Magic Find and Gold Find

Be sure to invite your friends over too — Diablo III on PS3 features local co-op play for up to four players on the same screen. Here’s a taste of what the Lord of Terror has in store for you and your friends:

Pick up and slay

Take a stand as one of humanity’s last defenders, choosing from among the most badass demon slayers gaming’s ever seen: the Barbarian, Demon Hunter, Monk, Witch Doctor, or Wizard. Directly control your character against the hordes of the Burning Hells and unleash devastating powers — we’ve custom-built this version of Diablo III to feel perfect with a controller in hand.

Dodge all the things

Avoid incoming attacks or reposition yourself for more strategic use of your skills with a simple flick of the right analog stick. This maneuver is especially useful for ranged classes, but even a Barbarian can appreciate being able to sidestep a fireball.

Items and loot

You’ll find epic loot on your adventure and the PS3 version of Diablo III provides you with an easy way to know whether something you’ve picked up is an upgrade — without having to pause the action. Simply press up on the direction pad to scroll through the latest pieces of gear you’ve gathered. A green arrow pointing up lets you know you’ve found an upgrade, so press X and equip it!

No escaping your deadly skills

It’s always smart to focus fire. If you spy a demon that looks particularly menacing, you can hold down the left trigger while targeting it to lock on. All your attacks will then be aimed right for its face, right where they belong.

Did someone say “Epic loot”?

The game features targeted loot drops, too, so you’re more likely to find upgrades that are tailored for the class you’re playing. And since Diablo III is an equal opportunity treasure hunt, everyone playing together in local co-op can reap the rewards!

One couch to rule them all

It’s no fun having to wait around while your local co-op buddy answers the door or takes a bathroom break. We’ve designed the game so that when a break is needed, the rest of the group can keep playing—idle party members will automatically keep up with the group while they’re away!

After spending months laser-focused on creating a true Blizzard-quality console-gaming experience, we’re super excited that the game is here—and we can’t wait to see you all in Hell!

Here's what will likely be the opening to Diablo 3's "Reaper of Souls" expansion, announced today at Gamescom. Also, we hate to be that website, but Bill and Ted have foiled Death most excellently.

I just got back from E3, where we had a good showing of the PlayStation 3 version of Diablo III and announced some cool PS3-exclusive items for the game. The excitement and energy of the show reminded me of a time when people actually left the house to play videogames. Yes, I’m talking about arcades: magical places filled with vibrant colors, flashing lights, and the never-ending clink-clink-clink of tokens cascading out of a change machine. There you could find the latest and greatest games—and people to play them with. Arcades were a uniquely social experience. You could hang out and have fun with friends, or you could make new ones while bonding over joysticks.

When we decided to bring Diablo III to console platforms, we wanted our four-player co-op to allow for the same spirit of fun that thrived in arcades. Our game had to allow for equal parts teamwork and trash talking, sweaty-palmed intensity and lighthearted mass destruction. You might remember Gauntlet, the iconic dungeon crawler that helped change the face of cooperative gaming with four players on the same screen, killing monsters as the Warrior, Elf, Valkyrie, and Wizard. Thanks to Gauntlet and other popular arcade hits, gamers fell in love with co-op play. That’s the same kind of fun we’re going for with the console version of Diablo III. Four friends on the same couch, working together to slaughter endless hordes of demons, collecting loot, and having a great time — it doesn’t get any better.

We were psyched about bringing Diablo III to consoles because we could potentially create some lasting memories for a whole new group of gamers around the world, but we needed to put in some serious work to make it happen. One thing we wanted to do was highlight the action on big screen televisions, without splitting that real estate into four little screens, so we created a new camera system that stays closer to the action, making it easier to see the animation in combat, where our characters really shine.

We also wanted to really drive home the feeling of control you got with other great action games. We decided to eliminate the pathing approach required by an indirect mouse-and-keyboard interface and introduced direct character control and an Evade command on the right analog stick, putting full tactical positioning into players’ hands. We had to work on this again and again until it just felt right.

When our team took the stage at the PlayStation booth during E3, we wanted players to see exactly what makes Diablo III the perfect fit for a night of gaming. Massacring a screen full of demons with your friends and racking up a ludicrous number of kills… we don’t think there’s anything else quite like it out there. I hope that once you have your hands on it, you’ll agree.

We’re psyched that Diablo III is coming to PlayStation 3 this summer, and can’t wait for players to round up their friends for some classic “pick up and slay” action.

Just make sure to order pizza… “Wizard needs food, badly!”

Utter the phrase "Diablo for consoles" to anyone that has some familiarity with gaming history and you're bound to hear some Sideshow Bob-style shudders in response. Blizzard's skeleton-clicking series didn't have the most graceful entry into the world of console gaming, and after a disastrous 1998 PlayStation port Diablo hasn't dared to leave its PC home.

This year, however, Blizzard revealed Diablo 3 would make the transition with versions coming to Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One and PS4, finally giving console players a taste of the magic they've been missing out on for well over a decade.

Thankfully, Blizzard has been much more thoughtful this time about transitioning a mouse-and-keyboard-driven experience to console controls.

Greetings, PlayStation Nation! I’m excited to tell you that on September 3rd, PlayStation 3 gamers will join the eternal struggle between the High Heavens and the Burning Hells. That’s right, Diablo III is coming to PS3, so you’ll want to make sure your couch can seat four comfortably—when you’re smiting hordes of vile demons, it’s good to have someone watching your back.

So yeah, you might need a bigger couch.

My team has been hard at work custom-tailoring the PS3 version of Diablo III. We’re putting all the fast-paced action (and shiny loot) that Diablo is known for into the palms of your hands in a way that feels natural and fun to play using a controller. With direct character control and an intuitive user interface, all your demon-slaying skills are just a button-press away, so you’ll be able to dive right in and vanquish evil with reckless abandon.

With the game now just three months away, it’s a good time to preorder your copy with your local retailer.

If you’re looking for more information on the PlayStation 3 version of Diablo III, be on the lookout for coverage from E3, as the game will be playable on the show floor.

Deep within Blizzard Entertainment’s secret underground game development compound, a team of modern day blacksmiths and alchemists has been hard at work reforging a legendary game experience for an all-new legion of heroes. Once finished, this finely-tuned version of the bestselling Diablo III will transport PlayStation gamers to a dark and dangerous world of fast-paced action, thrilling adventure, and piles upon piles of epic loot. Pour yourself a flagon of your favorite brew, kick up your boots, and feast your eyes on this Diablo III developer diary, part of PlayStation’s “Conversations With Creators,” an ongoing series featuring numerous industry-leading game studios.

In this video, you’ll hear from three of the developers behind Blizzard Entertainment’s action role-playing epic: Production Director John Hight, Lead Designer Joshua Mosqueira, and Senior Designer Jason Bender. Together, they’ll explain how bringing the game to PS3 and PS4 has empowered them to viscerally transport players into the foreboding, demon-besieged world of Sanctuary by putting the action in the palms of their hands.

According to the team, the most critical component of the Diablo III experience on the PlayStation platform is the controller. That’s where the player develops a relationship with the character on the screen. Blizzard developers believe that “control is king,” so with Diablo III, that has translated to “the controller is king.” From a player’s perspective, there’s a fundamental difference between indirect control, with a mouse cursor, and direct control, which can be achieved with a PlayStation controller. In this video, they highlight key reasons why this method of interaction truly drives home the excitement offered by this genre-defining action role-playing game.

It’s desperate times, and innocents have been caught between the forces of the High Heavens and the Burning Hells. If you’d like to learn more about how you can do your part to save humanity, visit the official Diablo III community site and interact with other heroes of Sanctuary on Facebook and Twitter. To receive the Infernal Helm, an exclusive in-game item that grants an experience point boost to any character who wears it, preorder Diablo III for PlayStation 3 today.

If you've followed Diablo 3's development for a long time, you might remember the idea of Runestones. They were meant to be actual in-game items that could supplement character abilities in various ways, such as adding a fire attack to a melee hit, or doubling the power of a spell for free. When the game arrived last year, the Runestone system was nowhere to be seen, replaced by the controversial Skill Rune system. So where did those Runestones go? Diablo 3's technical designer Wyatt Cheng said during a talk at GDC that they're still around, in one form or another.

The Runestone system was originally created to add flexibility to character skills, and to give players a chance to experiment and play around with new abilities after they had gained them through leveling up. The original idea had ten different effects that could be added to various abilities, including striking, lethality, efficiency, life-stealing, poison, slowing and so on. But ten was too many, Blizzard decided, and they opted to boil them down into five different stone types (Crimson, Obsidian, Indigo, Golden and Alabaster) that would each affect skills in a few different ways.

Cheng said having actual stones in the inventory worked in a few different ways. It gave the system a sense of discovery, as players enjoyed seeing which stones granted certain effects, and it accomplished the original goal of allowing players to experiment with customization. Managing the stones in the game's inventory was a "nightmare," according to Cheng, and player expectations didn't always match what the stones actually provided.

In the end, the team went with the existing Skill Rune system, which allowed Blizzard to give specific skill and stone combinations more "flavorful names," and let the team make sure that the added effects were appropriate for the skills they matched. But Cheng said the effects were still in there: Some runes still slow opponents or add more damage to attacks, and those were the effects originally conferred by the stones of Indigo and Crimson.

Former Diablo 3 Game Director Jay Wilson admitted during a talk at GDC 2013 in San Francisco that both of Diablo 3's Auction Houses (both the real money and the in-game gold item auction house) "really hurt the game." Wilson said that before Blizzard launched the game, the company had a few assumptions about how the Auction Houses would work: He thought they would help reduce fraud, that they'd provide a wanted service to players, that only a small percentage of players would use it and that the price of items would limit how many were listed and sold.

But he said that once the game went live, Blizzard realized it was completely wrong about those last two points. It turns out that nearly every one of the game's players (of which there are still about a million per day, and about three million per month, according to Wilson) made use of either house, and that over 50% of players used it regularly. That, said Wilson, made money a much higher motivator than the game's original motivation to simply kill Diablo, and "damaged item rewards" in the game. While a lot of the buzz around the game attacked the real money AH, "gold does much more damage than the other one does," according to Wilson, because more players use it and prices fluctuate much more.

"I think we would turn it off if we could," Wilson said during his talk. But the problem is "not as easy as that"; with all of Blizzard's current players, he says the company "has no idea" how many players like the system or hate it. Blizzard, said Wilson, doesn't want to remove a feature that lots of players will be unhappy to see go. But he did say that the team is working on a viable solution, without giving any other details about what that would be like.

Diablo 3's Team Deathmatch mode has been a long-promised addition for players of the loot-hunting dungeon crawler since it first launched seven months ago. Though the mode is up and running at Blizzard, a blog post from Blizzard's Jay Wilson says the Player vs. Player-focused mode "isn't yet where we want it to be," and thus won't be released in its current form.

One reason the mode has eluded release is its lack of depth. "Simply fighting each other with no other objectives or choices to make gets old relatively quickly. We've brought a lot of people in to try out Team Deathmatch and, while some found it entertaining, most of our testers didn't feel like it was something they'd want to do beyond a few hours," Wilson wrote. The mode requires more varied objectives and lucrative rewards to compel players to keep playing over time, Diablo 3's lead designer added.

Another issue is class balance in a game designed with Player vs. Environment scenarios in mind. "In a casual PvP mode, something equivalent to a WoW Battleground, this would be fine, but Team Deathmatch felt very hardcore, and it put a laser focus on class balance in a way that we didn't think would be good for the game as a whole." Because of these issues, Blizzard has decided to go "back to the drawing board on a new replacement for Team Deathmatch." Whatever the mode ends up evolving into will indeed be free, Wilson noted.

Wilson adds Blizzard will add "Dueling" soon, due to fan demand. "First and foremost, if our original goal was to support dueling, then we're not achieving that goal very well if we don't actually give players a way to duel in-game," he wrote. Dueling will be added to Diablo 3 in patch 1.0.7., set to arrive after the new year.

Diablo 3's world of Sanctuary is filled with "more than 10 million" players as of the end of July, according to Activision. The publisher announced as much this afternoon in a quarterly earnings statement, dubbing it the "best-selling PC game for the first six months of 2012." Of note, at least 3.5 million of those copies were sold in the first 24 hours alone. Not too shabby!

During a followup conference call, Acti reps noted that approximately 1.2 million of those sales were through the WoW Annual Pass.

Blizzard's assuredly hoping for a repeat of that in the latter half of 2012 with its World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria. But hey, competing with yourself for the number one spot sounds like one of those "good problems," if you know what we're saying.

Blizzard Entertainment has been keeping busy, tweaking a number of aspects of its best-selling loot-hunting game, Diablo 3.

One of the hotfixes released today addresses an exploit used to circumvent the recent decreases in attack speed. Before the hotfix, players could "temporarily increase their attack speed or double-cast a skill" by repeatedly clicking the Town Portal option within the hot bar. A complete list of fixes can be found on the official game blog.

In changes made yesterday, Blizzard once again increased high-level item drops in Acts III and IV of Hell difficulty and all four acts in Inferno. The breakdown of increases can be found after the break. Not found after the break: those hundred hours you've spent clicking through Sanctuary.

Blizzard Entertainment has announced an upcoming book called The Art of Blizzard, featuring over 700 pages of forum posts whining about Diablo 3 being down.

No, just kidding, it's about the art of Blizzard and its franchises (including some unpublished titles). Mixed in among 700 pieces of visual art used in the games' development is commentary from Blizzard's Vice President of Art and Cinematic Development Nick Carpenter, Senior Art Director Sam Didier, and Senior Story VP Chris Metzen.

The book is available for pre-order right now, and should be out later on this year. The retail price is $75.00, but as you can see on Amazon it's currently selling for less.

A quirky addition to Diablo 3's patch 1.0.3 is the purchase of a digital copy of the game will restrict players to the Starter Edition for "the first 72 hours (sometimes less)." This means legitimate customers can only play Act 1 up to the Skeleton King, cap at level 13 and can only interact with other Starter Edition players.

We could easily speculate why Blizzard would put such precautions in place, but it doesn't ease our concerns about hostile actions against legitimate customers. Oh, also, given the wording on the post, this is a feature, not a bug.

Take this to mean if you're looking to impulsively marathon Diablo 3 over some upcoming free time, you'll need to pick up the game from retail or overnight a boxed copy.

Diablo 3's U.S. and European servers have come back online earlier than expected, bringing big changes to the game with patch 1.0.3, as promised. Primarily in response to player concerns, many of the changes tweak high-level item drops, reevaluate Inferno difficulty, and make drastic reductions to crafting and training Artisans.

Players who have unlocked the "Inferno" difficulty will be more impacted by today's sizable update. According to the patch notes (after the break), difficulty in Acts 2-4 have been reduced to be more in line with Act 1 - which is no slouch.

Repair costs have also seen a substantial increase for level 60 players/gear, making death a costly scenario and killing our hopes of grinding out Whimsyshire pony runs for top-end gear. One welcome change is tweaks to champion packs and their loot drops; guaranteeing rare drops in some cases (specifically when defeated under five stacks of Nephalem Valor).

Currently, the auction house feature is offline. Joystiq has contacted Blizzard to find out when it will become active again, but has yet to hear back at the time of publishing.

If you're not familiar with Diablo, then this might help explain how the game works: click, click, click, click, click.

Have you used any "hacks, bots, or modifications in any form" that would violate Diablo 3's instinctual scroll wheel-friendly end user license agreement? Well, don't come crying to us when the company drops the banhammer.

"Playing Diablo 3 legitimately means playing with an unaltered game client," Blizzard warned today. "Suspensions and bans of players that have used or start using cheats and hacks will begin in the near future."

The permaban from Battle.net means players will not be able to access their account for Blizzard's single-player, online-required game. Perhaps Blizzard would be so kind as to allow purchase of an unbanning from the real-money auction house?

After thirty hours of incessantly clicking my mouse, I completed my first run of Diablo 3. Of course, the game could have been finished in far less time - I was constantly going back to explore every area to the fullest. Any dark space on my map, signaling an area I didn't explore, gnawed at my obsessive completionist attitude.

But it had me wondering: I know how long it took to get to my final destination and I'm well aware of the spoils obtained along the way, but what had I actually done in those hours? Strip away everything about a game and you may see a simple series of patterns. So when you take the game systems, graphics, and progress out of the equation, what does the pattern of playing Diablo 3 look like and is it ever different?

What's all this "Diablo" hubbub today, you wonder? Well, you see, "Diablo" is another name for "Devil" (Spanish!) and you're this monk/warrior/witch doctor/wizard/demon hunter who's gotta kill thousands of demons to get to the main bad demon dude and ... okay, Blizzard does a much better job laying it all out.

Just because you're far away from Blizzard, Australia, doesn't mean that the publisher doesn't love you. Case in point: after hearing about the issue with Australia's GAME retail chain and how that could affect Diablo 3 pre-orders (it would effectively cancel them without refund), Blizzard took to action.

On its forums, Blizzard reps explained how Australians sffected by the issue could submit their receipt for a GAME Diablo 3 pre-order (purchased before May 15, 2012) directly to Blizzard for a refund. That "refund" only goes through after you've purchased the game directly from the official Diablo 3 site, as Blizzard's handling refunds via whatever payment method was used for the pre-order. In so many words, after paying for the game twice, Blizzard will refund your original pre-order expenditure with GAME.

Blizzard doesn't list the final instruction, perhaps out of kindness, which is to send a sharply worded letter to GAME's Australian reps. More details on how to submit your pre-order receipt to Blizzard will be posted "as soon as possible."

Thought this would be a post about the Diablo 3 cartoon short by Titmouse, and not the video itself, didn't you? Fooled again! The full, very impressive cartoon is just above. Enjoy.

When he's not busy rebelling against corrupt religious leaders, he's slaying the demons that threaten Sanctuary. He's your friend, he's mine - he's Diablo 3's Witch Doctor class. And here he is, throwing fireballs and stuff.