You might play Diablo III before the end of the year. You might not. Probably not, if I'm a betting man.

Even though Activision and Blizzard Entertainment are one and the same, Blizzard's treated differently than the rest of the company, with Activision never committing Blizzard to release dates or guaranteeing revenues until the game's actually out.

Blizzard was as non-committal as ever in today's call with investors, with Blizzard CEO Michael Morhaime once again restating that the company hopes to deliver Diablo III before the end of the year.

This is just a hope, though.

"[We're] not ready to commit to a release date at this time," said Morhaime.

"There's a lot of moving parts in putting out a complicated release like Diablo III," he said later. "We're not yet in beta. It's really going to come down when the game is ready for prime-time. We'll know more when we hit beta and we'll know more when we put some of these new systems into test."

The new systems he's alluding to are, for example, the controversial real-money auction house.

Morhaime also said the impending beta test is scheduled before the end of the current quarter, which means sometime between now and the end of October.

Cross your fingers, folks.