I highly doubt Diablo 3 has been the cash cow they had hoped for, and with the first Starcraft expansion launched with no sign of a monetization route with cust

I highly doubt Diablo 3 has been the cash cow they had hoped for, and with the first Starcraft expansion launched with no sign of a monetization route with custom games I can't imagine their ROI on it is anything breath-taking, given the developmental resources required for a game as widely played as SC2. All of this is set the back-drop of a rapidly waning WoW playerbase and revenue. Blizzard is the exception to the rule in that they typically deliver very high quality games, actually making enough money to fund that level of quality has not been consistent, while making strategic moves toward more money has consistently ended up burning them (WoW paid pets and mounts showed up about the time the player base started to get bored and diffuse to other things, the D3 RMAH has been an utter disaster since it launched)