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Video: HMV PR boss talks up massive Diablo III launch

During Monday night's launch event for Diablo III, Sam Clay spoke to HMV PR boss Gennaro Castaldo on its significance and how the movie and music industries could take a page from games.

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Gennaro Castaldo has been at HMV for short of 30 years, but has said the response to Monday night's Diablo III launch was one he was "privileged," noting the music and film industries should learn lessons from gaming's fanbase.

"I think music and film should be here. Our two biggest ever launches in HMV's history are games related: Diablo III and World of Warcraft and nothing's come close, I'd say," Castaldo told VG247 in the video above, speaking at the official launch at the retailer's flagship Oxford Street store in London.

"The only thing that actually has come close a little bit was Oasis in 1997 with the release of Be Here Now and all around the country, there was queues outside stores. But that was one of those moments where it kinda seemed to connect with a mass audience. This isn't a mass audience, it's a very specialist audience and they'll go to any lengths to be part of it.

"I think if the music and film industry could bottle up what is here, they'd be a very happy business because there's change happening in their business. They can't quite understand it, they don't quite know what their customers or their fans want, how they're behaving.

"Whereas if I was a games publisher or distributor, I'd be very happy because I'd know I'd have the most loyal fans anywhere on the planet that are into games. This is an incredible response and it's one I feel very privileged to be witnessing."

There's more there in the video above, including the possibility of more midnight openings from the retailer.

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About the Author

Johnny Cullen

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Johnny has experience at a wide range of games media outlets, having written for Eurogamer, Play Magazine, PC Gamer, GameDaily, and more. He worked at VG247 pumping out news at an astonishing rate for several years. More recently, he founded the games website PlayDiaries.

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