After ten years of waiting Diablo III has been released worldwide today. Diablo III was preordered by more than 2 million people worldwide and more than 8,000 shops opened at midnight to sell the game.

In a press release today Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment said “This launch is a culmination of many years of hard work by our development team, and many years of passionate, dedicated support from gamers around the world,” “We’re grateful for the enthusiasm of our players, and for the help of our beta testers in getting the game ready for release. Now that Diablo III is live, we hope everyone’s ready to have a hellishly good time slaying demons and collecting loot in Sanctuary.”

At present Blizzard has not revealed how many copies of the game sold, but with a minimum of 2 million preorders (about a million are likely pre-orders as the official preorder number includes World of Warcraft Annual pass promotion).