Unicorn Day

Unicorn Day is a reference to May 9th, 2011, where Mike Morhaime announced, during the Activision-Blizzard conference call, and spoke of the Diablo III beta[1]. The conference call was covered by diii.net with a live chat client opened[2], which exceeded 900 fans eager to hear about the Diablo III beta.

The term will likely be reused for upcoming special events, such as the start of the beta and the game's release.

Naming the Day

It is named "Unicorn Day" after the long, industrious journey of the unicorn into Diablo consciousness, due in part to the art controversy, Bashiok posting images of farting unicorns, fan speculation of a secret unicorn level, Flux spurring on such debate, and a host of other sources.

History

February 9th, 2011, Activision-Blizzard held a conference call where Thomas Tippl spoke of Diablo III and had this to say[3]:

“D3 development continues to go well, and we’re very excited about the game… I’m looking forward to sharing more news about the game, and our upcoming beta, during the next conference call.”

A feverish excitement for the beta test of Diablo III ensued, spawning multiple threads across both the diablo.incgamer's forums, the battle.net forums, major media websites and other fansites around the internet.

The fever was later spurred on by @Diablo who posted the following tweet [4]:

#HashCraft -tastic bonus round! Worth: 5,911 #winning points. You come up with the best #D3Tag question and we’ll Repeat. That. Tweet

It was generally assumed that the "5,911 points" was in reference to the date of Unicorn Day, May 9th, 2011, where Blizzard announced that the beta was to begin in the third quarter of 2011.

• See the beta page to learn more about the Diablo III beta, including speculation and how to enter the random lottery for a beta key.