Gameplay Video

A gameplay video is a video showing gameplay action: actual footage of characters battling monsters; what players see as they're playing the game. Blizzard releases these periodically to promote Diablo III, and show off their progress in game development.

Other gameplay movies are recorded by fans, pointing video cameras at the monitors during various public events.

Official Gameplay Videos

Blizzard has released a number of gameplay videos thus far, almost always to coincide with their WWI or Blizzcon shows.

Gameplay: WWI 2008 -- This 15-minute movie showed the Barbarian and Witch Doctor, and was the first look at Diablo III. It debuted at the Paris WWI event in June 2008.
Gameplay: Blizzcon 2008 -- Six minutes of footage featuring the Wizard in the dungeons below the Tristram Cathedral, plus multiplayer action.
Gameplay: Blizzcon 2009 -- Thirteen minutes featuring the Monk in the Borderlands desert, tombs, and the doomed city of Alcarnus. Plus extensive four-player multiplayer action.
Artisan Video -- Released in August 2010, this video introduces the Artisan NPCs. There is a very short clip of Monk combat at the very end of the movie.
Gameplay: Blizzcon 2010 -- Seventeen minutes featuring the Demon Hunter, plus multiplayer PvM action. The last four minutes debuted the PvP Battle Arena.

After the Activision/Blizzard quarterly financial conference call on May 9th, 2011, Blizzard started making regular announcements of gameplay systems. These press releases were accompanied by video footage:

Follower Video -- This short video was released in May 2011 to introduce the three Followers (replacing Diablo II's Hirelings): the Scoundrel, the Templar, and the Enchantress. It features clips of the followers in battle.
Rune Effect Videos -- Also released in May 2011, these 5 short clips showcase all rune effects for one skill from each class: the Barbarian's Whirlwind, the Demon Hunter's Cluster Arrow (making its debut), the Monk's Sweeping Wind, the Witch Doctor's Acid Cloud, and the Wizard's Ray of Frost.

The beta build was shown off in a seven-minute video released in July 2011.

July 2011 Gameplay movie.

Cinematic Movies

Blizzard has only released one video with actual pre-rendered cinematics, and it was part of the game's premiere, in June 2008. Diablo III will include short cinematics after each act, as was done in Diablo II, but what those cinematics will show has been kept under tight wraps.

The introductory cinematic.

Since that debut movie, the Wizard, Monk, and Demon Hunter were debuted in machinima-style movies, recorded with the game engine. These sorts of movies will not be included with the game (they were with StarCraft II). In addition to the cinematic portions, these movies include some gameplay action as well, which is why they are listed on this page.

Cinematic: Wizard -- The Wizard's cinematic was released in October 2008 at Blizzcon.
Cinematic: Monk -- The Monk's cinematic was released in August 2009 at Blizzcon.
Cinematic: Demon Hunter -- The Demon Hunter's cinematic was released in October 2010 at Blizzcon.

Shaky Cam Gameplay Movies

There have been dozens of fan-recorded gameplay movies, filmed at Blizzcon and other public events. These movies are usually quite poor quality, partially because they have to be filmed surreptitiously, since Blizzard does not permit photos or videos to be taken of the monitors at such events.

Blizzard doesn't seem to mind the distribution of these movies though, since they don't delete threads linking to them from the Battle.net forums, they don't ask fansites not to post them, and they don't make copyright claims to get them deleted from YouTube.

Ten minutes of Demon Hunter and Wizard, from Gstar, November 2010.

Sneaky zoom in closeup starts @ 1:01. Gamescon, August 2010.

Despite their low image quality and little to no game sound, many fans enjoy this sort of "ninja" footage. They give a more accurate idea of what it's like to actually play the game, chiefly since the action is continuous, rather than edited into a highlight package, and since the UI is visible. Though the footage is usually too blurry to enjoy or read, the interface, monster names, item stats, inventory, skill tree, quests, and other display windows are visible in shaky cam movies.

Blizzard does not show those elements of the game in their official movies and seldom releases any screenshots of them. Which, of course, fuels the fan desire to see them.

There are not individual wiki articles for such videos, but they can be seen on YouTube, via links from Diablo fan sites.