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| [Jan 17, 2013, 7:49 pm ET] - Share - Viewing Comments |
The Diablo III Forums have an announcement from Jay Wilson that he is transitioning away from Diablo III to a different project within Blizzard (thanks IncGamers). He expresses pride in the project he's spent seven years on, though he has often served as a lightning rod for fan reactions to the game and how its design departed from previous installments in the action/RPG series. Here's a bit on what this means for the future: The first thing I want to assure you all is that this will not negatively impact our ongoing support of Diablo III. The game was not made by one person, far from it, and the team that poured their passion and considerable talent into it isn't going anywhere. We have lots of things planned for the future, and those plans will carry forward as normal. I also won't be abandoning the team, and will remain available to them during the transition period while we determine who will take over duties as game director.
To that point, you shouldn't be surprised if you see a job posting for a game director on Diablo III, as we want to make sure we explore every opportunity to find the best possible leadership for the project. We're looking forward to finding this person and hearing what kind of fresh ideas they can bring to the table.
I'm proud of Diablo III, and despite our differences at times I will miss the community that has formed around it. I feel I have made many mistakes in managing that relationship, but my intent was always to provide a great gaming experience, and be as open and receptive as possible, while still sticking true to the vision the Diablo team has for the game.
I know some of you feel we fell short of our promise to release the game "when it's ready." While we're not perfect, we try to make the best decisions we can with the information and knowledge we have at the time. That doesn't mean we always make the right decisions, but if we made a mistake then I feel we've made an exceptional effort to correct it.
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Re: Jay Wilson Leaving Diablo III |
Jan 18, 2013, 09:31 |
Verno |
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Cpmartins wrote on Jan 18, 2013, 07:32: I agree Cram. D3 wasn't a failure as a game. AS A GAME, it did exceptionally well. AS A SEQUEL TO D2, it failed miserably and ostensibly. Also it ruined the franchise, so it FAILED as well to continue the legacy.
Financially, I don't know. 10 years in development, I'd say the 10 mil turned them a profit. How much of a profit? No one outside the highest echelons of blizzard will ever know. I hope it was enough, cause they're done with that. Financially it was a massive success, at most I'd peg development at 200mil and it made three times that not including the AH stuff which is a nice ongoing revenue stream. I don't really view Diablo 3 as a total failure or something, I think what it failed to do was innovate.
Diablo 2 was a big success because it expanded and innovated, brought new features to the ARPG genre. Diablo 3 didn't really do anything new and interesting, their skill system is arguably worse since there is no permanence of choice and that kills a lot of replay value by itself. It felt a lot more inflexible too, you just have your skills and runes and that's it. No charms, no skulls, no diamonds, no cube, they just nerfed complexity wherever they found it. Want to enhance an existing skill? Tough, you can't. All you can do is iterate your item stats. When there are no consequences and you don't need to plan builds for anything then that's great for casual players but bad for people who like depth and complexity. They also weren't very open about listening to the community until the massive outcry after release.
Compare that to Path of Exile or Torchlight 2. I don't love Path of Exile but at least they are trying new things and the devs are very open about listening to feedback. The devs for Torchlight 2 are super burned out but are putting out a fully SDK so that the community can enhance and extend the game. They also supported both closed and open multiplay unlike Blizzard.
Finally Jay just offers constant non-apologies, he's a part of the entitlement generation that never takes full responsibility for their actions. It's always I'm sorry BUT then some reasoning about why they were really right and other people should feel guilty. |
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Playing: Path of Exile, Animal Crossing, Tales of Graces F Watching: Survivorman, Justified, Silent Running |
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