How a Diablo expansion led to behind-the-scenes trouble • Hacker News Board

Re: How a Diablo expansion led to behind-the-scenes trouble

#51

Post by jack9 » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 1:38 AM UTC

NathanOsullivan wrote: post #50

alexbeloi wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The relevant metrics would be daily/monthly active useres (DAU/MAU) and churn rate. But Blizzard doesn't report those number's unless they're good (e.g. Hearhstone/Overwatch hitting new record MAU last year), and hasn't ever released any such numbers for Diablo 3. This article[0] claims Blizzards overall MAU was close to flat YoY-Q4 2016-2017, knowing that Overwatch and Hearthstone are hitting records high MAU, while…

Diablo 3 does not have a recurring fee so it is not relevant how many active players it has; the only relevant metric is units sold.

> the only relevant metric is units sold.

That's an arbitrary statement. The only relevant metric is revenue outside of whatever bars you would like to matter. Over time, units sold is a poor return and D3 was disappointing against every prediction beyond units sold. It was a disaster, in comparison to the recurring success of PoE.

Re: How a Diablo expansion led to behind-the-scenes trouble

#52

Post by 3131s » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 1:51 AM UTC

KozmoNau7 wrote: post #34

busterarm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? From my read of the article it seemed like most of the staff at Blizzard was incredibly immature and the kind of folks that bury their heads in the sand while ignoring reality. And just to double down on my unpopular opinion, Diablo 1 was the best game in the franchise.

>“Diablo 1 was the best game in the franchise." That is a bold statement, but I am inclined to agree. Obviously D2 is bigger, prettier, has more varied classes, more items, more everything. I absolutely adore that game, and I have spend hundreds and hundreds of hours playing it. But the original... It just has that darker and more grim, less cartoons tone. Plus it came out when I was 10 years old, which obviously inf…

> Plus it came out when I was 10 years old

I was 9. It's one of my favorite games ever. I lost interest in D2 pretty quickly, but I still come back to D1 every few years. I made my wife play it too and after about an hour she was hooked and became inseparable from the computer until beating the game a week or two later.

Re: How a Diablo expansion led to behind-the-scenes trouble

#53

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 2:53 AM UTC

cpeterso wrote: post #32

juskrey wrote: post #12

Can anyone recommend a book on gamedev industry written by actual industry insider, and not a professional writer/journalist like this one?

Not a book, but here are two GDC postmortem talks from people who worked on Diablo 3. There are many interesting GDC talks about game development! GDC 2013: Shout at the Devil: The Making of Diablo III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG10e0-JyjY GDC 2015: Against the Burning Hells: Diablo III's Road to Redemption with Reaper of Souls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bajI1oGPhog

[deleted]

Re: How a Diablo expansion led to behind-the-scenes trouble

#54

Post by gota » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 3:01 AM UTC

secabeen wrote: post #33

juskrey wrote: post #12

Can anyone recommend a book on gamedev industry written by actual industry insider, and not a professional writer/journalist like this one?

You may find that such a book, while interesting, will be a hard read. Writing is a skill, and one crafted by journalists, not necessarily by game development experts.

I... don't know about that. I reckon lots of folks rather read the comments at HN than the piece itself.

The journalistic 'style' of journalistic pieces seems 'too fiddly' for some, and even 'infantilized' for other people. It's a matter of taste and I'm sure this style is set as standard because it works, i.e., pleases the majority of readers.

I have an interest in this bacause I accidentally studied a bit (one of my majors shared some of its credits with the Journalism program at my college).

The things people dislike, as I see them:

1- Giving context through elongated prose or "fluff", instead of straight to the point facts. Some people would just rather have a list of the games Synergistic worked in instead of the five first paragraphs of this piece, for example. Also: "Blizzard’s protests fell on deaf ears. CUC was determined (...)" vs. "Blizzard protested but CUC did not comply".

2- Using examples when they're not needed (for that audience). Explaining what happened of relevance in the 70's for someone who was _there_ during said period, for example.

3- Nonlinearity in telling the story. Going back and forth on quotes from different people. Presenting the controversy kinda like a conversation. Makes the editing clear and some readers reject pieces where it's clear some stuff was left out or is out of order.

Anyway, maybe I've written too much about this. In any case, I really do believe that, in this age of personalized content, there are enough people who reject the 'journalistic style' to warrant publications that actively avoid it.

Re: How a Diablo expansion led to behind-the-scenes trouble

#55

Post by lev99 » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 3:09 AM UTC

snvzz wrote: post #5

It's a mystery how Blizzard then went on to release the failure Diablo 3 is.

Reaper of Souls and loot 2.0 really redeemed Diablo 3.

The season 14 tier ranking video has 350k views in 2 weeks[0], which is great considering patch 2.6 is essentially 3 seasons old now and RoS is several years old.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQDmMoZTKYs

Re: How a Diablo expansion led to behind-the-scenes trouble

#56

Post by Groxx » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 3:15 AM UTC

cpeterso wrote: post #32

juskrey wrote: post #12

Can anyone recommend a book on gamedev industry written by actual industry insider, and not a professional writer/journalist like this one?

Not a book, but here are two GDC postmortem talks from people who worked on Diablo 3. There are many interesting GDC talks about game development! GDC 2013: Shout at the Devil: The Making of Diablo III https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG10e0-JyjY GDC 2015: Against the Burning Hells: Diablo III's Road to Redemption with Reaper of Souls https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bajI1oGPhog

GDC postmortems in general are quite high-density in goodness.

Re: How a Diablo expansion led to behind-the-scenes trouble

#57

Post by jxi » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 3:22 AM UTC

seattle_spring wrote: post #11

kid0m4n wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define failure?

Using the name and legacy of a good game to market a different game that is basically nothing like its predecessors in spirit. Diablo 3 is Jar Jar Binks to the original Star Wars trilogy.

Is it really nothing like d2 in spirit? It's maybe a little less "dark" with a weaker storyline, but it's still very much the same genre of hack and slash game with very similar combat and item mechanics. You're definitely exaggerating.

Re: How a Diablo expansion led to behind-the-scenes trouble

#58

Post by stavrus » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 4:13 AM UTC

juskrey wrote: post #12

Can anyone recommend a book on gamedev industry written by actual industry insider, and not a professional writer/journalist like this one?

One of the level designers for WoW has apparently written a book on the game's original development. The Kickstarter [1] for it failed due to an unrealistic funding goal, but if you're looking for something along those lines it might be something you'd be interested in keeping track of as he's planning on re-launching a funding campaign with a smaller budget.

Not a book, but the blog posts on making the original Crash Bandicoot [2] make for a great read, especially due to some of the issues they ran into in trying to squeeze out every last bit of performance from the original Playstation. [3]

[1]: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/476291819/the-world-of-...

[2]: https://all-things-andy-gavin.com/2011/02/02/making-crash-ba...

[3]: https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-hardest-bug-youve-debugged

Re: How a Diablo expansion led to behind-the-scenes trouble

#59

Post by nodamage » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 5:04 AM UTC

alexbeloi wrote: post #48

nodamage wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diablo 3 sold 3.5 million units the first day and 30 million units total as of 2015, so I'm not sure by what metric it would be considered a failure... aside from "I personally didn't like it"?

The relevant metrics would be daily/monthly active useres (DAU/MAU) and churn rate. But Blizzard doesn't report those number's unless they're good (e.g. Hearhstone/Overwatch hitting new record MAU last year), and hasn't ever released any such numbers for Diablo 3. This article[0] claims Blizzards overall MAU was close to flat YoY-Q4 2016-2017, knowing that Overwatch and Hearthstone are hitting records high MAU, while…

> The relevant metrics would be daily/monthly active useres (DAU/MAU) and churn rate.

This metric doesn't really make sense for a (mostly) single player game like Diablo. Once the player has finished the game they're unlikely to return. For a game released six years ago of course we would expect the current active player base to be very small - most of them have since moved on to other games.

Re: How a Diablo expansion led to behind-the-scenes trouble

#60

Post by nikdaheratik » Mon, Jul 02, 2018, 5:08 AM UTC

snvzz wrote: post #5

It's a mystery how Blizzard then went on to release the failure Diablo 3 is.

Diablo 3 is a good game with alot to recommend it. It wasn't ideal at launch, but they've worked out the kinks and it's still fun to pick up and play.

I think the problem is that Diablo at launch was a test bed for some of their other properties so it ended up with some bad ideas. The RMAH (for example) was a bad idea, but it helped to point them to the right direction in their F2P and other monitizing approaches. The way they handle auto-generated maps and monsters is used quite a bit in the changes they've made to WoW as well as some of their talent choices.

I think for alot of hard core RPG fans, Elder Scrolls and other similar titles do a better job of hitting the sweet spot as they support alot more long term character growth and have a bigger world. But Diablo 3 is still great for people who want to just beat up some pixels and enjoy a little gothic storytelling.