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

polygon.com

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

#61

Post by nodamage »

arkis22 wrote: post #46
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"?

Gamers don't judge a game based on its financial performance. They say "is this fun and do I want to continue playing it?" They decided no with D3, as did I (I played D2 for probably 7 years...) How else would you judge a piece of art besides "I personally didn't like it?" It would be seriously lame to like a game just because it made money or some critic told you to.

The fact that D3 outsold D1 and D2 combined suggests that while it might have been disappointing to some subset of players, clearly they managed to find a much bigger audience that enjoyed the game nonetheless.

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

#62

Post by badlucklottery »

electricslpnsld wrote: post #43
rendall wrote: post #26

"During a milestone check-in with Cyberlore, however, Blizzard’s managers had deemed the work subpar. They cancelled the contract, finished the add-on pack, Beyond the Dark Portal, themselves, and resolved that only an in-house team could nurture a Blizzard property to an acceptable level of quality." I was working at Cyberlore as a playtester when Blizzard pulled the plug on the Warcraft 2 expansion. It was baffling…

> These days everyone does agile Is Agile common in game development?

Anecdotal: from talking with my friends who still work in game dev, something management calls "agile" is relatively common. Lean developer staffing makes having much agility in practice kind of tough.

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

#63

Post by louithethrid »

nodamage wrote: post #61
arkis22 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamers don't judge a game based on its financial performance. They say "is this fun and do I want to continue playing it?" They decided no with D3, as did I (I played D2 for probably 7 years...) How else would you judge a piece of art besides "I personally didn't like it?" It would be seriously lame to like a game just because it made money or some critic told you to.

The fact that D3 outsold D1 and D2 combined suggests that while it might have been disappointing to some subset of players, clearly they managed to find a much bigger audience that enjoyed the game nonetheless.

It proofs nothing but a huge consumer credit regarding quality that blizzard had and that credit card is in the red now.

They gave up what made them blizzard (quality first) and became just another greedy little pachinko machine manufacture. Management can destroy a brand too- and done nothing wrong from a financial perspective.

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

#64

Post by louithethrid »

grzm wrote: post #13
FreeFull wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see your comment, so maybe you aren't hellbanned any more.

Users can vouch for dead comments which "reanimates" them. That may have been done in this case.

The dead are more interesting anyway

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

#65

Post by SerLava »

gota wrote: post #54
secabeen wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

>I reckon lots of folks rather read the comments at HN than the piece itself.

Absolutely. The style of HN and some types of Reddit comments tend to be my favorite form of of writing.

Experienced commenters learn to cut the shit, drive the point home, add some levity, and be done with it. And the best posts filter to the top.

It's 2018- we have content out the ears. Nothing makes for worse reading than that journalistic self-importance of one's own authorship.

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

#66

Post by [deleted] »

nikdaheratik wrote: post #60
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. Th…

[deleted]

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

#67

Post by arkis22 »

nodamage wrote: post #61
arkis22 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gamers don't judge a game based on its financial performance. They say "is this fun and do I want to continue playing it?" They decided no with D3, as did I (I played D2 for probably 7 years...) How else would you judge a piece of art besides "I personally didn't like it?" It would be seriously lame to like a game just because it made money or some critic told you to.

The fact that D3 outsold D1 and D2 combined suggests that while it might have been disappointing to some subset of players, clearly they managed to find a much bigger audience that enjoyed the game nonetheless.

You are still comparing sales to game engagement and longevity.

You also need to shrink the amount of D3 sales to compare it to D1/D2 sales because the game market has grown wildly since they released. Then adjust that because it was a sequel a decade in the making.

It's like comparing the star wars sequels to the original films. The nominal values are way bigger, but if you adjust them for inflation they might tell a different story.

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

#68

Post by stevenwoo »

justinclift wrote: post #49
stevenwoo wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We signed some sort of NDA which for me at this point is buried in 30 years of paperwork.

Wouldn't this be covered by the statue of limitations in your jurisdiction(s)?

I honestly don't know, I remember there was some clause where one promises not to sue then there's a payout for accrued PTO and severance which could be all standard boilerplate but not an expert on any of that. IIRC the founders of the studio got fired the day their employment contract expired and then Blizzard North got taken over by the guys from Blizzard HQ, then everyone at Blizzard North all had to re-interview for our jobs, first the IT guys so they could lock out everyone they were firing/laying off and what not.

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

#69

Post by Swizec »

SerLava wrote: post #65
gota wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

>I reckon lots of folks rather read the comments at HN than the piece itself. Absolutely. The style of HN and some types of Reddit comments tend to be my favorite form of of writing. Experienced commenters learn to cut the shit, drive the point home, add some levity, and be done with it. And the best posts filter to the top. It's 2018- we have content out the ears. Nothing makes for worse reading than that journalist…

> Experienced commenters learn to cut the shit, drive the point home, add some levity, and be done with it.

Good authors do the same.

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

#70

Post by xor1 »

I loved every Blizzard game as a kid. Warcraft 2, Diablo 1, Starcraft, Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, and then WoW. I can't stress enough how much of my life was consumed by Blizzard games.

Warcraft 2 was one of the very first games I ever owned. I still remember my dad taking me to Comp USA to buy it for me after I read about it in PC Gamer. You can hear Starcraft 1 sounds in the background in a bunch of the camera footage that my mom shot in our home while I was still in grade school. I nearly failed out of junior high because I would do nothing but play Diablo 2 outside of school. I spent all of my free time in 10th grade playing Warcraft 3 ladder and DOTA. I was playing WOW on prom night.

Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 were two of the biggest disappointments of my life. Not just gaming-wise, but out of everything. It was obvious that the people involved with making the originals great were either not involved with the new games at all, or they no longer had a major say in anything.

I heard a second-hand account from someone who used to be high up at Blizzard in regards to what happened with Blizzard North. They said the original BN guys felt they were owed more than what they were getting, that what they were receiving in terms of overall compensation and creative control was disproportionate in comparison to their contributions for the Diablo franchise, which had become a flagship Blizzard IP on par with Starcraft and Warcraft.

They gave an ultimatum, and Blizzard scrapped all of the ongoing Diablo 3 work (the Diablo 3 we got was not what BN had initially started making) and shut down Blizzard North in response. They then made Hellgate London. This is in contrast with the Guild Wars people, who left of their own accord.

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