[Kotaku] The Past, Present, And Future Of Diablo by Jason Schreier

[NaDannMaGoGo]

Damn interesting article with more insider knowledge than I ever really expected to hear from current and former Blizzard devs. Though, it's unsurprising that more want to speak up in these times...

It's honestly just so depressing to be a fan of the works from a publicly traded company. There's just no way around it, growth is demanded at all times and how stupidly rich a company already is has little bearing. Hell, most private companies will go to shit eventually, I suppose, but there you at least have a chance with the right CEO. Someone like Mike Morhaime, perhaps. But alas...

 

[Deleted member 5535]

First I was happy they took the art direction into another direction but then when I cam to the monetization part....ugh...Just fo expansions ffs. Why does greed always have to get into the creative process of things and why is it getting worse and worse? Fucking turbo-capitalism.
This really reads like Activision being some sort of cancer seeping into Blizzard's company culture that brought people over the world joy for decades.


I guess for the people who went from Titan to Overwatch it did, for everyone leaving after Titan's cancellation and everyone who went to other projects it probably didn't. There has also been s much scrapped that was tinkered on for 6 years. Imagine working half a decade on something (like all those MMO aspects) and nothing comes out of it.

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I don't really agree with it. As Jason said on the comments at the Kotaku article, we can't just say "Activision ruined Blizzard", it's more intrinsic than that.

 

[Tomasdk]

Great article, but really depressing to read.
At least there is still Grim Dawn and Path of Exile (who announced another awesome looking expansion) and Lost Ark doesn't look bad either. I'll be watching but probably not be that excited for future Blizzard releases because I don't see it being Blizzard quality anymore. But I hope I' wrong on that.

 

[Atom Heart Mother]

This article told me everything I feared. Diablo's been mismanaged since 2012's release of D3, but was on the right track with Reaper. It's so obvious that something else was to come after RoS but it just never materialized. I just wish companies could accept selling 30 million copies was good enough, we don't need MTX in everything. And fuck those who defended MTX and lootboxes back then on the old forum. I remember people praising Overwatch's lootboxes. Get the fuck out of here with that.

 

[Deleted member 249]

What a fucking shit show.

 

[peppersky]

Frankly it would almost seem weird for them to not to monetize a game as inherently "addictive" as Diablo.

 

[Wamb0wneD]

I don't really agree with it. As Jason said on the comments at the Kotaku article, we can't just say "Activision ruined Blizzard", it's more intrinsic than that.

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Jason wrote right after that (in the article) that it's not necessarily Activision actively destroying things but that someone at Blizzard might think "how will this be taken in light f the recent money saving talks" when making decisions.
Maybe it has to do something with Titan, but when I read the entirety of that article and see that person for finances come in and telling the entire staff to do something that went against their corporate culture up to that point, one that was fostered for decades and led to the stellar reputation and status they got amongst fans and critics alike, or some of the employees straight up alluding to Activision being the problem, intrinsic or not, I'll walk away from it with that impression.

 

[Deleted member 1003]

Another excellent article from Jason.

 

[Ploid 6.0]

Wow the Diablo Immortals thing is pretty big, I just saw the Wendy's tweet in the Diablo reddit. Savage.

I bet Blizzard is pretty nervous about showing D4 or the next PC playable Diablo now. They will have to hit it out of the park or become a huge meme.

 

[Hailinel]

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Is there a more recent picture of Kotick? He really faded into the background after Activision realized that he's Bad PR Incarnate for them.

 

[Reddaye]

Great article by Jason, bravo. His timeline and information about Diablo 3 + Reaper + Expansion #2 lines up with things I had heard along the way as well. Management saw the game as major misstep and decided to cut their losses and not do the second expansion. Something along the lines of Mike Morhaime not wanting to charge players for another expansion after they'd poisoned the well so badly with the initial release. Parts of what was to become Expansion #2 that were actually usable were chopped up and sprinkled into free content patches for RoS. At least that's what I had heard being bandied around the community several years back. It certainly lines up pretty well with what Jason dug up here.

I'm also glad that Hades was scrapped. That doesn't sound very appealing to me at all. The biggest thing that I think Blizzard need to do is show they can deliver a blockbuster Diablo. Give fans what they want. The darker art style of 1 and 2. Builds being centered around character skills and growth, and supported by good itemization -- not the items being the core of the build. The isometric viewpoint (which I wouldn't mind changing, but I wonder how others would react?). At this point they've got Path of Exile to butt heads against, and even more ARPGS rolling in all the time. They're not the only game in town anymore.

 

[hydrophilic attack]

Is there a more recent picture of Kotick? He really faded into the background after Activision realized that he's Bad PR Incarnate for them.

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yeah for sure

but this is the meme picture, so it's the one i'm using

 

[johancruijff]

Also I feel so validated that even Blizzard recognizes how shit the art direction in 3 was, when I had people here and on GAF shitting on me for saying it looked like Warcraft.

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yeah, how long have been? 6 years?

at least everybody knows now

 

[Wamb0wneD]

yeah for sure

but this is the meme picture, so it's the one i'm using

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Bobby Kotick and DJ Khaled. Because why not.
Oh and the lady on the left seems to be Sherly Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, you know, the lady partially responsible for hiring a republican firm to smear protesters with George Soros Conspiracies.
Her and Kotick seem to be dating lmao. Shit attracts shit I guess. That's some sweet ass rabbit hole I went down for the last 5 minutes.

Kotick is just doing his job, which is to make as much money as possible for the company. I don't get the hate. Hate capitalism if you want.

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When your player says shit like: "The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games." then maybe it's ok to blame the player.

 

[disparate]

I know people keep trying to blame Activision, Shareholders TM, management/executives, etc, but maybe the problem is just Blizzard?

 

[Sölf]

The article does read depressing, but I am actually more interested in the other things, like the whole Incubation department. I am really loking forward to what that will release in the future!

Diablo Dark Souls sounds... rough? I mean, something like that could probably work. As for the over she shoulder camera, I am really not sure if the Diablo feeling can be recreated like that. But would that even be a bad thing? I am definitly interested but man, it does sound "strange". And well, it will take at least 1-2 years without hiccups until we will actually see anything.

 

[Akileese]

Jason wrote right after that (in the article) that it's not necessarily Activision actively destroying things but that someone at Blizzard might think "how will this be taken in light f the recent money saving talks" when making decisions.
Maybe it has to do something with Titan, but when I read the entirety of that article and see that person for finances come in and telling the entire staff to do something that went against their corporate culture up to that point, one that was fostered for decades and led to the stellar reputation and status they got amongst fans and critics alike, or some of the employees straight up alluding to Activision being the problem, intrinsic or not, I'll walk away from it with that impression.

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Blizzard definitely has a lot of issues that are independent of Activision, the history of Titan being chief among them. That game was in development for 7 years and while some of the assets went to Overwatch, a lot of it was all for nothing. I can't imagine that was cheap.Titan is definitely the reason Diablo IV wasn't even announced at Blizzcon. They don't want another situation where they announce a thing and then have to pull it back. When I look at it from that perspective, I can definitely understand why they wouldn't announce it. Also, if you look at the limeline of everything, it's pretty clear that Hades was supposed to be announced at Blizzcon for 10th anniversary initially, before they scrapped it and did the Necro DLC.

I think a lot of the cost saving was basically management's way of saying "hey, let's not have another Titan happen". I think that much is definitely dictated by Activision coupled with the nature of endless growth being a requirement of a publicly traded company in capitalism. I can understand not wanting decade long money pits, but it's frustrating how you can literally never make enough money for investors...and your reward for beating their expectations is even fucking higher expectations. It's a broken system.

 

[Ashodin]

Did a lot of theorizing and discussion on the Diablo discord about this.

Basically, Diablo doesn't fit their identity too much (Bright colored fun Disney-like company) right now.

I say right now because that article speaks about a very gritty and dark D4 which would be welcome to even out this image.

I'm very interested in seeing how the game is rendered, because if they want it to look like D2, they'd likely go with some sort of revolutionary filter that makes it look 2D but it's 3D.

They need to lean super hard into the gothic horror.

 

[Fall Damage]

That was a depressing read. Everything about the change in culture, cutting costs, and feeling pressure to put out more releases... Blizzard has been great for so long because they take their time, get things right, and then make it better (the polish).

I am reminded of the quote from Brian Fargo from his interview published the other day:

If you look at most of the great developers, from Blizzard to Rockstar, the thing everybody gets in those higher echelons is time. Time is the most precious thing a developer can be given.

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I suspect the reason why the second DIII expansion was cut wasn't because of a lack of faith in RoS but more because it lacked the revenue stream the original game had at launch with the RMAH. A new project would certainly have that steady money coming in so better to get it out sooner.

 

[zthan]

Great article. Glad to know D4 is still alive in some form, I really hope they manage to go through with it. The "embrace the darkness" motif they are basing the project on sounds promising, we need a dark, gritty Diablo game.

 

[RexNovis]

The idea that somebody looks at Blizzard of all studios and says "yea not profitable enough gotta cut costs" is just infuriating and soul crushing. We are talking about the company behind Overwatch, World of Warcraft and Diablo 3. If anyone has earned their autonomy it would be them. They release hit after hit after hit. But no gotta cut costs because there isn't enough growth. A billion dollars of revenue isn't enough. NEED MOAR!!!!! It's like a microcosm of everything wrong with AAA publishers.

Calling it now the cancerous rot that has led to the decay of BioWare is now slowly working its way into Blizzard. Sooner enough all of the legendary RPG devs of yesteryear will be no more. Feels bad

 

[SmartWaffles]

The idea that somebody looks at Blizzard of all studios and says "yea not profitable enough gotta cut costs" is just infuriating and soul crushing. We are talking about the company behind Overwatch, World of Warcraft and Diablo 3. If anyone has earned their autonomy it would be them. They release hit after hit after hit. But no gotta cut costs because there isn't enough growth. A billion dollars of revenue isn't enough. NEED MOAR!!!!! It's like a microcosm of everything wrong with AAA publishers.

Calling it now the cancerous rot that has led to the decay of BioWare is now slowly working its way into Blizzard. Sooner enough all of the legendary RPG devs of yesteryear will be no more. Feels bad

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As the great Jim Sterling once said: "they don't just want money, they want ALL the money!"

 

[jschreier]

Thanks for the kind words, folks.

 

[Deleted member 888]

The idea that somebody looks at Blizzard of all studios and says "yea not profitable enough gotta cut costs" is just infuriating and soul crushing. We are talking about the company behind Overwatch, World of Warcraft and Diablo 3. If anyone has earned their autonomy it would be them. They release hit after hit after hit. But no gotta cut costs because there isn't enough growth. A billion dollars of revenue isn't enough. NEED MOAR!!!!! It's like a microcosm of everything wrong with AAA publishers.

Calling it now the cancerous rot that has led to the decay of BioWare is now slowly working its way into Blizzard. Sooner enough all of the legendary RPG devs of yesteryear will be no more. Feels bad

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Thank fuck Cyberpunk is probably going to be stellar and not full of bullshit.

It is a shame the names, brands and IPs we grew up on are dying out or transforming into something unrecognisable.

Change happens, but one wishes some of these IPs and brands would be left to die with grace. Not sucked dry and the corpses dragged around like Konami's MGS plans.

 

[SirKai]

Thanks for the kind words, folks.

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Excellent article Jason.

 

[m_dorian]

Great reporting from Schreier is always expected and always delivered.

Reading all this does make me stop buying their products yet there is a new WoW patch that will help me make my mind.

I wonder if Blizzard will react to the article with something more meaty than PR language.

 

[Deleted member 8593]

One of the best parts of Jason's articles is that they're not just well-researched, they're also well-written and a joy to read. Can't wait for his second book so, uh...

, press fuck.

 

[Apathy]

Man after reading that, fuck everything about immortal, and Activision for what it's done and will continue to do to Blizzard.

I wish the founders could buy it back but it's too late now

 

[Metroidvania]

At some point in 2016 or 2017, the two companies decided to collaborate, putting together what would be called Diablo Immortal—a Diablo game, with Cheng as lead designer, made only for phones. "Essentially it exists because we've heard that China really wants it," said a current developer. "It is really for China."

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I am SHOCKED.

SHOCKED.

 

[Bombless]

It's nice to know I can kiss Blizzard goodbye. Thanks Jason.

 

[MayorReynoldsTV]

Outstanding article with a lot of great info spread throughout it.

 

[Aokiji]

I read the article at work & time to start putting some pennies aside for the blizzard as we knew it's funeral. Kotick & Activision about to wreck shop

 

[Dennis8K]

new CFO is from Activision and is focusing on cutting costs and maximizing profitability

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ahaha wow, oh well, good run and all that

 

[Trickster]

Man after reading that, fuck everything about immortal, and Activision for what it's done and will continue to do to Blizzard.

I wish the founders could buy it back but it's too late now

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Eh, it sounds like a big reason that Blizzard is making mobile games like Immortal is that it's what their veteran people actually want to do. So I don't really see that as much of an issue. Activision clearly seems like the actual issue however, when it comes to how Blizzard is run and how the company culture is being forcefully changed to closer resemble that of a company that exists to please shareholders, not customers. Will be interesting to see if Morhaimes farewell at blizzcon 2018 will be viewed as the death of Blizzard as it was known in a few years time

 

[Rubblatus]

Diablo Dark Souls sounds... rough? I mean, something like that could probably work. As for the over she shoulder camera, I am really not sure if the Diablo feeling can be recreated like that. But would that even be a bad thing? I am definitly interested but man, it does sound "strange". And well, it will take at least 1-2 years without hiccups until we will actually see anything.

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I'm happy that Diablo Dark Souls didn't happen. There's no way I can imagine that being adequate in capturing the spectacle and chaos that a modern Diablo really ought to bring with it. That said, I do think a Diablo in the vein of Norse God of War could've pulled it off with the sort of seamless integration of melee and ranged combat mechanics that game offered.

 

[neon_dream]

A spinoff Diablo would have been fine.

A third person Dark Souls Diablo IV would have been a historic disaster unless it was one of the greatest games ever made.

 

[mnemonicj]

It is very noticeable how developers in the West are appealing to the Chinese audience.
I personally do not like how the future looks; llootboxing, pay-to-win experiences, content being cut/catered to please that government (see the recent u-turn Ubi did with Siege).

 

[HStallion]

Blizzard is gonna bring back the Real Money Auction House in D4 aren't they?

 

[crimzonflame]

Add Blizzard to the same list as Konami and Squaresoft. Thought Capcom would be there too after their abysmal fighting game releases but they good now.

 

[Cort]

Add Blizzard to the same list as Konami

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Don't you guys all have Pachinkos??

 

[The Citizen Kane of Games]

Diablo 3 sells millions of copies across PC and consoles, so let's make it a third person Souls-like?

Really hope Diablo 4 will be isometric, AAA ARPG games are very rare and Souls clones are a dime a dozen.

 

[Chirotera]

Sounds a lot like Guild Wars 1. What was old, is new again?

This is why some of us are so against the current trending models of monetization in gaming. Diablo III sold 30m copies. That is a runaway success. Why the fuck do you need a long-tail monetization on a wildly-popular and successful game? Diablo the franchise is, ultimately, about randomization and near-endless replayability. Any tampering with that formula to generate shareholder value is, outside of pure cosmetic options, doomed to fail.

Blizzard is losing me as a fan. Their focus and decisions over the past few years have been disappointing. Diablo is my favorite Blizzard series. Nothing I've seen of Immortal or in the content of this article regarding Diablo IV really makes me confident that Blizzard can deliver a game that I would be happy with.

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Why make some of the money when you can make ALL of the money?

Mua ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

 

[Akileese]

Diablo 3 sells millions of copies across PC and consoles, so let's make it a third person Souls-like?

Really hope Diablo 4 will be isometric, AAA ARPG games are very rare and Souls clones are a dime a dozen.

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I'm not sure you finished reading the article. Hades was the third person Souls-like and it was cancelled midway through 2016. The current in development iteration of Diablo IV is isometric.

 

[Havok]

Sigh, more examples of corporate cost-cutting bullshit fucking things up.

The thought that you someone could look at the gobs of money pouring in from WoW and Overwatch, not to mention the less popular games that probably still rake in money... and decide that they need to cut costs somewhere is infuriating. Makes me glad i don't work for a big corporation anymore.

 

[Matrix Monkey]

Shareholders need for growth ruins everything. First Bioware now Blizzard. Sigh.

 

[Vault]

Diablo died with Blizzard North

it was their franchise

 

[Sandersson]

Anyone who is still dumb enough to defend the microtransaction greed AAA publishers have after reading this article can get out of gaming. Blizzard and Activision rake in HUGE profits (particularly from microtransactions in Activision's case) and as the article makes clear they wanted cutting costs to be a high priority.

Microtransactions clearly aren't helping Blizzard, and it looks like Activision is trying to squeeze even more profit out of Blizzard's franchises. None of that bodes well for the future.

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Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP! I need my dividends to get my RTX in march!

 

[Majiebeast]

Man this does not bode well for Blizzard.

 

[RestEerie]

Jason Schreier remains the most feared man in gaming journalism.....LOL

 

[Deleted member 8852]

Mandatory because this is literally what happened

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Itkeepshappening.gif

Such a sad thing to see happen to a beloved developer, but I fear it is too late.