
How a Diablo expansion led to behind-the-scenes trouble - sidereal
https://www.polygon.com/features/2018/6/29/17517376/diablo-hellfire-expansion-behind-the-scenes-trouble?
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rendall
"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 to us all. They never explained why,
to us anyway. All these years later, to read that they felt the work was
subpar is a surprise. We tried to get more info, but all we got was "Decision
is made. Hand over all assets." We just thought it was some kind of internal
political struggle.

These days everyone does agile, so these kind of big expectation mismatches
don't happen so often anymore. In theory, anyway.

~~~
electricslpnsld
> These days everyone does agile

Is Agile common in game development?

~~~
badlucklottery
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.

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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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zbentley
> Per the terms of the sale, Ken Williams was given a verbal promise by CUC
> management that Serra[sic] and the other studios wrapped up in the purchase
> would retain their independence.

That does not make sense to me, though I may be missing something. It's either
a "verbal [only] promise" or in the "terms", no?

~~~
everdev
Both are legally binding and they could have both a verbal agreement and have
that reflected in the terms, but there sentence structure is odd.

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dstick
If you like these sorts of stories be sure to give Blood Sweat and Pixels from
Kotaku’s Jason Schreier a read! :)

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

~~~
cpeterso
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](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](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bajI1oGPhog)

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

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humbleMouse
Somebody should make a dramatized documentary about the making of diablo. It's
discussed like every 2 weeks on here, somebody should make a documentary.

~~~
seattle_spring
Someone should just make a sequel worthy of the name.

~~~
ixwt
A lot of people call Path of Exile a spiritual sequel to Diablo 2.

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dom96
Off topic: the cookie acceptance dialog that polygon uses is broken. It shows
a spinner and doesn't disappear. Why does this even need a spinner? I'm seeing
similar behaviour on multiple websites now, it's infuriating.

~~~
Chris_Chambers
GDPR requires you to “prove” you gained consent by creating a server-side
timestamped log of the option each user chooses.

But you cannot see my comment because I was hellbanned, so enjoy wondering.

~~~
vertex-four
The user is only given one option here, to accept tracking - the website isn’t
even trying to be GDPR compliant, apparently they do not foresee having any EU
visitors and so have no need to be. As a result, I’m not reading the damn
thing.

~~~
polski-g
Or a US company isn't going to comply with EU laws because they have no reason
to.

~~~
vertex-four
If you make money off E.U. citizens, you should comply with E.U. laws. Simple
as that. If you don’t want to comply with the laws of a country, do not make
money off people there.

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

~~~
nodamage
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"?

~~~
alexbeloi
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 overall MAU is flat means that the other games (D3, SC2, HotS) are
losing players.

It's a success in the way Matrix Revolutions was a success, massively
profitable[1] yet a disappointment to fans (see diablo 3 fan ratings[2]).

[0] [https://venturebeat.com/2018/02/08/blizzards-monthly-
active-...](https://venturebeat.com/2018/02/08/blizzards-monthly-active-users-
for-q4-2017-drop-just-a-bit-from-2016s-number/)

[1] [https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Matrix-Revolutions-
The#tab...](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Matrix-Revolutions-
The#tab=summary)

[2] [http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/diablo-
iii](http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/diablo-iii)

~~~
NathanOsullivan
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.

~~~
jack9
> 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.

