A war of words has broken out between some current Blizzard employees and Blizzard North co-founder David Brevik after the latter revealed he was "a little sad" about how Diablo III turned out.
Brevik, who designed Diablo I and II but had no involvement in the third game in the franchise, was asked by IncGamers during Gamescom what he felt about Blizzard's latest dungeon crawler.
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I am also a little happy, which I hate to say, it shows that the people that were involved in Diablo really did matter, and so I am happy that it has come to light.
He responded, "I have very mixed emotions about it. On one hand I am sad that people haven’t enjoyed Diablo because it’s a love, a passion, and it's obvious people still have a giant love and passion for Diablo... That makes me feel great.
"I am sad because people are outraged and... some of the decisions they have made are not the decisions I would make, and there have been changes in philosophy and that hasn’t gone over very well...
"I am also a little happy... I hate to say, [but] it shows that the people that were involved in Diablo really did matter, and so I am happy that it has come to light that how talented that group was, how unique and special... when the people leave the game changes, and it shows how critical people are in this industry."
His comments provoked a Facebook status update by former Diablo 3 technical artist Chris Haga, which was quickly leapt on by other contributors to the game. In the post, Haga originally stated, "Suddenly I feel like I was just thrown under a bus," before more of the game's developers shared their views. Unfortunately, this exchange was then screenshotted and posted on Reddit. It's since been removed from there, but you can see it below:
One of the comments that has drawn the most attention is that of Diablo 3 game director Jay Wilson, who replied saying "F*** that loser". A number of other game developers took to Twitter last night to label his reaction as heavy-handed, considering Brevik's fairly mild comments about the current state of a franchise he helped create.
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Blizzard arrogance has reached new heights.
Red 5 CEO and former Diablo II producer Mark Kern tweeted, "Gotta say, that Jay Wilson, never having been at Blizzard for D1 and D2 and never having met Dave Brevik, has no place to say what he did.
"Dave Brevik created 2 genre-busting, award winning, world-loved Diablo games. Jay Wilson has done ____ with Diablo 3. Fill in the blanks.
"Blizzard arrogance has reached new heights," he concluded.
Brevik is currently company president of Gazillion Entertainment, which is working on the upcoming Marvel Heroes. While the Diablo-style MMO has no estimated release date right now, it's been referred to in the past as "the spiritual successor" to Diablo II.
Luke Karmali is IGN's UK Editorial Assistant. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on IGN and on Twitter.
Source : ign[dot]com
