Drama Storm Brews Between Generations of Diablo Game Devs

Last weekend at Gamescom, Incgamers caught up with Diablo I and II mastermind / Gazillion Entertainment CEO David Brevik for an interview regarding his thoughts on Diablo III. "It was a very different game than I would have created," Brevik explained.

"The team and personalities, the people, the talent and all the design philosophies of the people that worked on it in Irvine, we called them Blizzard South, those people have their own style and the their own way they like to design. It was very, very different from the Blizzard North."

Despite its popularity and record sales, Diablo III has continually faced criticism from the franchise's biggest fans. Amongst the pressure of dwindling players and today's big 1.0.4 patch, it seems like mild criticism from the creator of the franchise hit a little too close to home for some of the Diablo III team. 

In a status update mentioning the interview from Diablo III technical artist Chris Haga, Jay Wilson commented a cold, "F*** that loser." Screenshots were taken and the comment echo'd throughout the internet, heating up arguments between Diablo III critics and fans. In response to Wilson's comment, CEO of Red 5 and 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,"

Since the closing of Blizzard North in 2005, Brevik has worked on titles such as Torchlight and is currently developing the highly anticipated Marvel Heroes. Representing Gazillion Entertainment's stance on the matter, VP of Marketing Leo Olebe commented, "We admire Blizzard and Blizzard games. David was asked about Diablo 3 and gave his honest opinion and we stand by him 100%. Marvel Heroes is David’s vision and is the spiritual successor to Diablo 2. We’ll be in closed beta soon, so visit MarvelHeroes.com if you want to check it out.”

How do you feel about the exchange? Was Wilson's comment out of line, or was Brevik's Blizzard South commentary too harsh?

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Tuan Mai
Tuan Mai is a Los Angeles based writer and marketing manager working within the PC Hardware industry. He has written for Tom's Guide since 2010, with a special interest in the weird and quirky.
  • Diablo 3 Was great the first time through it. Struggled to keep interested to finish Inferno.....Now it's just boring trash. Paragon. What a lame attempt to keep people playing.

    Diablo 2 Still great.

    I wonder who should be f*@#ed
    Reply
  • gorz
    IMO Blizzard hasn't made a good game since warcraft 3
    Reply
  • capt_taco
    Between the always-online crap and the decision to go all-out for multiplayer, there was so much wrong with this game from the get-go that I was barely interested in it. And I spent so much time on Diablo II that I nearly failed out of college. He took the series straight off the cliff.
    Reply
  • hotroderx
    Blizzard use to be a good company but seriously bashing a former employee on a public website like that is uncalled for. Seriously D3 development team needs to grow up.
    Reply
  • lunaticwoda
    Dear jay and Jill
    Jill your a ignorant fuck with no talent other than to wow the game up as much as possible. Jay dont let your corporate buddies fool you. YOU didnt create the most selling game of all time DAVID DID. This game could of been done with fucking stick figures and we would of STILL bought it. We hoped for good gameplay (its adequet at best) we hoped for an amazing story line to finish this game Metzen hasn't had talent in now over a decade. The game is bad the story is pitiful unless your a mindless drone. Thiz blizzard team management are just a bunch of corprate cock sucking idiots with no talent.
    Reply
  • bebangs
    F*ck that loser - referring to Jay Wilson.
    Reply
  • apogaios
    Nice one, Jay. You tub of lard.
    Reply
  • BigBodZod
    lunaticwodaDear jay and JillJill your a ignorant fuck with no talent other than to wow the game up as much as possible. Jay dont let your corporate buddies fool you. YOU didnt create the most selling game of all time DAVID DID. This game could of been done with fucking stick figures and we would of STILL bought it. We hoped for good gameplay (its adequet at best) we hoped for an amazing story line to finish this game Metzen hasn't had talent in now over a decade. The game is bad the story is pitiful unless your a mindless drone. Thiz blizzard team management are just a bunch of corprate cock sucking idiots with no talent.

    The only reson I'm giving D3 a one, is beacuase, the voices where pretty good.

    But that's it!!!

    Reply
  • Pennanen
    Blizzard, bioware, dice... so many good developers turning bad lately.
    Reply
  • deicided
    PennanenBlizzard, bioware, dice... so many good developers turning bad lately.
    Blame EA for the Dice one. Sticking their sticky fingers in dev matters trying to squeeze as much as possible out of the BF franchise and trying way to hard to convert CoD players to massive, open, strategic and team base gameplay and looked what happened to the final result.
    Reply