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?
