Did Blizzard ever say why it took so long to release Diablo 3?

[Hypro]

Rome wasnt built in a day....

[Cairhiin]

Didn't they do that many years before even starting on D3? I seem to recall Blizzard North turning into errr Flagship(?) and making that terrible London game a long time before announcing D3.

Yes a big part of the long Diablo development time is due to the fact that Blizzard North disbanded. They were already working on Diablo 3. The whole project got scrapped. I believe it got picked up again in 2005 by Blizzard themselves who then started working on it. They however scrapped that as well as it didn't feel like it did the Diablo project justice and they started anew from scratch again which led to the current incarnation of Diablo 3 and its reveal in 2008. Part of the problem is that the game looked extremely polished already in 2008 and everyone expected release to be imminent. However the b-roll movie turned out to be pretty much scripted specifically for the event and we really had no clue how far into development they really were.

[anabolicz]

1 reason might be the extreme changes in the computer world, i mean extreme computers from 2008 is now compared to radio's running on batteries. Damn thinking about this made me realize how hard it would be to create a computer game if u dont RUSH it

[Alvito]

Another reason I think is that they kicked out Blizzard north as well who worked their previous D1 and D2's in terms of the beginning of time of the development

Blizzard North has been gone for almost 6 years and the game wasn't really being worked on then any and all current delays have nothing to do with them.

[Cairhiin]

Blizzard North has been gone for almost 6 years and the game wasn't really being worked on then any and all current delays have nothing to do with them.

Blizzard North had already started on Diablo III. This was confirmed by Max Schaefer during an interview a while ago. The screenshots that are floating about are from that project.

[announced]

they woulda got it finished sooner if it werent for those meddling kids!


but seriously its blizzard they take their time.. D3 being in the works for 5 years now.. another few months wont hurt.

[Guts]

Did no one mention the AH "trouble" that occured yet?
I read about the real money AH put Blizzard into some trouble in some country(s?), I think it was Korea.
So they had to postpone Diablo3 just to make it legal in that country as it would've been (illegal) gambling otherwise.
But I'm too lazy to write and look it up properly =D

[Deleted]

Did no one mention the AH "trouble" that occured yet?
I read about the real money AH put Blizzard into some trouble in some country(s?), I think it was Korea.
So they had to postpone Diablo3 just to make it legal in that country as it would've been (illegal) gambling otherwise.
But I'm too lazy to write and look it up properly =D

That was just conspiracy theories about why it was delayed from September till now, and not why the time period between D2 and D3 was so immense, just why the release date was delayed from the end of 2011 to now. Jay Wilson specifically said multiple times that it was not the case, and that the Korean RMAH legal battle had nothing to do with the delays for EU/USA releases.