Jay Wilson steps down from Diablo 3

[BenBos]

Are.. Are you for real right now? Do you even realize why and how that doesn't make sense in the slightest?

Profit is profit, get logic'd.

The profit of a WoW subscription far outweighs 12 million box sales of any other Blizzard game dude.

Diablo3 is a perfect game to play casually and return to without the need of long term attunements.

I am pretty sure Morhaime is very pleased D3 sold massively but didn't hurt too much the long term WoW subscriptions after the dip of 9.1 million subs the months D3 launched.

Frank Pierce already expressed concerns about D3 taking too much players from WoW back in 2010.

Present day D3 play succeeded in creating a casual game you return to on a regular basis but apparently WoW survived throughout 2012 with a healthy 10 million subs, bringing in the usual 1 billion+ subscription dollars.

As such D3 fills in perfectly a gap in the BattleNet game choices. Add Blizzard All Stars and SC2 for PvP and WoW for a fantasy MMO an you will see that each game in this stable doesn't overlap the others.

Titan will be treated the same way: probably by introducing a complete other kind of on line game to fill the last gap.

[Cybran]

Imagine you grow up working toward your dream: being a game designer. Then imagine that you end up being called a 'fucking loser' by players who disagree with your decisions even though they were made with the best intentions.

You guys are the losers here, not Wilson.

He called the person who created Daiblo 2 a fucking loser. He called the man who SOLD 10 million copies of his shit games a fucking loser in the first place. Wilson is the biggest douche and deserves to be shunned out of the industry as a whole. We can only hope he never gets his hands on a game ever again.

[BenBos]

He called the person who created Daiblo 2 a fucking loser. He called the man who SOLD 10 million copies of your shit games a fucking loser in the first place. Wilson is the biggest douche and deserves to be shunned out of the industry as a whole. We can only hope he never gets his hands on a game ever again.

And Brevik is a loser in this industry in tha last 10 years. In the sense of not being able to create anything in the last 10 years.

While Jay Wilson was lead designer in games like Company of Heroes, Dawns of War, Diablo 3 all games ... That outsold the now defunct D1 and D2 by a wide margin.

All in the last decade.

It is like Pele attacking the style of play of Messi: you don't do that unless you are a moron. Brevik acted like one.

[A Challenger!]

The profit of a WoW subscription far outweighs 12 million box sales of any other Blizzard game dude.

Diablo3 is a perfect game to play casually and return to without the need of long term attunements.

I am pretty sure Morhaime is very pleased D3 sold massively but didn't hurt too much the long term WoW subscriptions after the dip of 9.1 million subs the months D3 launched.

Frank Pierce already expressed concerns about D3 taking too much players from WoW back in 2010.

Present day D3 play succeeded in creating a casual game you return to on a regular basis but apparently WoW survived throughout 2012 with a healthy 10 million subs, bringing in the usual 1 billion+ subscription dollars.

As such D3 fills in perfectly a gap in the BattleNet game choices. Add Blizzard All Stars and SC2 for PvP and WoW for a fantasy MMO an you will see that each game in this stable doesn't overlap the others.

Titan will be treated the same way: probably by introducing a complete other kind of on line game to fill the last gap.

You uh... Managed to articulate your point a lot better this time around, but I still stand by the ideology that designing a game around keeping subscription sales within another is foolishness of the highest calibur.

One Diablo III sale is four months worth of a WoW subscription, and that isn't factoring in the RMT cash-in. Not only that, but I'd go as far as to say the majority would keep their WoW subscriptions while they played Diablo III, further increasing profit.

It just doesn't come off as sound thinking to me, if that was Jay "Fuck That Loser" Wilson's plan.

It is like Pele attacking the style of play of Messi: you don't do that unless you are a moron. Brevik acted like one.

See my previous comment about how you don't say things like that about the man who was not only asked for his opinion, but was also very polite about it as well. When someone was as diplomatic in his statements as Brevik, you are the real loser in the "battle" when you run off to your friends like they are some high school club and whining all the way.

I don't care how many 'successes' Wilson had or has, he acted like a complete and total toddler in this instance, especially since that "loser" he was talking about helped create the very game Wilson supposedly ruined.

[Pendulous]

It is like Pele attacking the style of play of Messi: you don't do that unless you are a moron. Brevik acted like one.

No, Brevik's words were pretty formal. http://www.gamebreaker.tv/pc-games/that-loser/

Wilson's the one that went "fuck that loser".

The odd thing is, with all the designers and stuff on that Facebook post, it almost looks like one of those fake ones people make for laughs.

[Cybran]

And Brevik is a loser in this industry in tha last 10 years. In the sense of not being able to create anything in the last 10 years.

While Jay Wilson was lead designer in games like Company of Heroes, Dawns of War, Diablo 3 all games ... That outsold the now defunct D1 and D2 by a wide margin.

All in the last decade.

It is like Pele attacking the style of play of Messi: you don't do that unless you are a moron. Brevik acted like one.

Also saying that Brevik's last games are not great is like saying that Alien isn't great, because Prometheus. It's fucking moronic to claim that his latest work negatively impacts his great previous games.

Quality > Sales

[Gigapants]

I doubt Jay will screw up Titan (assuming that's where they put him) cause that's where they also put Jeff Kaplan in 2009 who was responsible for what many argue were the best days of WoW. I'm assuming Kaplan is lead designing Titan so Jay won't put his grubby mitts on it, hopefully.

[Girlyman]

No, Brevik's words were pretty formal. http://www.gamebreaker.tv/pc-games/that-loser/

Wilson's the one that went "fuck that loser".

The odd thing is, with all the designers and stuff on that Facebook post, it almost looks like one of those fake ones people make for laughs.

I watched the video, felt like backhanded compliments.
If he had more time to think or get his ideas in order it wouldn't have happened.

[tankbug]

I don't anything about this guy really, but I must say that I enjoyed diablo 3. I don't rage over imperfections, because for me it's just a simple single-player game, not a Wow-killer. I loved D2 back in the days, but if it wasn't for the lore, I wouldn't touch it today.

[BenBos]

You uh... Managed to articulate your point a lot better this time around, but I still stand by the ideology that designing a game around keeping subscription sales within another is foolishness of the highest calibur. One Diablo III sale is four months worth of a WoW subscription, and that isn't factoring in the RMT cash-in. Not only that, but I'd go as far as to say the majority would keep their WoW subscriptions while they played Diablo III, further increasing profit.

It just doesn't come off as sound thinking to me, if that was Jay "Fuck That Loser" Wilson's plan.

You can't play hardcore 2 games at once. The vast majority can only play one MMO and dabble a bit in a few other games. It is even the major reason why the vast majority still comes back to WoW as their prime MMO.

D3 play blends in perfectly within the Blizzard stable at the moment.

Also: the revenue of a game like D3 is like 25 dollars tops when it is sold at 60 dollars retail. That means Diablo 3 will have brought in

around 500 million dollars net revenue (50% retail) for the complete year 2012, that's only half of WoW's usual revenue.

But far more important is the fact these D3 sales didn't hurt the long term MMO play of WoW subscriptions which was their main target for now.

The 15% RMAH profit is just peanuts (1 million sales at 10 dollars = 1.5 million per month) as Blizzard makes around 1.2 to 1.4 billion dollars each year. RMAH is just there to support the infrastructure of D3.

----

Btw I already said that this "offer" of different games was ALSO the reason for not having PvP in D3: they have better balanced games for that: SC2 as rts and Blizzard All Stars as their dota game. Both these games have far better starter systems to support esports.

---> Perhaps Jay Wilson didn't agree with the fact his future PvP plans were ... Scrapped. Wilson sounded enthousiastic when he twittered his SOON to be PvP system in late Nov, but he was called back obviously, so they scrapped his system completely.

Perhaps that was the time he realised Blizzard overruled his proposed PvP system for D3 because other games were simply better suited to become a real esport thing (Morhaime big dada...).

It is ALL a question of dividing your resources into the correct markets really.

As such D3 plays its role perfectly.

---------- Post added 2013-01-18 at 10:22 AM ----------

I doubt Jay will screw up Titan (assuming that's where they put him) cause that's where they also put Jeff Kaplan in 2009 who was responsible for what many argue were the best days of WoW. I'm assuming Kaplan is lead designing Titan so Jay won't put his grubby mitts on it, hopefully.

And Blizzard better keeps Kaplan in as the lead designer of Titan as I already see the MASSIVE number of complaints and whiners of all these WoW addicts coming in when Titan will launch.

at least Blizzard can say by then: it is the same dude

For the record I pity Jeff Kaplan already ...as hating Blizzard is fast becoming a national sport anyway.

Somehow the human race always has this self destruction inside.

[Nerraw]

No matter what he personally has or hasn't had a hand in regarding D3, he's been a scapegoat for the entire team. I'm not sure if it's a good or bad thing that he's gone from the team, but good luck to him in whatever project he's being moved to.

Also a very clever move to not disclose said project that he'll be working on.

[Coorpse]

Yeah way too late on this one. Diablo isn't alone in this "Releasing of Betas" and calling them the actual ready game. It's been a couple solid years now of bitter disappointments. Beta should have lasted until the game was in a very good place. There wouldn't have been that huge outflow of players not to far after release. How did they not learn that lesson from Star Wars and the infamous "Box Farming"?

[Deleted]

Don't let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya.

[Howard Moon]

As long as the auction house remains in the game, there is no salvaging of Diablo to a level it could possibly be on without it. That is just IMO, but AH (RMAH even more) ruins the whole point behind this kind of game.

Agreed. The AHs are the biggest out of the many flaws that D3 has, but I don't see it being removed even after Jay Wilson's departure.

[TheOne]

It's not solely his fault. It's Blizzard. WoW, Starcraft, Diablo, it doesn't matter, they are all just shells of their former selves. The problem is mainly the company itself, not just its employees. It's the people at the top that are calling the shots.

[Enkidulgaa]

Yeah way too late on this one. Diablo isn't alone in this "Releasing of Betas" and calling them the actual ready game. It's been a couple solid years now of bitter disappointments. Beta should have lasted until the game was in a very good place. There wouldn't have been that huge outflow of players not to far after release. How did they not learn that lesson from Star Wars and the infamous "Box Farming"?

Well the whole Beta process was screwed up. Everbody that followed WoW was aware that Blizz either doesnt have internal testers, or those testers are abysmal. It still baffles me why Blizzard let people only test the first hour of the game up to level 13. The game could have been so much better if they had let people test the whole game, or at least Act1 inferno. It wouldnt have helped them fixed the awful story and level design, but at least skills, crafting, item drops etc. could have been properly done for release.
Everything about D3 just screams massive arrogance to me. This "we are Blizzard we dont need this crap. We can do no wrong we know better than everyone else out there" attitude which was displayed mostly by Wilson.

[Scummer]

I think I'd be lying if I said I wasn't some what happy with this news.
Not everything that went wrong with the game can be pinned on him, so I don't think mindlessly hating the guy now that he's gone is really appropriate. But some (Perhaps most, but we will never know) of the bad stuff would have been approved by him and for that he did definitely play a role in releasing the game in the way it was (it is getting better).

I also get the feeling that this has happened to to reignite some trust and interest in the franchise, while also acting as some sort of scapegoat so that the wrongs of D3 can effectively be brushed under the rug in a way as Wilson's gone.

Still at the end of the day, I suppose this can only be good news.

[BenBos]

It's not solely his fault. It's Blizzard. WoW, Starcraft, Diablo, it doesn't matter, they are all just shells of their former selves. The problem is mainly the company itself, not just its employees. It's the people at the top that are calling the shots.

Like I said: no one is holding a gun to the heads of 10.000.000 subscribers, so your remarks are irrelevant.

The people at the top of Blizzard is Mike Morhaime, Frank Pierce, Rob Pardo, Metzen and Co.

Hint' these guys are with Blizzard since the start or at least since 2000 (Pardo).

Stop spreading idiotic non meaningful Blizzard hate. You just want to look cool by jumping on an idiotic bandwagon.

Diablo 3 sold 10.000.000 copies on PC in 6 weeks time. Probably 12.000.000 by now.

-----
ALSO:

D3 was the fastest selling PC game of all time and so were the other games of Jay Wilson earlier designs: Company of Heroes and Dawn of War.

You are ignorant that the man was simply tired of moronic insults (he already deleted his twitter account once) and he probably quit after his PvP system was put on hold in favor of upcoming e-sports games in the Blizzard stable.

I can see no other designer frankly with this kind of success record over the last decade:

2006 - Company of Heroes - Senior Designer
2004 - Warhammer 40k Dawn of War - Design and Story
2003 - Homeworld 2 - Additional Design Support
2003 - Impossible Creatures - Lead Designer and Story
1998 - King's Quest: Mask of Eternity - Quality Assurance
1998 - Blood II: The Chosen - Game Concept and Lead Designer

[Speedlance]

People just need someone to blame, but all in all as long as d3 is a no sub game it will continue to be shit. Look how well made wow is, it's so good that people are actually complaining about stuff like to hard content, to easy content, to casual, to hardcore, because they know it's perfect and they can't find anything real to complain about, must be it since everybody continues to play
If d3 was a sub game it would have gotten deathmatch pvp, pvp duals with bets, ffa pvp, high risk pvp (if you die you lose all your items) within 2 months of launch.

[Valeron]

People just need someone to blame, but all in all as long as d3 is a no sub game it will continue to be shit. Look how well made wow is, it's so good that people are actually complaining about stuff like to hard content, to easy content, to casual, to hardcore, because they know it's perfect and they can't find anything real to complain about, must be it since everybody continues to play
If d3 was a sub game it would have gotten deathmatch pvp, pvp duals with bets, ffa pvp, high risk pvp (if you die you lose all your items) within 2 months of launch.

you are kidding right?

if D3 was a sub game, it would get a 10th of the sales that it did, if even that much