Diablo III Interview
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GI: Developers will often describe their games as being kind of like Diablo, but when you play them it's almost a given that they're not at all like Diablo. So many people have tried to capture what's made Diablo so successful, and probably close to an equal number have failed. Do you have a sense of why they fail?
Wilson: Yeah. I'm careful about criticizing other games, because a lot of the times I can say, (I like this and this and this, but this is why they didn't succeed.) With the design team we have at Blizzard, we can usually look at another game and say, (That's why. That's why it didn't work.) It's hard when you're developing games. I think for a lot of developers, ego has a tendency to make people make choices that are more emotional than they are logical.
One of the things that we found is that some of the choices we've made for Diablo III have made people criticize us for being like World of Warcaft. They've said that we're trying to change things to capitalize on World of Warcraft's success. We have our own audience. We're not worried that Diablo III isn't going to do well or that we somehow need to copy WoW to become more successful. Diablo II was the most successful selling game from Blizzard until very, very recently, when World of Warcraft just passed it.
So we're not too worried about the success of the series. I think it's just a gut reaction of developers to say, (We'll do this differently, just to be different,) when really what they should be saying is, (What kind of game do we want to make, and how can we make the gameplay different and what kinds of things are best for our game.) When you look at other games that are out there and you find things that are better for your game, put it in. They don't have a copyright on it. They can't sue you or anything. And nobody is going to think less of you if your game's great. If you make the greatest God of War clone ever made, everyone's going to be like, (Awesome!) But if you make the more original God of War clone, if it's not fun, who cares?
