Blizzard Didn't Want Diablo Immortal But Activision Forced It, Claims Diablo 3 Director
Blizzard Entertainment's veterans were said to be reluctant to create a F2P Diablo, which Activision requested shortly after acquiring the studio.
Speculation about the impact of Activision's takeover of Blizzard has appeared frequently in recent years, mainly in the context of the publisher's more controversial decisions. One of them is certainly the announcement of a mobile Diablo, which Activision was said to be pushing for against the wishes of Blizzard's top employees.
The issue was raised by Jay Wilson, chief designer of Diablo III (who has not worked at Blizzard for a couple of years now), during a panel at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo 2022 conference (via PCGamesN).
According to the producer, Activision's pressure on Blizzard took the form of a typical "boiling frog syndrome." Initially, the publisher's influence was virtually invisible, despite the fact that the company from the beginning wanted a F2P Diablo.
However, over time, Activision began to exert pressure to produce new games that would earn money for themselves. This has not yet affected Diablo III, but by the time of Heroes of the Storm it was said to have been crushing.
Thus, the company increasingly pressed for the creation of a F2P Diablo, which Jay Wilson was against (although at that time he no longer had a significant influence on the development of the franchise).
The creator believes that many other high-profile Blizzard employees left the studio precisely as a result of Activision pushing for this type of business model. This was because it conflicted with the studio's approach, which, we quote, "always wanted to do what was right for gamers."
"They [Activision - ed. note] had a big influence on all these business models and everything else, and in my opinion, a lot of the senior people who left did so out of frustration with that. I don't think it made those products better.
At Blizzard, when I was there, we had a saying: "we always want to be the guys in the white hats." Which means we always want to be the good guys, which means doing something that benefits our players. If we made them pay for something (which of course we do - after all, it's business), we always wanted to demand as much from them as we thought was reasonable. This stood in direct conflict [with Activision's philosophy - ed. note]."
Diablo Immortal certainly did not win the sympathy of gamers with its business model, Nevertheless, the game was a commercial success and Activision has no reason to consider the debut of the free installment a mistake.
