Diablo III Director Steps Down

Written by: Troy Blackburn (Twitter @InnerGeekZone - Google+) | January 18, 2013 5:00 pm

15 Comments

Diablo III‘s Jay Wilson has stepped down from his position as Game Director. In his letter to the Diablo III forums, Wilson says he is moving on to other projects within Blizzard. He has worked on D3 for seven years, but feels it’s time for him to move on.

“While it’s been one of the most challenging and rewarding periods of my life, I’ve reached a point creatively where I’m looking forward to working on something new,” Wilson wrote in the forum letter. “The powers that be at Blizzard have been gracious enough to give me that opportunity.”

Wilson promises that development will continue on future improvements for Diablo III and that patch 1.0.7 is moving ahead as planned. He feels like he is leaving Diablo III in good hands as he steps down and he will remain in contact with the development team while Blizzard searches for his replacement as Director. There is no word on what Wilson will be working on in the future, or if he moved on to be part of a specific project or is still looking for something to latch on to.

Under his watch as Game Director, Diablo III was one of the most anticipated games in quite some time. The game did have a rocky launch, and was received with many complaints regarding how a game developer with one of the largest online games in the world could struggle so epicly to launch a title. Despite the pitfalls along the way, Wilson feels that his team did their best to provide a great game.

“I’m proud of Diablo III, and despite our differences at times I will miss the community that has formed around it,” he wrote. “I feel I have made many mistakes in managing that relationship, but my intent was always to provide a great gaming experience, and be as open and receptive as possible, while still sticking true to the vision the Diablo team has for the game.”

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http://twitter.com/Luke_Malcolm Luke Malcolm

Lets just hope if it is Titan he is moving to, he wont screw the game up.
- Azuri
  
  I heard he got moved to the mail room.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1260066056 Steven Diaz

Hahahahahah, maaaan, I hope he doesn’t ruin whatever game he’s going to be working on. Diablo 3 was an atrocity that should have never been allowed to leave the developer’s office. Disgusting how horrible that game is. I’m just glad the creator of the series agrees.
Monstercloud

Look at that face.

Now think about his letter, and ask two things.

1. Did he think you would believe it?

2. Does he think he believes it?
http://www.facebook.com/kirzansix Mike Coulombe

Even when I quit D3 and completely lose interest, it still comes back in the form of major suckage for the future. I’d say it’s even worse than the D3 fiasco! Cause now, we don’t know, we don’t WANT TO know!!! Week-end ruined.
Eggers

Maybe Diablo III will now become a good game.
Shagral

Can all the hate please and go watch some interviews with him. He’s a really nice and smart guy, one of the best in the industry. DIII pitfalls have little to do with creativity and execution but with blizzard’s overall vision for game’s purpose in their business. They made a bet on RMAH and it blew in their faces (like AH, which leads to always-online, no-mods, crap gear drops etc.) Rocky launch is purely technical thing and spotlights communication problems within the company. Purely speculation, but to me it is blatant that there was not enough cooperation with WoW’s tech team, the launch wasn’t thought through or tested enough. Of course as the game’s director he takes all the blame, but I really feel like DIII’s downfall is on blizzard’s conscience, not just this one guy.
- 7BitBrian
  
  So I take it you haven’t heard of his famous “Fuck that guy” quotes?
- http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Grimm/1290540679 David Grimm
  
  “always-online, no-mods, crap gear drops etc”…. these are not the problems of Diablo 3, from the perspective of a long-time Diablo fan. The creative decisions that ran Diablo3 into the ground were the removal of interesting choices and decisions. Sid Meier is quoted as saying,
  “a game is a series of interesting choices”
  -Removal/trimming of talent trees (Resulting in a huge loss in the amount of customization and reduction in both the amount of decisions you make about your build/character, and how interesting those choices are)
  
  -Removal of user stat placement (Resulting in a huge loss in the amount of customization and reduction in both the amount of decisions you make about your build/character, and how interesting those choices are)
  
  -Reduction in the total number of playable classes since the last Diablo (See a pattern here?)
  
  -Reduction in the randomness of the playable maps, and the elimination in the randomness of certain areas (streamlining the experience and taking away replay value, surprise, adventure, and exploration)
  
  -Elimination of pvp in the game (yes I hear they are adding in duels, over 6 months AFTER launch)
  
  -Elimination of item stat requirements
  
  These were the HALLMARKS of diablo. These things are what made Diablo DIABLO. You play through the game and then you say to yourself, “I want to try something different”
  Now you can take your barbarian, or whatever class and dump stats into Dex, Pick up a spear, sink talent points into Spear skills, and play the same class, a completely different way. That would be an interesting decision. The kind of decision that makes that spear barbarian YOUR barbarian. The kind of decisions that make a game fun.
http://twitter.com/QuietNine Quiet

He’s going to get the last laugh anyway.

Titan is shaping up to be a futuristic DiabloMMO universe according to the rumor mill, which is VERY reminiscent of HellGate:London (the game created by the excellent director he was referring to in his “fuck that loser” comments). Making a successful version of HellGate:London MMO will be the ultimate slap in the face to the brilliant minds behind the original diablo.

Then again considering how terrible the last 2 wow expansions have been and how bad diablo 3 was, Titan might implode shortly after launch too..
http://twitter.com/AisarGaming Aisar

It’s about time. Dude ruined one of my favorite franchises. Between his game direction decisions and the RMAH. The best thing in the game was the CG scene with Tyreal and he lead angel in heaven, I need to watch that again. Other than that almost everything in D3 was a let down. The game never even ran that well for me.
http://twitter.com/MiZTiiX MiZTiiX

well hopefully this change is good for the game
http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Grimm/1290540679 David Grimm

Under his watch as Game Director, Diablo III James Wilson took almost everything about the Diablo series out of the game, and released the wrost action rpg I’ve ever played.
http://www.facebook.com/people/David-Grimm/1290540679 David Grimm

Blizzard is a ‘Good ole Boys’ Club. Seniority outweighs good Ideas there, and the flaws of that system are starting to show. Same with Square-Enix. The companies are getting antiquated and stagnant.
InvaderMig

Unless this guy stepping down results in a refund, I could care less. I bought that shit game despite my better judgement. Blizzard this is not over, mark my words.

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