Diablo III Post-mortem Interview

GamesIndustry.biz has published a very, very interesting interview with Diablo III game director Josh Mosqueira that touches on the development of the game, the lessons Blizzard learned after release, and the philosophy that informs the current post-launch support plans.

A quote on the Auction House closure:

Q: And the auction house, you brought it in, you realized it didn’t work, you took it out again. Was that still an experiment you’re glad you did?

Josh Mosqueira: Yes. All the intentions were the right ones, but then we realized we fundamentally sabotaged what is inherently awesome about Diablo, which is killing a monster and getting the loot. And so looking back I think it was a good thing we did it mostly because we realized at the end of the day any decision that compromises the integrity of our game is one that we cannot allow to happen. At the end of the day a business is a business but at the end of the day we make games, and if the game is good people will buy it.

It was actually pretty cool to see how quickly – at all levels at Blizzard – everybody rallied around the idea, OK we need to make a bold statement and say “you know what? It was an experiment, it failed, let’s move on and tell everybody we’re serious about how to fix it.”

And one on the future:

Q: Do you see the game continuing to evolve? Is there still a large team working on it?

Josh Mosqueira: We have pretty much the team that wrapped up Reaper Of Souls. We’re at the point where I think we’ve gotten most of what we wanted into Reaper Of Souls and now we’re really just entering this… we’re trying to build a legacy now. I think we’re seeing as a team that this is our chance, this is our love letter to Diablo.

We play the game non-stop, we’re super passionate about it, and now we get to start adding all the things that we really get geeked out about, that our players also get excited about. We have such a strong, solid foundation. I think Adventure Mode, looking back, we didn’t realize it but it’s such a powerful engine for us to be able to add new content, vary the experience and it really unshackled our ability to really let the players sort of explore and have fun.