Jay Wilson moving away from Diablo 3, Woo Ooo

[Tebonas]

One doesn't joke about things like that.

[Simond]

Who's joking? Blizzard have already said they're looking to recruit outside of the company....

[LK]

Rob Pardo steps in. Thread on Jay's departure up to about 200 pages.

This thread saddens me greatly. I know that the Battle.net forums have earned a reputation for rough justice, but I do not believe justice is being served by how people are speaking about Jay’s departure from Diablo III.

I am very proud of the Diablo franchise and what the team was able to accomplish with Diablo III. As a gamer I have enjoyed the game and played for many, many nights with friends and family. I’m not, however, going to use that as an excuse. The Diablo community deserves an even better game from Blizzard and we are committed to improving it. We have a talented team in place and have no intention of stopping work on Diablo III until it is the best game in the franchise.

I’m the only person in this thread who has actually worked with Jay. I hired Jay to head up the Diablo project and had the pleasure of getting to work with him, both in building the team and designing the game. He has great design instincts and has added so much to the franchise with his feel for visceral combat, boss battles, and an unparalleled knack for making it fun to smash bad guys. I’ve worked with many, many designers at Blizzard and Jay is one of the best. He has a great career at Blizzard ahead of him and I guarantee that you will enjoy Jay’s game designs in future Blizzard games.

If you love Diablo as much as we do, then please continue to let us know how you feel we can improve the game. If you still feel the need to dish out blame, then I would prefer you direct it at me. I was the executive producer on the project; I hired Jay and I gave him advice and direction throughout the development process. I was ultimately responsible for the game we released and take full responsibility for the quality of the result.

It looks like they want to keep Jay's talent within the company but get his image out of the spotlight. However, I wouldn't be surprised if a quiet exit occurs within the next year or two.

[Tannhauser]

Nice to see Mr. Pardo go to Mr. Wilson's defense.  But both made mistakes; Pardo in hiring Wilson and Wilson in putting out a sub-par game AND being unprofessional on Twitter.

So yeah, they are going to put him out to pasture when this all dies down.

[Ingmar]

He wasn't unprofessional on Twitter (to my knowledge); he was unprofessional on what it appeared he thought was a non-publically-visible Facebook page. The degree of fuckup there is somewhat less. (Obviously still present, but if it had been on Twitter, he'd have been gone the next day.)

[Paelos]

Nobody wants to admit a mistake. I want one of these guys to show a little humility and admit they actually made some errors with this game. Not if's and hedges and maybes and we tried hards. Nobody gives a shit if you tried hard. We're not paying for effort, this is an entertainment product. The closest we get was Jay's bullshit paragraph:

I know some of you feel we fell short of our promise to release the game "when it's ready." ... That doesn't mean we always make the right decisions, but if we made a mistake then I feel we've made an exceptional effort to correct it.

Uh huh. I'm sorry you feel that after thousands and thousands of posts, and hundreds of thousands abandoning the game, you can't definitively admit you made mistakes. But oh wait, here comes Rob-to-the-Rescue! We deserves an EVEN BETTER game even though Rob loves it already.

Stop. Just stop. This is the reason Blizzard PR drives people crazy. You know you messed up. You know Jay's leaving because he's the head of this ship, and it didn't set sail in the right direction. It's like the freaking Bioware thing with the ME3 ending. Sooooooo much more goodwill would take place if they would just cut the bullshit, give people an honest humble answer, and move forward with changes.

[Megrim]

He wasn't unprofessional on Twitter (to my knowledge); he was unprofessional on what it appeared he thought was a non-publically-visible Facebook page. The degree of fuckup there is somewhat less. (Obviously still present, but if it had been on Twitter, he'd have been gone the next day.)

It's not so much where he said something and circumstances thereof, but that he actually said it. It speaks volumes about the person's mindset and personality, such that their first response was what it had been.

[Soulflame]

They built a WoW loot clone in a Diablo clone, and expect us to be grateful for it.  Well, I'm not particularly grateful.

Nor do I think they can actually fix the game.  That'd require ripping out the entire item base of the code, and probably much of the skills base.  That is never happening.

[Ingmar]

He wasn't unprofessional on Twitter (to my knowledge); he was unprofessional on what it appeared he thought was a non-publically-visible Facebook page. The degree of fuckup there is somewhat less. (Obviously still present, but if it had been on Twitter, he'd have been gone the next day.)

It's not so much where he said something and circumstances thereof, but that he actually said it. It speaks volumes about the person's mindset and personality, such that their first response was what it had been.

I dunno, it feels like a pretty natural reaction to get mad when someone trashes something you worked on (while patting themself on the back at the same time.) It's the kind of thing I see people say out loud all the time. Writing it down was really dumb, though.

[Megrim]

Really? Huh, well I guess it might be a different culture over there. To me it was grossly spiteful and petty to react that way, unprofessionalism aside. I was frankly surprised he kept his job.

[Paelos]

It's not as if game developers on the whole are known for their maturity and professionalism. That doesn't mean they get a free pass when they publicly do something really stupid, though.

If you work in a creative industry, there will be critics. There will especially be critics that work in the same field. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what they think if your customers are happy with the product. The problem in this particular case was that the customers weren't satisfied, and many of them agreed with the vocal critic in question.

[Merusk]

Really? Huh, well I guess it might be a different culture over there. To me it was grossly spiteful and petty to react that way, unprofessionalism aside. I was frankly surprised he kept his job.

The same. I work in a service industry, though, and was raised in that culture.  You don't trash the clients. If you do, good luck advancing unless your boss is as bad at business interaction as you're proving to be.  You can grumble, you can wonder why they're making boneheaded decisions against your advice but you don't call them names and mock them.

IT/ Tech isn't there yet as they're still used to being a minority skillset and in high demand.  I think that's changing as tech becomes more ubiquitous and people who aren't so anti-social move in to upper echelon positions of larger companies.   I know I don't see nearly as much attitude as I did in the 90s, and the stereotypical IT guy has seemingly learned to keep his tongue civil around the rest of the office.  At least to the point the Jimmy Fallon character of his SNL-days doesn't seem to show-up as a stereotype anymore.

It's not as if game developers on the whole are known for their maturity and professionalism. That doesn't mean they get a free pass when they publicly do something really stupid, though.

If you work in a creative industry, there will be critics. There will especially be critics that work in the same field. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what they think if your customers are happy with the product. The problem in this particular case was that the customers weren't satisfied, and many of them agreed with the vocal critic in question.

Another part of the problem; game devs haven't come-up in a creative industry culture.  Most came up in a tech culture where there are definitive right and wrong answers. Code works or it doesn't.  There may be some critique of things but it's not to the same extent of a creative field where charettes and critiques of your work happen on a weekly, if not daily, basis. 

Eventually you realize it's not a criticism of you but all about the work, but it takes time.  However, the process weeds out those who can't take it and toughens up those who can but were thin-skinned. No such thing has happened in Game Dev until recently when we've seen actual game development majors spring-up. I've my hopes that we'll see those kids who've graduated over the last 7ish years begin to move in and up the industry and change things.

[Furiously]

What would be an awesome d3 expansion would be updating D2's graphics.

[Trippy]

You mean like this?



WARNING WARNING Kotaku link

[Setanta]

D2 LoD gameplay - don't touch a fucking thing, not a tiny thing! Update the graphics engine to widescreen and re-render the characters/monsters/effects and shove it out the door for $30. Make it SP/P2P (screw battlenet unless you really want to run ladders etc, but really, just make it no-connection needed for SP/LAN/P2P and don't worry if people mod it. It'd sell bloody well!

Hell, you might claw back the loss-of-faith that D3 created exacerbated.

[waffel]

D2 LoD gameplay - don't touch a fucking thing, not a tiny thing! Update the graphics engine to widescreen and re-render the characters/monsters/effects and shove it out the door for $30. Make it SP/P2P (screw battlenet unless you really want to run ladders etc, but really, just make it no-connection needed for SP/LAN/P2P and don't worry if people mod it. It'd sell bloody well!

Hmmm... maybe Blizzard is actually working on this now...?

https://twitter.com/Angryrobotics

Jay Wilson
@Angryrobotics
Game Director @ Blizzard on an unannounced game.

 

[Abelian75]

Guys, I think it's pretty weird that everyone's acting like this is obviously some sort of sign of disappointment with D3 when it's just a game director moving on to another project at the company.  You know, like they often do.

That doesn't mean it wasn't a disappointment, but the game director moving on to a new project about a year after release is hardly abnormal for a successful project.

[Malakili]

Guys, I think it's pretty weird that everyone's acting like this is obviously some sort of sign of disappointment with D3 when it's just a game director moving on to another project at the company.  You know, like they often do.

That doesn't mean it wasn't a disappointment, but the game director moving on to a new project about a year after release is hardly abnormal for a successful project.

But that doesn't fit the narrative that Diablo 3 was an abject failure for not being Diablo 2.

[KallDrexx]

I like how everyone thinks it would be so easy to recreate Diablo 2 LOD without changing one tiny thing and it would be amazeballs and not criticized at all.

[Setanta]

SC -> BW -> SC2

Seemed to work pretty well.

D2 remake would be criticises, but I have a feeling a lot of people would love it and that a lot like me would fire it up on a regular basis.

At least Diablo wouldn't have tits.

[Paelos]

Guys, I think it's pretty weird that everyone's acting like this is obviously some sort of sign of disappointment with D3 when it's just a game director moving on to another project at the company.  You know, like they often do.

That could be the case. However, I don't recall them doing anything similar a year after WoW released, or a year after Starcraft 2 released. Maybe they did and I wasn't that plugged into the dev shifting. Also, not naming a replacement, and going as far as saying they'd put an ad out for the replacement (joking or not) indicated to me this wasn't exactly a planned move.

[Ironwood]

Actually, I'd be happy to think that it's just one director moving on to another project if it wasn't for the fact that this particular director fucked the last project right in the crusty ass and so, in my opinion, shouldn't be allowed to run a cakestand.

The idea of this shitwad fucking up another Blizzard property makes me annoyed.

But, hey, I seem to go through life annoyed these days.  Because this fuckup will probably make bank while 'lesser' minds fetch him coffee.

Cunt.

[Margalis]

The game director leaving is not by itself surprising.

The director leaving without a replacement in mind and immediately bringing up the idea of recruiting someone from the outside says to me that there is little faith in the team or overall direction.

[Ironwood]

Yeah.  Especially on a title that's not just a 'release and it's gone', but is always online and currently subject to a massive ongoing change.

That's clearly a 'get the fuck outta here now before you stick your dick in it worse'.

[Fabricated]

Yes, it's clearly good operating procedure to move a guy who did a really bangup job on a project to something else entirely without ever naming a replacement for their old position.

And you know, indicating that you might want to hire outside.

In a company that traditionally promotes from within.

No dysfunction or disappointment there sir. Clearly he did not fuck up really bad and get thrown off the D3 team, but shown an ounce of clemency due to internal culture and possibly not wanting to give the outward apparence that they fucked up one of their biggest projects by out and out firing him.

[LK]

In individual cases, Blizzard is pretty good about not firing people unless absolutely necessary, and when they do, professionally with as little drama and fanfare as possible. Obviously the more prominent the figure the more a dismissal could create drama (to be avoided) and negatively effect the company's image. Blizzard is *all* about protecting its image.

[Paelos]

And part of them protecting that image has led them to this "us against the world" image the public now perceives of their development team. True or not, the consumers now see the developers as the uninformed egotistical enemy to progress.

[Abelian75]

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying that I think you guys (and others, such as sites that reported this as Jay "stepping down") are kinda seeing what you want to see.  And man, you really, really, really seem to want to see it.

[Paelos]

So you are saying that this doesn't smell funny to you at all?

[Abelian75]

Honestly, no.  It genuinely is normal to move on to other projects post-launch, both for leadership and other team members.  Yes, it happened with WoW too (Edit: Jeff Kaplan did leave WoW much later than I remembered, admittedly)

Again, I have no idea whether he's viewed favorably internally.  But I don't see how moving between projects indicates anything either way.  The only thing you guys seem to come up with as suspicious is that they don't already have a replacement, but having a transition period is also pretty normal.  The game is released, after all.  They probably finished up their initial wave of additions (and punted on pvp), and either jay, his superiors, or both, decided that jay wouldn't handle the expansion.  Sure, maybe it's so they can silently shitcan him.  Or maybe they want him on some awesome new project.  In any case, it's certainly an entirely natural time to move team members around.  I mean, right?   Like, when WOULD you guys not have been making the assumption you are making?  I submit that you would be making this assumption no matter what if jay were to ever leave the project.

[Yegolev]

Putting on my Big Corporate America glasses, I see a hurried ousting.  I don't play WoW and I don't hate Wilson.  I do know that outside hires are "scary" and generally you don't do that to a high-profile project unless you have to.

It's entirely possible that Wilson decided that he was sick of the position, since there's often an interim leader declared for significant ongoing projects (if management is smart).  Then again, they seem to have had plenty of time to grab someone if they were available... unless no one working at Blizz wanted the position either.

In any case, it's not normal.

[Abelian75]

Yeah, hiring an outsider to head up a project is definitely a red flag that there's something suspicious going on.  Oh, wait, Jay Wilson was himself an outside hire as Game Director.

Sorry, I realize I'm coming off as a prick.  I like all you guys.  I simultaneously believe many of you are slightly insane when it comes to diablo.

[Fabricated]

Just tagging this for a year or so down the road.

[Paelos]

I remembered Kaplan leaving and it was well after the second expansion was already out, about seven years down the road.

Let's think about this for a second all biases removed. The game director of D3 leaves the project not even 8 months after it's released, with no replacement. Why?

[Simond]

D2 LoD gameplay - don't touch a fucking thing, not a tiny thing! Update the graphics engine to widescreen and re-render the characters/monsters/effects and shove it out the door for $30. Make it SP/P2P (screw battlenet unless you really want to run ladders etc, but really, just make it no-connection needed for SP/LAN/P2P and don't worry if people mod it. It'd sell bloody well!

Hmmm... maybe Blizzard is actually working on this now...?

https://twitter.com/Angryrobotics

Jay Wilson
@Angryrobotics
Game Director @ Blizzard on an unannounced game.

 

Now, does Titan count as an unannounced game, or is this just busywork before they unfortunately have to let him go six-nine months down the line?

Yeah, hiring an outsider to head up a project is definitely a red flag that there's something suspicious going on.  Oh, wait, Jay Wilson was himself an outside hire as Game Director.

Sorry, I realize I'm coming off as a prick.  I like all you guys.  I simultaneously believe many of you are slightly insane when it comes to diablo.

Remove 'diablo', replace 'Blizzard'. At least my pointing out that Bioware has no clothes is in the light of one bad game, one decent game with a franchise-destroyingly-awful ending (now retconned under protest to merely mediocre) and the biggest MMO failure in gaming history. The Blizzard haters are up in arms because the last couple of games have just been good rather than great.