BLIZZARD had 9,166 people working on Diablo 4

[Daryl]

I find it funny that AAA studios who calls out Larian Studios for funding, staff and time spent making the game is why BG3 is great and we shouldnt expect the same of other studios.

meanwhile...

Blizzard had 9,166 people working on Diablo 4
Blizzard had spent 6 years making Diablo 4 (roughly the same amount of time)
Blizzard had considerably way more funding than Larian Studios.

....and you can see the result of Diablo 4 compared to BG3

anyone who keeps crapping at BG3 at this point is either
ignorant or in denial.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Estevan Valladares:

You "might" argue over the story, but if you really look closely, this game has no "amazing writting", all the story real content comes straight and literally from D&D. WoW comes from Warhammer and that from Tolkien and Lovecraft, but at least they created a "version" of it.

At least they didn't do 'young girl companion ruins everything and releases prime evils for the second game in a row'.

Seriously, it's pretty bad that I immediately knew she was going to be a major character who forces us to accept obviously terrible decisions again. Come on Diablo, at least don't reuse the same plot twice with the exact same main character.

[Schaldach]

Season of the barber commence

[homekeys]

blizzard devs really want to make good games, but shareholders get the final say. this is like, the biggest and most defining issue of AAA games. shareholders only want a game to be as good as it needs to be to rake in money and blizzard still has decades-long fans and a recognizable name from earlier in its history. and since this is so common its rly hard as a gamer and consumer to have higher standards for big-budget games.

[Daryl]

Originally posted by cfehunter:

I sincerely doubt they had 9166 people working on it.
I'm a game dev myself, teams don't scale that far. You're not just pulling the total number of employees at ActiBlizz are you?

9166 people were credited on Diablo 4's credits list.

[Arlen]

Originally posted by homekeys:

blizzard devs really want to make good games, but shareholders get the final say. this is like, the biggest and most defining issue of AAA games. shareholders only want a game to be as good as it needs to be to rake in money and blizzard still has decades-long fans and a recognizable name from earlier in its history. and since this is so common its rly hard as a gamer and consumer to have higher standards for big-budget games.

Not really, it just takes consumers to exercise financial discipline. Stop supporting products that are made first and foremost for shareholder interest. Diablo 4 was the last straw for me. The ONLY reason I purchased it was because my best buds wanted to play, needless to say, we are playing this or valheim now, and have no intention of playing Diablo 4 again. There are just too many games coming out that offer more then what D4 has to offer. Starfield (hesitant on this), and POE 2.

[Arlen]

Originally posted by Daryl:

Originally posted by cfehunter:

I sincerely doubt they had 9166 people working on it.
I'm a game dev myself, teams don't scale that far. You're not just pulling the total number of employees at ActiBlizz are you?

9166 people were credited on Diablo 4's credits list.

this is factual. The credits list 9100+ names.

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by Arlen639:

Originally posted by homekeys:

blizzard devs really want to make good games, but shareholders get the final say. this is like, the biggest and most defining issue of AAA games. shareholders only want a game to be as good as it needs to be to rake in money and blizzard still has decades-long fans and a recognizable name from earlier in its history. and since this is so common its rly hard as a gamer and consumer to have higher standards for big-budget games.

Not really, it just takes consumers to exercise financial discipline. Stop supporting products that are made first and foremost for shareholder interest. Diablo 4 was the last straw for me. The ONLY reason I purchased it was because my best buds wanted to play, needless to say, we are playing this or valheim now, and have no intention of playing Diablo 4 again. There are just too many games coming out that offer more then what D4 has to offer. Starfield (hesitant on this), and POE 2.

Confusing thing about Diablo 4 is it actually HAD pretty fun smooth combat. Which seems like it should be the hard thing to do!

And then stuff like bosses? There are about 4 total bosses.

Itemization? It's like they came in really drunk and made all the item stats in about three hours and then never looked the next morning when sober.

The programmers aren't so bad, but the entire game design team should probably just be fired.

[Kyutaru]

Originally posted by Daryl:

anyone who keeps crapping at BG3 at this point is either
ignorant or in denial.

Same applies to anyone calling this game DOS 3 or saying anything remotely similar. They use entirely different combat systems and had to be rebalanced from the ground up. That was no minor feat. Two games being turn based doesn't make them identical.

[Stiffmeister]

Originally posted by Daryl:

I find it funny that AAA studios who calls out Larian Studios for funding, staff and time spent making the game is why BG3 is great and we shouldnt expect the same of other studios.

meanwhile...

Blizzard had 9,166 people working on Diablo 4
Blizzard had spent 6 years making Diablo 4 (roughly the same amount of time)
Blizzard had considerably way more funding than Larian Studios.

....and you can see the result of Diablo 4 compared to BG3

anyone who keeps crapping at BG3 at this point is either
ignorant or in denial.

I was not aware of that number, ofc I have questions as to where you got it but, even if I take half of it, your point still sticks lol...

Its kind of sad that the studios who do NOT deserve our money, are the ones with the most ways to take our money.

Larian DESERVES our money (Personally I added the digital deluxe to the cart when buying literally just thinking I wanna give these guys the extra 10 bucks, I still have no idea what the Deluxe actually got me), and yet, they just gave as a complete, finished and awesome game with a ton of content...

[GeminiEclipse]

AAA companies do not have infinite resources. They want infinite money for the least amount of money possible.

They will burn through hundreds of years worth of experienced devs to make them quit so they can save a pittance and hire more malleable interns who wont try to fight back like more experienced vets would.

[homekeys]

Originally posted by Arlen639:

Not really, it just takes consumers to exercise financial discipline. Stop supporting products that are made first and foremost for shareholder interest. Diablo 4 was the last straw for me. The ONLY reason I purchased it was because my best buds wanted to play, needless to say, we are playing this or valheim now, and have no intention of playing Diablo 4 again. There are just too many games coming out that offer more then what D4 has to offer. Starfield (hesitant on this), and POE 2.

i didnt say anything to contradict that tbh, but it feels futile to me cos a lot of the ppl buying them arent clued into these kinds of things and will stick to mainstream games. changing the culture is a lot bigger task than expanding ur own taste beyond AAA games and i think supporting good games will get us further than getting other ppl to withdraw support for bad ones. ur on the right track, imo.

[ventrix]

Anyone thinks that D4 has a bigger team than about 15 (not counting voice actors) has no idea about game development. Everyone knows that Blizzards owners checked out long ago and only care about their quarterly gains.

As long as young students apply to such companies in masses, nothing will change. They get burned out and thrown away. Anyone worth their salt will switch to another area than gaming after that and earn tripple.
I know that Ubisoft in Germany pays their unity devs 2400€ a month (It's a little higher these days). When I asked a recruiter once if he is serious or he hit his head somewhere, he goes "oh, but making games is fun. It's games. Why would you not want fun?". I laughed him in the face and told him I already earn 3800€ in my current job developing ♥♥♥♥♥♥ browser games (today I earn 5600€, same employer). Doesn't matter, people still go to these companies, because these stupid arguments work.

[heime2003]

this game is the product of genuine passion, dedication and even obsession toward the great crpg and its roots. u know the game is made by those kind of qualities when u see all details in the game

[Quillithe]

Originally posted by ventrix:

Anyone thinks that D4 has a bigger team than about 15 (not counting voice actors) has no idea about game development. Everyone knows that Blizzards owners checked out long ago and only care about their quarterly gains.

As long as young students apply to such companies in masses, nothing will change. They get burned out and thrown away. Anyone worth their salt will switch to another area than gaming after that and earn tripple.
I know that Ubisoft in Germany pays their unity devs 2400€ a month (It's a little higher these days). When I asked a recruiter once if he is serious or he hit his head somewhere, he goes "oh, but making games is fun. It's games. Why would you not want fun?". I laughed him in the face and told him I already earn 3800€ in my current job developing ♥♥♥♥♥♥ browser games (today I earn 5600€, same employer). Doesn't matter, people still go to these companies, because these stupid arguments work.

I believe a lot of people were involved with D4.

I also believe they were mostly the marketing teams.

[Naamtar]

Game development doesn't scale because it's an artistic medium. At some point bloating your work force is going to have negative effects on the final product.

Blizzard are all PR investment and solid art direction, their actual development team around the meat of games are trash. Partially because all of the innovative developers left the company a long, long time ago due to the issues corporate culture bring to stifling the artistic process.

There's no way 9.166 DEVELOPERS worked on Diablo 4, that's PR hype. Blizzard's PR team has a notorious reputation within the industry as being absolute scumbags.