14 DAY TRIAL // Blizzard has developed a reputation, shared by few other video-game developers, like Valve, for only releasing its titles to gamers when it was sure that it had put together a great package with no flaws and an engaging experience. Recently, the company pushed back Starcraft II, its real-time, strategy sequel, to the spring of 2010 and also talked about how Diablo III would probably only arrive towards the end of 2011. Initial reports talked about Starcraft II being released this fall and about the role-playing Diablo sequel actually arriving early on in 2010.
Despite the frustration that these moves caused to gamers that were loyal to the company, Kevin Martens, who is the lead content designer for Blizzard, considers delays and continued work one of the keys to the success of his company and to the high quality of the video games that it delivers.
He tells Gamasutra as part of an interview that, “Here's the secret to Blizzard games, and this is a secret that won't help any of our competitors: endless iteration. We'll take something, we'll put it in the game. Maybe we'll like it when we put it in, maybe we won't. We'll leave it in there for a while, we'll let it percolate. We'll play it and play it and play it, and then we'll come back. We might throw it all out, or we'll throw half of that out and redo it.”
This also allows Blizzard to evaluate the reaction of the player base. Diablo III was actually playable at the various video-game conventions this year, which means that the developers can take a look at how players are approaching it and can then make changes that can be again tested in 2010, ahead of a 2011 release date. Let's just hope that this endless iteration manages to actually lead to experiences that are worth waiting for in both Starcraft II and Diablo III.