Saint Scarlett Johan, on 08 June 2016 - 03:54 AM, said:
While being large and having lots of money helps, it's the Tashkent in the studio that counts. Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, Warcraft 2, and Diablo 2 were all games developed by Blizzard when Blizzard had less than 50 people on staff, yet those games were instant top of the charts. I'm pretty sure more people play Diablo 2 than MWO by a wide margin and that game is 18 years old now.
Then Diablo 3 rolled out and Blizzard put a talentless hack in charge of its development and the game was considered a failure.
The success or failure of a game is largely dependent on the lead designer.
Being large is no guarantee, but it helps to have those resources behind you when you develop a product. You have a larger budget for development resources, generally better talent on the payroll, a long with other assets to help make a better and more polished product.
Also, you really cant post games made 15+ years ago and say look what a small handful of people can do. Games have become infinitely more complicated and involved since Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo. New modern AAA games often have teams of artists for 3D modeling/textures, entire script writing staff, Motion capture actors, voice actors, localization teams, etc... In the 90s, a AAA game could be made by 50 people, now it seems more like 500+.
Basically put, the Blizzard staff of the 90's could not make anything remotely on the scale of Overwatch. They would be way over their heads. That's not a dig on that staff, they were great for their time, it's just that (like I said), the requirements for a AAA well polished game now I'd way far and above what it was 15 years ago.
Edited by MeiSooHaityu, 08 June 2016 - 04:24 AM.
11
