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Diablo: Original Game Development

jon d · 11.9K views · 2017-08-25 · 1:17:43

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Overview

David Brevik's GDC 2016 post-mortem of the original Diablo, covering how it evolved from a turn-based claymation DOS game into the genre-defining action RPG. It includes development anecdotes and lessons learned.

On Hacker News

HN considers it one of the best GDC post-mortems, with funny anecdotes (such as turning down Hotmail equity) and multiplayer insights.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2021–2023

Topics

Game designGame history & retro gamingIndie game development
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diablogdcblizzardpostmortem

What people said

martinohansen · 2023-10 · Recommendation

Unrelated to the post here, but I think both Pat and this guy[1] say that they build the multiplayer for Diablo by themselves… Anyhow, both talks are fascinating and surely worth a watch. [1] [VIDEO]

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namelosw · 2022-09 · Recommendation

An even more interesting and funny perspective is from another programmer beforehand: In this post-mortem talk [0] on Diablo 1. The creator mentioned his worst business decision - the Hotmail guy offering 10% of the company in return for an office in the back they weren't even using, and he rejected it. According to him, the pitch was: "I'm going to make email over the Internet". His response: "Dude, that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard! What are you talking about, I already have my email over the Internet - this isn't even an invention!". 14 months later, that 10% was worth $40 million. Meanwhile they agreed to do Diablo only for $300k for Blizzard, and that was a bad deal - they even had to find more contracts to compensate it. [0] [VIDEO]

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somedude895 · 2022-03 · Recommendation

I can't wait for this to go up on Youtube. GDC post mortems are amazing, especially the ones on Diablo[0] and Fallout[1]. I've loved Fallout since I was 12 and it really got me into post-apocalypse fiction. I ended up watching and reading all the media that Tim cites in his presentation and discovered some wonderful things like On the Beach (the book by Nevil Shute AND the movie), A Canticle for Leibowitz, etc [0] [VIDEO] [1] [LINK]

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Sources

Video by jon d, played through YouTube.

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