Post from Mike Morhaime

[Archon_Wing]

Diablo 3 sold on its name and the hype around Blizzard. What mattered in the box didn't matter, because it already had an established fanbase, anticipating for so long.

It's really not that bad of a game. Though as a fan of the Diablo series, I don't think it deserves the name.

And there's no need to worry about Blizzard. Any game with their name will sell. They have yet to finish milking WoW, and once that expansion comes out, Diablo 3 will merely just be an afterthought, if it isn't already.

It's sorta funny. While IMO, 1.03 was one of the worst things to happen to D3, the most recent SC 2 patch failed so badly and of such epic proportions I actually laughed as I fired it up for the first time in a year. That one is clearly the worst patch to hit for that game. This doesn't really bode well.

Which is why actions speak louder than words. For Starcraft II, I was also asked to wait and see, because Starcraft took a long time to develop too. Unfortunate, all I have is them promising the sky, and consistently not only failing to deliver but frequently making problems worse. However, Starcraft II lasted a good 18 months on its own. And it's an e-sport taken seriously by many. I can go with that. But Battle.net 2.0 is still in shambles, and with the exception of the tacked on chat room improvement, it's still almost the same damned thing as the beta one. And it's been what? 2 years? And the 2nd game that uses this platform uses it even worse?

Like I've said many times, it's an issue of priorities. But I guess I haven't been specific enough so I'll just list one. No PvP, yet the real money auction house is running... while gameplay is still unstable and the nerfbat would instantly screw people silly enough to buy from the RMAH atm. And honestly, one would be a fool to buy from the RMAH right now-- not because buying virtual items is bad in anyway, but buying items that are prone to heavy changes this early in development is haphazard at best. It's a trap for suckers.

I'm just pointing this out, just because I feel it's not just a problem with D3, but with Blizzard as a whole. And why "just wait and see" has grown really tiring to me.

So in a way, I don't hate this letter at all. It's an earnest attempt to admit that something is wrong, and not promising anything too speciifcally. Perhaps, they are taking a more modest, compromising, and more calculated approach to changing the game.