Art controversy

The art controversy of Diablo III started with WWI 2008, when a number of Diablo fans found the colour of the Diablo environment palette to be "too colourful".

Fans' Rections

Here is what Blizzard started out saying in regards to the Diablo III art direction in the Lore & Environmental Art Panel:

Skip to about the 21:00 mark to hear it. To paraphrase, the designers talk about how their memories of D1 and D2 were that they were dark and gritty, but that when they actually looked back through the games they found much more color than they expected. They also say that they looked at horror movies and noticed how the color was used effectively to create mood, and that they're following that design path with Diablo III.

How it "Should" Look

A lot of discussion started up about the colour of the environments in the community forums, where some fans utterly hated the new colours, some didn't care as long as they got D3, and some liked it. Fan-made photoshopped images popped up with no colour, higher contrast, more "grit", or even the odd blood stain. More pictures has been posted in the Controversy Gallery since then. Naturally, effects such as rainbows was done away with as the point of all these images is to make the pictures more grey and "dark". Some variants just enhance a few aspects, while some goes all-out. A very strong fear for just "re-making World of WarCraft" is prevalent.

Sample of arguments:

The art should be nowhere near the art of World of Warcraft.
Art should not look "cartoonish" at all. Less pastel with bold lines and defined contours. More realism.
Darker environment with more realistic gothic creepy dark influences.
Less colour in the environment.
No rainbows!
Add the 'light radius' of Diablo 1 and Diablo 2.
Equipment should be more realistic, with smaller shoulder plates as a main focus point.

The Petitions

Together with the first few photoshopped images, petitions started to appear on the net with the demand that Blizzard should change the art design, similar to what they did with Terrans in StarCraft II. Petition signature count 2008-08-07:

One of the petitions against the new art direction got quite popular, and Blizzard originally did not comment on that petition on itself. There was also petitions starting to support Blizzard's decision. The number of signs on the different petitions are probably not a good guideline for what fans think in general however, as the fans who do like the current direction really has no reason to sign a petition for it. Only fans that reacted to the complaining by other fans would probably do so.

Blizzard's Response

Blizzard seemed to be prepared for some sort of onslaught against the colours well before the actual WWI 2008 reveal, and started talking about the importance of colour in the D3 Lore and Environmental Art Panel before the petitions even started.

Video comment by Flux:

Skip to about the 21:00 mark to hear it. To paraphrase, the designers talk about how their memories of D1 and D2 were that they were dark and gritty, but that when they actually looked back through the games they found much more color than they expected. They also say that they looked at horror movies and noticed how the color was used effectively to create mood, and that they're following that design path with Diablo III.

The reactions from fans might have been a bit stronger than they initially thought though, as they started out in the beginning of July to avoiding replying to the petition itself. It's unlikely Blizzard didn't know about it, as it was reported on from several websites like Slashgear, The Globe and Mail as well as the largest Diablo 3 fansite.

Keith Lee replies:

A great analogy is like in 'Lord of the Rings' — not everything is dark. [...] We don't want everything to look the same and that’s really what we're trying to aim for. [...]What we also tried to do is create very clean textures so that you can really focus. It's a stylized feel and in that sense, it's very sort of a Blizzard philosophy. It's just really pushing the envelope in terms of the visuals so that everyone is excited about how everything looks. We think that 'Diablo III' is going to be better in so many different ways. We're just building and improving upon the the first and second 'Diablo' games.

We're very involved, because everyone's very passionate about our games. Blizzard employees, we spend a lot of time actually iterating on [the game], and so in terms of the next phase, what we'll try to do is a proof on concept on lot of different gameplay aspects. And we really want to get as much feedback as possible so that we can improve on the game and ensure that we meet Blizzard quality for our fans and for ourselves as players.

Later in July, a few mainstream sites got the opportunity to talk to Blizzard in NYC, where art direction, and direct replies to some petition pictures were made by Jay Wilson.

Jay Wilson judges fan pics:

Jay Wilson: The key thing to remember here is that this has been Photoshopped. This isn’t created by the engine. Though it looks really cool, it's almost impossible to do in a 3D engine because you can’t have lighting that smart and run on systems that are reasonable. If we could do that, we probably would in a few of the dungeons.

Now in terms of the actual texturing, this texturing, where they grayed out everything and it's very flat and the monsters are all kind of a similar tone — that does not play well. It's very boring to run through more than a couple of times, and it's very difficult to tell creatures apart and pop them out of the environment. So those things don't really work for us. A lot of the lighting stuff I think is very cool, but it's also not very doable for us.

Blizzard Art Department Departing

In the beginning of August, Kotaku noted that the Lead Art Director position of Diablo III had quit. Brian Morrisoe worked as Lead Art Director as recently as WWI 2008, where he headed the Environmental Art Panel, and did some media, such as this interview with CVG.

Blizzard recruiting art people.

What the Kotaku piece doesn't mention is that there are several other D3 art team jobs listed on Blizzard's jobs page. None of them are recent additions, but it many fans speculated that Blizzard was having trouble finding/keeping art talent on Diablo 3. Some even went as far as to say that the tem might have gotten split up because of internal disagreements on the art direction. Jay Wilson, Diablo 3's Lead Producer, handled the fan screenshot replies mentioned previously, and some fans ask why the Art Directors didn't handle that.

Blizzard made a statement saying that Brian quit to start his own company.

Regarding Brian, he recently resigned to form a startup technology company (outside the game industry), which is why we've posted about the open position. This change won't impact the game - we're really pleased with the look and feel that Brian helped create for Diablo III, and the new person we bring onboard will work with the other artists on the team to maintain the art style moving forward. Given this state of affairs, it's hard not to speculate (as several emailers have) that perhaps the controversy over the game's art direction wasn't just amongst the fans. Perhaps different factions within the Diablo 3 team had their own strong opinions on how the game's art should look, and when push came to shove, some of the crew left. Or were asked to leave? Happily, as Blizzard often points out, the production of a game as large as Diablo 3 is handled by a large team, and no one is indispensable. Let's hope they get talented job applicants and can plug them into the openings and carry on smoothly.

This doesn't really say anything in regards to if he quit because of disagreements, or other reasons.

Links

General Information
- WWI 2008 - Art panels, video and screenshots of the new game.
- Art Controversy Category - All articles, pictures, panels and other material related in the wiki.
- Fan Debate - The big debate in the community about the colour palette.
- Controversy Gallery - Gallery of original screenshots and edited ones by fans trying to convey a more "dark" feeling. Including responses to the critics.
- Media Coverage - All Interview, Previews, Videos and Pictures released by mainstream gaming media.
Articles
- Art Direction Disarray - Lead Art Director quit timely with the fan protests.