David Brevik, the senior designer of the original “Diablo” ranted about Blizzard on his wife’s “Path of Exile” Twitch stream last month, which has now caught the attention of the game community.
Brevik noted how much money ‘Fortnite’ is making on the Oct. 5 stream, before explaining how this might impact Blizzard’s financial decisions. He also stated that he thinks Activision is taking over Blizzard, and noted the loss of key individuals at Blizzard, including Mike Morhaime.
“’Overwatch’ isn’t ‘Fortnite.’ Why have you wronged us? Okay, we’re going to get rid of the [employee] profit-sharing program. We don’t like this,” Brevik said. “We don’t like the fact that low-level employees make decent money at Blizzard. We’re gonna get rid of this program because we need more profits to increase our stock price, and improve our shareholders and the elite 1% of the company.”
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“And, so, therefore, you don’t like this very much, Mike Morhaime?” Brevik added. “Well too f—ing bad, you’re gone!”
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At about this point, Brevik’s wife, Twitch streamer thejunglequeen, interjects with “We don’t know if that’s the case,” which Brevik acknowledges as true. Brevik left Blizzard back in 2003 to pursue other projects, including “It Lurks Below,” released earlier this year under Early Access.
Morhaime, co-founder and former president at Blizzard Entertainment, stepped down from the role last month. The employee profit sharing program was cut and then redistributed to employees as a part of their salaries rather than as a bonus, Blizzard explained in a statement last month.
Earlier in the stream, Brevik told his wife he was “way, way, way too drunk” to be on her stream, so it should be acknowledged that some of Brevik’s rant might have been fueled by alcohol. Brevik also told Newsweek that it was “probably my bedtime” and said that he was simply speculating.
“I was just speculating that this is a possible scenario,” Brevik said. “I have no inside information…. I don’t know if I even believe it, it was just a hypothetical scenario.”
The announcement of “Diablo Immortal” during BlizzCon 2018 left many “Diablo” fans disgruntled, as a common sentiment was that players don’t want a mobile version of the game and felt cheated by not getting any updates on a new PC/console “Diablo” game.
With the backlash over “Diablo Immortal,” Brevik’s rant has been used as fuel to keep the fire going. Debate over Brevik’s statements started on the Reddit thread at r/LivestreanFail.
