Diablo - Retrospective @ Venturebeat

Venturebeat posted a retrospective about the Diablo games about how it fascinated millions, and helped make Blizzard famous.

Click, click, click. That’s the sound of millions playing the famous action role-playing game Diablo. Now picture skeletons, demons, and dark, gothic architecture, with little piles of gold and loot spilling everywhere after a successful slaughter.

What you probably don’t think about as often are the faces — the people behind Diablo and the story of how they created a legend from a relentless, unforgiving love of gaming. Stay Awhile and Listen: How Two Blizzards Unleashed Diablo and Forged a Video-Game Empire, the first volume in a new series on Blizzard’s history from Digital Monument Press, gives voice to both.

Author David L. Craddock focuses on the rise of Blizzard North (formerly known as Condor) and the birth of Diablo. He also dabbles in the origins of Blizzard Entertainment (previously called Silicon & Synapse and later Chaos Studios) and the first Warcraft game. This section appears in the middle of the book, and it’s a necessary distraction. You can’t fully appreciate one studio without the other