Mike Williams Reviews Editor, USgamer Friday 15th June 2012 Share this article Share

Companies in this article Blizzard Entertainment Runic Games

In a talk at I.Eat.Games, Runic Games CEO Max Schafer explained how Blizzard's Diablo III began years ago. Schafer was a co-founder of Blizzard North, the developer of Diablo I and II, prior to leaving to found Runic.

"When I was working at Blizzard a million years ago we were working on Diablo III and it was an MMO. We were going to do the Diablo version of World of Warcraft. Blizzard obviously changed that pretty quickly, so we left to start Flagship Studios and we brought in a lot of the guys, so they rebooted with their own team," he said, according to a Polygon report.

Despite the belief that Diablo III's release would hamstring Runic's Torchlight II, Schafer said that sales actually got a boost for Diablo III's presence.

"We're doing pre-sales on Steam, and the day Diablo III released they shot up 40 percent and have stayed up. They're bringing in lots of people into this genre, and people are becoming aware of what we're doing through them. We're kind of piggybacking on their marketing," he said.

Torchlight II will be hitting PC this summer for a mere $19.99 and with no pesky always-online requirement.