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    DiabloWikiMike Morhaime, speaking at the recent BWC in Shanghai, fielded another question about the possibility of Diablo 3 moving into the eSports arena.

    We don’t have plans to make Diablo 3 an esport. Diablo 3 was never really designed to be an esport, and not every game necessarily needs to be an esport. SC2, on the other hand, was designed from the beginning with esports in mind. Actually, WoW wasn’t, but I think there are elements from WoW that we felt worked well in terms of esports environment, and actually we’re getting a great response from the Chinese community at this event.

    I think that there are different ways, there are certainly competitive things that we’ll be able to do with Diablo, and I think that at future DiabloWikiBlizzcons we might set up different ways for people to compete at the game, but that’s very different from creating a professional tournament structure around something like that. In order to do that, you really need to get everything right and you have to have the depth of strategy, you have to look at making sure that the strategies that are successful are balanced, and fun, and entertaining to watch, and all those things. So we’re not so sure that that’s where we should be focusing for Diablo. There are a lot of other elements of Diablo that are a lot more important. ~ Source

    That’s a pretty resounding ‘no’. Again. But the game isn’t built with competitive play in mind yet and we are still to see if the PvP element (scheduled for release by the end of this year) hits the nail on the head either. Arenas, as they have been showcased in the past at Blizzcon, didn’t seem capable of holding an audience in their grip. I could have maybe watched a few matches tops, although it looked fun to participate in. I just don’t think Diablo 3 lends itself to the eSport arena.

    When Mike was questioned about the future of eSports in Blizzard’s games he talked about a path to the finals which would be held at next year’s Blizzcon. So DiabloWikiBlizzcon 2013 has been confirmed but as it wasn’t a full announcement the specific date is not yet known. I would expect that before the end of the year now that the cat is out of the bag.

    You can view Mike’s full conference in the video after the break.

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