Jay Wilson

For the Unique monster in Development Hell, see Jay Wilson (monster).

Jay Wilson

Jay Wilson was the lead designer of Diablo III.

Biography

Pre-Blizzard

Wilson began working in the games industry around 1996, beginning work at Q Studios, working on an FPS game called Blood. He later worked at Monolith Studios, Cavedog Entertainment, and Relic Entertainment. Apart from Relic, he mainly worked on FPS games. At Relic, he was the lead designer on both Impossible Creatures and Dawn of War, and was the design director of Company of Heroes. He worked together with Josh Mosqueira on this game. He became aware of the first Diablo game after seeing it advertised on the back cover of Warcraft II. He ended up purchasing the game soon afterwards. He played Diablo II for three to four days straight when it came out.

Career at Blizzard

Wilson joined Blizzard Entertainment in 2006. Rob Pardo tracked him down to work on Diablo III, and while flattered, Wilson was reluctant, as it would mean relocating from Canada, and he wasn't sure if he could operate as a lead designer within Blizzard. He agreed to the interview not expecting to work at Blizzard, but rather to get some information that might help his current position. He was hired. and became the lead designer of Diablo III.

He described his intent as being to make a good sequel, but not to stagnate the series. He was responsible for all final decisions regarding the game.

Wilson had a contentious relationship with ex-Blizzard North members of Team 3, as many of them pushed back against his ideas. There were arguments over what monsters were allowed to be in the game (only demons, some argued), whether there should be magic (no), and whether humor should be banned (yes). A frustrated Wilson found himself digging up screenshots from Diablo II to prove to his staff that the game had dark humor, plenty of humanoid enemies, and even some bright colors. Wilson later commented that no matter what idea he put forward, someone would inevitably reject it and find a way to justify why it didn't fit the IP.

Wilson was responsible for Diablo III's combat design and physics engine.

After the game's launch, and in the midst of negative player reception, he generated controversy with a "fuck that loser" comment regarding David Brevik's commentary on the game. Wilson had been drunk at the time; he'd written it at a party in a genuine attempt to stand up for his colleagues, but the damage had been done, and soon the Internet was in uproar. Wilson regretted the comments immediately, but it was too late, and the post had gone viral. Wilson later appologized for his words. Threads were removed on Battle.net due to the amount of community vitriol.

After a week, Wilson had received so many death threats that he had to contact his local police department and the FBI, which marked several of the threats as credible. Several people were put on no-fly lists, and the police were assigned to patrol his house. The negative player reception to Diablo III had been hard enough, but Wilson's comments against Brevik had marked him as a personal target. He began to suffer the first stages of a mental breakdown.

Wilson worked on the development of Reaper of Souls. He remained as game director of Diablo III until 2013 when he was replaced by Josh Mosqueira. Wilson cited burnout as the reason for his departure from Team 3, as he had spent nearly a decade working on the same game. While Wilson's relationship with Team 3 had at times been contentious, the team was sad to see him leave, and even ex-Blizzard North staff who'd sparred with Wilson during the game's development respected the work he had done. Wilson moved to an unannounced project within the company. Wilson is known to have worked on Titan, World of Warcraft: Legion, and Avalon.

Wilson resigned from Blizzard in 2016 in order to pursue a career in writing, The decision was also prompted by his family, who wanted to move back to the Pacific northwest. In the same year, Wilson commented that in recent years, the amount of online harassment he had received had dropped, and that such vitriol was part of the reason why he left the games industry. He was later interviewed by Jason Schreier in his book The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, where Wilson detailed the effects the Diablo III backlash had on his mental health. By this point, he had teamed up with former colleague Julian Love to start a new game company.

Trivia

This section contains facts and trivia relevant to this article.

• The Barbarian is Wilson's favorite archtype.
• According to Wyatt Cheng, Wilson is a fan of the Hulk, and Kate Beckinsale in Van Helsing. He has joked that this is related to Wilson liking the Barbarian and Demon Hunter classes.