Morhaime and the rest of Blizzard’s C-suite saw Diablo III as a failure—a game that had damaged the brand—and several of the executives didn’t think Reaper of Souls would be good enough to turn it around. Morhaime was also feeling pressure from Bobby Kotick and his lieutenants at Activision, who were concerned that the developers in Irvine were trying to work on too many projects at once. And then there was the demonic elephant in the room: Despite its big sales numbers, Diablo III wasn’t equipped to deliver long-term revenue. People only bought the game once, which made it difficult for
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