With the approach of 2012, 5 blockbusters will come out one after another. Well, do you know how many years have these games been developed? Does longer development time mean better quality?
Developed by Blizzard, Diablo III takes 11 years, StarCraft II takes 7 years, but World of Warcraft only takes 3 years, which breaks the principle "Slow work produces fine products".
However, Torchlight 2, which has also been in development for 3 years, doesn't enjoy a good reputation like World of Warcraft. It also took the developer several years to make the recently hot FireFall. Here, let's take a close look at the development time of these 5 blockbusters.
World of Warcraft: 3 years
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria will be released next year. It is considered as a turning point of the revival of World of Warcraft. Normally, World of Warcraft releases an expansion every year, so the Mists of Pandaria expansion should be developed for 1 year. Why can WOW expansions be produced so quickly? It mainly attributes to the success of World of Warcraft. However, how long did the development of World of Warcraft last? According to the official info, World of Warcraft was developed starting from 2001, when Warcraft III hadn't been released. In 2004, World of Warcraft launched its OBT in North America. That is to say, this epoch-making blockbuster only cost the developer 3 years.
Since Blizzard always delays the schedule of its products for the sake of striving for perfection, it is hard to believe that Blizzard made the epic MMORPG Word of Warcraft in just 3 years. Actually, the development of Warcraft III was already drawing to an end in 2001, and no games were under development then, so Blizzard put all energy and efforts into creating World of Warcraft. How about the response to World of Warcraft? Up until now, the game is still regarded as the model of MMORPGs.
