La Aventura es La Aventura: El hogar de las aventuras gráficas

Certainly by the time we were getting into the release window we wanted, that was the same time Monkey Island III was to be released (and LucasArts started development around the same time as us I think). And I think that Monkey Island was a very strong [brand] in adventure games, and it was doing that more-nostalgic class of adventure game to a hilt. Grim Fandango had already been announced, and the early screenshots of that were showing that Lucas was really going to start going to the next level of adventure games.

GameSpot: It sounds like Davidson wasn't involved at all, that it was a creative decision made entirely by Blizzard.

Bill Roper: Oh, yes, definitely. All of those decisions are pretty much ours to make. That is something that we fought pretty hard for, and fortunately, we believe our track record [supports our decisions] At that time there were real reasons why we were doing it and a real benefit to [the decision]. But it's difficult because you're not showing dollars and cents. What you're showing is a loss on a project. But you have to get [corporate leaders] to see the vision. And hopefully, they'll follow along and support you in that decision, and we were fortunate that they did.

I think the only thing I would have changed was having the foresight in the very first part of the game to say, "Let's learn from the past, but let's approach this with a very futuristic vision," as opposed to "What iterations are we going to make?" I don't think that we did that. And that would have obviously drastically altered the course of what we did.

I think that Grim Fandango was a good example of that. It was a classic adventure game for the most part but executed exceptionally well and with 3D. At least it is an attempt to step in a different direction. I think even though it's a first-person shooter, Half-Life is also a very simple adventure game to some extent.