Source: Wired
The Diablo series has always been a bloody and violent romp. However in order to make Diablo III palatable for as wide an audience as possible Blizzard is building parental controls into the game which will let players tone down or even turn off the blood and gore. But something worth noting even more are some of the precautions Blizzard has taken to ensure an Australian and German release for Diablo III. Diablo III lead designer, Jay Wilson said this when being interviewed by WIRED:
Mr. Wilson went on the record on saying that these are stylistic changes are fairly minimal and wont in any way affect the gameplay. However Mr. Wilson's real concern are some of the limitations China has for video games in the nation:"For regions like Germany and Australia, we will have to change blood if we're going to sell there. And that's fine. Those are the standards for those regions, and we don't really have a problem with catering to what they need and what they want,"
For those that have been paying attention to the relaunch of WOW, you already know that Blizzard has been asked by the Chinese government to make some serious design changes to the popula MMO. Here's an example of what the Chinese government has forced Blizzard to do in order to keep WOW open in China and why Blizzard may not view a Chinese release of Diablo II as a possibility:"But China's going to be hard for us. Because a lot of the restrictions there are really... We may not be able to do them. It may not be possible," he continued. "With our relationship with NetEase, we recently got new information about what China really wants, and it's a lengthy list. It's really hard for us to cater to. We'll try. There's no reason we wouldn't want to go there, but there is a certain point where we'd have to redo so much of the game that it's not viable anymore.
Mr. Wilson then went onto recognize that the parental controls and editing for the game will be contreversial to some hard core fans of the series.
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