Rod Fergusson, the head of Diablo 4 gave an interesting interview three years ago, in which he clarified that he is the reason why Fortnite is still alive. This is due to his move to Blizzard.
Who is Rod Fergusson? This is the longtime game developer, whom many now know as the General Manager of Diablo. He is the head behind the upcoming Diablo 4 and was known before his time at Blizzard for holding various roles as Director of Production, Program Manager or Studio Head at studios such as 2K, Epic Games and even Microsoft.
Many who have been playing Fortnite for years don’t even know that Rod was almost the one who would have completely canceled the game.
“I would have canceled Fortnite if I hadn’t left”
What does the head of Diablo 4 say about Fortnite? Fergusson worked as Director of Production for Fortnite: Save the World when it was still considered the game that would take over the zombie game market.
Games Informer sat down with Rod and conducted an interview four years ago at E3 2019. During that, there was a question concerning him and especially Fortnite. The question was whether he had sleepless nights because Fortnite was no longer true to the original theme that Epic Games and Rod were pursuing at the time.
You can find the clip of the interview here:
Rod Fergusson then replied:
No, I am really happy about the success (of Fortnite). The questions I tend to get are: “Are you disappointed about leaving? Because you would have had such great success if you had stayed at Epic Games and oh man, it’s a shame you didn’t stay at Epic. And I just say “You all should kiss my feet,” because when I was at Epic, I attempted to cancel Fortnite.
The interesting thing here is that Rod Fergusson had already tried to cancel Fortnite before he had quit. He himself reports that every game in development has its challenges, but Fortnite: Save the World would never have gone through his “desk” in its then-current state.
Especially not as a game that was meant to be developed and expanded over a longer period.
Rod further added:
So when people look at me and ask “Oh don’t you feel bad?” I just say “No, you should feel good, because the game you love and the global sensation it set off would not exist if I had stayed at Epic Games.”
So you see, there are often very interesting stories behind the scenes of developers that come to public attention only late or not at all. Despite that, Rod’s company change had a huge impact on gaming, because if Fortnite hadn’t appeared, one of the biggest gaming hype would have been missing.
Do you know the story of Epic Games and how they managed to prevent Fortnite’s death three times?
