I found a great thread on a
Diablo fan website forum that was really relevant to what I'm getting at.
Quote from
Fanusvr
"Don't crucify me before reading. As everyone has noticed D3 draws heavy influence from wow. Colors, art style, ui ect. Has anyone wondered why? Before wow Blizzard had 3 ips that had legendary status each a gem in its own right. But then wow boomed blizzard into new financial heights, right then and there they knew they had a working formula in the bag. Thats why every consecutive blizzard game will draw from that, whether its no lan in sc2 and likley d3 because with lan interest in battle.net 2 wont be that high,and they cant make money like that can they, but when you have to use bnet thats not a problem. So forget what they say and use your brain. Blizzard is now a money *lady friend*, they dont care what the fans want, they want to appeal to the most people as possible and wows succes has given them that. They will obviously say otherwise because bad pr means less money,and thats fine those dudes have to make a living,but dont pee on my face and tell me its just raining. Hail to inblizzy ward. At least they dont hide it."