http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/careers/posting.html?id=15000KB
A director level position like this means this isn’t likely for the 2nd expansion. Why? I would like to believe that a good portion of the team has already been working on that for at least the last several months. And something like the art direction would be something that would be conceptualized early on.
The other interesting tidbit is the wording of “to help develop Blizzard’s next hit game!” I consider that type of wording to mean something beyond the current Diablo III game (which encompasses the initial release, and the first expansion Reaper of Souls). In other words, Diablo IV. Likewise, Blizzard may have their own definition and consider each expansion its own game.
This isn’t to say that the format of the game could also change. The business model being used in China has been fairly successful for Blizzard. Furthermore, I’ve noted before that one of the most expensive and resource intensive aspects is designing and creating an entirely new game engine (what players would expect for a D4). Thus it is highly possible D3’s life in terms of story arc (thus expansion content) may be extended beyond the original plans of it being a trilogy.
That would mean technically conceptualizing art and design that goes beyond the story arc that had originally been envisioned earlier (by this, I’m specifically referring to the story line in the campaign). This is more how I’m looking at this particular job posting; that it is more macro level where the actual technical game design aspects is something that has yet to be determined (continued expansions in D3, totally new game with a new engine aka D4, a different business model?, a potential game designed specifically for mobile?)
What it should mean is all the silly arguments about the franchise dying is just that, silly. Anyone who can read Blizzard Activision’s 10K filings will see just how important D3’s revenues (across all platforms) are to the company. It’s why they don’t break out the numbers of platform and instead just consolidate the unit sales into one big number.
I don’t let my own personal feelings regarding the actual (poor) design aspects of the game cloud how I view the business success of D3 as a whole. And that is the other important point I wanted to make; if this is specifically for a “D4”, the art direction is one thing. So long as the same game designers are involved with the actual gameplay part of the game, nothing will really change on that front. The D3 game designers don’t really grok the essence of what makes most ARPG’s tick (2nd expansion won’t fix anything nor would whatever game design they could come up with in a D4).
They also don’t get that “new content” just doesn’t mean adding in new sets, new zones, and systems like the cube. You also need actual different things to do. We’re still left to do bounties, rifts (greater rifts), and ubers (basically the exact same things). Seasonal ladders doesn’t add anything new either (with the entire leaderboard aspect marred by far too much RNG). Path of Exile has D3 beat by a mile when it comes to real new content and having actual different things to do. But all of this doesn’t matter given how huge a captive (addicted) audience Blizzard has where even with all of these actual game design issues, players keep coming back. And Blizzard knows that (where they will still move a significant amount of units).
