Q: Diablo III looks set to be a success given the large fan base the series already has, but how do you intend to draw in new players who have never experienced the original two?

Frank Pearce: It's just one of those things where we have to abide by our philosophy of making a game accessible, 'Easy to learn, hard to master', I know we say that all the time but it's true. If you make the entry level experience accessible and introduce the concepts gradually to the player they learn how to play the game without even knowing that they've learnt it.

I found WoW, which was my first MMO, pretty accessible to someone who has never played an MMO before. We've got guys on the WoW team whose fathers play the game. play it at an expert level and they've never played an MMO or a computer game before. It's just a situation where we'll make sure that we make it accessible to players that are new to that experience.

But I think that the Diablo style of play is actually lends itself very well to that because the interface with the mouse is very straightforward and simple, for the most part, and to get to the more expert level of play you have to add in keyboard short cuts.

Q: What's your opinion on the MMO market? Every few weeks there seems to be a new company with a new MMO entering the market, can the industry support this type of growth?

Frank Pearce: Certainly. The market is growing every day. There are games that are launching that are of interest to all sorts of different players. Some games are more niche in nature and some are more mainstream. I don't think that any one game precludes anyone from playing multiple games or other games. Certainly we don't think that's the case, we've got StarCraft II and Diablo III in development and we'll be launching those products and World of Warcraft will hopefully be something our players are playing as well.