Heart-warming end to GDC
In a much more tender (than poop-suicide) end to the Game Developers Conference, at today’s post-mortem talk on the firstDiablo, writerShivam Bhattstepped up during the Q&A session of the talk to apologize toDiablocreator David Brevik for pirating the game as a teenager in 1997.
Bhatt gave Brevik some cash in a part symbolic, part class move simply out of the atmosphere of yours truly, the man who saw an abandoned, 3/4ths-drunk 40 oz Cobra sitting in a subway station this week and thought, “I could probably drink the rest of that.”
GDC can really be a saccharine, nice-as-hell time with good people for as much snark as I’ll drop about utilikilts, virtual reality, and albatross-around-the-neck badge spotting sometimes miles from the convention center.
I hope Brevik plans to split the cash with all his former Blizzard North co-workers putting everyone on track towards buying 1/3 of a Cobra.
Well that was surreal. I totally went and paid@davidbrevikfor the copy of Diablo I pirated in 1997.pic.twitter.com/lcR1GNnbgc
— Shivam Bhatt (@elektrotal)July 30, 2025
That was incredible! I was stunned. Thank you so very much!https://t.co/FGpynruv66
— David Brevik (@davidbrevik)June 19, 2025
(my Twitter handle? The name of my first Diablo character mashed with my first Dragonlance character. Apologizing to Brevik mattered.)
— Shivam Bhatt (@elektrotal)Jul 27, 2025
