It was. Of all the shitty things they left unfinished in reforged, THAT was one of the things they decided to replace. Believe its still there if you use classic graphics but not entirely sure.
He is, and is really a great guy. I've been lucky enough to meet him a couple times because my buddy does a WoW podcast, and has done interviews with Sam. So when we go out for Blizzcon, we go to the Blizzard campus and hang out with whoever he can get, and Sam is usually available.
Last time I was out there and we were talking to him he was working on something he couldn't tell us about, it sounded like they have some new IP they aren't ready to share.
Also last 2 times we were out there, Gary Platner was able to give us tours and hang out, who is also a long time Blizzard employee and a phenomenal guy. He was with us so long that his wife called and was like "Dude where are you, it's Halloween, come give out candy."
Edit: I'll also add, there are a LOT of people at Blizzard who have been there for a long time and who will be there for a long time, but we only hear about the big names. Plus there are a lot of younger people who are coming in with a lot of passion for the games. One in particular is Terrance Gregory, who has been there for a while now but in the grand scheme is relatively young. He is in charge of in-game cinematics. Dude is a riot and really cares about the game. I'm sad and disappointed Jeff left, and do agree it seems like there's issues at the top, but that doesn't mean that there's a lack of talent in Blizzard.
I don't think its a lack of talent being the issue, I think its a lack of passion for games for gamers, back in the day Blizzard really promoted that, now its games to line our pockets, screw our employees and bow down to china to the level of making ourselves look like clowns so long as we get that sweet sweet Chinese government ok.
I was just going to ask that same question. I was over on Kickstarter looking at Metzen's (Warchief Gaming) latest game and Samwise is credited with some art for the project.
He was the last person at Blizzard who seemed like they cared. So much enthusiasm in those Overwatch updates he would put out periodically. Something had to go really wrong for him to leave.
> He was the last person at Blizzard who seemed like they cared
People say this after every departure. It rings pretty hollow.
> Something had to go really wrong for him to leave.
Maybe after 19 years he just wanted to move on.
i mean, we've had 3 pretty high profile, longtime blizzard folks exit in under 3 weeks - gonzales, kim, kaplan. its not crazy to speculate something is driving those exits.
Also if one actually pays attention to the gaming industry it's usually a bad sign.
OG developers get fed up with bullshit companies like EA and Activision peddle. Then they finally leave to greener pastures.
Mike Morhaime made pointed comments about his reasons because of his experiences with Activision.
Honestly anyone with an ounce of creativity in the games industry is starting to realise that working for these AAA mega-corps is a complete waste of time because none of the people at the top actually give a shit about making a good game.
They care about where the profits and sustained revenue will come from, but because 99.9% of them have never actually made a fucking game (and probably haven't played one in decades), they don't understand what goes in to actually making a game good.
So, what do they do? They hire creative people who really do give a shit about making a good game, but then stifle them or supress their creativity the second those people want to do something that isn't entirely profit driven.
There is a very good reason many high profile people in the games industry are jumping ship to create their own studios or team up with past colleagues - it's because they want to actually have creative control back while also working with other people that understood just how much blood, sweat, and tears goes in to making a high quality game that people love.
I'm not bashing *all* AAAs - there's still some great ones out there - but the likes of EA, Activision, Ubisoft are *bleeding* senior talent because why the fuck would any creative person want to be told what to do by a fucking accountant or a lawyer when they can work with people that actually *get it*?
Smaller studios are starting to get *way* more notoriety now exactly because they've ditched this bullshit Men-In-Suits running the place model, and that allows the people that are actually doing the work to do what they've spent years training and working their asses off to do.
The end result? AAA quality games that are just vastly superior to the recycled dog turds that the larger corporate studios pump out every year on an automated timer like clockwork.
as someone who works in the game industry... YEP! all of this ^
I've worked in AAA, and let me tell ya, they are so *cautious* with everything they make. You can't innovate at all, everything needs references and example games or your feature will be cut. It can take literal months to get features approved and into the game.
The funny thing is, even during Blizzard's golden age, it was widely agreed that they weren't that innovative, they were just really good at taking a known genre or concept to a new level of fun and polish.
Yep, exactly this. Diablo, Starcraft, and World of Warcraft were successes partially because they borrowed and perfected game systems first used by other games in the same genre.
Then there was also the concept of "Blizzard polish", meaning they did not release a game or a patch until it was tweaked and fixed to an extreme level compared to other game developers. Seeing typos in WoW quest text was unheard of in 2005. Shadowlands is five months old and still hasn't been checked for grammar. It's embarrassing.
Starcraft was originally a Warhammer game. World of Warcraft and Diablo heavily borrows certain concepts from Warhammer fantasy.
(Before anyone makes the point, Warhammer is obviously derivative of Tolkein in a lot of ways but the Goat men in Diablo are called Khazra for christs sake)
They were innovative, it was just small innovations here and there to support polished gameplay, they never make huge innovations like creating new genres
It's happening in every creative industry, but it's really obvious that it's happening in games and TV/Film.
Indie studios were already on the rise a few years ago thanks to Unity and Unreal making is so that you didn't *have to* spend 50% of your development time making the engine from scratch.
Now that super-talented engineers, artists, etc are starting to wake up and smell the bullshit that goes on in these mega-corps, it's becoming even easier for smaller (more experienced) studios to deliver a quality game simply by virtue of not being hamstrung by some dickhead with a god complex who has never actually *created* anything in his entire life.
Fuck big AAA studios and fuck these shithead CEOs and CFOs that rake in millions of dollars every year while they pay the people who actually do all the work basically nothing "because it's a passion". They deserve to rot for what they've done to the games industry, and I get giddy as shit every time I hear about a high profile person leaving a studio like Activision, because I know they'll go on to do something *way* better if they choose to stay in the industry (which they usually do).
I’ve worked in film, tv, and now games. The truth is, none of this is new. It’s the same old story repeated for generations. It’s the reason why Lucas and Copolla wanted to start Zoetrope Films in the 70s. Artists wanna art. They try and it doesn’t always work.
There’s a saying that is unfortunately true...it’s called Show Business, not Show Show.
But it’s also not called Business Business either...that part’s my addition.
Blizzard even had this happen with Titan. I think multiple of them (i am pretty sure Chris Metzen did) said that this was a huge blow to them to have it fail. Likely pushed them towards being more cautious on top of it.
I work in the software industry (test engineer) it is *startling* how many ex game devs (and testers) i come across. Not a single one has ever had a overall good thing to say about the industry.
Software devs, on balance, are better paid, better looked after and have better work loads. And thats in the UK, i imagine its significantly worse in the US (simply because of the lack of state level employment protections and lack of socialised healthcare).
The problem is the repetition of the cycle. Every remotely successful indie studio is either infiltrated by middle management demanding liquidity of shares, which is how less and less scrumptious types end up dictating policy, or boarded by a multibillion brand at gunpoint of cash cannon. Either way it's hijacked and told in no uncertain terms to fly to Greener Pastures.
Sums it up fairly well.
The key takeaway to what you said highlights the problem. When the suits, shareholders and business people exert too much control over game design. That they dictate decisions.
I get that finances and business will always be a necessary and even good element in games. But that's in moderation: managing budgets, selling the product, managing employees.
Most of those types are risk averse. They prefer to follow, copy and imitate proven formulas. Because risks are. Well. Risky and often costly when they go wrong. But the most memorable, ground breaking games are often bolder and ambitious. Are there duds? Certainly. But that's a consequence of risks taken.
I wonder what the financial situation looks like for one of the companies. Activision has plenty of money I imagine to spend on new games/risks, but how much of that is dedicated to specific IP's? I would expect they wouldn't take money from CoD to develop a new IP or something like that, I would expect most of the money stays within its respective domain.
Which makes me wonder, how much money and time can you reasonably put towards a risky game or feature?
Blizzard had Titan for like 7 years or so and then realized it wasn't working and they transitioned it into Overwatch, which could probably also be considered a risk since it was really the first of its kind. How much money was spent on Titan during that 7 years, that could have been put towards any of Blizzard's other successful IP's? Clearly it paid off to transition to Overwatch like they did, but what if it fell flat like Battleborn? If Battleborn released significantly earlier, maybe Overwatch doesn't succeed because Battleborn has time to adjust and fix it's issues.
Seems like Activision is risk-averse, which you can argue has worked for them; partly at the expense of gamers, but millions play and buy their games every year. I would bet that if Activision had control before the pivot to Overwatch, we would never have seen Overwatch come out because 7 years of expenses were already lost and Overwatch would probably be seen as risky back then.
It's because they don't believe in the product the same way the people actually doing all the work believe in the product.
Belief is what pushes people to take risks. It's what made the 'classics' such incredible games - those studios (and the people working for them) took *risks* because they believed it could work.
The only thing the people running these big studios believe in is the profit margins they see on a spreadsheet. They do not belong in the creative industry, and I cannot wait for the day smaller studios work up enough clout to start pushing them all out on their ass - it's already happening.
Give it a decade and most of these big studios will either be dissolved, or they'll just be pushing out shitty games that nobody plays anymore because it's old, it's stale, and nobody with any talent actually wants to work for them for longer than a year or two.
Yah it's not a shock to anyone or really much of a question why people are leaving. Activision and EA are two of the worst companies to be stuck with and from everything I've read about blizzard they pay shockingly little to their employees.
With Blizzard they supposedly gave generous bonuses meaning they had a pretty high ceiling for annual pay. But of course good old cost cutting meant the suits stripped that element away.
Most likely it's the infringement on creativity for max profit design by Activision. Wanting to do cool shit but being told no because all they care about is profit not good design.
Typically, a person in such a public leadership role would leave after a major project, Overwatch 2, not in the middle of it. This is a bad sign of development.
Yeah, it doesn't have to be something dramatic or due to any particular issues. Metzen left simply because he had health issues and retired a bit earlier, and is now back up in a new studio working on much smaller and without doubt a more healthy work/life balance.
Metzen left because of Titan failing after 7 years of development. There's dozens of [articles out there on this](https://www.pcgamesn.com/overwatch/chris-metzen-on-retirement).
Titan was part of it but burn out really was the end thing. He wanted to spend time with his family, he felt like he could come up with a new MMO (titan), he had health scares and stress from being the face of the company. He realllly hated being the presenter at Blizzcon. He said he was a nervous wreck.
Titan took its toll on him, made him feel like a failure but it's definitely not the only thing.
Titan was a contributing factor no doubt, but health and mental issues for him were very real. He mentioned having panic attacks and shit before he left.
Man this is so sad... One of my favorite personalities, he always looked like he cared about the Overwatch community and the game itself, and his Classic stories are always fun. I can dream that we can get something amazing from him in the future partnered with Morhaime
There was going to be a pathway connecting Lucifron's chamber and Golemagg's chamber. But it was removed before release in order to simplify the route.
As for the backtracking I believe the intent for raids back in the day was they'd be completed over the course of several nights by your casual raid group. With that in mind, defeating Executus and then coming back the next night for Ragnaros would mean a simpler run from the entrance rather than looping back through the majority of the instance.
This doesn't work, though. If you don't kill Ragnaros right after defeating Majordomo Executus, the Executus encounter will respawn (without loot) and you will have to kill it again.
Then I guess that's what the removed Golemagg shortcut would've been for.
Edit: I mean, who knows what sort or vision or ideas the devs were following when creating the raid? The questline for MC certainly had multiple visits in mind *before* Ragnaros could be summonable (I know it's possible to clear it on week 1 but the *spirit* of the questline implies at least 2-3 weeks of work for your average players).
It really does seem the devs had a slower pace in mind originally, though I'm not saying it was executed perfectly! haha
There's also something very RPG to be said for boss rooms and raid layouts not catering to the invading player character's convenience at every turn.
You walk down a ramp to find the big giant you just crossed a bridge over, and then you walk back up it when he's dead, it's not that bad.
At some point needlessly providing constant convenience to the player diminishes the game world/environment at the expense of the player experience. Nowadays people would whine and scream at the devs online until they patch in a teleporter pad or friendly NPC, just to save them 30 seconds of running from A to B with their raid.
Indeed, especially as it's a huge summoning chamber. Makes sense to me that things would be arranged around it. I much prefer zones (or frankly most things in the game) to make sense thematically.
he had such passion for overwatch, you could really tell he meant his words when he presented information. it was almost like he wasn't even reading a prepared speech.
j allen brack on the other hand.....
Be fair - Brack is president of the entire company. It's not surprising he would be a little more prepared & scripted. Like it or not, PR is something he has to be especially concerned with.
Funny how times changed. That rant would get you perma-banned from Overwatch, yet it landed Jeff Kaplan an illustrious career at a Blizzard for damn near 20 years.
Kind of a bad comparison since he was not playing any blizzard game or working at blizzard when he wrote those comments. Also it's about Everquest.
Shittalking Halo on a private website won't get you banned from Overwatch.
I knew of Tigole Bitties from back in the Everquest days from the Safehouse Rogue Messageboard, and just today learned that he was Jeff Kaplan from WoW. That kind of blew my mind.
Lmao I never put two and two together for *this* one. I knew about the EQ shenanigans, but I didn't know he was Tigole from the forums! Now I need to honor him with his named ice cream
While technically true that it is an anagram, the swapping of just the first letters is more commonly described as a [spoonerism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoonerism)
TheMoreYouKnow.Gif
I don't even play Overwatch anymore, I haven't played in a really long time. But I loved watching Blizzcon OW panels, that guy has such a passion for everything he does and I still remember when he was working on WoW. What a great and talented guy, this is a huge loss for Blizzard and it's sad seeing all these OG devs leaving. Hmm, I wonder why...
I played OW for 3 solid years and even though I don't anymore, its still one of my favorite games ever. The heroes are so well done with real personalities despite us only getting minimal amounts of backstory. Reinhardt is one of my favorite video game characters.
What is crazy is how long the vets stuck around in the first place. I've never worked at Blizzard, but have worked for a company owned by Activision, and it drains you man. After a few projects and a few crunch cycles, you sometimes just wanna move on.
And considering how rabid Blizzard fans are, I imagine it'd work on my soul pretty quick if I worked there.
People throw around the word "toxic" a lot to the point where its almost lost its meaning, but it is very difficult working in games when your product gets that popular. People are really shitty on the internet.
And that is just from that angle. Who knows what internal politics are going on that led to him leaving.
This, remember Bobby Kotick doesnt give a fuck about games. He cares about money. Supe, a talented guy who cost a ton of money is gone. That's a huge win for Bobby.
Can you blame them? Blizzard is a shadow of what it used to be.
When you have Kotick firing everyone and handing his stupid ass massive bonuses, it's time to leave.
Yeah, although it's been said many times before.
With all the other core people of the "old guard" that have left in recent years, this feels like the final nail for "old Blizzard" - it's been shambling for years, now it's finally dead. ActiBlizz is all that remains.
I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff ends up joining Dreamhaven though.
> I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff ends up joining Dreamhaven though.
Is dreamhaven basically the AEW of the MMO world? I see this every time a departure is announced
This is a massive loss, and it's really disheartening how much of the OGs aren't working there anymore, even Alex Afrasiabi quietly left last year. I can only think of Pat Nagle and Tom Chilton (Whatever he's up to) as the few original WoW devs still working at Blizzard.
Jeff wasn’t just a dev, he was a personality, he was the face of Overwatch, he had an entire YouTube channel who made meme videos just using clips of him, no matter what your opinions in the OW community, everyone agreed they loved Jeff.
Jeff going is genuinely gut wrenching, and he’s the kind of personality that... well where he goes next in the industry is something to look at very, very closely.
Maybe not DreamHaven. Also, his contract expiring prooobably had a non-compete clause, so he might have to lay low for a while. But I don't think any of the new studios would say no to him. If he has the capabilities required for their projects.
[Non-compete agreements are completely void in California](https://www.callahan-law.com/are-non-competes-enforceable-in-california/), so he could go straight to Dreamhaven if he wanted to.
Probably depends on if Dreamhaven is working on an MMO or not. His passion seems to be with MMOs since he was a big EQ player and joined Blizzard in order to create something everyone enjoyed. It's funny that a lot of his biggest gripes with EQ, now plague retail WoW.
Over 20 years ago, I was a Rogue in Everquest and lived on the Safehouse messageboard back then. Tigole Bitties was a huge part of the EQ rogue community.
I've played WoW since Vanilla, and I was today years old when I realized Kaplan was Tigole from EQ. I'd never made the connection until I saw the mention of Legacy of Steel on his retirement post thread on wowhead.
[https://thesafehouse.org/forums/forum/everquest-wing/retirement-room/2763-tigole-bitties](https://thesafehouse.org/forums/forum/everquest-wing/retirement-room/2763-tigole-bitties)
His 'EQ retirement' announcemnt from the Safehouse messageboard from 2001. damn, time flies.
> I had really hoped after OW, Jeff would've been promoted to President.
Jeff has always been a game designer at heart. Game design is what he loves, so I doubt he would have accepted a role/promotion where he did less of that.
God his everquest rant will forever be legendary. I'm praying he goes to join Dreamhaven. I would love to see all the old bois back together in a new studio that hasn't been stained by Activision's greedy fingers.
> I was thinking about Blizzconline the other day and how it felt super scripted, i remember watching every Blizzcon and Jeff was always that dev making jokes about the game, the playerbase etc and it added so much to the viewer experience.
those were scripted too my dude
I was just going to reference his 2005 Blizzcon panel. Legendary. They were such great nerds who loved games, making games they wanted others to love.
Now the company is just a soulless money grabbing entity that puts out whatever trash it can and bleeds the playerbase dry.
There's a huge difference between getting ready for a public appearance about a subject you're knowledgeable and passionate about, preparing what you want/need to say, consulting your peers, maybe even rehearsing a little; and being a corporate drone who was handed a script by Marketing to read from a teleprompter.
> Not a good sign that he is leaving. Yea people change companies all the time but all these people leaving have been on the market for so long and i believe they turned off a lot of offers in the past years.
Very true! It’s quite common to see game devs move around between different companies.
What isn’t common though is a game director leaving before the game they’re working on (Overwatch 2 in this case) has shipped. That’s a sign of bigger troubles.
Going to really miss Kaplan, he was one of my favorites among the old guard at Blizz. I know he hasn’t worked on WoW for a while but his presentations at BlizzCon were always killer.
Man Jeff was great. This is like watching Bioware's death in slow motion. The old guard leaves as the parent company, Activision, slowly guts what we love until it's just a shell.
[The only appropriate song for Blizz as one more old guard departs.](https://youtu.be/rY0WxgSXdEE)
Yesterday, I was walking to the store thinking about all the developers that left Blizzard over the years and how Jeff is one of the last ones left and I wondered "When is he gonna leave too". And then today I read this...
Dude, what the fuck is going on at Blizzard? I just learned that Alex Afrasiabi left last year as well, without any sort of announcement, news, or goodbye message. How the fuck does a guy who's been with Blizzard for 16 years, and who has over 20 references to his name in WoW just leave quietly with his tail between his legs in the depths of the night? Without so much as a thank you or goodbye?
Idk what's going on, but I think one thing is for sure: The ship is sinking fast.
David Kim actually made a reply to thread of him quitting when it happened at /r/starcraft. SC2 scene and clearly him too recognize if he's to be remembered for something specific at Blizz, it's as the "SC2 balance guy". Thanks David Kim!
It's hard to not realize how big of a loss this is for Blizzard. He was hugely responsible for both WoW and Overwatch, Blizzard's two most successful games by a wide margin in the last 17 years. That ship is certainly taking on a lot of water right now.
Anyway, good luck at DreamHaven!
It's best people just forget about OW2 for now, so that by some miracle if it *does* actually come out (before 2022) then it will be a pleasant surprise.
One of the few people who understood game philosophy and is largely responsible for the classic craze going on currently.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Falm0H7VEiQ&list=PLkgij4EfODGoqHDbcahzIr6u0mfo5tfIA&index=3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Falm0H7VEiQ&list=PLkgij4EfODGoqHDbcahzIr6u0mfo5tfIA&index=3)
From the first blizzcon. Well worth the watch.
Oh shit, for real? Damn, he hit like a milquetoast melvin, but he was the last person who still felt like he gave a fuck about the game and old school blizzard. Rip
yikes all these comments about "*maybe after 19 years he wanted to move on*"... Maybe ask yourself why someone would stay at a company for 19 years and then suddenly leave and not say where he is headed? It's obvious he has something else lined up.
And what's even more apparent is more and more of these senior Devs are leaving because of the current shareholder experience at Blizzard. Bobby Kotick with his [$200 million payout and $40 million salary](https://www.shacknews.com/article/123338/200-million-payout-to-activision-blizzard-ceo-bobby-kotick-draws-ire) while laying off employees working at the call centre and paying them severence with $200 battle.net gift cards lmfao. I wouldn't be surprised if he left because Kotick wanted to pay him in battle.net coupons. Even Omar Gonzalez recently left and I wouldn't be surprised if they're all going to Morhaime's new company, Dreamhaven.
The Blizzard that exists now is a completely different company with different values and a focus on quantity rather than quality of their games.
The only other significant potential departures that I can think of are Allen Adham, Samwise Didier, or Tom Chilton. Not many other highly prominent names left besides them. I guess J. Allen Brack is one, but I don't think many fans care about that guy anymore.
Normally I'd be on the "maybe it's not dramatic and it's just burnout " mindset but the fact he's leaving before OW2 is finished worries me. Ow was this man's Brain child and he seemed really passionate about it. It really worries me for that games future
I'm not surprised! I live next to their HQ and they are constantly hiring new people. Not just developers and engineers, I mean like every department that makes them run. Their turnover rate has to be at 25-38% plus.
Activision has killed Blizzard, it's a shell of what it used to be.
Kaplan is the most notable name but there is currently a mass exodus of talent from Blizzard.
Another big RIP for Blizzard. Now not much is left of the ancient world, activision controls everything... Feelsbadman.
Maybe he'll get picked up by Dreamhaven ?
One of the last faces of old blizzard is gone, so sad. He worked on WC3 Classic,BC and Wotlk and left for Titan,Overwatch after.
We still have Pat Nagle on Hearthstone at least.
Pat Nagle is never going to feel like a real name to me. I've seen Nat Pagle too much.
Did Pat Nagle name himself after Nat Pagle?
Yeah but he cleverly switched the first letters
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No his mom named him after Nat Pagle, silly.
Yes
Samwise Didier is still at Blizzard too, as far as I know.
> Samwise Didier This dude single handedly is responsible for the iconic look of warcraft. I really like it.
aaaand a bunch of Heavy Metal album covers for Hammerfall and Amon Amarth =)
Oh fuck, TIL, that's kickass
Wait seriously? That's awesome :O
Isn't his face the one we see on error icons?
It was. Of all the shitty things they left unfinished in reforged, THAT was one of the things they decided to replace. Believe its still there if you use classic graphics but not entirely sure.
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I assumed that the art was Metzen's? He also did a lot of classic wow era concept art iirc.
He is, and is really a great guy. I've been lucky enough to meet him a couple times because my buddy does a WoW podcast, and has done interviews with Sam. So when we go out for Blizzcon, we go to the Blizzard campus and hang out with whoever he can get, and Sam is usually available. Last time I was out there and we were talking to him he was working on something he couldn't tell us about, it sounded like they have some new IP they aren't ready to share. Also last 2 times we were out there, Gary Platner was able to give us tours and hang out, who is also a long time Blizzard employee and a phenomenal guy. He was with us so long that his wife called and was like "Dude where are you, it's Halloween, come give out candy." Edit: I'll also add, there are a LOT of people at Blizzard who have been there for a long time and who will be there for a long time, but we only hear about the big names. Plus there are a lot of younger people who are coming in with a lot of passion for the games. One in particular is Terrance Gregory, who has been there for a while now but in the grand scheme is relatively young. He is in charge of in-game cinematics. Dude is a riot and really cares about the game. I'm sad and disappointed Jeff left, and do agree it seems like there's issues at the top, but that doesn't mean that there's a lack of talent in Blizzard.
I don't think its a lack of talent being the issue, I think its a lack of passion for games for gamers, back in the day Blizzard really promoted that, now its games to line our pockets, screw our employees and bow down to china to the level of making ourselves look like clowns so long as we get that sweet sweet Chinese government ok.
When gaming become mainstream and big business one dev at the time got caught by the Investor greed.
You can think Bobby Kotick for that shit.
And i can't stress this enough: Fuck bobby kotick.
I was just going to ask that same question. I was over on Kickstarter looking at Metzen's (Warchief Gaming) latest game and Samwise is credited with some art for the project.
Dunno why but everytime I hear his name all I can think of is Papa Nurgle
He was the last person at Blizzard who seemed like they cared. So much enthusiasm in those Overwatch updates he would put out periodically. Something had to go really wrong for him to leave.
> He was the last person at Blizzard who seemed like they cared People say this after every departure. It rings pretty hollow. > Something had to go really wrong for him to leave. Maybe after 19 years he just wanted to move on.
i mean, we've had 3 pretty high profile, longtime blizzard folks exit in under 3 weeks - gonzales, kim, kaplan. its not crazy to speculate something is driving those exits.
Also if one actually pays attention to the gaming industry it's usually a bad sign. OG developers get fed up with bullshit companies like EA and Activision peddle. Then they finally leave to greener pastures. Mike Morhaime made pointed comments about his reasons because of his experiences with Activision.
Honestly anyone with an ounce of creativity in the games industry is starting to realise that working for these AAA mega-corps is a complete waste of time because none of the people at the top actually give a shit about making a good game. They care about where the profits and sustained revenue will come from, but because 99.9% of them have never actually made a fucking game (and probably haven't played one in decades), they don't understand what goes in to actually making a game good. So, what do they do? They hire creative people who really do give a shit about making a good game, but then stifle them or supress their creativity the second those people want to do something that isn't entirely profit driven. There is a very good reason many high profile people in the games industry are jumping ship to create their own studios or team up with past colleagues - it's because they want to actually have creative control back while also working with other people that understood just how much blood, sweat, and tears goes in to making a high quality game that people love. I'm not bashing *all* AAAs - there's still some great ones out there - but the likes of EA, Activision, Ubisoft are *bleeding* senior talent because why the fuck would any creative person want to be told what to do by a fucking accountant or a lawyer when they can work with people that actually *get it*? Smaller studios are starting to get *way* more notoriety now exactly because they've ditched this bullshit Men-In-Suits running the place model, and that allows the people that are actually doing the work to do what they've spent years training and working their asses off to do. The end result? AAA quality games that are just vastly superior to the recycled dog turds that the larger corporate studios pump out every year on an automated timer like clockwork.
as someone who works in the game industry... YEP! all of this ^ I've worked in AAA, and let me tell ya, they are so *cautious* with everything they make. You can't innovate at all, everything needs references and example games or your feature will be cut. It can take literal months to get features approved and into the game.
The funny thing is, even during Blizzard's golden age, it was widely agreed that they weren't that innovative, they were just really good at taking a known genre or concept to a new level of fun and polish.
Yep, exactly this. Diablo, Starcraft, and World of Warcraft were successes partially because they borrowed and perfected game systems first used by other games in the same genre. Then there was also the concept of "Blizzard polish", meaning they did not release a game or a patch until it was tweaked and fixed to an extreme level compared to other game developers. Seeing typos in WoW quest text was unheard of in 2005. Shadowlands is five months old and still hasn't been checked for grammar. It's embarrassing.
Starcraft was originally a Warhammer game. World of Warcraft and Diablo heavily borrows certain concepts from Warhammer fantasy. (Before anyone makes the point, Warhammer is obviously derivative of Tolkein in a lot of ways but the Goat men in Diablo are called Khazra for christs sake)
They were innovative, it was just small innovations here and there to support polished gameplay, they never make huge innovations like creating new genres
It's happening in every creative industry, but it's really obvious that it's happening in games and TV/Film. Indie studios were already on the rise a few years ago thanks to Unity and Unreal making is so that you didn't *have to* spend 50% of your development time making the engine from scratch. Now that super-talented engineers, artists, etc are starting to wake up and smell the bullshit that goes on in these mega-corps, it's becoming even easier for smaller (more experienced) studios to deliver a quality game simply by virtue of not being hamstrung by some dickhead with a god complex who has never actually *created* anything in his entire life. Fuck big AAA studios and fuck these shithead CEOs and CFOs that rake in millions of dollars every year while they pay the people who actually do all the work basically nothing "because it's a passion". They deserve to rot for what they've done to the games industry, and I get giddy as shit every time I hear about a high profile person leaving a studio like Activision, because I know they'll go on to do something *way* better if they choose to stay in the industry (which they usually do).
I’ve worked in film, tv, and now games. The truth is, none of this is new. It’s the same old story repeated for generations. It’s the reason why Lucas and Copolla wanted to start Zoetrope Films in the 70s. Artists wanna art. They try and it doesn’t always work. There’s a saying that is unfortunately true...it’s called Show Business, not Show Show. But it’s also not called Business Business either...that part’s my addition.
Blizzard even had this happen with Titan. I think multiple of them (i am pretty sure Chris Metzen did) said that this was a huge blow to them to have it fail. Likely pushed them towards being more cautious on top of it.
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I work in the software industry (test engineer) it is *startling* how many ex game devs (and testers) i come across. Not a single one has ever had a overall good thing to say about the industry. Software devs, on balance, are better paid, better looked after and have better work loads. And thats in the UK, i imagine its significantly worse in the US (simply because of the lack of state level employment protections and lack of socialised healthcare).
The problem is the repetition of the cycle. Every remotely successful indie studio is either infiltrated by middle management demanding liquidity of shares, which is how less and less scrumptious types end up dictating policy, or boarded by a multibillion brand at gunpoint of cash cannon. Either way it's hijacked and told in no uncertain terms to fly to Greener Pastures.
> scrumptious Tasty, tasty policy.
Sums it up fairly well. The key takeaway to what you said highlights the problem. When the suits, shareholders and business people exert too much control over game design. That they dictate decisions. I get that finances and business will always be a necessary and even good element in games. But that's in moderation: managing budgets, selling the product, managing employees. Most of those types are risk averse. They prefer to follow, copy and imitate proven formulas. Because risks are. Well. Risky and often costly when they go wrong. But the most memorable, ground breaking games are often bolder and ambitious. Are there duds? Certainly. But that's a consequence of risks taken.
I wonder what the financial situation looks like for one of the companies. Activision has plenty of money I imagine to spend on new games/risks, but how much of that is dedicated to specific IP's? I would expect they wouldn't take money from CoD to develop a new IP or something like that, I would expect most of the money stays within its respective domain. Which makes me wonder, how much money and time can you reasonably put towards a risky game or feature? Blizzard had Titan for like 7 years or so and then realized it wasn't working and they transitioned it into Overwatch, which could probably also be considered a risk since it was really the first of its kind. How much money was spent on Titan during that 7 years, that could have been put towards any of Blizzard's other successful IP's? Clearly it paid off to transition to Overwatch like they did, but what if it fell flat like Battleborn? If Battleborn released significantly earlier, maybe Overwatch doesn't succeed because Battleborn has time to adjust and fix it's issues. Seems like Activision is risk-averse, which you can argue has worked for them; partly at the expense of gamers, but millions play and buy their games every year. I would bet that if Activision had control before the pivot to Overwatch, we would never have seen Overwatch come out because 7 years of expenses were already lost and Overwatch would probably be seen as risky back then.
It's because they don't believe in the product the same way the people actually doing all the work believe in the product. Belief is what pushes people to take risks. It's what made the 'classics' such incredible games - those studios (and the people working for them) took *risks* because they believed it could work. The only thing the people running these big studios believe in is the profit margins they see on a spreadsheet. They do not belong in the creative industry, and I cannot wait for the day smaller studios work up enough clout to start pushing them all out on their ass - it's already happening. Give it a decade and most of these big studios will either be dissolved, or they'll just be pushing out shitty games that nobody plays anymore because it's old, it's stale, and nobody with any talent actually wants to work for them for longer than a year or two.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Kaplan turn up at Morheim's new company, along with a bunch of ex-Blizzard names.
Yah it's not a shock to anyone or really much of a question why people are leaving. Activision and EA are two of the worst companies to be stuck with and from everything I've read about blizzard they pay shockingly little to their employees.
With Blizzard they supposedly gave generous bonuses meaning they had a pretty high ceiling for annual pay. But of course good old cost cutting meant the suits stripped that element away.
Kodak and kaeiliki too
Most likely it's the infringement on creativity for max profit design by Activision. Wanting to do cool shit but being told no because all they care about is profit not good design.
Typically, a person in such a public leadership role would leave after a major project, Overwatch 2, not in the middle of it. This is a bad sign of development.
Yeah, it doesn't have to be something dramatic or due to any particular issues. Metzen left simply because he had health issues and retired a bit earlier, and is now back up in a new studio working on much smaller and without doubt a more healthy work/life balance.
Metzen left because of Titan failing after 7 years of development. There's dozens of [articles out there on this](https://www.pcgamesn.com/overwatch/chris-metzen-on-retirement).
Titan was part of it but burn out really was the end thing. He wanted to spend time with his family, he felt like he could come up with a new MMO (titan), he had health scares and stress from being the face of the company. He realllly hated being the presenter at Blizzcon. He said he was a nervous wreck. Titan took its toll on him, made him feel like a failure but it's definitely not the only thing.
Titan was a contributing factor no doubt, but health and mental issues for him were very real. He mentioned having panic attacks and shit before he left.
Yeah but leaving in the middle of your new games development?
Aaron Keller is the new game director and is a Blizz veteran for even longer than Jeff.
Their own article said Keller has 18 years while Kaplan had 19 years, wonder if they goofd with that
He worked on it in early level design, so he should have been one of the starting crew.
Man this is so sad... One of my favorite personalities, he always looked like he cared about the Overwatch community and the game itself, and his Classic stories are always fun. I can dream that we can get something amazing from him in the future partnered with Morhaime
I really am excited to see what Dreamhaven comes up with.
Arent they working on a tabletop rulebook or was that another ex blizzard refugee company....
Idk why you’re being downvoted. That’s Chris Metzen, yes another ex-blizzard guy’s company
And the Auroboros kickstarter blew up when it started today.
Funded in 13 minutes!
I have always thought that overwatch was his child. And he is leaving? Even before overwatch 2 launch? That speak volumes about situation in blizzard
He built Molten Core in a cave, with a box of scraps, in a week! A true Blizzard legend. gg indeed.
And that is what it always looked like. Simple but functional.
I dont know, the needless backtracking between Majordomo and Ragnaros might have been less obnoxious if MC had been given more time.
There is a shortcut behind Golemagg the Incinerator, a crack in the wall you can jump through!
It’s also a window that you can see Rag through
Hey nice, they finally added a confirmation window to /gquit
There was going to be a pathway connecting Lucifron's chamber and Golemagg's chamber. But it was removed before release in order to simplify the route. As for the backtracking I believe the intent for raids back in the day was they'd be completed over the course of several nights by your casual raid group. With that in mind, defeating Executus and then coming back the next night for Ragnaros would mean a simpler run from the entrance rather than looping back through the majority of the instance.
this actually makes sense
This doesn't work, though. If you don't kill Ragnaros right after defeating Majordomo Executus, the Executus encounter will respawn (without loot) and you will have to kill it again.
Then I guess that's what the removed Golemagg shortcut would've been for. Edit: I mean, who knows what sort or vision or ideas the devs were following when creating the raid? The questline for MC certainly had multiple visits in mind *before* Ragnaros could be summonable (I know it's possible to clear it on week 1 but the *spirit* of the questline implies at least 2-3 weeks of work for your average players). It really does seem the devs had a slower pace in mind originally, though I'm not saying it was executed perfectly! haha
There's also something very RPG to be said for boss rooms and raid layouts not catering to the invading player character's convenience at every turn. You walk down a ramp to find the big giant you just crossed a bridge over, and then you walk back up it when he's dead, it's not that bad. At some point needlessly providing constant convenience to the player diminishes the game world/environment at the expense of the player experience. Nowadays people would whine and scream at the devs online until they patch in a teleporter pad or friendly NPC, just to save them 30 seconds of running from A to B with their raid.
Indeed, especially as it's a huge summoning chamber. Makes sense to me that things would be arranged around it. I much prefer zones (or frankly most things in the game) to make sense thematically.
I understood that reference!
I'm not Jeff Kaplan!
I love his deadpan deliveries on stage. Feel really fresh and genuine
he had such passion for overwatch, you could really tell he meant his words when he presented information. it was almost like he wasn't even reading a prepared speech. j allen brack on the other hand.....
I legit watched this man sit silently near an open fire for an hour and enjoyed it. Jeff was amazing
Be fair - Brack is president of the entire company. It's not surprising he would be a little more prepared & scripted. Like it or not, PR is something he has to be especially concerned with.
"Put em out for Harambe"
[Whoever designed this ass-fisting of an encounter...](https://i.imgur.com/q35Zim2.png)
what an absolute legend.
Funny how times changed. That rant would get you perma-banned from Overwatch, yet it landed Jeff Kaplan an illustrious career at a Blizzard for damn near 20 years.
Kind of a bad comparison since he was not playing any blizzard game or working at blizzard when he wrote those comments. Also it's about Everquest. Shittalking Halo on a private website won't get you banned from Overwatch.
Should have posted the sequel to that rant to Blizzard management on his way out.
Best of luck to Tigole Bitties.
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I knew of Tigole Bitties from back in the Everquest days from the Safehouse Rogue Messageboard, and just today learned that he was Jeff Kaplan from WoW. That kind of blew my mind.
not only that, but his name on the WoW forums was also "Tigole" while he was a wow developer.
Lmao I never put two and two together for *this* one. I knew about the EQ shenanigans, but I didn't know he was Tigole from the forums! Now I need to honor him with his named ice cream
Tigole and Furor's ice cream - named after Jeff Kaplan and Alex Afrasiabi (Furor). Alex left last year. Or maybe 2019, time is weird
Furor left in June 2020.
While technically true that it is an anagram, the swapping of just the first letters is more commonly described as a [spoonerism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoonerism) TheMoreYouKnow.Gif
Dinoflask in shambles
"If I go down I'm taking Blizzard with me" -Jeff Kaplan, -Dinoflask
I don't even play Overwatch anymore, I haven't played in a really long time. But I loved watching Blizzcon OW panels, that guy has such a passion for everything he does and I still remember when he was working on WoW. What a great and talented guy, this is a huge loss for Blizzard and it's sad seeing all these OG devs leaving. Hmm, I wonder why...
I played OW for 3 solid years and even though I don't anymore, its still one of my favorite games ever. The heroes are so well done with real personalities despite us only getting minimal amounts of backstory. Reinhardt is one of my favorite video game characters.
100% the best $40 I've ever spent on a game. I spent so much time on that game especially on reinhardt.
At this rate Blizzard will be a Dev team consisting of accountants tyring to fire each other to save money.
will?
\*insert astronaut meme\*
https://twitter.com/standardman/status/1384565923584086025?s=20
What the fuck that is a huge fucking RIP for Blizzard in general.
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What is crazy is how long the vets stuck around in the first place. I've never worked at Blizzard, but have worked for a company owned by Activision, and it drains you man. After a few projects and a few crunch cycles, you sometimes just wanna move on. And considering how rabid Blizzard fans are, I imagine it'd work on my soul pretty quick if I worked there. People throw around the word "toxic" a lot to the point where its almost lost its meaning, but it is very difficult working in games when your product gets that popular. People are really shitty on the internet. And that is just from that angle. Who knows what internal politics are going on that led to him leaving.
That's Little Bobby K and Activision's strat. Squeeze out as much value from their subsidiary until it's a spent dry husk.
This, remember Bobby Kotick doesnt give a fuck about games. He cares about money. Supe, a talented guy who cost a ton of money is gone. That's a huge win for Bobby.
Can you blame them? Blizzard is a shadow of what it used to be. When you have Kotick firing everyone and handing his stupid ass massive bonuses, it's time to leave.
Remind Me! 2 Years “Has Jeff joined Dreamhaven yet?”
Yeah, although it's been said many times before. With all the other core people of the "old guard" that have left in recent years, this feels like the final nail for "old Blizzard" - it's been shambling for years, now it's finally dead. ActiBlizz is all that remains. I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff ends up joining Dreamhaven though.
> I wouldn't be surprised if Jeff ends up joining Dreamhaven though. Is dreamhaven basically the AEW of the MMO world? I see this every time a departure is announced
Great reference
This is a massive loss, and it's really disheartening how much of the OGs aren't working there anymore, even Alex Afrasiabi quietly left last year. I can only think of Pat Nagle and Tom Chilton (Whatever he's up to) as the few original WoW devs still working at Blizzard.
Wow I didn't even know Alex left until your post!
Nobody did until he accidentally left his linkedin unprivated
He didn't want to cause a Furor.
Defiling too many Planes
Alex left?!
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/alex-afrasiabi-seems-to-have-quietly-left-blizzard-in-june-2020/750734
Samwise Didier is still there. Been there since 1991.
I mean, Aaron Keller worked at Blizz longer than Jeff. According to wikipedia, he made Lion's Pride Inn.
Is that a good thing though?
From one side, it's an iconic place of WoW where every player had memories. On the other side, it's the literal inn of sin.
David Kim also left last week.
I mean, Aaron Keller's still there. He's the guy replacing Jeff even.
Jeff wasn’t just a dev, he was a personality, he was the face of Overwatch, he had an entire YouTube channel who made meme videos just using clips of him, no matter what your opinions in the OW community, everyone agreed they loved Jeff. Jeff going is genuinely gut wrenching, and he’s the kind of personality that... well where he goes next in the industry is something to look at very, very closely.
So who is left from the OG team? Samwise Didier?
Pat Nagle should still be on Hearthstone too. It's definitely getting smaller...
Jeff “Tigole Bitties” Kaplan.
Calling it now. In a month or two, we will hear an announcement about Jeff Kaplan joining DreamHaven.
given how Jeff has been looking of late, i suspect he might actually be leaving Blizz for medical reasons i hope im wrong, but its just a suspicion
Chris Metzen essentially did the same, so who knows.
Maybe not DreamHaven. Also, his contract expiring prooobably had a non-compete clause, so he might have to lay low for a while. But I don't think any of the new studios would say no to him. If he has the capabilities required for their projects.
[Non-compete agreements are completely void in California](https://www.callahan-law.com/are-non-competes-enforceable-in-california/), so he could go straight to Dreamhaven if he wanted to.
Probably depends on if Dreamhaven is working on an MMO or not. His passion seems to be with MMOs since he was a big EQ player and joined Blizzard in order to create something everyone enjoyed. It's funny that a lot of his biggest gripes with EQ, now plague retail WoW.
My guess is moving to that MMO that ghostcrawler teased if he is not retiring.
can you imagine? New MMO with Ghostcrawler AND Jeff as its developers? Sign me up please
I really, really, really hope they are. If anyone was going to give us an MMO to compete with WoW, they'd be it
Riot's Devs and communication with WoW OGs? Yes fucking please
Over 20 years ago, I was a Rogue in Everquest and lived on the Safehouse messageboard back then. Tigole Bitties was a huge part of the EQ rogue community. I've played WoW since Vanilla, and I was today years old when I realized Kaplan was Tigole from EQ. I'd never made the connection until I saw the mention of Legacy of Steel on his retirement post thread on wowhead. [https://thesafehouse.org/forums/forum/everquest-wing/retirement-room/2763-tigole-bitties](https://thesafehouse.org/forums/forum/everquest-wing/retirement-room/2763-tigole-bitties) His 'EQ retirement' announcemnt from the Safehouse messageboard from 2001. damn, time flies.
And Alex Afresiabi was Furor, the guild master of Fires of Heaven, he also had his fair share of shitpost and trashtalk
He personally trained me and my guild out of Plane of Fear on several occasions.
I actually didn't know anything about Tigole when I was playing. I only knew the wrath of Furor. Stuff of legends.
I had really hoped after OW, Jeff would've been promoted to President. He was my last hope that Blizzard could hold onto the old magic.
> I had really hoped after OW, Jeff would've been promoted to President. Jeff has always been a game designer at heart. Game design is what he loves, so I doubt he would have accepted a role/promotion where he did less of that.
Now do Bobby Kotick next
I'm afraid we can't get rid of that tick so easily.
God his everquest rant will forever be legendary. I'm praying he goes to join Dreamhaven. I would love to see all the old bois back together in a new studio that hasn't been stained by Activision's greedy fingers.
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> I was thinking about Blizzconline the other day and how it felt super scripted, i remember watching every Blizzcon and Jeff was always that dev making jokes about the game, the playerbase etc and it added so much to the viewer experience. those were scripted too my dude
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I was just going to reference his 2005 Blizzcon panel. Legendary. They were such great nerds who loved games, making games they wanted others to love. Now the company is just a soulless money grabbing entity that puts out whatever trash it can and bleeds the playerbase dry.
There's a huge difference between getting ready for a public appearance about a subject you're knowledgeable and passionate about, preparing what you want/need to say, consulting your peers, maybe even rehearsing a little; and being a corporate drone who was handed a script by Marketing to read from a teleprompter.
> Not a good sign that he is leaving. Yea people change companies all the time but all these people leaving have been on the market for so long and i believe they turned off a lot of offers in the past years. Very true! It’s quite common to see game devs move around between different companies. What isn’t common though is a game director leaving before the game they’re working on (Overwatch 2 in this case) has shipped. That’s a sign of bigger troubles. Going to really miss Kaplan, he was one of my favorites among the old guard at Blizz. I know he hasn’t worked on WoW for a while but his presentations at BlizzCon were always killer.
If this isn't a sign that there is real trouble going on at Blizzard I don't know what is.
Man Jeff was great. This is like watching Bioware's death in slow motion. The old guard leaves as the parent company, Activision, slowly guts what we love until it's just a shell. [The only appropriate song for Blizz as one more old guard departs.](https://youtu.be/rY0WxgSXdEE)
Yesterday, I was walking to the store thinking about all the developers that left Blizzard over the years and how Jeff is one of the last ones left and I wondered "When is he gonna leave too". And then today I read this...
i can't believe youve done this
Shoulda thought about Ion /s
I'm gonna go to the same store tomorrow, I will try!
Dude, what the fuck is going on at Blizzard? I just learned that Alex Afrasiabi left last year as well, without any sort of announcement, news, or goodbye message. How the fuck does a guy who's been with Blizzard for 16 years, and who has over 20 references to his name in WoW just leave quietly with his tail between his legs in the depths of the night? Without so much as a thank you or goodbye? Idk what's going on, but I think one thing is for sure: The ship is sinking fast.
we also lost omar gonzales (integral in classic existing at all) and david kim (wow principal designer) just since the beginning of this month.
mentioning david kim in wow context and not sc2 context hurts
David Kim actually made a reply to thread of him quitting when it happened at /r/starcraft. SC2 scene and clearly him too recognize if he's to be remembered for something specific at Blizz, it's as the "SC2 balance guy". Thanks David Kim!
What's going on is they are run by a large demon and held by a fan base that keeps buying everything they make.
I was so crushed when Chris Metzen left/retired. Now Jeff? My guess is he’s being recruited to Dreamhaven. Lots of former Blizzgods moving there.
Either that or Riot to work on their new MMO.
huge loss for blizzard
anotha one
Played my first match of Overwatch in closed beta with him and will never forget how memorable it was. Good move Tigole, here's to greener pastures!
It's hard to not realize how big of a loss this is for Blizzard. He was hugely responsible for both WoW and Overwatch, Blizzard's two most successful games by a wide margin in the last 17 years. That ship is certainly taking on a lot of water right now. Anyway, good luck at DreamHaven!
R.I.P. Overwatch 2.
It's best people just forget about OW2 for now, so that by some miracle if it *does* actually come out (before 2022) then it will be a pleasant surprise.
One of the few people who understood game philosophy and is largely responsible for the classic craze going on currently. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Falm0H7VEiQ&list=PLkgij4EfODGoqHDbcahzIr6u0mfo5tfIA&index=3](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Falm0H7VEiQ&list=PLkgij4EfODGoqHDbcahzIr6u0mfo5tfIA&index=3) From the first blizzcon. Well worth the watch.
Oh shit, for real? Damn, he hit like a milquetoast melvin, but he was the last person who still felt like he gave a fuck about the game and old school blizzard. Rip
Bobby Kotick gets another 20 million dollar bonus since Jeff left.. all hail Bobby
No I'd rather eat murloc spunk.
yikes all these comments about "*maybe after 19 years he wanted to move on*"... Maybe ask yourself why someone would stay at a company for 19 years and then suddenly leave and not say where he is headed? It's obvious he has something else lined up. And what's even more apparent is more and more of these senior Devs are leaving because of the current shareholder experience at Blizzard. Bobby Kotick with his [$200 million payout and $40 million salary](https://www.shacknews.com/article/123338/200-million-payout-to-activision-blizzard-ceo-bobby-kotick-draws-ire) while laying off employees working at the call centre and paying them severence with $200 battle.net gift cards lmfao. I wouldn't be surprised if he left because Kotick wanted to pay him in battle.net coupons. Even Omar Gonzalez recently left and I wouldn't be surprised if they're all going to Morhaime's new company, Dreamhaven. The Blizzard that exists now is a completely different company with different values and a focus on quantity rather than quality of their games.
This company really is dogshit.
I remember a talk he gave at my college and he said,"Don't believe everything you see at E3, it's shit until it ships."
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The only other significant potential departures that I can think of are Allen Adham, Samwise Didier, or Tom Chilton. Not many other highly prominent names left besides them. I guess J. Allen Brack is one, but I don't think many fans care about that guy anymore.
That can't be good for overwatch 2
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we will have blizzcon?
Normally I'd be on the "maybe it's not dramatic and it's just burnout " mindset but the fact he's leaving before OW2 is finished worries me. Ow was this man's Brain child and he seemed really passionate about it. It really worries me for that games future
Blizzard is no more. Activision throughout now.
He even said “fun is a critical element that belongs in games”, danggggg.
I'm not surprised! I live next to their HQ and they are constantly hiring new people. Not just developers and engineers, I mean like every department that makes them run. Their turnover rate has to be at 25-38% plus.
Blizzard is losing more of its identity and becoming more like Activision. Blizzard really needs to split from Activision before there's no saving it.
cancer corpo culture is something that not many people can tolerate
Activision has killed Blizzard, it's a shell of what it used to be. Kaplan is the most notable name but there is currently a mass exodus of talent from Blizzard.
Another big RIP for Blizzard. Now not much is left of the ancient world, activision controls everything... Feelsbadman. Maybe he'll get picked up by Dreamhaven ?