Or, better, a few years ago. We know that some important figures left Blizzard during the development of World of Warcraft. Arena.net and “Guild Wars” are one of the most notable fragment, Flagship Studios working on “Hellgate: London” is another.
Then there was the news of more devs leaving early this year to join a sub-division of NCSoft to work on an announced project. Which is what’s written in the link above.
World of Warcraft is starting to become a major phenomenon affecting and even overwhelming the whole game industry. What could stop it at this point? It’s simple, it can crumble from the inside.
I’m starting to see the leaks of devs above as the tip of the inceberg. In just a few days we have the news of more notable defections. Krones already spotted and commented one and I don’t have anything more to say about it. But he didn’t catch another that hit the news a few days before:
Castaway Entertainment is proud to announce that former Blizzard North studio lead Rick Seis has accepted the position of Technical Director and lead programmer for their current unannounced project. “I’m delighted that I will be able to rejoin friends and former coworkers from Blizzard North,” remarked Rick “and I look forward to reuniting with several others from that team very soon.”
Before joining Castaway, Rick held the position of development team lead at Blizzard North, the company responsible for the creation of the highly successful Action-RPG series Diablo. Prior to this position, Rick, who joined Blizzard North in 1994 as one of the company’s first employees, served as both a senior programmer on the original Diablo and the lead programmer of Diablo II. He has also functioned as the company’s director of technology.
“We are very excited about acquiring more of the most important resources of Blizzard North: the people that comprised the team there were by far their most valuable assets,” stated Michael Scandizzo, president of Castaway Entertainment. “With the team we have built, we will be able to maintain the quality of development Blizzard North fans have come to expect.”
So not only we have the news of one more important dev leaving Blizzard, but also the implicit declaration that more will follow and that Blizzard won’t see anything if not the crumbs of what is left (which reminds me what recently happened at Turbine).
Blizzard North is gone. Completely. If someone was left after the leaks that spawned Arena.net and Flagship Studios, now has probably joined this newest studio-branch.
Blizzard South doesn’t seem much healthier either. We know that a first group left to join NCSoft and now, as Krones reported, we know that more left to start yet another independent studio working on an unannounced mmorpg.
Who’s left? No, really.
Krones writes:
I’m not sure how many of the original visionaries are still with Blizzard, but in the wings there is always new and old talent ready to replace the traitors.
I believe in authorship, myself. Blizzard’s qualities come from the single devs who worked within. Maybe more and better talents will join, but it will still be something new that just cannot be related to what was before.