Blizzard North Co-Founders Leave Company

Thanks to several readers for pointing out a Reuters/Yahoo story discussing the departure of four key employees from Warcraft and Diablo developers Blizzard Entertainment. The article elaborates: "In a statement, Blizzard Entertainment said Blizzard North co-founders Erich Schaefer, Max Schaefer and David Brevik, along with a fourth employee, Bill Roper, 'resigned from the company to pursue other opportunities.'" With Bill Roper often the public face of Blizzard, and the Blizzard North co-founders being the original Diablo developers, this is a big deal for Blizzard owners Vivendi, as well as gamers everywhere, especially as Blizzard "is widely seen in the games industry as one of the most attractive assets of VU Games, which has been languishing on the auction block for months."

Comments

Reasons?

[r84x]

Could a reason for their leaving possibly be in reaction to Blizzard's handling of the battlenet controversy? Just a thought...

Re:Reasons?

[MMaestro]

Not to cast your question aside, personally I don't think so, but what I want to know is ; whos going to replace them? They're just co-founders so its not as obvious as losing some programmers. To be more specific about my question, whos going to be the 'public face' of Blizzard now that Bill Roper is gone?

The day companies begin to suffer for stamping out cheaters is the day Microsoft releases a Linux becomes mainstream and Mac's dominate the PC market.

Re:Hm...

[GrouchoMarx]

I don't play many Blizzard games... someone care to tell me what this means?

This is the equivalent of Hawkins/Dubinsky/Collings leaving Palm to found Handspring in 1998. Or Alan Cox saying he's bored with Red Hat and going to do something else. (Not a perfect analogy, but you get the idea.)

I'm wondering what is happening with Chris Metzin. Wasn't he a mover and shaker in the Warcraft/Starcraft arena? (All the artwork is credited to him in the manuals, and didn't he help with the story line?)

Blizzard -- an empty shell of a company

[Anonymous Coward]

Many of blizzard's key employees left to start Arena.net. Now with Arena.net using innovative techniques to make online gaming better, Blizzard is languishing with World of Warcraft, a "me too" MMORPG. Their last few core members are now gone. Now it's just a bunch of interns and code monkeys with the rights to Blizzard's brand name.

I'm interested in seeing where these folks go. Will they join their brethren at arena.net? Will they found their own company? Will they walk off with their massive paychecks from Warcraft3 and sit in Hawaii sipping drinks with 3 digit proofs all day? Only time will tell.

What about the 1.10 patch?

[IgD]

The question I think everyone is concerned about is what is going to happen to the Diablo II Lord of Destruction patch V1.10? I heard some speculation that some hire-ups ordered this promised patch cancelled and those mention resigned rather than do this!

Not a huge deal

[ImperfectTommy]

Actually, this is not a huge deal for Vivendi. When Blizzard was initially bought it was bought for its franchises, which companies can own. Though game companies act like they own employees, they know the employees can leave. Likely, when Blizzard was bought, key figures signed multi-year contracts to stay and ensure the franchise succeeded under the new ownership. Likely, the contracts are up and the key people feel they can do it again on their own, only better.

It's fairly common for key figures to leave the nest after experiencing some success; this is why exclusive contracts exist. Though usually only founders are placed under such deals. It's almost as common, however, for key game developers to start again elsewhere and flop in a large way.

Note that EA, perhaps the most successful games publisher, has been successfully buying franchises for years (Sims, C&C, etc).

trivia

[mraymer]

Bill Roper was indeed not only one of the figure heads at Blizzard, but he voiced Hadriel in Diablo II. (Hadriel is the archangel that tells you to go smash the soulstone before heading into the Chaos Sanctuary.)

On the subject of these employees leaving... Well, I'll just quote Cain.... "This does not bode well..."

Heh... at least, not for Blizzard... But I'm sure their talents will be put to just as much use wherever they end up.

Re:Does Blizzard hate Linux?

[parkanoid]

On the other hand, the default tooltip for the penguin unit is "Call uopn the spirit of a penguin to save you". Interesting, yes? ;-)

I'm curious too.

[LiberalApplication]

...simply as a matter of star-developer-politics (I don't watch television-soaps, so I have to have some source of drama in my life).

What were their reasons? I also wonder why twenty of the lead developers working on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault left an Electronic Arts funded studio to found Infinity Ward. Is it really the money, or is it something else? I have no knowledge in this field, so if anyone has any inside information or pertinent experience, please post, I'd love to hear it.

As far as the reallocation of talent goes, I had high hopes for Troika's Arcanum, seeing as how Troika consisted of several key members of the fantastic team which produced Fallout, but wound up disappointed at its lack of polish, whereas Inifinity Ward's soon-to-be-released Call of Duty looks by all means to be incredible even in its juvenile state. Maybe high-level-folk like doing things their way, for better or worse, without the interjections of a publisher seeking marketability. Once again, I'm only hypothesizing. Are there any game-developers out there willing to testify?

Re:My real fear is how important was Roper in WoW?

[X]

Huh. I've been enjoying Dark Age of Camelot quite a bit. You might want to give it a shot if you are consistently being disappointed.

Bill Roper Interview

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess Roper's immediate comments regarding his departure validate many of the anti-Vivendi theories floating around.