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."