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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."
Blizzard may soon encounter the chill of insolvency. ;-)
Do you like German cars?
Could a reason for their leaving possibly be in reaction to Blizzard's handling of the battlenet controversy? Just a thought...
Karma: Can there be a void?
.. -. - . .-. .-. --- -...
Playing Warcraft III's expansion set, Frozen Throne, I came across something in a snow-covered Undead campaign. When I killed a penguin (the symbol of Linux) I was granted a Ring of Superiority! Is this Blizzard's way of saying the path to superiority is by killing Linux?
How will this affect the development of Word of Warcraft? Were these guys a part of those teams?
Far more important that the fact that the left is the REASON that they left. Have they become dissatisfied with their corporate parent? Are they going to found a new studio (and with that number of key folks that sounds likely to me)? Are they being acquired/courted by someone else (the real challenge of companies these days is not to protect the brands, but to keep the people who make these brands)? And most importantly, does Vivendi consider their gaming assets so invaluable that they wouldn't fight to keep these folks under their wing?
When high level folks like this leave, its usually because someone is giving them money to go off and do their own thing under a different banner/console.
World of Warcraft is, in the words of babylon 5, the last, best hope for MMORPGs.
SW:G overpromised, underdelivered. AC2 was crap. Shadowsbane was buggy trash. WoW sounds and looks great and I have yet to read a bad slant on it from anyone's whos played it.
MMORPG Game developers are allowed to release complete shit and promise that it'll be fixed on the backs of the monthly fees people are forced to pay to fund the game to a fun/playable state if it ever gets there.
I hope and pray that WoW can be the game that all of us old school players have been waiting for since this drought of lousy 2nd generation games. I want WoW to be the game I can point to and say "See, that's the way you do it" and blizzard is the one company I know of that has never failed to deliver a great, fun game.
I know Roper was a lead on the management of WoW. I hope he's not leaving because of an imminent M$ buyout or something along those lines that might totally corrupt Blizzard.
Here's hoping.
Probably not.
Neither WoW or SC2 are developed by Blizzard North, but Blizzard "South" (usually just called "Blizzard"). These are two separate divisions that form Blizzard Entertainment.
Blizzard North has only done Diablo I and II so far.
Blizzard "South" has done all Warcraft and Starcraft games, and the older Rock & Roll Racing, Lost Vikings, etc.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
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?)
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
... who's to make them sign NCA's?
It doesnt matter if you vilify them (for turning out an execrable piece of garbage like WC3) or laud them for turning out great games (like WC3 or Diablo) they have had a profound influence on the direction of computer gaming in the last 5 years. It is difficult to think of two games that have been more influential, and more copied in their respective genres: SC/WC for real time strategy (RTS) and Diablo for "role-playing".
Although it is tough to separate their individual contributions from those of Blizzard as a whole, they have inarguably produced highly influential games. Significantly, those games have also sold enormous volumes (basically equal in numbers to the Lara Croft series and the GTA series... i.e. several millions of copies of each release).
What is means is that the value of Blizzard just dropped a bit, although perhaps not as much as some are suggesting... a lot of their value resides in their name, their "goodwill" as it is called. And for the masses, who will never even hear of this, the name Blizzard will continue to by synonomous with outstanding games that are probably the least buggy/best supported in the industry (that is sure to get me flamed or modded down!).
It might also mean that some interesting games are in the future assuming you dont buy the theory that Bill ruined WC3. At very least, their departure is a big loss for Blizzard (again, WC3 aside) and a big gain for themselves or some other studio.
I am eagerly awaiting commands from Slashdot telling me whether I should be mad at the old Blizzard or the Blizzard founders.
I don't know of anyone in the gaming industry that has ever signed a non-competition agreement. Imagine, let's say, a 3D engine programmer, that has been doing that for the last 5 years. His skills would not be that useful for a CAD/Rendering company, since outside of the basic math behind it, he'd have to learn plenty of new skills. Thus, the only major options are another gaming company and NVIDIA/ATI. Who'd be crazy enough to sign an agreement that said that you can only work for less than a handful of companies if you ever quit? Certainly no game programmer I know.
I guess my e-mail to Blizzard about their actions against Freenet tore the company apart! I'm sure glad tech support forwarded it to the head developers...
Er...
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
1st Guy: "Aye matey?"
3rd Guy: "Come on! Follow me!"
2nd/4th Guy: "We're ready, master...I'm not ready!"
Vivendi Universal: "Help Me!"
4th Guy: "Time to Die!!!"
Vivendi Universal: "uh...oops! Forgive me!"
All 4 Guys: "Die!"
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.
Blizzard is in California. Noncompetes are not enforceable in this jurisdiction.
-- Will program for bandwidth
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.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
I had a no-compete clause in a contract some years ago that specified "no similar industry within 50 miles" (aimed at their competitors across town). A lawyer later told me that even that limited NCA wasn't legal in California.
Toodles!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Developers of the critically acclaimed DIABLO franchise announced today that they have formed [Insert name here], a new development studio located in [city, state]. The studio, which will focus on state-of-the-art multiplayer content for PC and next generation console platforms, was formed by four veteran Blizzard developers, who played various roles in the creation of DIABLO.
"[New company name] is an all-star team whose members have a solid history and reputation for developing groundbreaking titles," said [insert developer], [insert new job title] and co-founder. "With the establishment of this company, we renew our commitment to the development of fresh concepts in the online gaming arena, and we look forward to pushing the industry in new and exciting directions."
Like the template? This same one has been sucessfully used to launch every new game company and is available for use under the GPL license.
Hasn't been for a long time. My guess is that Blizzard North didn't wanna do a third Diablo, or at least these gentlemen didn't want to, and VU told them that it was one of their few franchises in the black, and that they had to. Anyhow, Blizzard has yet to produce a quality in a long time. Warcraft 3 as much as people rave about it, it moved 800,000 copies, not the "millions" quoted elsewhere. To put that number in perspective GTA: VC has moved 8.5 MILLION. And to be fair to the PC market which over the last several years has floundered behind the PS2, the Sims has moved 20 million. Prior to the announcement of the frozen throne there were more people online playing Starcraft at a given time than there were playing Warcraft 3. Yes, Starcraft, several years old and covered in hackers (though the best RTS of all time) had more people playing than the six month old "brilliant" War3. As for World of Warcraft, all hype, they have yet to show anything besides a nice art style. Technically its very sub-par, and on a gameplay level at E3 they showed they do a damn fine impersonation of Everquest.
Blizzard "is widely seen in the games industry as one of the most attractive assets of VU Games,
Not anymore.
Keep in mind that Blizzard experienced a similar defection about four years ago. Patrick Wyatt, Mike O'Brien, and Jeff Strain (One was a biz guy, the other two wrote battle.net and worked as leads on diablo and starcraft... if memory serves) took off to form a startup called TriForge. They then became Arena.net and finally were swallowed by NCSoft. They are now working on Guild Wars.
So, Blizzard has survived a previous walkout... they have since churned out Warcraft 3, Diablo 2, a few expansion packs, and are nearly done with WoW. Will they survive this? I believe so. I'm wondering if they will be able to come up with original content, or if it will be infected by suits who continue to pimp out the the Warcraft/Diablo franchise ad infinum.
I guess Roper's immediate comments regarding his departure validate many of the anti-Vivendi theories floating around.