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Blizzard Closes North Offices

Posted by Zonk on from the roper's-lair-closed-for-business dept.

An anonymous reader writes "GameSpot reports that Blizzard, the company responsible for StarCraft, Diablo, and most recently World of Warcraft, will be closing the offices of Blizzard North, the division of the company that traditionally housed Diablo series development. The article mentions that employees will either be offered severance or moved down to the Blizzard HQ to work on an unnamed project, and speculates that Diablo 3 could be the project. Is it just coincidence that Blizzard released the 1.11 patch for Diablo II on August 1st and closed the studio on the same day?"

35 comments

  1. not surprising. by fireduck · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Blizzard North pretty much lost all of their top talent in 2003 when the original Condor founders and Roper left (as well as a number of other lead personnel). Combine that with the absence of a game announcement by them in several years, and it really seemed just a matter of time before something drastic happened.

    As someone who lives in Irvine, near Blizzard, I wonder how many new people I'll start seeing at the fast food joints wearing their Blizzard t-shirts. (Spot the Blizzard employee. Yes, that's the kind of fun we have here in sterile, conformist Irvine.)

    1. Re:not surprising. by patio11 · · Score: 1

      I somehow doubt anyone with the skills to get a job working at Blizzard will be on the wrong side of the McD's counter anytime soon. Blizzard has just discovered a license to print money which is good in three gigantic world markets -- what game developer couldn't use a slice of the brain-trust behind that? Plus these are already likely guys who have that elusive experience/shipped titles qualification needed to get into doors in the industry. Now, if they're giving severence to CS reps or testers those folks might have problems, but unfortunately next to the engineers neither the industry nor Slashdot could care a whit.

      --
      Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
    2. Re:not surprising. by fireduck · · Score: 1

      you misunderstood. around lunchtime, you go to various food establishments near Blizzard and in walks a gang: 4 or 5 guys in their blizzard t-shirts. so you get to play "spot the programmer". they clearly aren't working in fast food, just that that's where they congregate at lunch.

    3. Re:not surprising. by CFTM · · Score: 1

      The only thing that I find remotely interesting in Irvine is probably the Yardhouse....mmmmm 100 kinds of beer on tap...even if the Spectrum sorta sucks :)

    4. Re:not surprising. by tarth · · Score: 1

      I'm at the Jack in the Box on Campus. No sign of them yet...

  2. figures. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, with apple going to a x86 *AND* a multi-button mouse, the recent weather in hell had to creep above-surface sometime. Too bad it was here.

  3. Diablah? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    People still play Diablo? Diablo?!

    Ugh it wasn't worth playing when it was new and people are still playing it years later?!

    Morons, way too many morons.

    1. Re:Diablah? by AuMatar · · Score: 1

      Try Diablo II. Although I don't doubt people still play the original- it was good for some mindless fun. I'd play it over the latest FPS crap any day of the week.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    2. Re:Diablah? by snuf23 · · Score: 1

      I was surprised when I played the Guild Wars beta weekends at how many people in the game were current Diablo 2 players. I would imagine some have migrated onward to Guild Wars.
      But yeah, Diablo and Neverwinter Nights still have large fanbases.

      --
      Sometimes my arms bend back.
    3. Re:Diablah? by Reignking · · Score: 1

      I knew someone that played until WoW came out... I can't believe that they have a patch this far out? And that there were major bugs still to fix?

      --
      One man's Funny is another man's Offtopic.
    4. Re:Diablah? by Meagermanx · · Score: 1

      Diablo 4 evar!!!!11
      You shall not taint the goodness of the original with the craptacular sequal!!

    5. Re:Diablah? by InsideTheAsylum · · Score: 1

      Which kind of shows that Blizzard isn't all that bad of a company -- running free servers and making up patches years and years after the game has came out. They could be patching against new things as well, some previously undiscovered or until now not massively exploited bug as well.

    6. Re:Diablah? by Pranadevil2k · · Score: 1

      There's an FPS crap game coming out called Hellgate London you might be interested in. It's made by a company whose staff escaped from Blizzard after having worked on StarCraft and Diablo. It was in PCGamer a few months back. Should be worth investigating at least.

    7. Re:Diablah? by MisterMurphy · · Score: 1

      I prefer the original, actually. Felt a little more like Nethack, but with graphics. Also, it didn't give me the same urge to tape down my mouse button.

  4. Ahhh by JedaFlain · · Score: 1

    ...the company responsible for StarCraft, Diablo, and most recently World of Warcraft Ohhh, that Blizzard.

  5. Sad by Kleedrac2 · · Score: 1

    Especially when you consider that the Northern office was responsible for StarCraft, Diablo, and Diablo II. All the southern office ever did was the WarCraft series (and the Blizzard Classics of course.) With that many of their best properties coming from one office you'd have thought they woulda held on a little longer :)

    Kleedrac

    --
    Sure we wang, can.
    1. Re:Sad by Cerberus911 · · Score: 1

      Wrong, Blizzard North was responsible only for Diablo and Diablo 2. Their "southern" team is the one that made StarCraft and WarCraft 3.

    2. Re:Sad by Kleedrac2 · · Score: 1

      I stand corrected good sir. StarCraft was indeed the home office's creation.

      Kleedrac

      --
      Sure we wang, can.
  6. O_o by Bellum+Aeternus · · Score: 1

    My jaw just hit the floor. With WoW being as successful (#1 MMP) I figured that Blizzard would be the last game developer doing layoff... for any reason.

    --
    - I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
    1. Re:O_o by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These weren't people working on WoW, so no, it's not surprising.

    2. Re:O_o by JVert · · Score: 1

      With WoW causing such explosive growth it makes sense to draw back the reins where you can. Renember the key developers to Diablo jumped ship long ago and created guild wars.

    3. Re:O_o by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Blizzard is here to make money not pay people to gold brick. It's all about the benjamins.

  7. WOD by white1827 · · Score: 1

    I would not be surprised to hear "World of Diablo" announced soon.

    1. Re:WOD by supabeast! · · Score: 1

      World of Warcraft IS World of Diablo. It's just a big persistent world with the Diablo play style adapted to a standard 3D MUD.

    2. Re:WOD by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 2, Informative

      Exactly. Some of the Diablo character classes might not be there in WOW but most are. Sorceress is now Mage, Assassin is now Rogue, Amazon is now Hunter, Barbarian is Warrior, etc.

      And the game world - with regards to monsters, NPCs, quests, quest rewards, partying, etc - is clearly built on Diablo II. Heck, there are even items in WOW that are clear references to Diablo II, such as the Staff of Jordan, or the Cow King's Hide.

      --

      "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
  8. Sweet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Hope the DMCA-wielding jackbooted thugs finish going out of business soon.

    ~~~

  9. C'mon, big money, big money, aaaaaand by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    StarCraft 2?

  10. Diablo III Rumors by KeithGap · · Score: 1

    Actually, there was a tiny little blip of an article in the last Computer Gaming World that mentioned the score for Diablo III had just been recorded, so I assume that means they're currently developing it. Either that or they're just planning ahead. Waaaaaaaay ahead. =)

  11. StarCraft by Ironweaver · · Score: 1

    Please Please let this mean that they'll start on StarCraft II

    1. Re:StarCraft by Cerberus911 · · Score: 1

      Good luck with that. In 2001 I was joking about StarCraft 2 coming out in 2010, now I hope it comes out before 2020.

  12. The importance of patches by imr · · Score: 1

    patches are really becoming deadlines:
    -no patch: the game dies, the compagny is now known to drop games prematuraly (vampire the masquerade, tribes3, etc), then kills the studio.
    -patch: the game lives, the compagny closes the studio anyway.

  13. No, they can't by rbarreira · · Score: 1

    WOD (Worms of Doom) already exists, it's a game I'm doing. So Blizzard don't even think about it or I'll sue you :P

    PS: Work on the game restarting soon for real, at last...

    --

    The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
  14. Why Blizz North was closed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry for the anon, but I don't want to get anyone in trouble.

    My information says the studio was closed because of mismanagement by the lead on the unanounced project. Many of the folks moving down to Irvine next month will work on WoW, at least temporarilly. That means at least a 3 month slip on the unanounced project.

  15. employees by xeenman · · Score: 1

    I work right above the blizzard office. They have a real cool life sized statue of diablo and an orc. They locked out all their employees this morning, and the landlord had to get a locksmith so they could get in themselves.