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developers who left Blizzard in recent years (list)
blackmoore
Member Posts: 26
anyone has a list of the developers who left Blizzard in recent years? I think I saw such a list a while back on the WoW forum, but it has the bad habit of deleting threads (and the search don't work). It was quite interesting and explained quite a lot on WoW's current situation. I would be interested in having more reliable sources also if possible. Anyone with a kwnowledge of wikipedia's writing standarts could write a page on this subjet? A permanent page linking its source on wikipedia would be a good thing...
The only thing I know for sure is that Bill Ropper left to make his own studio (flagship studio) with most of the team from Blizzard North (wich was closed down). I also know that ancient battle.net developers left to make Guild Wars and that top Blizzard guys left for red5studio (game still to be anounced but will be an mmo), but I don't know the name of these peoples...
If someone can make a nicelly written wikipedia entry, I could research further. Anyone with info on Bliz devs who left please feel free to share it on this thread...
Comments
I started searching around and was amazed at the number of important peoples that left Blizzard, here are the results of my searchs, the names are the developers who left and the studio they have gone to follows it:
Leading positions:
President for Blizard North:
<[*]David Brevik (Flagship Studios)<br>
Yeah most(80-95%) of Blizzard North( originally Condor Games) left. There was some crossover between Blizzard and Blizzard North, notably Bill Roper, but B North was always semi-independent.
B North left and was closed down by Blizzard around 2002-2003 the only explanation I have seen by the B North guys was problems with Vivendi. All the execs and many lowers are now at Flagship studios there are two other companies that have some other B North guys I don't remeber their names.
Actual Blizzard people who left while WoW was in Developement (1999 -2004):
- 2000: Arena Net guys. Three key programmers. Lead programmer on WoW and the guys who made Battle Net network infrastructure.
- 2002-ish : Stieg Hedlund, Lead Deisgn. Now on God and Heroes.
- 2002-ish: Mark Kern, Deisgn Lead and some others. They go found Red 5 Studios.
There are some others too, but I can't remember them atm. The above would be the biggest names probably.
Big names that are left:
- Pardo, Metzen, Morhaime. You can add Samwise for art, but well he is a bit different since I wouldn't really call him a Blizzard "guy". He has a lot of various other fantasy art experience.
My guess is that they are currently about 50/50 of original and new/replacements. I know they have hired other big wigs from other MMO's. Kalgan (Tom Chilton) is Evocare from Ultima Online. I believe Collin Murray, who seems to be havimg more face time with the press recently, is a long time Blizz employee.
Edit:
What do I think? Well judging by the timeline I have to conclude it certainly had an effect. And when you look at who got promoted etc. various changes in direction start to make more sense. I wish I could talk privatel;y with some of these guys over a beer to see what was really the deal but I can't so saying why they left or whatever is just conspiracy mongering. I have suspicions. Leaving in the middle as Lead design, in Hedlund's case, is somewhat peculiar. And Kaplan's elevation soon afterward, especially as a new hire with very little experience except personal contacts with Pardo ... well it does look funny.
To me it looks like some rather funny politics/drama went on, but probably also mixed with other important things like Vivendi. Keep in mind Vivedni was in some real financial trouble prior to WoW's release. Btu in the end I don't know. But in the end that is just speculation. I know some of the major people who made some of their best games are now gone. I do not consider it to be the same company. Any release of a Diablo title should not be considered made by the same people because Blizzard North is gone. Most likely any Starcraft 2 title will be inferior with Steig Hedlund gone. But there are still a number of original Blizz guys and , for warcraft titles, those people were pretty important. So its not like its completely different. But they have lost some real quality people. Maybe their replacements are just as good. But no matter what they are certainly different. Any fair person who has played WoW should at least be able to admit that.
I haveadegree in computing and informationalscienceswitrh my mainstrenghts being in c/c++ and assembly....offs wait I have a fooking job andblizzardactually missed the boat
pardon my typing in the previous posts, those were meant to be commical, but if blizzard isactually looking for staff, why would they alienate probably the bigest market they have. when blizz was a young pup formal educatrion was not a must. nothing was 3d either. skills not education was the key. when education not skills became the factor games got shiott