Blizzard North Co-Founders Leave Company

[sbp]

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/diablo2/news_6030882.html

Blizzard North's three cofounders and Bill Roper leave the studio that created Diablo to pursue other opportunities.

According to a Reuters report (http://www.forbes.com/home_europe/newswire/2003/06/30/rtr1015353.html), four key figures at Blizzard North have "resigned from the company to pursue other opportunities." Blizzard Entertainment told Reuters that the Blizzard North cofounders Erich Schaefer, Max Schaefer, and David Brevik, plus Blizzard vice president Bill Roper, recently left the company. The report also quotes a VU Games executive as saying that Vivendi Universal's public efforts to sell its game division, including Blizzard, has had some effect on employee morale.

Brevik and the Schaefer brothers founded a development company called Condor in 1993, and started developing Diablo for Blizzard in early 1995. The studio was renamed Blizzard North when Blizzard acquired Condor in February 1996.

Bill Roper interview (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/news/news_6030892.html)

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Sure this is not going to affect products in development. http://home.earthlink.net/~sbp777/smilies/bleh.gif

[gear02]

Interesting...Blizzard is arguably the top games development house. They can't afford to lose their people though.

[Showtime]

French/Vivendi messing up stuff again. They've been trying to sell Blizzard for the last couple of years it seems. You would think someone would want what is arguebly the best pc gaming company on the planet.

-jel:halo:

[Cantacuzene]

Anyone want to guess that this is because of Vivendi pressuring them to develop games like Starcraft Ghost for console while the employees wish to remain on pc? Thats my guess.

[ski]

I think you're right, Canta. Starcraft: Ghost doesn't seem at all like Blizzard's style. I hate to say it, but I think it'll be the first game of theirs to flop in a long long time. They scrapped Warcraft Adventures a few years back after it was already halfway completed because they didn't think it was good enough! Imagine working on that game for over a year then throwing it away. But that's all the reason why they've been such a good company, quality control: if the game won't sell over a million, it's a flop by their terms! :P

[Cantacuzene]

Im anxious to see what their next project will be as an independent company.

[xsiled2]

why the hell did they think a first person shooter with one of the weaker units in the game was going to be a good idea...

[Cantacuzene]

Originally posted by xsiled2
why the hell did they think a first person shooter with one of the weaker units in the game was going to be a good idea...

Turning an RTS into a FPS worked SO WELL for Command and Conquer.

[xsiled2]

but command and conquer and starcraft are very different games....

blizzard is getting over their heads..

[Cantacuzene]

I was beign sarcastic. C&C Renegade sucked balls.

[xsiled2]

haha thats what i thought, i never played it.

shows how much i enjoyed c&c...

i should have noticed the sarcasm, flying through threads again....

[Cantacuzene]

I knew C&C Renegade sucked when I looked at a screen shot of it and said, "wow that looks like Red Faction."