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[Helios]

Veteran Blizzard Developers Dustin Browder, Eric Dodds and Jason Chayes Depart

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Blizzard Entertainment has confirmed the departure of three veteran developers; Dustin Browder (Heroes of the Storm director, StarCraft II lead designer), Eric Dodds (Hearthstone director), and Jason Chayes (Hearthstone production director).

Speaking to Kotaku, Blizzard confirmed those members had left “months ago”.

“Yes, Eric, Dustin, and Jason made the decision to move on from Blizzard a few months ago. They have been and always will be considered members of the Blizzard family, and we’ve loved working with them over the years. We wish them the best for the future. That said, we want to make sure it’s clear that development of Blizzard games has always been a collaborative effort between many talented, longstanding teammates here continuing that good work.”

The three were some of the staff that had left after the cancellation of a StarCraft first-person shooter in May 2019. At the time Kotaku cited anonymous sources claiming the project was canceled to focus on Diablo IV and Overwatch 2; both leaked in later months, and speculated to be announced at this year’s BlizzCon.

Activision Blizzard have laid off numerous employees over the last two years. First in late December 2018– even paying the employees to leave- and then nearly 800 laid off in February 2019.

In other recent news, Ex-Xbox vice president Mike Ybarra has joined Blizzard Entertainment as their executive vice president and general manager.

 

[SurprisedPikachu]

Get Woke, Go Broke, Blizzard. Let this be a lesson to other developers - SJW and liberal propaganda is a disease and will rot your company to the core causing even the greats to collapse at some point.

 

[McCheese]

Hopefully, wherever the Starcraft 2 lead-designer ends up, it's making another incredible RTS game. Breaks my heart that my favourite genre is now considered niche and unprofitable.

 

[Kacho]

Get Woke, Go Broke, Blizzard. Let this be a lesson to other developers - SJW and liberal propaganda is a disease and will rot your company to the core causing even the greats to collapse at some point.

What?

 

[SurprisedPikachu]

What?

Blizzard has been suffering from poor performance and the various controversies because of their political leanings. Overwatch saw a decrease in players due to the constant LGBT pandering, the Hong Kong protest stance backfired on them, etc.

Also, off topic, Redskins suck - Go Cowboys!

 

[Trojita]

If they left months ago its likely because they've seen how shitty current ZombieBlizz is and couldn't stand the financial people making all the decisions to the detriment of the longterm longevity and creative output of the once acclaimed company.

Also it took them months to reveal that these three lead guys resigned, and only after being asked for confirmation? Surely everything is going fine at that company.

 

[Bkdk]

Hopefully Dustin browder will make another command and conquer game. Riot might snatch that hearthstone director to further establish market share for their upcoming card game.

 

[MMaRsu]

Not so sure how them dealing with the hk situation is going woke but ok

 

[LazyParrot]

Overwatch saw a decrease in players due to the constant LGBT pandering,

Do you have any numbers on that? I find that kinda hard to believe. I mean people are obviously leaving the game, but that's because it's gotten boring and stale AF. Nobody who has played the game for several years is going to quit just because Soldier 76 bangs dudes.

 

[SurprisedPikachu]

Do you have any numbers on that? I find that kinda hard to believe. I mean people are obviously leaving the game, but that's because it's gotten boring and stale AF. Nobody who has played the game for several years is going to quit just because Soldier 76 bangs dudes.

I mean you can't really quantify it since we don't really know how many people play the game to begin with, I don't think, and it's all just noise you hear in various forums. I mean how are you expecting me to "prove" this crap, because you know I can't, because we don't have any data to work with. Just a lot of people voiced their opinion on Reddit, GAF, etc and that's all I know of the subject. It could honestly be a vocal minority of people, let's say 100, or it could be a good majority, let's say 10,000. I don't know, so asking me for this is kind of stupid really. I'm not asking you to believe me, but you can do some light Googling and see noise about it around the internet.

 

[Alexios]

I mean you can't really quantify it since we don't really know how many people play the game to begin with, I don't think, and it's all just noise you hear in various forums. I mean how are you expecting me to "prove" this crap, because you know I can't, because we don't have any data to work with. Just a lot of people voiced their opinion on Reddit, GAF, etc and that's all I know of the subject. It could honestly be a vocal minority of people, let's say 100, or it could be a good majority, let's say 10,000. I don't know, so asking me for this is kind of stupid really. I'm not asking you to believe me, but you can do some light Googling and see noise about it around the internet.

Then maybe don't state it as fact given all you just admitted? And mixing woke shit with completely unrelated, if not the complete opposite of woke situations, like the HK protest shenanigans? Wtf?

 

[LazyParrot]

I mean you can't really quantify it since we don't really know how many people play the game to begin with, I don't think, and it's all just noise you hear in various forums. I mean how are you expecting me to "prove" this crap, because you know I can't, because we don't have any data to work with. Just a lot of people voiced their opinion on Reddit, GAF, etc and that's all I know of the subject. It could honestly be a vocal minority of people, let's say 100, or it could be a good majority, let's say 10,000. I don't know, so asking me for this is kind of stupid really. I'm not asking you to believe me, but you can do some light Googling and see noise about it around the internet.

Some light googling, huh? I'm in fucking tears, man
You should be writing for Kotaku. Put those research skills to good use.

 

[TheSadRanger]

Hopefully Dustin browder will make another command and conquer game. Riot might snatch that hearthstone director to further establish market share for their upcoming card game.

Might happen, Riot snagged up the senior animator of Hots that did some of the best animations in the game. Her demo reel is insane. Browder might also go to Valve to work on Dota 2 or Riot as well to work on League since he was also the director of Hots for a period of time.

Blizz has lost quite a bit of artistic and design though the past year....

 

[Yumi]

Months ago? I feel like the director of Hearthstone should at least get a tweet or nod of some kind for making you buckets of cash. An ounce of integrity is too much to ask for from Blizzard these day.

 

[Harlock]

Even the Heartstone director got tired of losing to quest decks.

 

[Hinedorf]

Blizzard has been suffering from poor performance and the various controversies because of their political leanings. Overwatch saw a decrease in players due to the constant LGBT pandering, the Hong Kong protest stance backfired on them, etc.

Also, off topic, Redskins suck - Go Cowboys!

I find this to be mostly bullshit. They seem like very convenient reasons that are more focused on the opinions of younger emo people and not those focused on the dollars and SENSE.

There's 2 obvious reasons for the decline of Blizzard that aren't opinion: 1. A complete lack of NEW quality IP that people want. 2. Having a completely tone deaf attitude towards the opinions and desires of your very loyal fan base.

The biggest fuck up to date Blizzard has made was asking an audience full of impatient gamers who've been waiting for a big new game for years if they have a fucking cellphone. Since this moment they've been in damage control and it's clearly something they've never done before because they're failing miserably.

I have zero hope for redemption come next Blizzcon but tons of interest to watch how bad it gets

 

[ManaByte]

Blizzard has been suffering from poor performance and the various controversies because of their political leanings. Overwatch saw a decrease in players due to the constant LGBT pandering, the Hong Kong protest stance backfired on them, etc.

Also, off topic, Redskins suck - Go Cowboys!

Imagine actually believing that people care about Overwatch character lore.

 

[ZeroGravity]

Imagine actually believing that people care about Overwatch character lore.

They do, but just not in the way this guy seems to suggest. There are still a lot of casual players out there who really like the characters and universe Blizzard created for the game, but fell off actually playing Overwatch for one reason or another. Overwatch 2 introducing a real campaign story mode will potentially be huge because of this, provided it's not trash.

 

[TheSadRanger]

I find this to be mostly bullshit. They seem like very convenient reasons that are more focused on the opinions of younger emo people and not those focused on the dollars and SENSE.

There's 2 obvious reasons for the decline of Blizzard that aren't opinion: 1. A complete lack of NEW quality IP that people want. 2. Having a completely tone deaf attitude towards the opinions and desires of your very loyal fan base.

The biggest fuck up to date Blizzard has made was asking an audience full of impatient gamers who've been waiting for a big new game for years if they have a fucking cellphone. Since this moment they've been in damage control and it's clearly something they've never done before because they're failing miserably.

I have zero hope for redemption come next Blizzcon but tons of interest to watch how bad it gets

I disagree with your first point because OW is only three years old and won tons of goty awards and Blizzard was riding high again winning winning "best gaming studio awards"

I agree about them being a tone deaf to an extent. I quit playing OW because I simply got fed up with their loot box monetization system of obtaining skins. Overwatch's lootbox system sucked so bad it completely turned me off from the game.

 

[Hinedorf]

I disagree with your first point because OW is only three years old and won tons of goty awards and Blizzard was riding high again winning winning "best gaming studio awards"

I agree about them being a tone deaf to an extent. I quit playing OW because I simply got fed up with their loot box monetization system of obtaining skins. Overwatch's lootbox system sucked so bad it completely turned me off from the game.

So this is my own bullshit theory and I don't claim any factual evidence just my observation of their business model over time. IMO the expectation on a quality Blizzard product was 10 years in the oven, if you want Blizzard-quality it was going to take time. This worked up until the time they were acquired by Activision.

Activision expected a more consistent return on investments and the 10 year churn for a quality game simply wouldn't be feasible. So what happened........ instead of being able to spend the time needed to make a quality game, they started the quality game and had to find other projects that would be able to churn out short term profits which is EXACTLY what Diablo3 , Hearthstone, and Overwatch are.

I just take my play behavior as an example, I love all 3 of D3, Hearthstone, OW....but what they all share in common is fantastic short term success and long term failure.

D3 - from original release to expansion I've probably gotten into this game hardcore for short term periods like maybe 7 different times over and 7 year period but there's never enough there to keep me long term

Hearthstone - Played it hardcore at original release but the moment the first expansion came out it was other you pay to keep playing or you were 'less than' fun in short term, not worth the long term commitment

Overwatch - Initial release was fire for 6 months then got rather stale, introduce a new character come back for a few weeks and it gets stale, haven't played it for awhile come back and have fun and it gets stale

They banked on the D3 live auction to facilitate long term profits - failure
They made Hearthstone dependent on paying for expansion packs - failure
They made OW profits reliant on shitty loot box - failure

Let me just say I fucking LOVED this company, I considered them the elite of elite, but I've watched them nickel and dime their customers which was never what Blizzard did. Blizzard told you a fucking epic was coming, and you would wait for it, and when it came......IT WAS EPIC. Blizzard is long since dead, what it takes for Blizzard quality cannot exist in a publicly traded company.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Get Woke, Go Broke, Blizzard. Let this be a lesson to other developers - SJW and liberal propaganda is a disease and will rot your company to the core causing even the greats to collapse at some point.

What the hell are you talking about? This has nothing to do with being "woke", but rather poor resource management.

 

[Bakkus]

The hell? I'm looking up stock prices. It doesn't look like Blizzard has been affected at all by their fascism?

 

[TheSadRanger]

So this is my own bullshit theory and I don't claim any factual evidence just my observation of their business model over time. IMO the expectation on a quality Blizzard product was 10 years in the oven, if you want Blizzard-quality it was going to take time. This worked up until the time they were acquired by Activision.

Activision expected a more consistent return on investments and the 10 year churn for a quality game simply wouldn't be feasible. So what happened........ instead of being able to spend the time needed to make a quality game, they started the quality game and had to find other projects that would be able to churn out short term profits which is EXACTLY what Diablo3 , Hearthstone, and Overwatch are.

I just take my play behavior as an example, I love all 3 of D3, Hearthstone, OW....but what they all share in common is fantastic short term success and long term failure.

D3 - from original release to expansion I've probably gotten into this game hardcore for short term periods like maybe 7 different times over and 7 year period but there's never enough there to keep me long term

Hearthstone - Played it hardcore at original release but the moment the first expansion came out it was other you pay to keep playing or you were 'less than' fun in short term, not worth the long term commitment

Overwatch - Initial release was fire for 6 months then got rather stale, introduce a new character come back for a few weeks and it gets stale, haven't played it for awhile come back and have fun and it gets stale

They banked on the D3 live auction to facilitate long term profits - failure
They made Hearthstone dependent on paying for expansion packs - failure
They made OW profits reliant on shitty loot box - failure

Let me just say I fucking LOVED this company, I considered them the elite of elite, but I've watched them nickel and dime their customers which was never what Blizzard did. Blizzard told you a fucking epic was coming, and you would wait for it, and when it came......IT WAS EPIC. Blizzard is long since dead, what it takes for Blizzard quality cannot exist in a publicly traded company.

I have way more people on my friends list that still play Hots than any of those other games combined. I think it could argued that hearthstone was a long term success since it's been around for five years but has fallen off the past year. It was in decline before the HK incident. Really it's been in decline since 2018.

However I think that's mainly due to not bringing in any new players hardly and a shrinking playerbase. When HS first launch it was extremely accessible as a f2p game. You could play completely free and have a wide variety of decks with a moderate time effort due to just their being classic cards.

Where say if someone wanted to hop into Hearthstone as a new or recurring player they would have to catch up on five or six expansions which isn't cheap. I've paid for 40 packs at times and sometimes I only got 1 legendary out of those 40 packs. So you either gotta spend a shit ton of time, or a shit ton of money.

edit: Also Hearthstones client has been needing a major overhaul for years.

 

[SurprisedPikachu]

What the hell are you talking about? This has nothing to do with being "woke", but rather poor resource management.

I think I addressed that in a later post. Don't get me wrong - I was a huge fan of Blizzard. Diablo, Diablo 2, and StarCraft are some of my favorite games of all time. I never got a chance to play the Warcraft RTS series, but I did play a bit of World of Warcraft and enjoyed it as well. It just seems that the more they push "woke" bullshit their revenue drops, people leave, etc. Maybe that is the truth that I want to see, I don't know, but for me, Blizzard as a company is a shadow of who they used to be. If the anon on /v/ is to be believed, the resource mismanagement we've mentioned is far worse than we can possibly imagine with folks sleeping under their desks, doing self harm, etc.

I talked about this on the Discord in brief, but I noticed my comments have been more attacking the liberals than casually debating them. That's a fault of my own, something that I am working to address. When I sign on throughout the day with several folks agreeing with me, but others completely shitting on me - I take a look at what those who disagree with me are saying and I take it seriously. I bring this up in response to several comments made to me in this thread, so I'm trying to address a lot at once.. at 9am..

Anyway, the thing I want to say is - I think Blizzard should focus on making quality games, stop pandering to the Chinese, and dial down the "woke" shit a bit. They're still a company filled to the brim with talent, so I think if they can get their shit together they can rebound from this mess quickly and salvage much of their reputation.

 

[Handy Fake]

Get Woke, Go Broke, Blizzard. Let this be a lesson to other developers - SJW and liberal propaganda is a disease and will rot your company to the core causing even the greats to collapse at some point.

Blimey.

I'm trying to equate their stance on Hong Kong to liberal propaganda. I'm failing.

 

[SurprisedPikachu]

Blimey.

I'm trying to equate their stance on Hong Kong to liberal propaganda. I'm failing.

You don't equate Hong Kong with liberal propaganda.. that's been an issue that both sides of the aisle have been able to unite on. The liberal propaganda was LGBT agenda pushing, etc.