Nick Carpenter left Blizzard.

[Deleted]

Ok, you say "a lot of" - in a company 5000 people strong. How many is a lot? 100? 500? Can you maybe post a link to a list?
What sort of number are you talking about when you say "a lot"?

A lot of people that are well-known. Big names. I bet there are even more smaller names leaving all the time.

- - - Updated - - -

Look up Maslow's hierarchy of needs and do some reading.

Obviously Blizzad doesn't fulfill their needs as creative developers anymore. What does that tell you about Blizzard?

[Stormwolf64]

Ok, you say "a lot of" - in a company 5000 people strong. How many is a lot? 100? 500? Can you maybe post a link to a list?
What sort of number are you talking about when you say "a lot"?

Want me to spoon feed you as well?`It's not my fault you don't follow the news here. Google it yourself.

[Ryzeth]

Want me to spoon feed you as well?`It's not my fault you don't follow the news here. Google it yourself.

Ye olde copout response, that you say when you can't actually back up what you're saying.

[XDurionX]

Too bad, i liked "quit playing games".

I'll see myself out.

[Deleted]

A lot of people that are well-known. Big names. I bet there are even more smaller names leaving all the time.
Obviously Blizzad doesn't fulfill their needs as creative developers anymore. What does that tell you about Blizzard?

The big names are leaving because they can finally cash in their stock options after ATVI buyout. The freeze period ended right before Pardo left.
Also, you (deliberately, I imagine) misunderstand Maslow's needs. It has nothing to do with the company. It has to do with individual self-fulfillment.

- - - Updated - - -

Want me to spoon feed you as well?`It's not my fault you don't follow the news here. Google it yourself.

Heh, so in other words "oh shit, I got called out, I've got nothing!"
Allright then.

[cFortyfive]

that bonfire website is hilarious.

[Stormwolf64]

Man, you guys are seriously retarded. I'll take the good ol' infraction for this with pleasure.

[Nerraw]

well-payed secure jobs

Most of the big names recently have worked there for 20+ years. The early years were lean, but you can bet the wages have been above-average for at least 15 years. Plenty of time to set aside a surplus for when you inevitably want/have to do something else. And as I said before, 20 years is a long time. These guys have spent the vast majority of their adults lives doing one thing and one thing only; working at Blizzard. When the factors line up, you just want to try something else.

[Deleted]

Too bad. Why are so many well-known people leaving Blizzard? Something is going on there.

likely they reached a plateau in their career and the only way to move up is to change company or be your own boss creating one.

[Vaelorian]

What if this guy was responsible for all the lesser things in those cinematics. With lesser I mean everything you did not like that much about the cinematics. Would you still be making a post about it? Oh wait yeah you would. You would be celebrating, just like people were celebrating that Ghostcrawler was going away.

[Deleted]

Stop saying there is nothing when you have no fucking clue if there is or not. Fact is that a lot of people have left during a short time, and that raises questions.

This guy has always been one of the biggest t..... on this forum. The besty thing to do is simply ignore him.

Blizzard has always had a rotation in staff just like any other company does.

If you want to read anything into it and bheave like a pussy go ahead.

You may need a reality check tho

[Stormwolf64]

Problem with you guys, the second blizzard gives you a new shot of heroin you start thinking Blizzard is some magical wonderland again, and when stuff goes bad, well. You know..

[RoKPaNda]

Stop saying there is nothing when you have no fucking clue if there is or not. Fact is that a lot of people have left during a short time, and that raises questions.

Like 3~ relevant interesting people in the last 3 years? Not counting community drones.

Problem with you guys, the second blizzard gives you a new shot of heroin you start thinking Blizzard is some magical wonderland again, and when stuff goes bad, well. You know..

I don't even enjoy most of Blizzard's products, WoW is great in small doses, I play some D3, I loathe most of Blizzard's decisions, but you're still overreacting.

[metzger84]

wonder what he didn't like about working at blizzard that made him leave

[thesmall001]

Problem with you guys, the second blizzard gives you a new shot of heroin you start thinking Blizzard is some magical wonderland again, and when stuff goes bad, well. You know..

It's well-cited that Blizzard tends to grow and nurture talent from within and invest in team players who lead by example. This is opposed to the more competitive nature of somewhere like Riot or some creative nature of somewhere like Carbine or Gearbox. There's advantage and disadvantage to each but the main problem is the diminished returns on upwards progression in a place like Blizzard. You're forced to look outside the box to find a higher position, as the alternative is to sit and wait (potentially years) for a position above you to open up. It's a high-risk, fast-track move with a lot of room for creative fulfilment.

Nick was noted to be off-loading his responsibilities for a while before this, others took over the position he'd held for a while and he moved to a more selective role. Josh Mosqueira, similarly, off-loaded his responsibilities as most of the Diablo team were transferred internally. This is all pretty standard in the industry: You benchmark a project, shuffle your deck and see where the cards lay once you've finished.

Personally, I'm excited to see what Bonfire put out as this isn't like Carbine (which, tbh, was mostly ex-Blizzard hand-me-downs) rather these are senior heavy-hitters who've proven their worth.

[Stormwolf64]

Like 3~ relevant interesting people in the last 3 years? Not counting community drones.



I don't even enjoy most of Blizzard's products, WoW is great in small doses, I play some D3, I loathe most of Blizzard's decisions, but you're still overreacting.

Ohh, i'm not overreacting at all. I just said it's suspicious, not making any claims whatsoever, but that doesn't stop people who have nothing with blizzard to do from feeling insulted. Look at the other posts.

[Vaelorian]

wonder what he didn't like about working at blizzard that made him leave

Well sometimes it isn't about not being happy. When you are at a certain paygrade and you are a "popular" or "established" name in the business, you can from then on start to look for jobs that you'll find challenge in. The paygrade will be substantial anyway. And for people such as these to be happy = challenge.

You can make the analogy to WoW with guilds. The guild where the player is, is very nice. Lots of friends and the popular player has fun there but yet something is not perfect. The player is not challenged. The player used to be challenged but overtime it became a routine. So to find that challenge again, he needs to move to another guild. Built relationships there and hopefully grow into an even better player. Some players don't care about that. Some like the social aspect more. But some want to be challenged.

[thesmall001]

Ohh, i'm not overreacting at all. I just said it's suspicious, not making any claims whatsoever, but that doesn't stop people who have nothing with blizzard to do from feeling insulted. Look at the other posts.

I don't feel insulted. I have no strong feelings in any direction. But you clearly seem to want to see this a certain way and that makes you just as biased, in the opposite direction, as people who want to believe everything is fine and there is no better opportunity than blizzard.

Objectively: Blizzard has 7 core teams. They lost the creative directors of 2 of those teams, years apart, after their projects had concluded. Diablo 3 is finished. Starcraft 2 is finished. I wouldn't call anything about that suspicious. The hat-tip you're really after is that Riot was a key investor in this start up. If you really want a thread to pull at, that's what you should be paying attention to here.

[ro9ue]

Probably just needed a change of scenery. You know it's not just Blizzard either - it's every video game company and frankly every company in general. You climb to the highest ladder in a great company, and I'm sure it's a great ride. But there's a point where... what's next?

You always see really successful people breaking off to do their own thing and pursue their own vision. Rob and Nick probably had a few conversations where they were on the same page working on the same 3 (now 4) IPs for 25 years... and they just wanted to be a little more free and experimental. I'm sure they've already got enough put away for a comfortable retirement.

Why not just do your own thing at this point?

[Felthorn]

Personally, I find the name "Bonfire" hilarious. I do not think it is at all a coincidence that Ex-Blizzard employees created the studio. What's protection from a Blizzard? Why, a Bonfire of course!