Why is everybody leaving Blizzard?

[TriHard]

There is probably something going on at Blizzard that we don't know about. In the last time we've had tons of big guys leave, and now it seems some are going over to Riot, some are joining Rob Pardo's Bonfire and some just retire.

It might be their new schedule and work ethics that've not impressed the older crowd. They did increase the WoW team by 50% so that means there's a ton of people there now, they don't have that tight community any longer. That's at least what I think might be the problem. People saying "ohh, they're just changing jobs" couldn't be more ignorant, think about how many there's been the last months and say that again, you don't have that many OGs leaving just for a new job.

No, these are probably the ones that enjoyed the laidback state Blizzard was before Legion.

[Factoral]

They realized they screwed up big time and lost their dignity the last couple of years with microtransaction heavy games like Hearthstone and Overwatch. The games aren't about passion anymore. They are about money now (as their main focus).

And now with World of Warcraft being artificially enlongagated through very long cooldowns that last multiple weeks they want people to pay for the game each month. This was probably the tipping point for many old blizzard guys that don't want to stand up for it anymore

Developers leave, big deal. The reasons you have provided, are probably not even on the list of reasons that these particular devs left.

Your comment showers everyone in saltiness for Blizzards sound and very good business decisions. Maybe you should stop playing Blizzard games if you hate them so much.

[Roamingstorm]

People moving on honestly and different opportunities, more money, or just boredom working on the same thing. I mean take Notch for example. Dude just got bored and exhausted just doing Minecraft.

[TriHard]

You forgot Carbine, who drummed up massive hype for Wildstar because it was "all about what the players want", and then it turns out WHOOPS what people say they want on forums looking back through rose-tinted nostalgia glasses isn't actually what they want to play when it's given to them

People quickly remembered how much lengthy attunements and un-puggable content sucked bags and bags of wang

That is not why people left, people left because they actually met difficulty during the leveling and they quit because they were casuals.
That's it. And when the first crowd leaves, that's when the rest starts to leave, because you don't want to play an MMO without your friends.
About 80% of the players reached the 30s and then they quit.

Wildstar is perhaps the most solid and fun mmo that has come out the last 5 years but the community killed that game, just like
how we ruined WoW by asking for player housing (garrisons).

[Alienshroom]

Not sure why so many people have a bug up their ass, an unusually large amount of people have left Blizzard recently. Is it a problem? Its not shown to be yet. It is slightly interesting. I wonder what Riot is doing with the ones they picked up.

[Deleted]

Developers leave, big deal. The reasons you have provided, are probably not even on the list of reasons that these particular devs left.

Your comment showers everyone in saltiness for Blizzards sound and very good business decisions. Maybe you should stop playing Blizzard games if you hate them so much.

naaaaaaaaaah mate, just nah on your post.

[enragedgorilla]

2000+/- Employees at Blizzard.
6 ish "Big" names that you know leave the company for various career reasons = Everyone leaving/LOTs of workers.?

Got it

Careers change paths all the time, people come and go in companies all the time, you just happen to notice it because you are allowed to know these people in some degree by how they interact with the customer base.

Honestly, how many people quit Starbucks(insert company you interact with daily here) daily/weekly/Monthly? Do you care?

[Bumbac]

They finished wow story. Looking for something new to do.

[Deleted]

If you don't know the answer then you've obviously never worked a day in your life.

[Hotsforyou]

Activision. /10 Chars

[Liftbrul]

Bigger question is, why Riot? You'd think ex-Blizzard employees could do better.

[Makabreska]

Bigger question is, why Riot? You'd think ex-Blizzard employees could do better.

Well, LoL is an insanely popular game and Riot crew is probably fairly young, so maybe they are looking for experience?

[Nikkaszal]

That is not why people left, people left because they actually met difficulty during the leveling and they quit because they were casuals.
That's it. And when the first crowd leaves, that's when the rest starts to leave, because you don't want to play an MMO without your friends.
About 80% of the players reached the 30s and then they quit.

Wildstar is perhaps the most solid and fun mmo that has come out the last 5 years but the community killed that game, just like
how we ruined WoW by asking for player housing (garrisons).

People stopped playing because incredibly tightly-tuned PvE content and hideously long grinds and attunements may be fun for the vocal minority who populated the forums but were not fun for basically everyone else. An MMO aimed at hardcore fans is a nice idea but there just aren't enough of those to sustain a game.

I ended up playing on my own after all my friends and guildies from other games dropped out at the level cap because the endgame was so horribly gated. So I had to PuG, and guess what - PuGs couldn't do the dungeons. I would queue for over an hour - as a Stalker TANK - and get into veteran Skullcano and spend the next hour wiping on the first boss over and over as average players who couldn't do the fight dropped out and in.

Pandering to the elite nostalgic few meant the game was not accessible to the majority of players. That's why it failed.

[Tharkkun]

Or you know like in the software industry, the reason for that is, most companies are not as huge and successfull as Blizzard and frequent change is not a choice.

The software company I work for just posted a quarterly net income of 1.8 billion dollars. In my division of 25k people we see 50+ people leave each week and at the same time we hire people to replace them. People easily making 6 figures with ridiculous benefits.

Success means nothing. People leave because they want change. I applaud those who stay in their jobs for years like myself. (18 years) but at the same time I envy those with the courage to take the leap towards change. Change is good. New blood at Blizzard is good as well.

[Deleted]

Bigger question is, why Riot? You'd think ex-Blizzard employees could do better.

And yet, like I showed in my earlier post there, no, there really is no reason why they should be able to. Companies created by ex-Blizzard developers have turned out to be 100% utter shit.

[caervek]

Remember what happened the last time a bunch of former Blizzard developers thought Blizzard was too good for them and decided to leave, forming their own company? I'll tell you what happened. Around 30 developers left.

The end result?

/ship

Runic Games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_Games

Is where the Schaefers moved on after Flagship failed, and again they were going to give us a much hyped "Diablo killer" in the form of Torchlight, which ended up being a glorified beta version, and the second version, Torchlight II, while seemed to have a bit of appeal at first, faded into obscurity because of a complete lack of proper world servers and so on, unlike, for example, Path of Exile, which is still going strong.

To be fair TL2 was a much better game than Vanilla Diablo III.

[Tharkkun]

You forgot Carbine, who drummed up massive hype for Wildstar because it was "all about what the players want", and then it turns out WHOOPS what people say they want on forums looking back through rose-tinted nostalgia glasses isn't actually what they want to play when it's given to them

People quickly remembered how much lengthy attunements and un-puggable content sucked bags and bags of wang

Honestly the problems with Wildstar were not the difficulty and attunements. It was the poor gameplay and bugs. The concept of healers was also just broken when put into live play. It just wasn't fun. The difficulty just compounded the problem.

[Unclemap]

I think that they already had their fun with WoW and decided it was time to move on.

Everyone has a parting point.

[DJ117]

Of course it is disheartening to see so many Blizzard employees leave. I guess they felt now is the time, but it is still of concern. Imagine seeing your veteran members leave your guild.

[Tharkkun]

I think people also forget that Rob Pardo was one of the driving forces behind WoW. He came from playing a true MMO and helped build WoW. He hired Tigole and many others who worked on WoW and now other games at Blizzard. He had the vision and motivation to get this game produced. Whether he's still a visionary remains to be seen but I wouldn't count Bonfire studios out right away.