Rob Pardo Leaving Blizzard Entertainment

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Rob Pardo Leaving Blizzard Entertainment
Originally Posted by Rob Pardo (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Every ending is a beginning and today marks a new beginning for me.

After 17 years at Blizzard, with long and careful contemplation, I have made a difficult and bittersweet but ultimately exciting decision to pursue the next chapter in my life and career.

Before I even joined Blizzard, I was already a huge fan of the company and its games. In particular, I was extremely passionate about the emerging genre of real-time strategy games. It was a dream come true when I was given the opportunity to work on StarCraft, which at the time was being created by a very small team by today’s standards. It was tremendously fulfilling to get to know everyone on the team personally and to contribute our energies toward a shared goal in such a creative and engaging environment.

Blizzard Entertainment has been simply the best place in the world to be a game designer. The best aspect of designing games at Blizzard is that the entire company is passionate about the gameplay within each and every product. From the executive team to customer service to our global offices, every single person is a player and contributes to making the best possible games. It’s for very good reason that the first credit on every Blizzard game is “Game Design by Blizzard Entertainment.”

I’m really proud of the contributions I was able to make to Blizzard’s accomplishments. From building lasting games, to supporting the growth of eSports, to extending the Warcraft world into a feature film, and of course to being able to celebrate our shared passions with the Blizzard community online and at BlizzCon.

The Blizzard community is ultimately the reason why we come to work every day and pour our souls into every world and experience we create. Blizzard’s players are the most passionate in the world and your commitment and dedication are truly awesome to behold. Creating entertainment for you has been an incredible opportunity, and I know that you will continue to grow and become even stronger as a community over the years to come. It has been so meaningful on a personal level to help create joy for all of you.

I’m looking forward to new challenges in my career, but I will always cherish the time I spent with you all and the amazing and collaborative teams at Blizzard. It was both satisfying and humbling, and it made me a better developer and a better person. I look forward to playing Blizzard games as a player for many years to come. Most important, now I have plenty of time to learn how to build a competitive Hearthstone deck.

As to what I will be doing next, I don’t have an answer for you yet . . . but I will “when it’s ready.” My priorities are to enjoy the summer with my family, play plenty of games, and think about what’s next. The game industry is such an exciting place right now with PC gaming thriving, the new consoles, mobile games, and virtual reality becoming an actual reality. It’s like having an empty quest log and going into a new zone for the first time.

In the past, I haven’t been the most avid Twitter user, but I’ll strive to do better and keep you updated there—@Rob_Pardo. Please stay in touch!

Rob
This article was originally published in forum thread: Rob Pardo Leaving Blizzard Entertainment started by chaud View original post
Published on 2014-07-03 06:26 PM
606 Comments
Comments 591 Comments
  1. FishtheFish's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by freighttrain View Post
    Welcome to the MMO-Champ hyperbole chamber.
    Yeah no kidding haha.
  1. Zenotetsuken's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Protar View Post
    It sounds pretty bigoted to me. "We don't want strong gay or female characters in our games, we just want to have fun! We're not sending a message with our scantily clad female characters which means the implications are okay!"
    Seriously when you "Quote" someone, you should quote what they ACTUALLY said, not make up w/e you got from it.

    What he said was they don't want to FORCE those characters into the game simply because other people are doing it. It is long process to break away from the traditional "Man= Big Muscles. Woman= Sexy. Man like woman, and woman like man" without cheapening both the characters involved, and the games themselves. They are more concerned about making the games fun than they are about molding their games around the views of every demographic with a score to settle.
  1. Infernix's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by freighttrain View Post
    Except it has not been losing its ass.
    You don't think losing 50% of its main revenue stream to be 'losing its ass?'

    How many more millions do they need to lose before you'd consider them to be 'losing their ass?' Because, I can assure you that executives don't give a 4.5 million drop in subs a pass because they still have 7.5 million subs. They lose their shit. In a hurry. 4.5 million subs is a lot of stable reliable monthly income, the 'best' kind of income.
  1. zrankfappa's Avatar
    Probably couldn't get the holiday weekend off, I've done the same thing.

    some BBQ's are worth it ...
  1. Plutarch78's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Infernix View Post
    When your last 17 years has been spent at one company and you're basically at the top of that company and that company has been losing its ass for the last 4 years, that's not exactly a winning resume when you finally get shit-canned.
    Reading comprehension isn't one of your strong suits I take it.

    He said in the first paragraph that it was his decision to leave. Nowhere did he imply that he got fired. You know what people say when they get fired? "I'm now exploring other career paths." They never say I made a decision to leave because it would be a lie.

    The sub loss doesn't really mean dick either. What other MMO has had 7 to 12 million subs? None. He's still will be a sought after player in the industry.

    You can leave your computer now.
  1. Wolfhart's Avatar
    No-one notice how quiet Chris Metzen's twitter has been lately? Doomsday!
  1. Darksoldierr's Avatar
    The end is nigh
  1. Santti's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Infernix View Post
    You don't think losing 50% of its main revenue stream to be 'losing its ass?'

    How many more millions do they need to lose before you'd consider them to be 'losing their ass?' Because, I can assure you that executives don't give a 4.5 million drop in subs a pass because they still have 7.5 million subs. They lose their shit. In a hurry. 4.5 million subs is a lot of stable reliable monthly income, the 'best' kind of income.
    Games grow, mature and decline. If wow would still have that +12 million subs, it wouldn't be success for WoW. It would be a miracle. Wow is old, you know.
  1. WanderingBreezes's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Infernix View Post
    When your last 17 years has been spent at one company and you're basically at the top of that company and that company has been losing its ass for the last 4 years, that's not exactly a winning resume when you finally get shit-canned.
    You know it's the leader of its type, right? He's a high ranking management employee in a company above all its competitors. Even at 1/5th of their last admitted size they still own the majority of paid mmo subscriptions. Their failure is like Bill Gates dropping down to only having a single billion dollars.
  1. Aeno's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Abstieg View Post
    One trick pony? What the hell are you talking about? So you don't have a good resume unless you work at a bunch of different companies?
    The guy doesn't realize that Ghostcrawler was hired at "Ensemble Studios, the team behind the real-time strategy series Age of Empires, employed Street as a designer in 1998. With no education or experience in the game industry".

    Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Street


    Quote Originally Posted by edmorte View Post
    Free to play model incoming after WoD fiasco.

    SOON.
    "SOON™." fixed that for ya
  1. Symphonic's Avatar
    If people hate "goodbye blizzard" posts, they'll absolutely hate this one!
  1. Jokerfiend's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Abstieg View Post
    That's my point. You CAN quit a job after 17 years and have no idea what you're going to do, especially if you're Rob Pardo.



    One trick pony? What the hell are you talking about? So you don't have a good resume unless you work at a bunch of different companies?
    I dunno can you be called a wielder if you only MIG?

    A baker, if you can only do cookies?

    Pardo has had phenomenal success at Blizzard. It's exactly that though, phenomenal. As in Phenomenon. Blizzard is a phenom, a niche market that happened to explode. There no denying this.

    I'm not saying this won't land him a job somewhere else. To say this success with bring future success is a joke.
  1. Ballack's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Infernix View Post
    Somehow, I doubt that a rival company is going to go out of its way to make a better offer to a guy at the top of a company that's managed to lose nearly 50% of its sub revenue over the last 4 years. That's not exactly 'resume' material right there. And like it or not, his fault or not, being at the top means you reap all the credit when things go right 'and' all the blame when things go wrong.
    Funny you should say that because he has never seen a sub-loss while being a designer for WoW. He was the lead designer for WoW and TBC, and a designer for WoD. If you don't think the big game studios are gonna pursue him then you are incredibly ignorant.
  1. mauserr's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Protar View Post
    Well misogynist and homophobic if you want to get all pedantic about semantics.
    I really don't give a fuck about being called a homophobe, but I think sexuality should be left where it belongs, which is the bedroom. No need to put that in a game...
  1. Mongoose19's Avatar
    Rob Pardo leaving is good news - he is one of the bad guys with GC and Tom Chilton. Please make Kaplan come back and WoD will be saved.
  1. Count Zero's Avatar
    Thanks to him for all the work he's done.

    To all the people freaking out about what this means for WoW:

  1. daem's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Vaehatiel View Post
    I really don't give a fuck about being called a homophobe, but I think sexuality should be left where it belongs, which is the bedroom. No need to put that in a game...
    I agree! Let's not have men and women hook up in games, as well. No more hero getting the girl, no more sex or nudity! Get rid of it all!
    /endsarcam


    But seriously, back on topic...
  1. Shiny212's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Protar View Post
    I can't say I'm a big fan of him after his sexist comments but it is kind of worrisome to lose such an big name. Meh.
    He never said anything remotely sexist.

    DEFINE http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=SJW
  1. Pacster's Avatar
    That's how it goes. Make something big...milk it(and ruin it along the way)...and quit before you are being made responsible(and ruin your reputation) for the downfall. He knows that it's going downhill...
  1. Orangetai420's Avatar
    Yikes! another dev jumping ship? This looks like bad news to me.
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