Rob Pardo Leaving Blizzard Entertainment

[Jimson]

Is there any chance this is related to the backlash from his speech at MIT? Maybe he looked at everyone jumping on him and decided it's not worth it.

[Sting]

Is there any chance this is related to the backlash from his speech at MIT? Maybe he looked at everyone jumping on him and decided it's not worth it.

Laughable to say the least.

Sad to see such a veteran leave, time will tell what the impact will be.

[Yosemiteesam]

Well....bye.

Well put Curly Bill.

[Deleted]

Didn't see this coming, but his influence after leaving the WoW team was.. unthanked and unnoticed. I have the feeling he didn't get to make the decisions he wanted on Warlords of Draenor.
Not a major loss for Blizzard in its current state as I see it.

[Blade and Soul]

Holy crap...

EDIT:

I made a video with my thoughts after the initial shock of the news was absorbed. You can see it here if you want: http://youtu.be/-bM2flQMPxA

I wish Rob Pardo the best and I thank him for all the work he has done on the games I enjoy so much, and the impact he has made on the video game industry as a whole!

[Xayl1]

Doubt it. Any workplace can get boring after 17 years.

17 years is also a lifetime at a studio in the gaming industry especially when you consider the indusrty standard of grueling working hours and god-complex riddled devs to deal with.

[Grokresh]

I generally have no idea who this guy is but from the comments I am now concerned, wow doomed?

[Xilurm]

Good luck Rob.

I see that a pattern is happening here. The same pattern that happened when Blizzard North had disagreements with how decisions were being made from the higher ups and a huge amount of extremely good developers left Blizzard. IE the developers of Diablo 1/2 and many of the vanilla starcraft and wow developers couldnt take it anymore. Greg street has bailed now as well as Rob. Things are getting worse and worse and less like a company that cares about their consumers and games and more about their profits. Im sure we can thank Bobby K for that.

Well his last work for WoW was TBC and then he joined again for WoD. And the bolded part of your comment is basically the half of Alpha and Beta of WoD.

Soooo, what if it his fault in the first place?

[MasterHamster]

And here comes the conspiracy theories that these goodbyes are meant to dispel.

[Xilurm]

Holy crap...

Rob was the creative director/officer for ALL of Blizzard Entertainment. I don't know how to feel about this. With the expansion looming and lots of changes being made to WoW, I can't help but wonder what is going on now.

I don't think this bodes well, and I have a bad feeling about this.

He wasn't associated with WoW after TBC until WoD.

[Curlyfry]

Lot of people putting on their tinfoil hats.

Cheers! <[:^)

[Xayl1]

I generally have no idea who this guy is but from the comments I am now concerned, wow doomed?

not likely to be honest. when a dude of his position leaves it isn't a quick all of a sudden sort of thing. the dev teams and people in the studio have likely known he was leaving for monthsand any impact to the development of the game has likely happened already for better or worse.

[OptimusDeadpool]

Good luck Rob.

I see that a pattern is happening here. The same pattern that happened when Blizzard North had disagreements with how decisions were being made from the higher ups and a huge amount of extremely good developers left Blizzard. IE the developers of Diablo 1/2 and many of the vanilla starcraft and wow developers couldnt take it anymore. Greg street has bailed now as well as Rob. Things are getting worse and worse and less like a company that cares about their consumers and games and more about their profits. Im sure we can thank Bobby K for that.

I find it funny people screamed for years that Greg Street needed to be fired, he leaves to work at Riot and all of a sudden the "reason" in so many peoples minds for the "downfall" of WoW wasn't the reason, and he bailed cuz he didn't like the direction of things that so many people thought he was responsible for.

How about Rob wants a fresh start somewhere else, professionals do that all the time. Same with Greg. Wish Rob all the best in his future endeavors.

[Deleted]

First Greg Street, now Rob Pardo...

Is George R. R. Martin responsible for the human ressources @ Blizzard?

[Yosemiteesam]

Holy crap...

Rob was the creative director/officer for ALL of Blizzard Entertainment. I don't know how to feel about this. With the expansion looming and lots of changes being made to WoW, I can't help but wonder what is going on now.

I don't think this bodes well, and I have a bad feeling about this.

17 years is a long time at one place. Probably a combination of him wanting to move on and changes at Blizzard. Out with the old in with the new. Which could be good or bad. Time will tell. People complain Blizz is not the same. Yes no kidding but no company ever stays the same these days and nothing last forever. I don't agree with everything Blizz does by far but still enjoy their games as a whole. They are still one of the tops in the industry but even that wont last for ever. Changes good or bad are inevitable.

[snackfeat]

Don't even know who he is.

[Joey Ray III]

now that's fucking unexpected. good luck to him.

[OGXanos]

He's old school, their Chief Creative Officer, he has had a hand in just about everything over the years. Not a good sign, considering the community uproar as of late concerning changes. That said he hasn't been super vocal either. Just on occasion.

[Srg56]

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.

One should be careful when throwing around big words like that.

OT: Wow, this is bad. Really bad. What exactly IS happening at blizzard? First Street now Pardo? Who's next? Metzen?

[taliey]

Queue the baseless speculations.