I should clarify. I knew that the first three guys were the cofounders of Blizzard. I just never knew who they were. Never met ’em, never talked with ’em… stuff like that. So to ME, that wasn’t the big part of the story. Bill, on the other hand, I have met. I know the guy, so I was more interested in HIS well-being than anything else.
From the looks of things, though, they are thinking of starting a new game development company. Just one of the rumors in the rumor mill. Also, it would seem that whatever caused this exodus was fairly recent, though again, I don’t know any of that for sure.
Whoah… big news here, and for once, it’s not about me. My good buddy Cliff forwarded me this news article about some key employees leaving Blizzard. Now, normally I wouldn’t pay too much attention, and the first three of the four listed are the founders of Blizzard, so it’s a big deal there, but the fourth person is Blizzard’s Vice President, Bill Roper. The astute will know that Bill’s a longtime RL reader, and I’ve met him on a few occasions. He’s probably one of the most stand-up awesome guys in the gaming industry. Hell, he invited a bunch of us to go see the Matrix at E3 this year. So when I heard HE was leaving Blizzard, I had to take notice. From what the article says, they left Blizzard in order to “pursue other opportunities”. If that means they’re striking it out on their own, then dammit, more power to ’em. I don’t know the other three guys, but I wish the best of luck to Bill in whatever he winds up doing. Mostly, I’m just curious as hell. Whenever the most talented people leave a big company like this to forge out on their own, big things tend to happen.
Well, except for Richard Garriot. He went out to work with that stupid Lineage game. Lord British is freakin’ dead.
