Big Changes Part 2

Well there was a bit of reaction to my departure from Blizzard. Some other folks left as well, more important and higher profile than I, so the news of my leaving was under the radar – which suits me just fine. In fact, the only real attention that I got was a bit negative. The games press incorrectly identified me as the lead writer of Diablo III, causing many to exclaim “Thank goodness he left!” The hate for Diablo III story is real.

Pan thought about arguing on the internet. Decided to watch Star Trek instead.

In fact, Diablo III did not have a lead writer. I was heading up the writing over on StarCraft II (Wings of Liberty and Heart of the Swarm,) and transferred to the Diablo team to lead the writing on Diablo III: Reaper of Souls. I stuck around to supervise the writing on all the subsequent content patches, and on another thing that I can’t talk about. The only work I did on Diablo III proper was to contribute to the writing of the followers – Scoundrel, Templar, and Enchantress.

I don’t mind being the target of internet bile – if I did, I wouldn’t be a writer, and I certainly wouldn’t work in video games. I just prefer to be critiqued for work that I’ve actually done. There’s plenty to hate there too!

All that said, Diablo III had some great writers and storytellers associated with it. Talented, hard-working people can often end up in a situation where organizational and institutional forces mangle their work, with unfortunate results. There’s plenty of blame to go around for substandard work, but it’s important to note that it happens to everyone sometimes, and that creative people are often not in control of the forces that destroy their work.

I mentioned in my last post that I’d soon announce where I have gone. I left Blizzard to take on a new challenge – but I was very picky about where I went. I worked all over the film industry, but in games I’ve only worked at BioWare and Blizzard, and I wanted the third name on that list to be someplace with the same commitment to quality. I’m incredibly happy with my choice (and thrilled that they, in turn, wanted me to come work for them!)

So where did I go?  I’ll save that for my next blog post… which will be on Tuesday, July 12^th. Just a couple of days!

-BTK