In the past two years, word-of-mouth has experienced a cliff-like decline, and basically all the news that broke out has nothing to do with the game. It's either a strike or an office scandal, and another executive leaves from time to time.
Blizzard version of "Fish Game"
On the contrary, the game development progress that players are obsessed with has been delayed again and again: the delayed release of Watch Pioneer 2 and Diablo 4 can be directly understood as a distant future. The dark mobile game that everyone has been scolding for a long time looks like a legend. Hearthstone became the first battle chess, StarCraft II stopped updating, and the stories of World of Warcraft came one after another, and countless violent whites became violent blacks.
Nowadays, the management of Blizzard has completely changed. There is a saying: "If you gather together, it will be a shit, but if you disperse, it will be all over the sky." Most of these original blizzard people set up their own studios after leaving, but how are these "blizzard departments" developing at present? What projects are being developed? Today, I'd like to introduce you.
The airborne female president ran away in just three months.
Second dinner (second dinner)
Team predecessor: Hearthstone Department
Current project: Marvel Comics authorized IP game.
The first thing to introduce is the second dinner studio founded by Ben Brode, the former director of Hearthstone Legend, on 20 18. Ben Broder is known as "the father of Hearthstone". This senior brother loves card games very much, and he participated in the creation of Hearthstone's core game mechanism. In his early years, Ben was just a takeaway brother who often sent pizza to Blizzard. With his love, he gradually became the game director of Hearthstone.
The creative members of the second dinner studio are all from Hearthstone team, including Hamilton Chu (former executive producer of Hearthstone), Jomaro Kindred (former senior conceptual artist of Hearthstone), Yong Woo (former chief producer of Hearthstone) and Michael Schweitzer (former senior customer engineer of Hearthstone).
In 20 19, the studio obtained an investment of 30 million US dollars (nearly 200 million RMB) from Netease and the game adaptation right of Marvel Comics IP. And their first project is naturally Marvel Comics IP game. But according to the size and experience of this studio, I think the game should still be a card-based game.
Unlimited game
Team predecessor: Diablo 4 & StarCraft 2 Department.
Current project: RTS game on PC side
Netease invests there, and Tencent is not to be outdone here. In July this year, Tencent announced the formation of a new studio, Unlimited Games, which belongs to Photonic Studio Group. The studio is headed by David Kim and Jason Hughes, who have been responsible for the development of diablo 3 and Diablo IV.
David king
All other members also participated in the development of diablo 3 and StarCraft II. It includes Chris althorp, the core technical program of Diablo IV.
The goal of the studio is to develop a PC RTS game with high dynamic characteristics. Beginners have low entry threshold, but high proficiency requirements.
Kim said that making the next great RTS game has been his goal for ten years. Boy, it seems that this brother has been in RTS, but he was arranged by Blizzard to develop Diablo 4, and his heart is inevitably dissatisfied.
Bonfire studio
The predecessor of the team: the bosses of various departments of Blizzard.
Current project: unknown
Compared with the above two, Bonfire Studio is the earliest solo studio with the highest gold content in the team. It was founded on 20 16 by Rob Pardo, then the chief creative officer of Blizzard. This senior participated in the design and production of almost all IP series of Blizzard, including World of Warcraft, Warcraft, Diablo and StarCraft.
Other members of the team are also famous. They are all vice presidents or directors of various departments of Blizzard, including Wang Wei, the original painting god familiar to players, who can be said to be a Galaxy battleship.
In 20 19, Wei Wang moved to Canada, an interesting place in China.
Such a luxurious team lineup allowed them to get $25 million in the B round of financing. However, five years later, bonfire studio has not yet launched a game, and the concept map revealed many years ago is still on the home page of official website. Are many bosses gathered together just to cheat investment?
Emirates games co
Team predecessor: Blizzard creative screenwriter Daxie
Current project: magic theme board game
Compared with other studios, the Emirates studio is particularly grounded. Chris Metzen, the founder, once served as the vice president of Blizzard, and participated in the plot design and mainline creativity of almost all Blizzard games. He is a big shot in the direction of screenwriter.
As early as 20 16, Lao Ge retired from Blizzard, claiming that he was exhausted by being responsible for the creative work of large-scale games in big companies. In 2020, Mei Cen and Mike Gilmartin, the former quality director of Blizzard, founded Emirates Studio, focusing on board games.
Although there are less than ten members in the studio, they have made their own board games: Auroboros: Coils of the Serpent, or yiku. At present, crowdfunding has reached $654.38 +0.26 million, which will be released in March 2022. This is also the first studio in many "Blizzard Department" to launch a formal project.
My younger brother has something to say: In fact, Blizzard has many solo studios, many of which have received hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. But without exception, no formal project has been launched, and it is still in the stage of drawing pie. If the timeline is extended for another five years, maybe we can see some works.
Then the question comes: Do you think flying solo from Blizzard's studio will be successful?