Blizzard has lost a lot of talent over the past decade. Many developers left, prompted by the merger/acquisition with Activision. Others simply could not muster any joy out of being part of the company.
Third just thought their talents were better spent elsewhere. During all this time, esports was shaping as a watershed part of video gaming. Websites such as http://gg.bet/en/esports/ have offered a lot of opportunities to engage with esports.
Yet, this has not stopped many talented people leave Blizzard. What are they doing today, and why did they leave? Their reasons vary, but the good news is that their talents have not simply disappeared. In fact, many are mustering up their private ventures, which are focused on video gaming and esports, and this is good news for all of us!
Lost Lake, A New Studio Is Borne
Just a few days ago, former Blizzard employees and gaming industry veterans announced that they are putting together Lost Lake. This is the latest edition to Seattle’s long line of competitive and highly-promising video gaming studios.
What’s more important here is that the studio is founded by some of the most talented people in the industry. You have James Phinney, who is a former lead game designer at Blizzard for Diablo, Warcraft II, and StarCraft. Then you have Joe Pikop, who worked at ArenaNet, Rockstar, and Motiga, and not least, you have Mark Pottorf, who has been part of many talented studios himself.
Why is this trio of founders important? Well, their combined expertise and established commitment to video gaming guarantee that the recent $5 million funding round led by BITKRAFT Ventures is going to offer inspiring games down the road.
The studio doesn’t promise to be exclusively focused on esports, but the promise is very real, especially when you consider the fact that BITKRAFT is mostly interested in investing in esports titles. Lost Lake is not the only offshoot from Blizzard, though.
Frost Giant Studios
The second big offshoot from Blizzard is none other than Frost Giant Studios. The studio is quite ambitious about what it wants to achieve, and we can’t blame them. Frost Giant is committed not just to adding more value to esports.
They want to go after the motherload of the esports genre, and that is a real-time strategy. There are few other games that are as demanding right from the start, and even though you may advance on your pace, you will notice that there are players who are quite better.
But why RTS, you may ask? Well, it’s simple. There haven’t been great RTS games for a very long while out there. Yes, Age of Empires IV proved to be an amazing game, and that is just it – it’s a spot-on game that will help you get involved with the genre.
However, Frost Giant Studios want to achieve more. They want to create a worthy successor of Warcraft and StarCraft and resuscitate the genre completely. That is why you will notice that Frost Giant Studios are definitely a great example of former Blizzard talent that is committed to improving video gaming for everyone.
That is not to say that there aren’t challenges. Concepts are much easier to muster than is execution. After all, you may dream up the perfect game, but putting it into practice will be a bit of a challenge.
That is why despite the many good intentions that former Blizzard employees (and talented employees at that) may have, they would have to give it their best shot to dethrone games like StarCraft, Warcraft, or Age of Empires.
