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Kevin Johnson Leaves Blizzard

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Kevin "Cloaken" Johnson announced on Twitter a few days ago that he is leaving the company. The voice of Heroes of the Storm was narrating Hero spotlights before the changes to the game and got later transferred to work on a different game within the company earlier this year.

We wish him success in his future endeavors!

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I guess this means no more commentary in spotlights (or no spotlights at all). He also did SC2 ones. Now his announcer is going to sound pretty weird in the context of "seeing you in the Nexus".

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Kevin will forever be missed. He was truly the voice of this game. I'm glad he has been immortalized as an Announcer. 

On a side note, I wonder if Anduin's spotlight will feature his narration; maybe that was the last thing he did before leaving Blizzard.

I also wonder who will take his place in the spotlight narrations. I've heard some rumors that Lana Bachynski (Lead Animator) might take the role.

Edited by Valhalen
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1 hour ago, Kurosu said:

You gotta love how every single person leaves the company one by one.Abandon ship!

Its normal that employees switch companies, get directed to other projects or just want to get a new "horizon" in case of experience or more money for their experience. Thats nothing special for Blizzard and imo tells nothing about the state of the company... 

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Heartbroken. Such a chill guy with a super nice heart and I wish him only luck in his future endeavours. We lost an amazing person today.

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The equity promise is tough to turn down from people with venture capital and a startup.

If you have Blizzard on your resume and a known name you’re immediately going to be offered a percentage of a new company and a sizable six figure salary.  The potential upside can’t be matched.

For those of you that know Atari/Activision history?  David Crane, Bob Whitehead, Alan Miller and Larry Kaplan went from making $20,000 a year for Atari in the late 70’s to founding/owning Activision.  I’m sure they’re doing okay.

Edited by Misuteri

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22 hours ago, Baharok said:

Its normal that employees switch companies, get directed to other projects or just want to get a new "horizon" in case of experience or more money for their experience. Thats nothing special for Blizzard and imo tells nothing about the state of the company... 

Denial is the first stage of the grieving process. Starcraft > abandoned . Hots> abandoned. Diablo> do you have a phone mate? Wow>a shadow of its past.Destiny 2>Bungie is considering moving on without Blizzard.Overwatch > still at a good spot but eventually will be out of date if it doesnt even get abandoned to begin with. Only Hearthstone is at a good place.

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2 hours ago, Kurosu said:

Denial is the first stage of the grieving process. Starcraft > abandoned . Hots> abandoned. Diablo> do you have a phone mate? Wow>a shadow of its past.Destiny 2>Bungie is considering moving on without Blizzard.Overwatch > still at a good spot but eventually will be out of date if it doesnt even get abandoned to begin with. Only Hearthstone is at a good place.

And now it would be awesome, if you tell your own meaning and take deeper thoughts and researches into account instead of repeating the hateful tattle mass of forums.

?

Generalisation of meanings (stuff like "WoW > shadow of its past" is something like that or the wrong statement of Bungie with Destiny 2 is as well - since there are other reasons), is somehow very smart imo. I  personal like WoW in its state. Bugs were in every expansion and with every new system, there are coming different problems to this game. I accept this process with the time i spent to play this game. If i dont like it, i dont play it anymore. If i need a break, then i take a break. But im not a god or something to tell a company, that they are completely wrong. Its still THEIR project. You can support it or you criticise it. If you criticise it, then do it respectful with nice manners. Hatespeech and pure tattle, doesnt helps at all. That doesnt mean i fully support all decisions of Blizzard, but i can have somehow "far sight" and think about some steps and its processes behind it. They are swithcing alot stuff in the future and still - its a company, which needs to earn money to stay alive. That being said, the "critics" about "grind" and so on in that game are just not well thought to the end. Its their ticket to hold customers. There are more than enough customers playing with that system. You can now say its addiction, yes maybe, but its also possible that people actually like this systems (me included). 

 

Also i just told that its normal that employees switch companies. If you are working (probably you are still going to school / study) and want to increase your skills, you WILL switch your personal workplaces. It doesnt matters in this case if its the own company (if its big enough to provide such differences and experiencegains) or if you move on to complete different companies / workplaces, yes even genres.

- That my friend, has nothing to do with denial, its reality.

Edited by Baharok
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3 hours ago, Baharok said:

And now it would be awesome, if you tell your own meaning and take deeper thoughts and researches into account instead of repeating the hateful tattle mass of forums.

?

Generalisation of meanings (stuff like "WoW > shadow of its past" is something like that or the wrong statement of Bungie with Destiny 2 is as well - since there are other reasons), is somehow very smart imo. I  personal like WoW in its state. Bugs were in every expansion and with every new system, there are coming different problems to this game. I accept this process with the time i spent to play this game. If i dont like it, i dont play it anymore. If i need a break, then i take a break. But im not a god or something to tell a company, that they are completely wrong. Its still THEIR project. You can support it or you criticise it. If you criticise it, then do it respectful with nice manners. Hatespeech and pure tattle, doesnt helps at all. That doesnt mean i fully support all decisions of Blizzard, but i can have somehow "far sight" and think about some steps and its processes behind it. They are swithcing alot stuff in the future and still - its a company, which needs to earn money to stay alive. That being said, the "critics" about "grind" and so on in that game are just not well thought to the end. Its their ticket to hold customers. There are more than enough customers playing with that system. You can now say its addiction, yes maybe, but its also possible that people actually like this systems (me included). 

 

Also i just told that its normal that employees switch companies. If you are working (probably you are still going to school / study) and want to increase your skills, you WILL switch your personal workplaces. It doesnt matters in this case if its the own company (if its big enough to provide such differences and experiencegains) or if you move on to complete different companies / workplaces, yes even genres.

- That my friend, has nothing to do with denial, its reality.

I have only read your first 2 sentences because I realised what kind of person I am arguing with when you just consider everything | hatefull tattle mass of the forums". 1) I do not use forums to begin with but lets play along with your own assumption. 2 ) All of the things I said are true. Its not subjective.Projects have been abandoned. Diablo did become a mobile game. Nothing is subjective.Its true cold facts. Now I understand you want to support the company,good for you actually, but some of us prefer to deal with reality and call things as they are.Your "reality" is that of a blindfolded fanboy. You dress major figures of the company that were there for years at leading position as simple employees.Doesnt even make sense but you are desperate to justify everything so maybe in a way it does. Bottom line : just because you blindfold yourself doesnt mean the rest of us have to do as well. After all the numbers talk for themselves.

 

And no its not an out of season April's Fools joke.

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1 hour ago, Kurosu said:

I have only read your first 2 sentences because I realised what kind of person I am arguing with when you just consider everything | hatefull tattle mass of the forums". 1) I do not use forums to begin with but lets play along with your own assumption. 2 ) All of the things I said are true. Its not subjective.Projects have been abandoned. Diablo did become a mobile game. Nothing is subjective.Its true cold facts. Now I understand you want to support the company,good for you actually, but some of us prefer to deal with reality and call things as they are.Your "reality" is that of a blindfolded fanboy. You dress major figures of the company that were there for years at leading position as simple employees.Doesnt even make sense but you are desperate to justify everything so maybe in a way it does. Bottom line : just because you blindfold yourself doesnt mean the rest of us have to do as well. After all the numbers talk for themselves.

 

And no its not an out of season April's Fools joke.

Whatever is all i can say to that. Changing words to your favour.... at this point im out here. "fanboy" "blindfold".....not that i even wrote that i dont support every decision of them and so on....but yes.... criticism is something hard to deal with sometimes.  Further trolling of you wont get any attention by me. I did share some reality facts from work perspective, something you maybe should try out sometimes, too. ? ?

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On 4/23/2019 at 11:38 AM, Kurosu said:

Destiny 2>Bungie is considering moving on without Blizzard.

Umm... You do know that Destiny 2 & Bungie have NOTHING to do with Blizzard or Blizzard studios right? Destiny 2 was published by Activision. NOT by Blizzard. Blizzard doesn't publish anything other then their own studio's games. Destiny 2 was deemed by Activision to be put on the b.net launcher. To try to bring more eyes onto the game from Blizzard games players. As well as the possibility of bringing some of the Destiny 2 playerbase over to play some of the Blizzard games. Since in the overall scheme it would bring more money into the overall company since Blizzard is a part of the company as a whole.

 So hence why it's pretty clear you don't know what you're talking about and are simply spouting fear mongering rhetoric. 

On 4/23/2019 at 1:47 PM, Baharok said:

Starcraft > abandoned . Hots> abandoned. Diablo> do you have a phone mate?

So are you talking about Starcraft one? Cause that would be just silly to say about the previous game. So I'm gonna assume you're talking about SC2. So with that in mind. I guess you don't know that SC2 has tournaments going on for it all the time. Most of the big ones are in South Korea where it's HUGE.

Also quick question... can a game count as 'abandoned' if it still has content released for it on a regular basis other then just balance patches? Cause if it can then explain to me what an 'Abandoned game' is please? Preferably with examples from something other then Blizzard games. Since that was your previous 'examples'. 

And side note, are you saying something having a mobile version is equal to the non-mobile version(s) being abandoned or going completely downhill?? Or that nothing else about that franchise or series is ever going to be anything other then a mobile venture from then on??  o_O?

Edited by CyberDVonaven
My second quote should have been quoted by Kurosu as well from the same post as the first quote I pulled. I accidentally pulled it from the comment by Baharok quoting it below the original post. Sorry about that Baharok.
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6 hours ago, CyberDVonaven said:

And side note, are you saying

Can you please consider to edit your quotes ? It wasnt "said" by me, it was a quote in my comment you quoted. I didnt wrote that, so first check the quotes / your comment and edit it. Thanks. (The original comment was by Kurosu as well ? )

 

I see it as you, if they abandoned something, it would be terrible, because the game wouldnt get any releases, they would just minimize the capacities of server and so on imo.

Edited by Baharok

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14 hours ago, Baharok said:

Whatever is all i can say to that. Changing words to your favour.... at this point im out here. "fanboy" "blindfold".....not that i even wrote that i dont support every decision of them and so on....but yes.... criticism is something hard to deal with sometimes.  Further trolling of you wont get any attention by me. I did share some reality facts from work perspective, something you maybe should try out sometimes, too. ? ?

See thats the funny thing with people like you.  Whoever said I want any attention from you ? You are a just a random anonymous person on the net. You have your views on the matter and I have mine. 

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On 4/24/2019 at 6:26 AM, Baharok said:

Can you please consider to edit your quotes ? It wasnt "said" by me,

Opps, sorry about that Baharok!  I meant to pull that part of the quote from the original post too. I'll go back and edit fix that if I can figure out how to.

Edited by CyberDVonaven
It doesn't seem to allow for adding a new quote to a previously posted comment. Or at least I can't figure out how to do it if it does.
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10 hours ago, CyberDVonaven said:

Opps, sorry about that Baharok!  I meant to pull that part of the quote from the original post too. I'll go back and edit fix that if I can figure out how to.

Nevermind then. Any interested reader can / will figure that out after the comments as well. At least i hope so....anyway thanks for trying and replying to it. ?

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