Hamilton Chu, Hearthstone's Executive Producer, Also Leaves Blizzard Entertainment
In a tweet early this morning, Hamilton Chu responded to Ben Brode's leaving tweet with something very simple. Both of the ex-Hearthstone team members have set their Twitter bios to "Starting up something new!".
Quote from Hamilton ChuToday is my last day at Blizzard. 😢 Thank you for all the laughter and fun we shared. I will miss you.
Weird! It was mine too...
Not many were aware of Hamilton's involvement with Team 5 as he wasn't out there interacting with the community like Ben. Things he was responsible for though were writing most of the flavor text in Whispers of the Old Gods expansion and the strategic planning and business operations on the Hearthstone side of things. He also headlined Blizzard's strategic Initiatives Group which included business ops for World of Warcraft. It would appear that this isn't only a blow to Hearthstone, but also other areas at Blizzard.
Quote from Developer Bios - Hamilton ChuAs executive producer for Blizzard Entertainment's Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Hamilton Chu provides the leadership and direction necessary to deliver players a Blizzard-quality gaming experience. In his role, Chu is responsible for strategic planning and business operations, providing management support for the development leadership, and generally tanking issues for the team whenever necessary.
As head of Blizzard’s strategic initiatives group, his other duties include leading business operations for World of Warcraft and managing Blizzard’s creative development department. Before joining Blizzard Entertainment, Chu served as a producer on Halo and Halo 2 for Bungie before going on to sell his soul to the MBA gods.
In his spare time, Chu enjoys reading comics, writing stories, and pwning noobs of all shapes and sizes.
Which beloved developer is leaving the Hearthstone team next to work alongside Brode and Chu?
So two people in a team of 80 decide to move on with their careers, but that surely means there's "something off" in the company!
I think some of you lot need to leave your bedrooms and experience the real world.
Goodluck with future endeavors Hamilton.
What a stupid comment man.
I'd agree if it wasn't the face of Hearthstone Ben Brode along with the Executive Producer. I'm definitely not saying there IS "something off," but it wouldn't be too surprising if there was.
Nothing stupid about it, "man". It's common sense to anyone with any life experience. People come and go, there Isn't always some ulterior issue we don't know about it, most of the time they move on for personal reasons, which is exactly what was stated by BB.
I hope you can cope with that.
Wtf is happening?
Hamilton and Ben just leave Blizzard to work on Reynad's new card game
I hope they are going to Bonefire studio..
I have to imagine this means that the data shows, without much doubt, that hearthstone's playerbase is shrinking. The game certainly won't die anytime soon, it's still by far the biggest digital CCG, but it says that they need to make changes or continue to lose players.
I've said this before, up until now hearthstone has largely copied mtg on everything. Even most 'new' mechanics (lifesteal, echo, rush, even the worgen 2 forms of a card thing they just added) have been around in mtg for years. The randomness was the only thing that hearthstone had that was different. The issue is, they didn't have any of the blocking, countering, graveyard, scying, etc that made mtg such a complex game. As much as those mechanics exist in hearthstone, they only exist in a much simplified, and usually random form.
Hearthstone will need to continue to make changes. The quest mechanic was great, and the hero cards were significantly different than planeswalkers. But why are those largely expansion specific? If you find a mechanic that people react positively to, why don't you keep supporting it? Heck, people still bring up inspire as something they liked and blizzard still doesn't touch it.
That and the fact that mtg releases 3 sets a year that are about twice the size of hearthstones, giving players so many more cards and tools to play around with. I hope the new people realize all that and don't just try to milk the game until it's completely dry. Not that I think any of these people leaving were bad, I just think the direction needs to change a little.
Sorry for the text wall :P
Please don't bring up mtg set sizes when they reprint cards in the same block and make strictly better cards at higher rarities.
Dark times we live in... So put your faith in the light!
Something's off here.
Why this is happening.
- something big happened, maybe a fight.
or
- Blizzard treated their employers like shit.
or
- Ben want to start his own company and Hamilton is a part of it.
or
- Their phones are scheduled at 1st of April.
That would be awesome, unfortunately that's probably not going to be the case.
All aboard the Blizzard Sinking ship! It must have been hit by a blizzard xD
These guys must have something seriously insanely good lined up to leave tho, unless Blizzard is re-evaluating their valued employee policy :P
Just watch this to put things into perspective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTzQsG3azRs
What's next? Is Dr.Boom leaving the game to start on something new? O.o
What's happening Blizzard? :o
We are entering unfortunately in the Hearthstone's dark era. This is the worst expansion ever seen and two really important guys are leaving. I hope that the year of the Raven will not be the last year.