After 12 Years, Dave Kosak Leaves Blizzard Entertainment!
Dave Kosak (former lead Mission Designer on the Hearthstone team) announced on Twitter that he has left Blizzard Entertainment after 12 years.
- Dave joined the Hearthstone team in November 2016 (Mean Streets of Gadgetzan), he was previously the Lead Narrative Designer for World of Warcraft.
- Dave is responsible for the character - Patches the Pirate, created during a "brainstorming session" between the Hearthstone team and the World of Warcraft story team, prior to Kosak's joining Team 5. [Source]
- He was also responsible for the PvE content like the brand new Dungeon Run (in Kobolds and Catacombs).
- Recently Dave appeared in the Madness at the Darkmoon Faire announcement video, which was sadly his last video for the Hearthstone team.
- Dave is joining the DeviationGames studio and they are working on a secret project for now, which will make us go "Whoa" when announced!
Big announcement time!
— Dave “Fargo” Kosak (@DaveKosak) October 27, 2020
After 12 remarkable years and countless adventures, I am moving on from Blizzard Entertainment. The other week I bid a fond farewell to the orc, who is dutifully wearing his mask. I will very much miss all of my Blizzard colleagues. pic.twitter.com/FJmDxFKhqN
Quote from Dave "Fargo" KosakIf you follow me because of #Hearthstone, no need to worry! Last week we announced a great expansion, a new mode, and new progression/rewards. Believe me when I say that’s only the beginning. Great things are in the works!
Quote from Dave "Fargo" KosakAnd, of course, #Shadowlands is around the corner for #WorldofWarcraft. I will be adventuring right alongside you. I am honored to have contributed to the Warcraft universe, and excited for what’s to come.
Quote from Dave "Fargo" KosakWhat’s next for me? I’m pleased to announce that I’ve taken on an important role at @DeviationGames! We are building… something secret. But amazing. I can’t say any more, but I promise: It’ll make you go “Whoa.”
We wish you the best Dave, you'll be missed!
Ben and Dave sadly both rotated to wild format. :(
When activation bought Blizzard, it's then titanic starting to sink at the moment blizzard is sinking ship trying to do the best to survive. Blizzard is in this movie the ship but also De Caprio too. Anyway, that's my feeling. The day Chris Mertz leaves blizzard I realize when will all other leave, did took not long. And the number raising over the year. Sad and now this dude. I think there is not so much left of old team anymore. Even doh Dave isn't an old team. Also, his PvE content wasn't top only those first of his work of PvE content was ok. But if he did the book of heroes then I can't say it's good. More then money making.
But then again PvE content hasn't been so good over the year. So I guess we only will miss his video content.
Do not get me wrong I do like Dave have no problem with him.
Sad, I really liked him.
I liked but it was a real short run.
I think that the problem with solo content (that I like a lot more than pvp content) is replay value being zero. You have no reason to replay any solo content because any reward is given you only once. And it's a pity because the old solo content like Naxxramas was really good. Hope they change this and let us replay everything with new rewards. The achievement system is a good example.
Also personally I'd like to see use of my huge collection. I am tired of seeing my collection being used only in pvp, that's the part I like least in the game. I have paid for those cards or I gained them playing for years. I'd expect to be using them
Honestly probably got fired like he’s already working on a project for another company sounds like there was overlap...
More likely he quit to take the other job.
Pretty much everyone from the old days is leaving Blizzard (and I mean, the few that still didn't left)
They're game developers before hearthstone developers. It's a natural progression to move on to other projects. You wouldn't want to spend your whole life in one job and this guy certainly did his part.
I don't think he had put much effort into this new mode. He is a talented guy,and provided us good content in the kobolds and catacombs, but this new mode is just a rinse repeat of kobolds. He probably decided to quit/got fired months before the annoucement. Very weird move by Blizz anyway.
Why would he got fired? He himself stated, that he feels like he's done enough for Blizzard, and I can imagine doing something for 12 years, sitting in one franchise might be a bit tiring and repetetive after a while. That's probably why he joined some other little studio, to create his own little thing. The same is true for pretty much everybody from Team 5 who joined Second Dinner
This is DEFINITELY not a good sign, but makes sense considering how bad Book of Heroes is and how blizz is putting in another "beta" pvp mode with duels instead of more single player content. It's definitely sad to see him go because after Brode he's always had the biggest personality of anyone on the team. The game really won't be the same without him, but considering how bad things are getting at blizz I can't blame him for leaving to look for brighter pastures.
I enjoy Book of Heroes. Why do people think it's bad?
The decks are super basic, bordering on bad a lot of the time, the hero powers are pretty much the same, the AI for the enemies is pretty universally terrible (currently the boss for the Quilboar encounter will just shadowstep his hero power tokens and immediately play them after for no reason), the chapters are timegated for some reason despite obviously not being very difficult to create relative to other single player content so that they can say they have new single player content for longer, the writing is (obviously) terrible and lacks any kind of hearthstone charm, and the only difficulty comes from drawing the right cards out of your terrible deck not to lose in tempo to your opponent's overpowered hero power or arbitrarily massive health total, and since it's an adventure there's no reason to ever play it more than once.
All of this isn't even taking into account the relative quality of previous single player content. Not even paid stuff like the dalaran heist or tombs of terror. Monster hunt, rastakhan's rumble, boomsday project, and dungeon run are all free, came out all at once and weren't arbitrarily timegated, and are much more fun. I still replay the old single player content. I just play the new book of heroes chapters as they come out once for a cynical laugh at how far this game has fallen.
No surprise here, working under the Tyrannical dictator, Activi$ion CEO Bobby Kotick, working conditions in the Blizzard Office must be unbearable.
Expect more Blizzard / Team 5 employers to leave the sinking ship, as they might get replaced by cheap Chinese factory slaves.
who else gonna leave hearthstone ? so soon hearthstone dead game? :(
if it is just to stop financing Kotick, then it is already all worth it.
The good times Pre-Blizzard-Activision merger will always have a place in my Heart.
Sounds like like he offered a lot to hearthstone in the past but I wasn’t a fun of his presenting style and the duels mode is just another 1:1 mode so nothing new
I really wonder who is gonna be the next face of Hearthstone, because Dave managed pretty well after Ben Brode left.
But now? Many other people left Team 5 in 2020 too: Hadidjah, Ben Thompson, Peter Whalen , Mike Donais...
I guess that leaves:
Alec Dawson, I think.
Or maybe Liv Breeden. I personally really like her, but because she's trans, whenever she appears there's a lof of transphobic mood around and Blizzard likes playing everything safe.
Im thinking about them, as they already had their apperences in the promotial videos and have that similar lively attitude to drive the game like Dave and Ben did.
There is maybe Dean Ayala. But he wasn't in the last announcement stream at all.
We haven't seen him for a while In any promotional videos since Witchwood I think?