by hsdecktech - 6 years ago     show comments

In the months since Ben Brode left Hearthstone, the community has been abuzz with talk about how–and with whom–Blizzard would ever replace him.

Just to be clear: we don’t have any official announcement or confirmation just yet. However, we did notice that the Blizzard Careers job board no longer lists Hearthstone Game Director under open positions.

That could mean that they’ve selected a new Game Director! Or it could just mean that they’ve narrowed it down to some solid candidates and don’t need any more applications. Either way, though, it hints at them making some steps in the process (it seems unlikely that they would take down the posting because they gave up on finding a Game Director).

All that being said, it could very well be that whoever takes up the mantle will be a different type of game director than Brode was. It would be somewhere between a Herculean and a Sisyphean task to find one person who could even come close to filling Brode’s shoes. With that in mind, the team may well restructure the position to work more behind the scenes (as the position worked before Brode) and to have people like Dave Kosak, Peter Whalen, and Dean Ayala continue their recent roles as the faces of the team, or vice-versa.

My personal speculation has always been that one of those current public-facing developers might take over. Somebody like Dave Kosak seems well suited to step right into the role Brode had (that of the game director and a public face of the game), but even if a person could fill the role in that way, Blizzard may not want to burden one of their best and brightest employees with direct comparisons to the legendary Ben Brode. That may well be another motivation for switching up how the role will work going forward.

It is a tricky P.R. position for Blizzard trying to replace such a well-loved and public face of the game. They will have to choose between facing that head-on with a big announcement, or trying to let it quietly pass in the night. If the plan is the former option, the mid-set lull, before Blizzcon, would be a good time to make the announcement, because it would get the game some hype during the lull and would keep the announcement from overshadowing the next expansion announcement, which is expected at Blizzcon. Apologies to Blizzard if the plan was to try to make this go quietly.

Of course, we will update you if we hear anything further on this story.