Changes

Blizzard North was founded by the creators of the Diablo series, and they were allowed to remain at their own location in the Bay Areasince they had clout, despite the greater expenses this entailedand felt they could produce better in their home location, since rather than down in Irvine with the rest of Blizzard. The studio worked better as wasn't a semi-autonomous entityvanity company for the Diablo team, and the guys running Blizzard North preferred but they remained in the Bay Area and had semi-autonomous on the strength of their work, seniority, and clout to call their own shots. When the company's founders left in 2003, that independence was on a death watch.

The years of happy existence was rocked at Blizzard North came to a sudden end when when the big four departed in late June, 2003, when the big four departed.  First The first word came in a somewhat shocked. PR from Blizzard about the departures. [http://www.diabloii.net/pressdesk/030630.php June 30, 2003shocked press release]from Blizzard that morning. More A [http://www.diabloii.net/pressdesk/030630b.php composed more official announcement] came later that day, as the big four cleaned out their offices and a media circus kicked into high gear. Note the last sentence: <blockquote>"I speak for everyone in our company when I say how grateful we are to have had the opportunity to work closely with this group of individuals. Each one of them has made valuable contributions to many of our games, and we would like to thank them for all of their hard work over the years. We wish them nothing but the best and are confident that they will be successful in their future endeavors," stated Mike Morhaime, Blizzard Entertainment president and co-founder.

"At the same time, we want to convey that Blizzard's success has never been attributable to any one person or small group of individuals, and I am confident that we have the teams in place to continue creating some of the best games in the world."

Blizzard does not believe that these resignations will cause any significant delays or have long-term negative effects on the "Diablo®" series or other projects in development.</blockquote> The last line of that press release was patently ridiculous, since one of the less than two projects underway at weeks later [http://www.gamespot.com/news/6071481.html?tag=result;title;0 Blizzard announced] a new Blizzard North was frozen leader, and slipped in mention (apparently foreverunderlined here for empahsis) shortly after that the second project they'd been working on was being shelved.<blockquote>Blizzard has announced that lead programmer Rick Seis will take the Big Four leftposition of development team lead for Blizzard North. In his new role, and development Seis will lead Blizzard North's team of developers, <u>which will be streamlined into one core group to focus their efforts on one key project</u>. The details of the other studio's next project will be announced at a future time.</blockquote>That project (was never unshelved, and is now assumed to be a forever lost game. No details have ever been released, and the only people who know, Blizzard North employees and some [http://www.diabloii.net/features/v110-play-test.shtml NDA'ed visitors], haven't talked. As for the one project, it was almost certainly Diablo III) , and development on it largely ground to a halt during late 2003, when most of almost the rest of the company entire team quit, moving migrating to [[Flagship, Castaway, Studios]] or other game companies in the Bay Area studios. With progress stagnating, Blizzard North was eventually shut down shuttered and the remaining employees given severance packages or absorbed into Blizzard Irvine in late 2005.

==Why They The Big Four Quit==

The basic reason the Big Four gave for quitting has remained constant throughout the [http://hellgate.incgamers.com/w/index.php/Hellgate_Archive#Interviews:_Founding_Flagship.2C_Pre-HGL dozens of interviews] they gave in the months after the split. Here's what Bill Roper said about it in late 2003^{[[References|7]]}.