Chris Metzen leaves Blizzard after 23 years
Senior VP of Story and Franchise Development – Chris Metzen who co-creates Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo, has announced his retirement from Blizzard and the video gaming industry after 23 years.
Metzen’s announcement was shared on battle.net forums where he thanked his colleagues and explained his decision to step away from the company in order to spend more time with his family.
The reason I use the word “retire” is because I’m not going to some other company or starting up new projects or anything remotely like that. It’s been a long, amazing stretch of years. Now it’s time to slow it down. Rest. Lay around on the couch and get fat. Well, fatter.…
Seriously though, I’ll be focusing on the one thing that matters most to me in all the world—my family. They’re the core of my life and the source of my deepest joy and inspiration. In addition to raising our two little ones, we recently welcomed our new baby into the family! Being home with them all, having time and space to really live…to love my wife with all my strength…that’s my career now.
Metzen was well known for his work on creating the fictional universes and scripts for Blizzard’s award-winning media franchises: World of Warcraft, Diablo and StarCraft.