D3 Art Direction Disarray?

We've been hearing rumors for a couple of weeks that several key individuals from the Diablo III art team recently left Blizzard, though reasons for this were nebulous. Evidence of this is starting to make the rounds, and Kotaku has picked up on it with a post highlighting Blizzard's new, featured job opening.

	Blizzard Quote: (Source)
	Art Director Blizzard Entertainment is currently looking for a talented, motivated, and experienced art director to lead the Diablo III art team. For this position, you must be highly organized with outstanding communication skills and proven experience in management. We're looking for a proven track record of shipping AAA products in an art director role. Experience modeling and texturing assets for a diverse visual range of environments and a solid grasp of form, color, and light for both 2D and 3D art assets are also essential. You must be experienced at mentoring a team, able to work well in an environment of artists who are passionate about making great games, skilled in another art task (illustration, modeling, texturing, animation, or concept drawing), and well-versed in related tools (Maya, Photoshop, etc.).

As the Kotaku piece points out, Brian Morrisoe was Diablo III's art director as recently as the WWI, where he headed the Environmental Art Panel, and did some media, such as this interview with CVG.

What the Kotaku piece doesn't mention is that there are several other D3 art team jobs listed on Blizzard's jobs page. None of them are recent additions, but it would seem that Blizzard is having trouble finding/keeping art talent on D3? Also note that Jay Wilson, Diablo 3's Lead Producer, handled the fan screenshot deconstruction. Why the head designer, and not one of the art directors?

Given this state of affairs, it's hard not to speculate (as several emailers have) that perhaps the controversy over the game's art direction wasn't just amongst the fans. Perhaps different factions within the Diablo 3 team had their own strong opinions on how the game's art should look, and when push came to shove, some of the crew left. Or were asked to leave? Happily, as Blizzard often points out, the production of a game as large as Diablo 3 is handled by a large team, and no one is indispensable. Let's hope they get talented job applicants and can plug them into the openings and carry on smoothly.

Update: Blizzard has released a statement:

	Blizzard Quote:
	Regarding Brian, he recently resigned to form a startup technology company (outside the game industry), which is why we�ve posted about the open position. This change won�t impact the game�we�re really pleased with the look and feel that Brian helped create for Diablo III, and the new person we bring onboard will work with the other artists on the team to maintain the art style moving forward.

Tags: art direction, blizzard jobs

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Comments

Sedako

13 days ago

About the other job listings. Those are all older listings, and some were even posted back before Diablo 3 was announced. This Lead Art Director position was only posted yesterday.

Sedako

13 days ago

About the other job listings. Those are all older listings, and some were even posted back before Diablo 3 was announced. This Lead Art Director position was only posted yesterday.

Knight_Wolf

13 days ago

Just to point something out, the job openings has been there since the first day D3 was announced, so it is irrelevant to the art debate, that had to be cleared first before any speculation is done.

Second, they already stated several time that they went through several graphical iterations of the game and found them to be less playable than the current one, so it not certain that there were disagreements among the team members, and even if there were, as it is stated here, the team is so large that if a small group left it will have no impact on the game development at all.

That's my opinion about the matter, and to be frank, many of the anti-art guys are looking too hard into this when it is pointless since Blizz stated clearly the art direction will not change, they should chill out and wait for the coming updates at blizzCon.

Sedako

13 days ago

@Knight_Wolf

As I said before, the listing for "Art Director" was just posted on the 5th. The date can be found right above it on Blizzard's job page.

Elly

13 days ago

If Brian was moved because of the Art Direction how could the Dev team let it get so far down the road before deciding another direction and Director was needed? They've already been in several directions which proved unsuitable, I hope they haven't decided that it's back to the drawing board as far as that's concerned.

Asteria

13 days ago

Looks like he's been quietly 'moved along'.

SCFreelancer

13 days ago

I just hope this doesn't mean delays. Looking at all Blizzard games released thusfar Diablo 2 must have been the one that has been delayed the longest.

slickr

13 days ago

Kotaku are morons.
Brian Morrisoe is the 'LEAD ART DIRECTOR'.

Fleshpeeler

13 days ago

This probably won't mean delays. Though in most game companies the art director does oversee art and make sure everyone is kind of on the same page, it's a lot of paperwork and involves things other than just commenting on peoples art.

From what i've seen and heard, helping keep the look of the game together is more the job of the various art and character leads, lead concepters, etc. While the art director certainly had a role in this, most of them were probably already on track with the look and it's highly doubtful that this is any more than a bump in the road.

Elly

13 days ago

Regardless, he's left to start his own company.

BarbaQ

13 days ago

Interesting... is the actual game art designing going to be more mysterious than the whole Diablo lore

Reddimus

12 days ago

That sucks.. a lot. Gotta hope for the best though.

SSH83

12 days ago

I'm sure every long time Diablo fan would remember this: "If it aint broke, don't fix it."

Malrenn

11 days ago

Why do I get the feeling that Blizzard has become the giant conglomerate with no soul. Everyone is dispensible eh? Even tens of thousands of fans I suppose. Who am I kidding, I know we will all buy D3, I just dont like the feeling I get about all this. I hope their lack of heart and soul doesnt find its way into the game.