Every quest must come to an end, and so it has for Rob Pardo. The Chief Creative Officer of Blizzard announced on Friday that he was leaving his position at Blizzard after 17 years at the company.
Pardo was a designer on the sci-fi strategy game Starcraft, from 1998, and fantasy strategy title Warcraft III, from 2002. He then went on to be the lead designer for World of Warcraft, the continuation of the company's strategy franchise, which was released in 2004.
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that dominated the online RPG ecosystem for years. The game grew in popularity over the years, with the number of paying subscribers increasing to a peak of 12 million players by October 2010. After years of stiff competition online, World of Warcraft currently has 7.6 million subscribers, according to Blizzard owner Activision's last quarterly report.
Beyond the base game, there have been four expansions for the online RPG: World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade (2007), World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (2008), World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (2010) and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (2012). A fifth expansion, World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, has been announced and will be released in the Fall. Pardo was the lead designer for Burning Crusade.
And now that he has left Blizzard, what will Pardo be working on? He states in his departing post:
"As to what I will be doing next, I don't have an answer for you yet . . . but I will 'when it's ready.' My priorities are to enjoy the summer with my family, play plenty of games, and think about what's next. The game industry is such an exciting place right now with PC gaming thriving, the new consoles, mobile games, and virtual reality becoming an actual reality. It's like having an empty quest log and going into a new zone for the first time."
Pardo had been Chief Creative Officer since January 2013. Previously, Pardo had been Executive VP of Game Design for many years. An animated version of Pardo was also featured in "South Park's" World of Warcraft episode, "Make Love, not Warcraft."
Photo: GDC
