Blizzard North Lead Designer Gone?

It is a mystery what’s going on at Blizzard North.  Rick Seis, former Lead Designer of Blizzard North, has joined Castaway Entertainment—founded by ex-Blizzard North employees back in 2003. Recently, Blizzard announced the shutdown of Blizzard North in San Francisco, relocating employees to the main headquarter in Irvine.  It is not been confirmed if there were layoffs or if in this particular case Rick Seis chose to accept the Castaway offer on his own.

” REDWOOD CITY, CA ? September 6, 2005 – Castaway Entertainment is proud to announce that former Blizzard North studio lead Rick Seis has accepted the position of Technical Director and lead programmer for their current unannounced project.

?I?m delighted that I will be able to rejoin friends and former coworkers from Blizzard North,? remarked Rick ?and I look forward to reuniting with several others from that team very soon.?

Before joining Castaway, Rick held the position of development team lead at Blizzard North, the company responsible for the creation of the highly successful Action-RPG series Diablo. Prior to this position, Rick, who joined Blizzard North in 1994 as one of the company?s first employees, served as both a senior programmer on the original Diablo and the lead programmer of Diablo II. He has also functioned as the company?s director of technology.

?We are very excited about acquiring more of the most important resources of Blizzard North: the people that comprised the team there were by far their most valuable assets,? stated Michael Scandizzo, president of Castaway Entertainment. ?With the team we have built, we will be able to maintain the quality of development Blizzard North fans have come to expect.?

Castaway Entertainment, LLC is an independent video game development studio focused on developing world class RPGs for the PC and next-generation console systems. Headquartered in Redwood Shores, CA, Castaway is a growing company founded in 2003 by a team of experienced and talented game developers from across the industry.

Currently developing our own multi-platform next-generation action RPG, we are looking for a publishing partner to bring this high quality game to the shelves.”