Veteran developer David Brevik, who is best known for his work on the first two Diablo games and Marvel Heroes, has left Gazillion Entertainment to start afresh.
We spoke to David at Gamescom last year and he explained to us that he’d ended up as the Gazillion CEO by pure chance, and while he threw himself into the role, he said he was missing developing games.
We’ve interviewed David many times over the past two decades and he was passionate about the ARPG genre, and especially passionate about the Marvel franchise and Marvel Heroes. His passion for his previous work on Diablo really showed when we interviewed him a few years back at Gamescom in the now infamous “F**k that loser” interview which caused quite a stir at Blizzard. It was also our most memorable interview and it was extremely refreshing to see a developer being so open and honest.
David issued a statement explaining his departure:
Almost 7 years ago, I joined Gazillion as the Creative Director for a new Marvel product. I still can’t believe that this dream came true. I have been a life-long Marvel fan and I really relished the opportunity to create a unique and fun Marvel game.
Over the course of the next year, my job really changed. I went from Creative Director to the head of all Gazillion studios (there were many locations back in those days). Slightly after that, I was promoted to President and COO of the company and I became more and more distant from the project that brought me to Gazillion. About six months before Marvel Heroes launched, I became CEO, which is the position I have held for about three years now.
As CEO, I spent most of my time running the company. I played the game a lot, talked about the game a lot and added lots of feedback and new ideas, but that is a very different job than being a Creative Director. After doing this for several years, I really want to get back to developing games and programming. I got into this industry to make games and I miss the day-to-day creation process.
That said, it was difficult, because I love Marvel Heroes. I love our community. I love the team I helped assemble. We have an incredibly talented staff here and I know that the game is in great hands. I believe in the future of the game and I know a lot of the amazing things that are being worked on. The game has some really cool features coming that I know I will enjoy. Yes, I will still be playing the game. Yes, I will still be streaming. I will still be sending the team feedback and information and suggestions. I may not work at Gazillion, but I love this game. I’m very proud of what we accomplished.
As for what’s next, I am going to go indie. I’m going back to doing the things I love most: programming and making games. We will have more information about that in the future.
Marvel Heroes is set to re-launch as Marvel Heroes 2016 soon but how this departure will affect the future of the game remains to be seen.
