Following the departure of Diablo III game director Jay Wilson, Blizzard has posted an online listing for his former position. The listing, foreshadowed by Wilson during his farewell forum post, seeks at least five years experience in game directing with multiple AAA titles shipped and a healthy knowledge of Diablo, among other things. The full specifications read:
Responsibilities
- Be the vision holder for the game, set the creative goals for the team.
- Direct game design while successfully partnering with the production director to deliver an epic gaming experience.
- Evangelize games to the player community via press announcements, forum posts, interviews, and public appearances.
- Establish and maintain a creative environment, resolve personnel challenges, motivate qualified developers, and foster a culture of success.
- Maintain an awareness of global player behavior and customs to ensure that design decisions are relevant for a majority of regions.
- Coach, and guide creative team members toward achieving their career goals.
- Stakeholder in studio level strategy, and provide an active voice in resolving global issues.
Requirements
- Knowledgeable and passionate about Diablo
- A minimum of 5 years’ directing video game development
- Shipped multiple AAA products as a game director, creative director, or in a senior development role
- Outstanding communications and relationship-building skills
- Recognized ability to guide and inspire large development teams
- Able to work well in a team environment and communicate effectively with all development disciplines: programming, art, design, sound, and production
- Exhibited ability to coach and mentor employees at all levels of an organization
- Great sense for what makes a game fun to play
- Unrelenting self-motivation and initiative
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent work experience
- A love for Blizzard Entertainment games
Pluses
- Experience developing online video games, and / or role-playing games
- International game experience
- Higher educational degree
Blizzard is also looking to fill some other key titles, including Game Designer and Games Systems Designer for console. The latter is evidence of their continuing efforts to bring Diablo III to console, though what console that will be remains unknown. Likely they're waiting for the next generation so as to better accommodate Diablo III's heavy demands. They're also looking for dialogue editor for a short term contract and an environment artist (indicating they may be doing work on an upcoming expansion) and several software engineers. If you qualify for any of the positions, head over to their jobs directory, where you can apply online.
