When he announced his retirement, Metzen said he wanted to spend more time with his family, but in a new podcast interview with Scott Johnson of The Instance this week, Metzen went into much more detail about his thought process leading up to the decision.
Metzen played a key role in the development of Overwatch back when it was still code named Project Titan and intended to be the industry’s next big MMO. Blizzard put a ton of time and resources into this endeavor before ultimately deciding to scrap it after seven years of hard work. Metzen went back to the drawing board with the rest of the team and was able to pull Overwatch up out of Project Titan’s ashes, but by then, he was completely exhausted.
Metzen said his love for Blizzard and the people who work there kept him going for a while but eventually, all of that hard work caught up to him. Metzen said he knew it was time to go when his job starting affecting his health.
After Metzen had the panic attacks properly diagnosed, his wife gave birth to a baby girl and that was the final push he needed to make his way to the door. Metzen said the choice wasn’t easy, but it was the right decision for his health and his family.
The entire interview is worth listening to for anyone who has ever played a Blizzard game. It’s quite frankly a bit surprising to hear Metzen go into so much detail on a couple of different fronts. One, Blizzard as a company is notorious for keeping things close to the vest, but Metzen clearly feels liberated enough in retirement to speak openly about his thoughts.
And second, a panic attack is just about the last thing anyone who ever witnessed Metzen onstage at BlizzCon would associate with the man. Metzen was widely known within the Blizzard community for his booming voice and outgoing, almost in-your-face personality.
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In the end, this just demonstrates that game developers are human too, and have their own personal concerns to deal with when they’re not getting yelled at on the Internet by an angry fan. Maybe keep that in mind the next time you go into a rage because of a change to your Overwatch skill rating.
Source: The Instance Podcast (via Eurogamer)
