Mike Morhaime is no longer the CEO of Blizzard

Mike Morhaime, the man who co-founded gaming giant Blizzard Entertainment in 1991 (originally under the name Silicon & Synapse) and oversaw the launch of numerous hit franchises, including Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft, has stepped down as president and CEO. 

J. Allen Brack, who previously served as executive producer and senior VP for World of Warcraft, will be taking on the lead role, while Morhaime will stay as an advisor. 

In his farewell post, published on Blizzard’s website, Morhaime didn’t share the reasons for his departure. 

“After many years of working with some of the industry’s most talented people to create games and worlds for you to play in, I’ve decided it’s time for someone else to lead Blizzard Entertainment,” he wrote. 

In his first post as CEO, Brack announced that another co-founder, Allen Adham, will join Blizzard’s executive team. Adham was lead designer of World of Warcraft but left the company right before that title’s launch in 2004, only to return in 2016. And Ray Gresko, who worked on Overwatch and Diablo III, has been appointed chief development officer.

Blizzard, which is a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, is one of the most important video game publishers in history. Its biggest hit is World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game, which essentially re-defined the genre when it launched. WoW drew in millions of users and paved the way for numerous other similar titles which followed. 

Blizzard has also been notoriously slow and pedantic with its game launches, but Brack gave a few hints new games are coming soon. He said that Adham will oversee the development of “several new games,” and he also said the company will have “a few surprises” next month at its annual BlizzCon event.