Sometimes, the best laid schemes of mice and men go askew. And sometimes, they go far better than expected after going askew, but the man envisions another future for himself anyway. Thus is the story of Gazillion’s isometric ARPG Marvel Heroes 2015 and its Creative Director-turned-CEO, the legendary David Brevik, who announced today that he will be resigning from his position as CEO at San Mateo-based Gazillion.
In post on Marvel Heroes 2015’s official discussion forums, Brevik announced his leave from the company along with his reasoning for doing so.
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.
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.
He also thanked the game’s community for their continued support.
Brevik explains that while he enjoyed his job as CEO of Gazillion, he has his eyes set on game development once again. According to an exclusive interview with Venturebeat, Gazillion’s new acting CEO Dave Dohrmann said that Brevik’s departure was “amicable” and that “a search is under way for a permanent replacement for Brevik.”
Before joining Gazillion, Brevik was a co-founder of Blizzard North, which was created in 1993 under the name Condor Inc. He would go on to design and develop Blizzard’s highly-successful ARPGs Diablo and Diablo II, the marks of which can be found in Marvel Heroes 2015’s gameplay. He joined Gazillion in 2011, itself founded in 2005 by Rob Hutter and Doom co-creator Joh Romero (who left the company in 2009 after his division, Slipgate Ironworks, was laid off).
At Gazillion, Brevik worked on various Marvel-related titles before taking the helm of Marvel Heroes, which released in 2013. The game was buggy on launch and received poor reviews, but Brevik and Gazillion retooled the game’s content and pricing model to form the well-liked Marvel Heroes 2015 that fans know today. Before Brevik left, he and Studio Director Jeff Lind worked on an upcoming major overhaul dubbed Marvel Heroes 2016.
Brevik will be missed by Marvel Heroes 2015’s community, as can be seen from the above forum post. Brevik consistently live streamed himself playing the game on Twitch.tv, where he would playfully interact with fans and keep them updated on future content (sometimes unintentionally). He was a strong believer in maintaining close ties with all gradients of Marvel Heroes’ community on multiple social media platforms – casual players, hardcore players, comic book fans, ex-MMO veterans – in order to gather insights that could improve the game. What path Brevik will take now remains to be seen, though many fans are sure it will bear the good fruits of his labor.