Art Director
Blizzard Entertainment is currently looking for a talented, motivated, and experienced art director to lead the Diablo III art team. For this position, you must be highly organized with outstanding communication skills and proven experience in management. We're looking for a proven track record of shipping AAA products in an art director role. Experience modeling and texturing assets for a diverse visual range of environments and a solid grasp of form, color, and light for both 2D and 3D art assets are also essential. You must be experienced at mentoring a team, able to work well in an environment of artists who are passionate about making great games, skilled in another art task (illustration, modeling, texturing, animation, or concept drawing), and well-versed in related tools (Maya, Photoshop, etc.).

The fact that the position, which hit the site on Tuesday, is specifically Art Director and that it spells out that the person will be leading and mentoring the Diablo III art team leads me to believe that perhaps something's up with Brian Morrisroe, who last we heard was the game's art director. Of course it could be that he just lay the ground work for the game and they want to bring someone else in to wrap things up. It could also mean that they're taking a new direction, but given how adamant Blizzard's been about not changing the game's look, that seems like a pretty slim bet.

We've contacted Blizzard to see if Morrisroe is still the art director for Diablo III and whether he is still at Blizzard. We're also trying to nail down whether this new job listing means the game's art direction is undergoing a change. I'll be sure to update once we hear back.

[Thanks Sedako]

Update: Morrisroe did indeed quit.

There will be more announcements that will be, if you will, licensed intellectual property that will be looking at the more casual consumer that we see as a bigger force in the business...we think there's a different type of consumer that...doesn't want the authentic simulation game that we currently offer.

Moore: We must do better on Wii and DS [MCV]

The earliest version of TF2 that you guys never got to play was this ultra-realistic... it looked a lot like Counter-Strike to a large degree. We wanted to do all these things, but realism fought us every step of the way. In a realistic game it's hard to justify why everything isn't just a bullet or an explosive, because at the end of the day, that's what kills people in the real world...

So the point I was trying to make was that we spent some time squirming under this art direction that we'd chosen too early. Later, when we started thinking about humour, we had a lot of fun with being free. We realised we could do that thing that we'd joked it would be fun to do. Well guess what? Now we can do it. Let's do it!Let's see, art direction that provides genuinely funny humor that supports gameplay? Yes! Let's do it!

We're off to slip on a banana peel and dream about TF2.

RPS Team Fortress 2 Interview - Part 2 [rock, paper, shotgun]