Blizzard had a rough year losing key figures at the company last year – heck, this week it lost its CFO to Square Inc. (We don’t know whether that’s related to Activision’s CFO scuffle yet). While the retirement of Mike Morhaime stole headlines, the departure of Ben Brode from the tippy top of the Hearthstone team – followed by a whole batch of additional Hearthstone devs – appeared to be a serious blow to the game.
Those devs went on to form a new studio, Second Dinner, which until now had been mum on its project. But this week we learned what it was, as Brode and Hamilton Chu posted a video talking up their major investment – from ubiquitous Chinese gaming company NetEase – and their new IP, which just so happens to be Marvel. Oh yeah, and they’re hiring with their big stack of money.