Greg Street aka Ghostcrawler, formerly of Blizzard and World of Warcraft fame and lately of Riot Games, has apparently decided to leave Riot – as well as the League of Legends-themed MMORPG he was heading up for the studio. Street announced the move on Twitter this evening, telling fans that he’d made the decision after stepping AFK in December, when he’d revealed that a member of his family had passed away and another was close to the end.
“I have decided to step down from my role at Riot Games,” he writes today. “A combo of personal and professional considerations led me to down this path. We experienced some devastating personal losses last year and I want to be closer to my surviving family. But while I was on break I got to think a lot about my career. Grief has a way of really bringing into focus what matters the most to you (still don’t recommend it overall though). And after nine years at Riot it feels like it’s time for something new!”
Street doesn’t discuss what the something new will be, but for folks who’d been following him specifically because of the next-gen MMORPG he was working on, he promises the game is in “good hands.”
“I said from the beginning that building a League of Legends MMO worthy of you all was going to be a long journey. The most important job I could do as part of that was to build an amazing team, and while I try to stay humble overall, I will brag about this team all day! he MMO is in good hands and it’s the right time to hand over the [reins] for the next phase. I plan to stay in game development and I have had a number of exciting opportunities presented to me already. And I will be with you all playing the Riot MMO when it comes out.”
