Ben Brode is an American

video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

. He was the game director and public face of '' Hearthstone'' until 2018 when he left to found his own game studio, Second Dinner, where he is now

Chief Creative Officer A chief creative officer (CCO) is the highest ranking position of the creative team within a company. Depending on the type of company, this position may be responsible for the overall look and feel of marketing, media, and branding associated wit ...

Life and career

Brode joined

Blizzard Entertainment Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three gradu ...

as a

video game tester Game testing, a subset of game development, is a software testing process for quality control of video games. Moore, Novak 2010, p. 95 Oxland 2004, p. 301-302 The primary function of game testing is the discovery and documentation of software d ...

at the age of 20, working on ''Warcraft III'' and ''

World of Warcraft ''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...

'', a position in which he worked for a total of 18 months before becoming Environment Test Lead. During his work testing these games he spent time making custom maps for ''Warcraft III'', one of which became 'Map of the Week' and was released to the wider community. Brode began looking for a new position at Blizzard, including applying for a position as a designer on ''StarCraft II'', before finding himself in a creative position on the

World of Warcraft Trading Card Game The ''World of Warcraft Trading Card Game'' (''WoW TCG'') is an out-of-print collectible card game based on Blizzard Entertainment's MMORPG, ''World of Warcraft''. The game was announced by Upper Deck Entertainment on August 18, 2005 and relea ...

. Brode became lead designer of '' Hearthstone'' in 2015, and was promoted to game director later in the year. While working on Hearthstone, Brode was the public face of the game, giving interviews, responding to player feedback, explaining game concepts, and providing updates on the game's development. When the ''Journey To Un'Goro'' expansion was released without an accompanying song, he recorded his own at the community's request. After 15 years working at Blizzard, Brode left the company in 2018 to start his own game development studio called Second Dinner along with several other ex-Blizzard employees. In 2019 the company announced that it had received a US$30 million investment from NetEase, along with the license to create a mobile game for

Marvel Marvel may refer to: Business * Marvel Entertainment, an American entertainment company ** Marvel Comics, the primary imprint of Marvel Entertainment ** Marvel Universe, a fictional shared universe ** Marvel Music, an imprint of Marvel Comics * ...

. The game, '' Marvel Snap'', was first revealed in May 2022, for mobile devices and personal computers.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brode, Ben American video game designers Blizzard Entertainment people Living people Year of birth missing (living people)