In a tweet this evening, Hadidjah Chamberlain, the Lead VFX Artist on Hearthstone, announced their departure from the team. They remain at the company working on another project.
We've transcribed the image statement that was included in their tweet down below.
Hadidjah joined the team back in 2016 as an FX Artist before moving up to Senior VFX Artist two years later, and finally, Lead VFX in April 2019. The most recent public appearance from Hadidjah was on the September card back design stream with Luke Mancini where they helped answer viewer questions about the various design processes on the team.
You've very likely encountered Hadidjah's work if you've been playing Hearthstone, whether it was creating all the "enter play" effects from the Knights of the Frozen Throne Death Knight playable heroes, the Volcano animation which was "pretty much exclusively" created by them, or the Means Streets of Gadgetzan pack which was the first pack they got to work on. We were very lucky to have a member of the Hearthstone team be active within the community whether it was answering questions on Twitter or writing walls of awesome on reddit which detailed things such as why the animations have gotten so much better in Hearthstone recently.
Thank you Hadidjah for communicating with the community, teaching those that were interested, and overall being a positive force.
You'll be missed, but never forgotten. Good luck with the new project and see you in the tavern!
Quote From Hadidjahb From the bottom of my heart, thank you guys.
Recently, I left the Hearthstone team to join another project at Blizzard. I'll talk about that another time, because it's super exciting - but for now I want to talk about how much I'll miss Hearthstone, and say thank you.
I've spent much of this year focusing on my mental health - something I've struggled with my whole life but generally tried to 'tough out' - and in doing so I've realized I need to take some very big, scary steps back to be able to focus on really, truly bettering myself.
There is no part of Hearthstone that's easy to leave. I love helping to make a game I care so deeply about. Many of my best friends, my chosen family, are on this team, and working with them has always been both a privileged and an absolute joy. And being able to interact with a segment of the community as passionate as I have here, to learn as much as I have from you guys and get to b become friends with some of you, has been a truly unexpected and daunting honor. I am, in so many ways, so much better for having been a part of Hearthstone.
And it's an incredibly, heartbreakingly hard thing to walk away from. But I owe it to my friends, my team, and myself to be better.
The VFX artists that remain on Hearthstone are nothing short of amazing, and even with as little as I had to do with any of their development or art, I'm incredibly and undeservedly proud of them. If your favorite effect is from Rise of Shadows or later (or if it's Gral, which it should be), I can basically guarantee it was made by one of them. If you've marveled at how much better the VFX have gotten lately - that's their work. The game's VFX couldn't be in better hands.
Thank you for letting me be a part of such an amazing game, team, and community. There are many people I still hope to meet, and I hope when we do meet or even just hang out next I'll have a lot more joy to offer you.
Until then I'll see you online just another patron in the tavern.
Hadidjah in Announcement Trailers
Hadidjah made quite a few appearances over the years in Hearthstone media, and had the opportunity to lead the Saviors of Uldum trailer last year.
Hadidjah in Developer Talks
Hadidjah was also present on the Art of Hearthstone Comic-Con panel back in 2018. It's a great listen for anyone interested in this sort of stuff!
They were also on a panel at GDC in 2017 alongside Riot Games' Jason Keyser.
Comments
Bon Voyage.
Hadidjah hear the news? Another member of the hearthstone team left.
Seeya
One of the things I think HS differenciates from other Digital TCGs are the VFXs it has, it may have the best ones so this is really a shame. Hope they retain the quality or make it better too.
I dunno, I think Legends of Runeterra's VFXs are quite a lot better than Hearthstone, particularly when Champions level up.
Haven't seen that since I've not played Runeterra, will take a look in some YT vid.
Is this normal churn of staff or is there something very wrong internally?
Whether that's management, the company itself or other issues? I guess we can only speculate.
All the best to all those that have left recently.
I think it is a matter of them doing something for themselves, and taking on a new project to help them focus on their mental health. It's great they are working on their mental health, and I wish them nothing but the best on their journey.
I think it also is Blizzard moving around their talent. Hearthstone is an established game, with a solid VFX team. Hadidjah will be greatly missed, but it's good to take your amazing talent, and move it to a new project. My guess is they have moved over to the D4 team as that ramps up for possible 2021 release. (Please take your time Blizzard, don't let Activision make you release the game before it's read. Please tell me you learned from your mistakes with the D3 launch. Seriously, take years and year, just please release D4 as the perfect game it deserves to be. Anyway, Diablo rant concluded.)
When you've been a part of something for a long time, sometimes you just need a change of pace or maybe even a greater challenge. Exploring new paths with your career can help you improve in so many different ways, and with how old Hearthstone is now, it isn't too surprising that the older, more known members of the team, have all been leaving.
I don't think Blizzard is in the clear though, you've definitely seen changes there over the past handful of years that in my eyes could cause people to want to jump ship. Even the leadership of the company left within the past couple of years which is pretty crazy.
Overall though, the Hearthstone team is a couple hundred people at this point so a couple of leaves over the past year isn't too crazy. And since a good chunk of those that left remained at Blizzard to work on other projects, it's not likely anything wrong internally but more so the desire to create new things has overtaken the deep love for Hearthstone. I can't speak for any of them, but I know I'd be excited about new projects.
FWIW - the Bureau of Labour Statistics estimates average tenure at a US company at about four years. Personally, I've held four different jobs since finishing grad school, none of them longer than three years (I'm Canadian, but I expect tenure is comparable between countries.) It's likely that half the current HS team will move on to other things, internally or otherwise, in the next few years. As far as leadership leaving - I'd suggest that it's far "crazier" that Morhaime (and Brode, for that matter) stuck around for nearly thirty years (fifteen, in BB's case.)
Hadidjah is still working at Blizzard so I guess it's either just them wanting a personal change or the best people are being pulled onto what is seen as the most important project.
Working at Blizzard, but not Team 5 though. I hope that Team 5 is still a great place to work as it always seemed to look after it's people.
Just seems a lot have people have left it - but that might be quite normal. Fingers crossed they recruit great people still.
Good luck, Hadidjah. I actually never realized they were non-binary before this.
P.S. I cut down on logging in to Hearthpwn when they posted Blizzard's announcement about BLM and the comment section was so racist I had to report half of them and post one myself explaining why "all lives matter" is a racist statement (that comment got a record number of downvotes). They just posted this themselves, and referred to Hadidjah as "she". I logged in just to make sure my guess was correct, and lo and behold, it was.
So far my correction comment that mentioned Hadidjah is NB got 4 downvotes and counting. I'll probably monitor this for a few days and then neverlog into that sit ever again.
My point is: Thank you OOC for being an inclusive, nice, and respectful alternative to Hearthpwn. You were right to leave.
I'm not going to downvote you - I understand why All Lives Matter is considered by some to be potentially racist. Though I personally don't actually agree it is all cases because many (including me) would mean the literal meaning of it without any negative subtext. But I don't tweet it or have it tattooed on my forehead as I know it may give the wrong impression to some.
I think both ALM and BLM are perfectly reasonable things to think and say - depending on context, intent and audience of course. There seems to be a consensus amognst many on Social media that ALM is racist in all circumstances which I find to be a shame. Not helped that some have used it in a racist manner designed to downplay issues that many black people face.
For the avoidance of doubt, let me state (as I have a few times on this site), that my default position is to treat everyone with respect and fairly irrespective of race, religion, sexual orientation/identity. I expect people to behave reasonably without unnecessarily causing harm to others whatever the demographic of the individual. And people that flout that should be stopped from doing so - again reasonable and appropriate to those specific circumstances.
Sorry for posting this here - one has to be careful where you express these things and the vast majority of members here seem reasonable. Just feels good to put down my thoughts somewhere.
And if people reading this don't agree with the above - that's totally fine and I respect that too. Maybe I'm wrong (a good thing to consider whatever your views are on any subject). I hope it's recognized that it was coming from a good place wishing fairness for all though. If you are reading this in the future and terms I've used are now ultra offensive, please consider it in the time and with the intent I wrote it.
Also food for thought - your comment got downvoted almost as much as mine. I guess raising awareness to issues that are controversial (for some reason?) aren't well accepted here either.
I guess as long as people aren't expressing messages of hate then I don't mind them downvoting either you or me as much as they like.
Even though we see things slightly differently on a few issues - we put our points across respectfully and with no hate involved.
I can live with the consequences in terms of popularity - and have little doubt you aren't too distraught either.
You are quite right :)
First of all, thanks for replying, I don't consider it inappropriate or offensive.
Disclaimer - I'm a straight white male.
However, while I understand and in the past wondered why ALM is racist, while your intent may be equality and fairness to all, the fact is right now there is no equality, and as long as that is the case, we cannot demand fair treatment of populations that are already privileged before we make the oppressed, weakened populations have the same rights.
It takes the statement of BLM and making it about you (not you personally, you seem great from your comment) which is what the white community as a whole does.
It's like feminism - when people start realizing that feminism has nothing to do with harming men, we will all be better for it. I compare ALM to being anti-feminist. If you're anti-equality, doesn't that make you a bigot?
Food for thought. Thanks again for your comment.
i feel like these kind of comments aren't needed on these kind of sites but maybe that's because i'm here looking for news on cards not views on race
I'm sorry, I might have missed the part when I forced you to read my comment. I apologize for that. You are quite welcome to report my comment if it upsets you so much.
I assure you those suffering from racism and discrimination can't separate it as it's part of their everyday lives, but by all means, feel free to ignore them, me, or anything you feel is not worthy of your attention.