Greg Canessa leaves PopCap for Blizzard, working on online project
by Ben Gilbert 
{ May 11th 2009 at 8:00PM } 
Just two short years after Greg Canessa left his position as group manager of Xbox Live to try his hand on more casual fare at PopCap, he is once again jumping ship -- -- this time to Blizzard Entertainment, masters and commanders of online powerhouse World of Warcraft. Our trusted source tells us he's working on an "unannounced project in the online space," allegedly joining forces with VP of game design at Blizzard, Rob Pardo.Has Mr. Canessa snagged one of the two open positions working on the "fifth, unannounced Blizzard project" advertised recently on the company's website? Could he be working on porting Bookworm to World of Warcraft, making the PopCap games within Blizzard games trifecta complete? We've asked for comment from both PopCap and Blizzard and hopefully one of those two will help shed some light on Mr. Canessa's next project.
Update: Garth Chouteau of PopCap PR got back to us and confirmed Greg Canessa's move to Blizzard, saying, "We are sorry to see him go and we wish him the very best. It's been a pleasure working with him and his move is largely predicated on it being a big personal and professional opportunity for him. This isn't going to have any material impact on our console presence and our strategy with respect to the consoles and the DS and the areas that Greg was heading up. We're still very committed to those."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ignatius @ May 11th 2009 8:11PM
Anyone else hopefully read that as World/Galaxy of StarCraft? I know I did...
MrKlorox @ May 11th 2009 9:40PM
I certainly didn't. I'm sick of sequels/IP expansions.
Zsavior @ May 11th 2009 8:32PM
How many unannounced projects is blizzard planning I lost track.
Foetoid @ May 11th 2009 9:20PM
Starcraft 2 and it's 2 campaign expansions, probably another WoW expansion, plus D3 and it's inevitable expansion.
ill trooper @ May 11th 2009 9:00PM
New online Blizzard project? Like what? "Level 90"?
MrKlorox @ May 11th 2009 9:39PM
God I hope it's a new IP. Three IPs is too few, Blizzard.
Ignatius @ May 11th 2009 10:19PM
What's better, a million IPs with complete and utter crap throughout or a few great ones?
Ihavepants @ May 12th 2009 5:26AM
Name another dev with at least 3 successful IP's, if you find any would you kindly then put them up against the quality Blizzard has put into theirs.
Ihavepants @ May 12th 2009 5:50AM
And they also have The Lost Vikings and Rock and Roll Racing (they may have also made the original Battle Chess, not sure)
Mohulis @ May 12th 2009 6:29AM
I would say that Valve is pretty close to, if not, on par with Blizzard. Just my opinion, but I know plenty of people that would agree.
Mohulis @ May 12th 2009 6:30AM
I'd say that Valve is close to, if not, on par with Blizzard. Just my opinion but I know plenty that would agree with that.
Mohulis @ May 12th 2009 6:31AM
Arg! Stupid comment system. First post didn't show up till after the second. Downvote away! =P
MrKlorox @ May 12th 2009 6:50AM
Oh yeah? Show me where you can buy those games listed.
I was talking about maintained IPs.
Paviel @ May 12th 2009 9:11AM
@ Ihavepants:
Nintendo has Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Smash...
Wait... you said three IPs. Now,
Let's take the biggest franchises of each company: Warcraft versus Mario... Actually, they're so different that it's pretty much impossible to make a comparison: An RTS series (and an MMORPG spinoff) versus a platformer series (and RPG, sport, and party game spinoffs). We could argue ourselves blue in the fingers about which is better, but it's a matter of taste as far as I'm concerned.
Next... Zelda and Diablo seem rather similar and even have similar stories, so let's compare them. Personally, I think that both are pretty edgy, but I think Zelda has so far gotten more work put into it than Diablo. (I may change my tune once Diablo 3 gets released, though.)
Metroid and Starcraft... Starcraft wins, end of story.
Ihavepants @ May 12th 2009 11:23AM
Valve to my knowledge has one game they've spawned sequels of :Half Life, and I'd put Portal together with the Half Life IP as it's in the same mythos with a different gun.
Nintendo- yup got me there. But still- Nintendo are quite a bit more then developers alone.
Anyway, point was that Blizzard compared to most other game devs, has quite a few good IP's under their belt. Yes more can be better but realise what you have already (and they've already said their unannounced MMO is a new IP)
Adam Archer @ May 11th 2009 9:57PM
Well, I'd say leaving money for even more money is a pretty smart move on his part.