August Dean Ayala, former Hearthstone employee, announces his new job after more than 11 years at Blizzard.
August Dean Ayala officially joined Riot Games’ League of Legends team. This was like a turning point in his life. Ayala shared the news on Twitter, saying that he will be serving as the design director for Riot Games’ League of Legends.
“Looking forward to working with a new team and getting into the LoL community,” he wrote. Ayala stepped down as game director for Hearthstone last week. He thanked the gamer and his colleagues, saying it was an honor to “contribute even a small part in the making of the game”.
August Dean Ayala joins Riot Games.
Alya joined the studio in June 2021 as a QA analyst. He worked on several World of Warcraft and Diablo III, then transferred to the Hearthstone team. He once said that it took a lot of work and was rejected 4 times “to finally get a job at Blizzard”, so he urged others pursuing a career in game development not to give up.
In 2014, Alya became a game designer for Hearthstone, working on card expansions and implementing new features. He then led the design team before being promoted to game director in February 2022. The promotion came after Ben Lee stepped down as game director for Hearthstone to work on a new, unfinished project. forewarned at Blizzard.
As game director, Alya led 38 game designers, responsible for Hearthstone roadmaps. He is also involved in the game’s live service support and the development of these IP-based non-announcement projects.
Ayala isn’t the only Blizzard developer to join Riot Games. World of Warcraft’s lead system designer, Greg Street, left the studio in 2013 and took a job at the League of Legends game team. He is currently Vice President and Executive Producer for Riot’s upcoming MMO game.
He holds the executive role at the new position.
Michael Scipione, who worked on StarCraft II and WarCraft III: Reforged, left Blizzard in 2020 and later joined Riot Games. According to his personal LinkedIn page, he is currently working as a senior technical designer in the Teamfight Tactics team. Last year, Riot Games hired Jonathan Zweig as chief commercial officer, who currently leads the studio’s global business development. Previously, the character served as vice president of global corporate alliances at Activision Blizzard. The offices of the two companies are located close to each other, so it’s no surprise that Blizzard employees regularly find new jobs at Riot Games.
