Jay Wilson, Diablo 3's former game director and decade-long veteran at Blizzard, has announced that he is officially leaving both the company, and the gaming industry in general next week.

As noted on Twitter, he's not leaving Blizzard due to any issues within the company, but rather because he wants to focus on his original passion, writing. Here's the full quote:

"Sad to say after 10 of the best years of my life this will be my last week at Blizzard, and in the games industry.

I'm leaving to pursue my original passion, writing. It's what I was doing when I fell into this job, and I've always wanted to return to it.

I will dearly miss my friends at Blizzard. They've been the best, most dedicated, most passionate group of people I've ever met."

You've most likely heard about Jay Wilson during the first year of Diablo 3 given that he often came forward to defend both the game's storyline, and the real-money auction house. To be perfectly honest, both of those were absolutely terrible and only after he took his leave as the director for Diablo 3 did the game spring back to life, but its still worth celebrating his previous achievements in gaming. For example, prior to his work at Blizzard he was a designer at Relic on two of my favorite strategy games: Company of Heroes and Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War, games that are considered classics to this very day.

While I might not agree with some of his decisions he still had a positive impact on the gaming landscape in general, so here's to hoping his writing career ends up being something he finds pleasure in.