Ben Brode is an American video game designer. He worked as the game director and spokesperson for Hearthstone until 2018. At that time, he left to start his own game studio called Second Dinner. Today, he holds the position of Chief Development Officer at that studio.

Life and career

Brode began working at Blizzard Entertainment as a video game tester when he was 20 years old. He worked on Warcraft III and World of Warcraft for 18 months before becoming an Environment Test Lead. During his time testing these games, he created custom maps for Warcraft III. One of these maps was named "Map of the Week" and shared with the public. Brode later looked for new opportunities at Blizzard, including applying to be a designer on StarCraft II, before moving to a creative role on the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game.

In 2015, Brode became the lead designer of Hearthstone and was promoted to game director later that year. While working on Hearthstone, he was the main spokesperson for the game, giving interviews, answering player questions, explaining game ideas, and sharing updates about its development. When the Journey To Un'Goro expansion was released without a song, Brode recorded one at the request of the community.

After working at Blizzard for 15 years, Brode left the company in 2018 to start his own game development studio called Second Dinner with other former Blizzard employees. He is the Chief Development Officer at the company. In 2019, Second Dinner received a US$30 million investment from NetEase and was given permission to create a mobile game for Marvel. The game, Marvel Snap, was first announced in May 2022 for mobile devices and personal computers. Brode said he was inspired by his work on the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game and Hearthstone when designing Marvel Snap. He wanted to create a card game that was faster to play and easier for new players to join.