Adrian Ledda - Activision Blizzard | LinkedIn (original) (raw)

Ryan Steiner “Adrian is one of the greatest people I have ever had the good fortune to work with. Adrian has so many great qualities it is hard to figure out where to begin signing his praises. Adrian has an astonishing passion for both making and playing games and it really shines through in his work. I have been consistently blown away with the high level of quality and the absolutely blazing speed that Adrian churns out in his work. There have been multiple times that I've been working with him where the department will have a meeting to discuss a challenge we are facing with a particular aspect of the game. At some point in the meeting, Adrian proposes an idea and you can simply watch people's faces around the room light up with the realization that Adrian has just provided the perfect solution. And not only does he provide the perfect solution, but then the next day, while other people are discussing how we might be able to implement this solution, Adrian will ever so casually mention that he has a working "prototype" already set up (I use the quotation marks around prototype because with Adrian, it won't just be a prototype, it will be a fully functional system that is already at alpha levels of polish and designed with foresight to play well with all the other systems it could conceivably touch). Adrian lives and breathes games. I am always amazed by the sheer depth and breadth of Adrian's knowledge. If you have any question or any challenge on a project, Adrian will be able to provide feedback with examples of games germane to the issue, in-depth analysis of what they did well and where they could have improved, relevant GDC lectures, and a plethora of his own ideas about how to best proceed. I've seen scholarly articles that are less well researched and less thoroughly backed up than Adrian's documentation. Adrian is also a beacon for positivity around the office. He has an incredible ability to find the light in the darkest of situations. I've worked with Adrian through some rough times and he always has a smile on his face and is always looking for ways to make things better, whether it is through providing potential solutions to that really tough design question that no one else has been able to solve or just bringing in ice cream for the team. Adrian is often a voice of reason and a champion for the things that he believes in. Adrian was often the rudder that would keep our studio on track, especially when it came to issues of approachability, accessibility, player retention, inclusiveness, and diversity. I'm going to go ahead and wrap up this feedback only because it is starting to get rather long. If anyone out there wants to hear more from me about how amazing Adrian is, I could keep going all day so feel free to contact me directly. Let me just leave off by saying that any company that hires Adrian is getting an entire design department worth of value wrapped in one compact package.”