John Staats was born and raised in Akron, Ohio. He earned a BFA from Kent State University's Visual Communication Design program and spent ten years in advertising in NYC. Before joining Blizzard he had decades of amateur level design experience, from tabletop games to first-person shooters. After his time in the computer game industry he wrote "The World of Warcraft Diary" based on notes he took during his tenure on WoW. His homepage, whenitsready.com, marks the progress of his various projects, including an upcoming board game based on boss fights, dungeons, and item drops.
