David Brevik

Brevik was born in Madison, Wisconsin, on February 14, 1968. His family moved from Wisconsin to Georgia and then to California during his childhood. Blind in one eye, Brevik decided his lack of depth perception would make professional sports too difficult, so he focused on his talent for programming. He studied computer science at California State University, Chico from 1986 to 1991.

After graduating, Brevik worked at the clip art company FM Waves. Upon the company's bankruptcy, Brevik left to become lead technical director at Iguana Entertainment. In September 1993, he formed the video game development studio Condor with his FM Waves colleagues, brothers Max and Erich Schaefer.

The publisher Sunsoft, already familiar with Brevik's work, immediately reached out to have Condor develop NFL Quarterback Club, Justice League Task Force, and NFL Quarterback Club 96. When presenting Condor's work developing Justice League Task Force for the Sega Genesis at the 1994 CES trade show, Brevik met Allen Adham of Blizzard Entertainment, who had overseen the game's development for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

After Brevik resigned from Blizzard, he founded Flagship Studios in 2003 and its sister company, Ping0 in 2006. Once Flagship Studios dissolved in August 2008, Brevik was appointed as creative director for Turbine Inc. (now WB Games Boston) amid its West Coast expansion.

In 2009, David Brevik joined Gazillion Entertainment as its creative director. In 2011, the company's Gargantuan Studio became Secret Identity Studios, and David Brevik was named President and Chief Operating Officer of Gazillion Entertainment. In January 2016, he left the company to enter indie game development. As of October 18, 2016, Brevik has been working as an advisor on the Chinese release of Path of Exile for Grinding Gear Games.

After leaving Gazillion, Brevik founded an indie studio called Graybeard Games. In May of 2019, Graybeard Games released an action role-playing video game titled It Lurks Below.

In 2016, Brevik revealed that he was approached by Sabeer Bhatia in 1996 to form an email company, in which he would get 10% of the shares. Brevik flatly rejected the offer, thinking it was the "stupidest idea." 14 months later, when the company, later known as Hotmail, sold for $400 million, Brevik expressed his regret over that decision, calling it the "worst business decision of my entire career."

Brevik and Bill Wang, a former employee of Perfect World Entertainment, announced the formation of Skystone Games in May 2020, a publishing and development studio aimed to help smaller indie studios with multi-platform releases.

Brevik has attributed the crunch culture while developing Diablo II to the end of his marriage and damage to his relationship with his two eldest daughters. After the 2021 California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard lawsuit prompted review of Blizzard Entertainment's culture of sexual misconduct, Brevik was criticized for dating and eventually marrying a female Blizzard programmer after his divorce. During this period, multiple Blizzard executives were denounced for having relationships with their subordinates.