Greg Street

Greg Street (alias Ghostcrawler) is the former Lead Systems Designer for World of Warcraft. He is now Head of Creative Development for Riot Games.

On November 27, 2013 he announced on Facebook that he would be leaving Blizzard Entertainment to pursue a "great opportunity for something new and exciting". It was later officially confirmed on the forums, and he became Lead Game Designer at, before moving to his current position of Head of Creative Development.

After leaving, he changed his Twitter handle to @OccupyGStreet on December 5, 2013. He has recently managed to retake his @Ghostcrawler account.

He earned a PhD in Marine Science from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996.

He got his start in game design (his "foot in the door", so to speak) by designing a scenario for Age of Empires that was eventually included in a shipping product.

He was previously (1998-2008) lead game designer at Ensemble Studios for the Age of Empires series.

• His quote about nerfing retribution paladins "TO THE GROUND BABY" has become a popular catchphrase among WoW fans. The name of the achievement To the Ground! is most likely derived from it.
• In 2009, Ghostcrawler responded to a forum thread complaining about mage nerfs by simply stating "GHOSTCRAWLER PROMISED ME A PONY." The phrase has since become a popular meme in the WoW community, becoming synonymous with excessive complaining.
• Since players could obtain a Spirit of Competition pet during the, players rallied for a moose — a suitably Canadian reward — to become available during the in Vancouver. Most notably, a sign reading "GHOSTCRAWLER PROMISED ME A MOOSE" appeared at the games themselves, even though Ghostcrawler never actually promised anyone a moose.
• During the BlizzCon 2010 Quests & Lore Q&A panel, when asked about the moose, Alex Afrasiabi responded with "Yeah. Yeah, he did. You're gonna have to find him and ask him yourself, 'cause I have no damn idea."
• Ghostcrawler ended his farewell post on the official forums with "P.S. No, you can’t have a pony. Or a moose. Or a . Or a . Or a crab. Keep trying though."
• The Darkmoon Faire achievement I Was Promised a Pony is a reference to the phrase.
• An 85 rare elite crab named can be found walking the Abandoned Reef in the Abyssal Depths of Vashj'ir. Its Nerfbat ability is an obvious easter egg to Greg Street's job, the nature of which sometimes leads to claims of unfair nerfing.
• Ret paladins using the Flippable Table will sometimes see a small, spectral crab being thrown off of it.

• He co-hosted the BlizzCon 2008 WoW Class Panel along with Tom Chilton.
• At BlizzCon 2011, when asked why Ghostcrawler seemed to hate paladins, Blizzard's staff answered that a ret paladin killed his parents.
• He participated in the September 11, 2012 World of Warcraft Developer AMA on reddit.
• He posted a lot of blogs for the Developer Watercooler.
• Greg Street about his job: "Systems design specifically is everything that is not level, story, quest or encounter design. My team handles everything from classes to mechanics to items to trade skills to achievements to UI design, and that includes the game balance."