The New Blizzard Revelations Are WILD

Today, we learn how Blizzard's internal conflicts and culture contributed to years of delayed games, cancelled projects and mass burnout.

Sources:

00:00 Conflict At Blizzard's Heart
03:33 Bobby Vs. Mike
06:15 Pardo Vs. Everybody
11:55 The Creative War
16:42 Conflict As Fuel

[JimTheFly]

Two main things this made me think about:

1) Project Titan seemed like the epitome of "Perfect is the enemy of good." They wanted nothing short of perfection, and while they probably had something good enough to be a great success if they ran with it, they never allowed it to happen because it wasn't perfect enoguh.

2) PirateSoftware (aka Thor) really summed up how bad the pay at Blizzard was in some of his videos. At one point, for a significant period of time, he was making ONE-THIRD of the industry average pay of someone in his position. And then after he eventually left and went to AWS, he told a story about telling a manager that he was feeling like he wasn't contributing enough and the manager telling him to take the rest of the day off and the next day and come back after the weekend. He got so used to grind culture that he wasn't used to actual normal working practices and his work being valued, and he realized this after the weekend. He *was* being productive, he just wasn't constantly on edge grinding himself into paste. It was a hell of a few deep insights into how things were at Blizzard.

[TheRogueWolf]

This is the kind of thing that happens when egos run rampant. Unfortunately, a great many people confuse egotism for leadership ability.

[GreatWhiteNinja]

I’m gonna go ahead and bring up Warcraft 3 reforged here and how much they insulted their audience by not even allowing the original game to exist. This should be enough evidence that the people in charge despise the original blizzard team

[nortyfiner]

Most AAA game companies these days aren't making games. They're making cash shops with games attached. Profit first, game second, and any fun you might have in the process is almost accidental. It's been going on for years, and I'm glad to see players finally getting fed up with it and voting with their wallets in big enough numbers that the corporate bastards are feeling it. Whether or not this will be a revolution for the better remains to be seen, but in the meantime, burn baby burn.

[easycake]

World of Warcraft at its peak, full prime crushing everything in front of it. What does Blizzard do ? Pull people off the mega hit, start insane investments into something to replace it... why ? It was one of the rare games at the time that could say it was making ALL the money.

[steak]

Thanks for all the great indepth contents over the year! please keep up the good work.

[CMDR_EliziumRA]

Part of this story reminds me of when I worked for EA Tiburon almost two decades ago as a tester. You'd spend hours testing, take thorough notes and then go to the "shared computers" to enter them just to find out all of those bugs had already been entered. Complete and utter waste of your time and their money.

Who'd have suspected they would later shut down? **blank stare**

[Eltener]

"If anyone's going to kill World of Warcraft, it should be us" sounds a lot like Overwatch as well funnily enough

[ParGellen]

Games designed for everybody are literally designed for nobody.

[Snowshill]

stuff we never knew but guessed and called them out on for ages
titan leaching people from wow so we never got the end to wrath we were supposed to get, the reason we lost so many features wrath was promised to have, still have the box with CD and its got features we never saw, all because of kotic and titan -.-

having a cfo who doesn't understand an industry being put in charge of that industries leading company is truly dumb, freaking soap man

[Drakken]

I had the fortune of meeting Morhaime in 2017 at E3. I was standing in the VIP/Invited Guest line at the XBOX Showcase (Microsoft Theater) and Mike walked up behind me in line. He saw my shirt (former military unit) and asked about it. We had such a lovely conversation. I knew who he was and he was just there in a $45 polo and Levis lol. He later offered me a tour of the campus. I also have friends that worked for Blizz for over 15 years who would tell me that Mike would come down from his office and just sit in the Customer Service rooms and answer tickets and handle calls. He also would invite staff over to dinner at his home so he can just talk with them and get to know them.

[masterofbloopers]

A superhero game where you also have to manage your secret identity sounds like fun! The only game series I can think of that comes even remotely close is the Persona series. High schooler by day, Shadow battler by night.

[vinnythewebsurfer]

This type of news I’m sure is devastatingly to the blizzard fans who cultishly still believe that Blizzard couldn’t have been the problem and it was everyone else fault for their downfall.

[serentine]

This is all so familiar after seeing what my partner went through on another recently "failed" AAA project. It's really disheartening how much work, effort, time and pain can just be thrown away due to bad leadership.

[Geneticspore]

It's been in my experience you let your workers work. Your artists design, your story writers write, and your musicians make the music. You then ensure that everything is up to par, but you need to let them express themselves. If one of your workers come to you, you give guidance, give them an idea where to take the story, what to design, and you let them roll with it.

There has seemingly been a severe lack of that as of recent. Not only from Blizzard, but damn near all game companies right now. I am looking forward to the firestorm that is coming, while it will suck that some companies will die, people will lose their jobs. That sucks, but I do feel these game companies will right themselves here soon. At least that is once their feet are held to the fire till their feet become ash. Examples will be made, people will get "hurt" (financially), and it's something I look forward to.

[awad]

I feel Morhaime, was one the last of the original Blizzard staff and with him, the company is a shell of itself.

[juniisenpai]

You don’t hate Bobby Kotick enough

You think you do but you don’t.

[thepureheartofdark]

To be fair, those that saw the funders and experienced people leave saw the writing on the wall.

[matthewadamsteil]

Just want to give a window into the kind of commute a Blizzard Employee might have. I regularly drive from a much more afforable area to Irvine and even right on the Coast in the heart of LA. If they are leaving the office after 3 pm, it could take them 2-3 hours depending on time of day and how far they live. They also need to pay for the toll road (~$10/day) or add another 30 minutes. If they wait until ~ 6 pm to leave traffic has mostly cleared up and it takes ~1-1.5hrs. If you have some friend there it makes sense to just hangout at the campus, have some fun, maybe grab a drink.

[Ilyak]

Ouch. As Izaro once opined:

"For those who asdend too quickly, the fall is inevitable."

Somehow, the original love what you work on formula has kept pace at GGG. Even after the 10 cent acquisition.