Thirty years ago, Blizzard Entertainment spawned Warcraft, and then World of Warcraft a decade later, unleashing hordes of orcs and humans onto millions of fans' computer screens.
Many of those fans were in attendance at CHM Live on December 10, 2024, to hear New York Times bestselling author and Bloomberg News reporter Jason Schreier discuss his new book, Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment, with CHM curator and gamer Hansen Hsu.
Based on interviews with more than 300 current and former Blizzard employees, Schreier offered a deep understanding of the company's culture and the lessons learned from its highs and lows.
Founded by UCLA students Allen Adham and Michael Morhaime in 1991, Blizzard grew to become one of the most iconic and beloved video game companies today. But in the ‘90s, the industry was very young and many people, even gamers themselves, didn’t realize you could be paid to make games.
At Blizzard, a Wild West atmosphere prevailed, and the employees—95% male—were a tight-knit group. After working for hire and doing conversions of existing games, they released their first game, Warcraft, in 1994, and it was a huge hit.
Jason Schreier describes the frat house culture at Blizzard.
Unfortunately, Blizzard's sexist, unprofessional culture carried over as the company evolved and continued to cause problems.
After World of Warcraft was released in 2004, the company hired thousands. Blizzard was a Mecca for geeks, said Schreier, including geeky women, but the company was still 80/20 male and sexual harassment was rife.
Personal and professional relationships were so blurred they were basically nonexistent. Even executives were dating and marrying employees. It was a boys’ club, where it was hard for women to get ahead if they weren’t going to strip clubs and barbecues at the founder’s house. In 2021, the State of California sued Activision Blizzard for sexual misconduct.
In the 1990s, a lot of game companies were run by money people, who saw games as commodities and didn’t care about the games themselves. Blizzard was different. The founders were gamers who wanted to make great games.
Jason Schreier explains secrets to Blizzard’s success.
The Blizzard team realized—after experiencing the thrill firsthand—that the rush of playing another person, not just a computer, would be addictive. And they were right. World of Warcraft (WoW) became a smash hit, peaking at 12 million monthly subscribers.
The scale of that success, in terms of money and growth, totally changed Blizzard, said Schreier, both positively and negatively. Before WoW, the studio had released a new game every couple of years, but their massive new hit took up all their time and resources. The company became dedicated only to WoW, and the tight-knit group of a few hundred employees ballooned globally into the thousands.
Contrary to what many fans believe, Schreier notes that Blizzard had a number of parent companies before merging with Activision in 2007. The founders managed to maintain their autonomy by delivering on their promise that if they were left alone they would create hit games. But, in 2014, they had to cancel Titan, their successor to WoW, after six years of development at a loss of $80 million. That led to essentially a corporate takeover by Activision and a major culture clash between CEO Bobby Kotick and Blizzard.
Jason Schreier unpacks the conflict between Blizzard and Activision.
Conflict wasn’t new for Blizzard. Shreier related how the rivalry between Blizzard and a company they had acquired in the early ‘90s called Condor eventually led to the implosion of one of the offices.
Other “downs” included Blizzard’s foray into esports. When StarCraft became a massive hit in South Korea, spawning televised competitions, Blizzard wanted to get in on the action. They had a vision to make the Overwatch League a kind of professional sports league along the lines of the NFL or NBA, with teams based on cities, full-time salaries, regular season and playoff games, etc. They pitched the idea to Activision, suggesting that teams could be sold to owners for $250,000 each. Bobby Kotick, however, wanted to sell them for $20 million each. For an untried market, this was insane, said Schreier, and the idea died.
Schreier’s book is organized into three parts: Rise, Fall, Future, and over the last few years there have been many debacles at Blizzard, including bad games, sexual harassment lawsuits, and more, mostly self-inflicted he believes.
Today, Blizzard is no longer a game studio, but an “empire of a corporation,” according to Schreier. WoW pivoted the company away from box products to live service, which requires continually updating and monetizing games long after the original release. That’s made it harder to take creative risks. A case in point: Hearthstone.
Jason Schreier describes why taking creative risks is difficult at Blizzard.
So, what about the future of Blizzard? Activision is gone after Microsoft bought the company for $69 billion in 2023. Blizzard’s record of creating four multibillion dollar game IPs is astonishing. But Microsoft has had a bad year along with the game industry, which has laid off tens of thousands.
Many Blizzard employees hope that under Microsoft they won’t have the same pressure to release new expansions and content and to avoid predatory monetization. But, like a playtesting a brand new game, no one knows exactly what will come next.
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