WEBVTT - Blizzard Meltdown 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.040 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.080 --> 0:00:17.200 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.560 I Heart Radio and I love all things tech. And 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.680 we are now in the home stretch, my friends, least 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.520 as far as Blizzard Entertainment's story so far is concerned. 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:32.959 So in our last episode, which was longer for me 0:00:33.000 --> 0:00:35.320 than for you because I had a week of vacation 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.680 between that episode and this one, I ended that episode 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:41.800 just as Blizzard was launching what would become one of 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:46.000 its major successes. In fact, it's biggest success, the m 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:50.120 m O RPG, World of Warcraft. Now, I figured before 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.440 I go on, it would help to explain what an 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.000 m m O RPG is for those of you who 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:59.960 may not know. So those letters stand for massively multiplayer 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:04.640 online role playing game. That helps break it down when 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.840 you look at it that way. It's massively multiplayer because 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.280 every server which you connect to over the Internet, that's 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.200 the online parts, So that part sinking care of. But 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:17.880 every server could have up to thousands of players on 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:20.759 it um. The early version of World of Warcraft had 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:26.800 servers that supported between around to players, at least according 0:01:26.800 --> 0:01:30.920 to most accounts. I couldn't find an official Blizzard source 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:35.160 that nailed it down, but somewhere between players per server. 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:38.640 Later versions of World of Warcraft would hike that number 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:43.360 up further, and private servers could potentially hold more players, 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:47.640 but there's a diminishing returns problem because an overloaded server 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:50.680 would not run the game as smoothly and could have 0:01:50.720 --> 0:01:54.520 stability issues. On top of that, Blizzard runs this game 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:59.320 on hundreds of servers, and Blizzard calls them realms, which 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:01.680 means you and your fellow gamers would have to choose 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.480 which one of your characters will um live on whichever 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.000 realm so as you could all play together. You know, 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:09.880 if you were on one realm and your friends were 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.360 in a different realm, you would be in different instances 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:15.799 of these fantasy worlds, so you wouldn't be able to 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.560 interact with each other. The worlds would all be the same, 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:22.120 but you wouldn't be in the same instance, so you 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:24.000 had to make sure you were all picking the same 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.919 server to play on. Role playing games, for their part, 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:31.120 they involve a player taking on the role of a character, 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:34.400 so to some degree you could argue that all games 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:36.960 in which you control some sort of avatar are a 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.000 type of role playing game, but stuff like simple arcade 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:43.320 games like you know, Mario Brothers or something, or action 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:47.880 adventure games like tomb Raider have some limited role playing, 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.720 but it's very limited. You're really just controlling a digital 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.920 character to maneuver through some sort of environment in those games. 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.919 Role playing games generally have you taken on more of 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:02.840 the digital avatar's actions, including stuff that isn't so pivotal, 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:06.640 like jumping or attacking or something. And some people take 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.240 this further than others. They will type out and chat 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:15.560 using character appropriate phrasing and language, and so they're actually 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.160 acting out a role. In fact, there are some servers 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.519 that were better known for that kind of play. Other 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:25.480 types of players find that kind of behavior really cringeworthy, 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.880 and they'll just chat and modern language and slang. They'll 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.400 use you know, abbreviations and stuff to communicate things quickly 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:35.640 to each other, using it more as a strategy game, 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:37.920 and looking at the game is sort of a series 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:41.800 of achievements to to accomplish, and not so much of 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.680 playing out a role. Now. I'm not saying either version 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.760 of gameplay is better or worse than the other. They're 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.440 just different and they appeal to different types of gamers. 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.480 I certainly have been the type who have enjoyed role 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.040 playing games where I play a role, But I've also 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:01.000 been the type who have I've seen some very awkward 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:05.040 examples of that, and I have wanted to avoid it, 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.480 So I get both schools of thought. Now, these games 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.880 typically have missions in the form of quests that are 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:16.320 handed out by n PC's or non player characters. These 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.440 are computer controlled characters. Players can also join with other 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.320 like minded players to form their own groups or guilds, 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:27.720 and they can go on coordinated missions or raids together. 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:32.040 They can also wage war against players from opposing factions. 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.960 So m m O RPGs present a real challenge to 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:39.160 game developers because, on the one hand, you want players 0:04:39.200 --> 0:04:42.839 to feel as though their actions matter, and it sort 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:46.000 of breaks the illusion that you're inhabiting a fantasy world. 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.240 If you, for example, you just finish a quest to 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:51.720 return I don't know a frying pan to an elf, 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.279 and then that elf turns around and offers that same 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.760 lost frying pan quest to the person who's standing right 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:01.760 next to you in the game, that kind of breaks 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:05.080 the illusion because you literally just did that. But on 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.560 the other hand, you can't really let the world change 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:13.320 that much because not everyone in the game world would 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:16.000 be there at the same time, right, so they wouldn't 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.479 see the world change until they logged in again, and 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.520 then suddenly there would be content that would be unavailable 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.520 to them because the world had literally changed at that point. 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.359 New players should get the same chance to experience content 0:05:28.440 --> 0:05:31.239 the way everyone else does. Now, most of the time, 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:34.160 m m O RPGs air on the side of making 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.240 sure everyone gets a chance to play the game the 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:40.479 same way. That means that the game world tends to 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.880 be pretty static from day to day, with some minor changes, 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.440 like World of Warcraft in particular changes throughout the year 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:52.640 to reflect certain seasonal things like around Halloween, you'll see 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:56.400 some seasonally appropriate stuff appearing in the game, but otherwise 0:05:56.400 --> 0:05:59.480 the game world doesn't really change that much unless there's 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.760 a major expansion rolled out, and that is one way 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.360 that game developers can make big changes to the world. 0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:11.279 They can release expansion packs. World of Warcraft has done 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:14.679 this multiple times, and in some cases has made truly 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.120 dramatic changes to the online world in the process. The 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:21.039 mythical World and World of Warcraft is called as a roth, 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.159 and the game's events generally take place a few years 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:27.160 after the events that were depicted in the real time 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:31.640 strategy game Warcraft three, So that story ends and then 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.000 you typically here that four years later you've got the 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:38.599 events of World of Warcraft. Early on, when the game 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.760 was first released, players had access to two continents that 0:06:41.839 --> 0:06:45.960 they could explore, but later expansion packs increase the game 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.760 areas dramatically and then transformed some of the existing ones 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.599 quite extensively. Players could choose to play as one of 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:57.720 several races of beings, which in turn determined which faction 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.560 they belonged to. So in the original game, you could 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.640 be human dwarf or a night elf uh or Gnome 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.359 and that represented the Alliance faction. Or you could play 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.880 as an orc, a troll, a turn which is a 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:14.840 humanoid with bull like features, sort of like a minotaur 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.800 uh and the or minatar if you prefer, and or 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:22.400 the Forsaken, which were a race of undead creatures. They 0:07:22.400 --> 0:07:25.000 made up a faction called the Horde, and they still do. 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.760 The choice of Alliance versus Hoarde determines lots of stuff, 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.680 not just who your allies are and who your enemies are, 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:34.480 but also which areas of the map you are able 0:07:34.520 --> 0:07:37.800 to explore, and which quests will be available to you, 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:40.720 and which bits of lore you will encounter as you 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:43.800 play through the game. Later expansion packs would increase the 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:47.120 number of races players would have access to, as well 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.880 as the types of classes you could play, so not 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:53.680 just your race, you also have to determine what class 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:57.200 you are. This is sort of like what type or 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:01.600 occupation your character has, so a player of either faction 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:06.040 could become either a druid, a hunter, a major, a priest, 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:09.840 a rogue, a warlock, or a warrior. And in addition, 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.680 alliance players could be a paladin and Hoarde players could 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:17.240 be a shaman. Again, later expansion packs would increase the 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:21.280 number of playable classes, so for a monthly fee, players 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:23.880 can create a character and go on quests throughout a 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:28.000 persistent online world. They can form alliances with other players, 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:33.280 and they can unlock the somewhat complicated and frankly confusing 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:37.280 story of asar Roth. Now I say confusing only because 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:40.280 I never really got into these games, so I didn't 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.080 get an introduction, and by now the lore is so 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:48.199 deep that I can't really suss out what it means. 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:51.920 Blizzard executives hope that the company would be able to 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.360 sell around four hundred thousand copies of the game within 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:57.679 its first year of release. They thought, if we can 0:08:57.720 --> 0:09:00.280 sell four hundred thousand copies in the United States eights, 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.760 then this will be a viable business and we can 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:07.559 run the game. They actually managed to hit four hundred 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:12.680 thousand copies within the first month. That far outperformed their hopes. 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:15.720 Of course, that also meant that they had to quickly 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.160 ramp up more servers to host games because they were 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.040 starting to fill up to capacity pretty quickly. That's not 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:24.880 a bad problem to have, except in those cases where 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:27.559 players who were joining the game relatively late, we're having 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.240 trouble linking up with friends because their friends were on 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:34.280 more crowded servers and there was no availability for them 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.880 to log into those same servers. The later expansions, by 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:42.160 the way, include here are all the names. The Burning Crusade, 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.480 Wreath of the Lynch King Cataclysm. That's the one that 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.160 really dramatically changed the online world and made new areas 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:53.040 accessible while eliminating some traditional areas in the base game. 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:59.800 Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of dran Our Legion, Battle of Azaroth, 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.880 and then there's the upcoming shadow Lands expansion. I'm not 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:07.160 going to go into all of these because honestly, I 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:09.400 could do a full episode just dedicated to World of 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.360 Warcraft and all these different expansions, but that's really going 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:16.160 too far. But this was generally away for Blizzard Entertainment 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:20.320 to provide ongoing content for dedicated players who might otherwise 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:24.040 have experienced pretty much everything the base game had to offer. 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:27.240 I mean, if you have advanced your character to as 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.000 maximum a level as is allowable in the game, and 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:32.640 you've pretty much explored the whole world, you might not 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:36.480 have any reason to keep playing that game. And this 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:38.719 is one of the major differences between an m m 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:42.000 O RPG and a standalone game, right because with a 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:46.000 traditional standalone game, the old style standalone games, you would 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.600 go out and purchase the game and that would be it. 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:50.480 You would play the game, and you play it as 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:52.600 long as you wanted, and maybe you finish it, maybe 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:55.160 you don't, whatever, but you've already purchased it. You've you've 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:57.560 laid down your money, and that is the end of 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:01.240 the revenue stream in that traditional app coach. Companies like 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:05.600 Blizzard began to develop expansion titles to generate additional revenue. Right, 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:10.200 you would expand the base game, and typically those expansions 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.160 required the player to own the original copy of the 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.439 game itself. So in those cases, you would sell the 0:11:16.480 --> 0:11:19.439 base game to players. They hopefully love the game, they 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.320 want more of it, So you create an expansion that 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:24.800 keeps those players happy. They stay in the game world 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.559 they love, and they get to play more content, and 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.920 they buy the expansion. That's the most important part. They 0:11:30.960 --> 0:11:33.480 put down new money to keep playing the game they've 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:36.560 already played. Plus you might even attract new players to 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.600 your game. But those folks have to buy both the 0:11:39.600 --> 0:11:42.839 expansion and the original game if they want to get 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.560 all the content. They can't just buy the expansion because 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.160 the expansion is built on top of the existing game. 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.680 So with an m m O RPG, you also have 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.360 a monthly subscription fee, and that is a healthy stream 0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:00.200 of revenue coming into the company. At its peak, World 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:04.600 of Warcraft had about twelve million active player accounts around 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.760 the world. When it originally launched, the base game of 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:11.520 World of Warcraft cost about fifty dollars, and there was 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:13.959 also a collector's edition if you wanted to pony up 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:18.880 eighty bucks a princely Some either version of those games 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.400 included a one month subscription, but after that month you 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:26.160 would have to subscribe at one of three plans. The 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:29.320 month to month plan, where you're just paying for each 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:33.319 month of service as you're playing, was fifteen dollars every month. 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.640 A three month package would knock that down to being 0:12:37.679 --> 0:12:40.319 equivalent to about fourteen dollars per month, and if you 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:44.079 committed to six months of a package it would be 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:46.760 it would even out to more like thirteen dollars per month. 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.840 So you know, you buy in bulk and you save money. 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:52.760 I guess. The game was a huge hit, and so 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.680 every month those subscriptions were rolling in as additional revenue. 0:12:57.000 --> 0:12:59.280 But it was also clear that Blizzard would need to 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:03.720 keep adding or content to keep the players engaged or 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.600 else they were likely to become bored and disenchanted and 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:09.960 walk away once their subscription lapsed, and that's where those 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:13.760 expansions came in. The first one, the Burning Crusade, launched 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:16.520 three years after the base game it launched in two 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.800 thousand seven. Blizzard had announced it way back in October 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.240 two thousand five and intended to launch it earlier, but 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.040 as is the case with Blizzard, they wanted to make 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.680 sure that the expansion was absolutely as good as it 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.520 could be before they pushed it out the door, so 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:34.440 they delayed its launch in order to make sure that 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:36.840 it was right. This is one of those things about 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:41.000 Blizzard that becomes like a an ongoing thing with that company. 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:43.760 They frequently would delay launches in order to try and 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:47.640 get something just right, and I think more often than 0:13:47.720 --> 0:13:52.560 not that ended up benefiting the company, because while it 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:55.200 is frustrating to see a launch date get pushed back, 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.680 it's way more frustrated to get a broken game and 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.400 have to wait for something to get patch so it's playable. 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.959 The expansion, The Burning Crusade, sold two point four million 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.680 copies in the first twenty four hours. Not keep in 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.880 mind the original game sold four hundred thousand copies in 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.440 the first month. This expansion sold two point four million 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:19.680 copies in twenty four hours. It broke PC game sale 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:23.240 records back in uh those days, so it was the 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:27.320 fastest selling PC game at that time. Now, like the 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:29.640 base game, players would have to cough up some dough 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.800 to buy this expansion pack like thirty bucks, and then 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.360 they would also then have to maintain their subscription to 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:39.200 continue playing the game. In two thousand and eleven, Blizzard 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:42.440 chose to roll in all the content from the Burning 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:45.560 Crusade into the base game, so if you went and 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:48.800 bought World of Warcraft from two thousand eleven on, the 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:51.480 Burning Crusade was included with it, you wouldn't have to 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:54.200 go out and purchase the expansion pack, and this would 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:55.920 be the start of a trend that the company would 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.200 follow over time, leading up to the present practice where 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:03.400 the base game includes all of the previous expansion packs 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.720 except for whatever is the most recent one, and that 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:09.240 one you would have to purchase to get access to that, 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:12.080 but everything else would already be included in the base game. 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.040 In two thousand eighteen, the company also made the base 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.560 game free to all players, so you don't even have 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.120 to buy World of Warcraft anymore. You can play the 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.200 game for free, or at least you can get access 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:24.640 to the game for free, but you have to pay 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.440 for the monthly subscription so that you can actually continue 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:29.200 to play the game. So if you wanted to play 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:31.080 World of Warcraft right now, you would not have to 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:34.760 buy the base game. You would just have to pay 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:36.760 for the monthly subscription to be able to do so. 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:40.520 Blizzard also let players advance up to level twenty without 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.600 having to subscribe to the game, giving players a taste, 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.600 maybe just enough to get hooked before the players would 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:48.960 hit a level cap that they could not go beyond 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:53.720 without subscribing to the full game. Another thing Blizzard introduced 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:58.160 in World of Warcraft were micro transactions, which really got 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.400 started back in two thousand nine. The company allowed players 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.000 to spend real world money, you know, cash money, to 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:09.240 buy in game pets for their characters, and the pets 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.640 were cosmetic additions that meant that they didn't change the 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:15.520 game play at all. They didn't give advantages to players. 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:18.880 They're just sort of cute additions to the game. And 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:21.000 this was when a player could opt to have a 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:26.120 Pandaran monk with a Pandaran is sort of an anthropomorphic panda. 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:28.320 You could have that as a pet, which is a 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.760 bit weird because later on, in another expansion, The Mists 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:37.080 of Pandaria, you could play as a Pandaran. Yikes. Later on, 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:41.480 Blizzard would introduce many other potential micro transactions, and the 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:46.360 company didn't do this, you know, universally. Uh, some in 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:50.080 game items were only sold in certain markets, such as Asia. 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:55.240 Asia had consumables in World of Warcraft that they could purchase, 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.680 but in other markets that was not an option. So 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:03.440 it Blizzard was kind of weighing out where these strategies 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:07.840 would work best, and uh, you know, maximizing that revenue 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.440 the expansion packs and micro transactions would become an enormous 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:14.879 sea change in the world of video games. Developing games 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:18.400 is expensive. One estimate for the cost of developing World 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.320 of Warcraft, the base game of World of Warcraft was 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:25.919 around sixty five million dollars to develop that game, and 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.600 of course, businesses exist in order to create profits, so 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.520 business owners are always interested in finding new ways to 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.919 generate streams of revenue. When it's done well, then it 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:40.480 can enhance the experience of a game, and players typically 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:42.720 are are happy to get more of what they love. 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:45.879 When it's done poorly, it creates a sense that you 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.479 have to pay to win the game, and that players 0:17:49.520 --> 0:17:51.960 who have more cash to burn end up with an 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:55.760 unfair advantage over everyone else who might really be into 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.480 the game, but they might not have the spare change 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.520 to buy all the do Dads and nick next. Interestingly, 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.080 this tied back to an idea that the original Diablo 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.919 team had if you remember from my previous episodes, and 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:11.440 that concept players would end up buying a physical CD 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.440 that would contain in game items that they could use 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:17.719 to enhance their characters, like weapons and armor and that 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:22.119 kind of stuff. This was early enough that delivering stuff 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:26.320 digitally online wasn't as popular as using physical media. People 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:29.360 still went out and bought CDs, and some people still do, 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:34.840 but it's increasingly rare and now it's almost all digital delivery. Well. Ultimately, 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.280 the Diablo team did not pursue that strategy, which was 0:18:38.320 --> 0:18:41.560 probably for the best, since the rampant cheating in that 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:45.960 game would have made that additional material moot Anyway. Recently, 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:51.000 Blizzard Entertainment released World of Warcraft Classic, which updates many 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:54.119 things about the original game, but brings back the game 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:57.119 world and the quests the players could find if they 0:18:57.119 --> 0:18:59.560 had logged in way back in two thousand four when 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:03.439 the game for launched. The version of World Warcraft UH 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.560 is now running parallel to, but but separate from, the 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:11.440 ongoing official World of Warcraft game that has evolved over 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:13.880 the course of all those expansion sets. So now you've 0:19:13.920 --> 0:19:16.600 got two flavors of World of Warcraft. You've got the 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.439 one that has evolved over the time since two thousand 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:21.800 four with all those expansion packs, and you have World 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:25.400 of Warcraft Classic. That is the way the game came 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:29.359 out originally, with some enhancements thrown in, and it's a 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:31.960 nod to those loyal fans of the series who missed 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.520 the good old days of the original World of Warcraft. 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.640 The games subscription fees and the number of active players 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.159 means that a rough estimate of the revenue generated by 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.960 this game is at its peak around a billion dollars 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:48.840 per year, which is crazy. Uh. That number has fluctuated 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:52.320 over time. It peaked at twelve million, and it went 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.720 into decline afterward, but it's still an incredibly popular M 0:19:56.880 --> 0:20:01.440 M O RPG and still a healthy moneymaker for Blizzard. 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:04.360 All right. So that's our basic rundown on World of Warcraft. 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.040 And of course we could spend a lot more time 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:09.879 going over all of the details, but instead I'm going 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.280 to take a quick break and then get back to 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.119 what was happening to the company in general over the 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:19.480 last decade or so. So let's take a quick break. 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.760 The enormous early success of World of Warcraft had a 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.959 downside because it meant that projects like StarCraft two and 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:39.800 Diablo three would actually receive less attention so that Blizzard 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:45.160 could cater to the Wow community World of Warcraft community. Then, 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.280 if you listen to my last episode, you know that 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:53.120 two major camps from Blizzard North that was the team 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:57.800 responsible for creating Diablo and Diablo two. Two camps had 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:01.160 split off from Blizzard North to form new video game 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:05.240 development studios, and that left the Blizzard North team severely 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:09.600 understaffed and without key leadership. Diablo three, as a result, 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:13.879 was floundering in development. The art design was stuck at 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:17.240 least a generation behind, the team was having trouble creating 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:21.080 a good game, and Blizzards new owner Vivendi was still 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:24.600 kind of a scary shadow over the whole company. So ultimately, 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:28.840 the leaders at Blizzards South decided that to make games 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:32.439 up to the standards of Blizzard, they needed to be 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:35.320 able to oversee the whole process that and they couldn't 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:38.840 really do that from southern California for a team that 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:43.560 was located in the Bay Area in northern California. This 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:46.679 is exactly the kind of thing that Blizzard North was 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:50.600 trying to protect itself from in its early days. And 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.280 so with all those considerations, Blizzard South decided to shut 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:59.000 down Blizzard North, and that was the branch that had 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:02.800 formerly been known as on Door. So Blizzard South offered 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:06.000 jobs to the team's up at Blizzard North. They said, 0:22:06.080 --> 0:22:08.679 you can still work for Blizzard, but to do it, 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:12.000 you're gonna have to move down to southern California. So 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:15.359 some people, but not everybody, took them up on that offer. 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:18.800 So that meant that it would almost be an entirely 0:22:18.880 --> 0:22:22.640 new team working on Diablo three, and as part of that, 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:26.480 they decided to start over from scratch, so that's set 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:30.960 that project back considerably. In October two thousand five, Blizzard 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:34.879 hosted the first blizz Con in Anaheim, California. This was 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:38.520 a convention for fans of the company's games, so attendees 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:42.200 got early looks at games and development, including StarCraft Ghost, 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:45.560 which would ultimately be canceled, so some people got a 0:22:45.640 --> 0:22:48.199 chance to kind of get some hands on time with 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:52.000 early builds of games that just never came out. They 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:56.240 attended presentations that were given by Blizzard employees about the 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:58.719 games and the lore around the games, the art design, 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:01.520 all that kind of stuff, and the company would hold 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:05.639 another one in two thousand seven. So between two thousand 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:07.400 and five and two thousand seven was the year. Two 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:09.600 thousand and six. There was no blizz Con that year, 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:12.280 but from two thousand seven onward it would become an 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:16.320 annual event. It became so popular and so useful that 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:20.240