Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and I love all things tech. And
Speaker 1: we are now in the home stretch, my friends, least
Speaker 1: as far as Blizzard Entertainment's story so far is concerned.
Speaker 1: So in our last episode, which was longer for me
Speaker 1: than for you because I had a week of vacation
Speaker 1: between that episode and this one, I ended that episode
Speaker 1: just as Blizzard was launching what would become one of
Speaker 1: its major successes. In fact, it's biggest success, the m
Speaker 1: m O RPG, World of Warcraft. Now, I figured before
Speaker 1: I go on, it would help to explain what an
Speaker 1: m m O RPG is for those of you who
Speaker 1: may not know. So those letters stand for massively multiplayer
Speaker 1: online role playing game. That helps break it down when
Speaker 1: you look at it that way. It's massively multiplayer because
Speaker 1: every server which you connect to over the Internet, that's
Speaker 1: the online parts, So that part sinking care of. But
Speaker 1: every server could have up to thousands of players on
Speaker 1: it um. The early version of World of Warcraft had
Speaker 1: servers that supported between around to players, at least according
Speaker 1: to most accounts. I couldn't find an official Blizzard source
Speaker 1: that nailed it down, but somewhere between players per server.
Speaker 1: Later versions of World of Warcraft would hike that number
Speaker 1: up further, and private servers could potentially hold more players,
Speaker 1: but there's a diminishing returns problem because an overloaded server
Speaker 1: would not run the game as smoothly and could have
Speaker 1: stability issues. On top of that, Blizzard runs this game
Speaker 1: on hundreds of servers, and Blizzard calls them realms, which
Speaker 1: means you and your fellow gamers would have to choose
Speaker 1: which one of your characters will um live on whichever
Speaker 1: realm so as you could all play together. You know,
Speaker 1: if you were on one realm and your friends were
Speaker 1: in a different realm, you would be in different instances
Speaker 1: of these fantasy worlds, so you wouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: interact with each other. The worlds would all be the same,
Speaker 1: but you wouldn't be in the same instance, so you
Speaker 1: had to make sure you were all picking the same
Speaker 1: server to play on. Role playing games, for their part,
Speaker 1: they involve a player taking on the role of a character,
Speaker 1: so to some degree you could argue that all games
Speaker 1: in which you control some sort of avatar are a
Speaker 1: type of role playing game, but stuff like simple arcade
Speaker 1: games like you know, Mario Brothers or something, or action
Speaker 1: adventure games like tomb Raider have some limited role playing,
Speaker 1: but it's very limited. You're really just controlling a digital
Speaker 1: character to maneuver through some sort of environment in those games.
Speaker 1: Role playing games generally have you taken on more of
Speaker 1: the digital avatar's actions, including stuff that isn't so pivotal,
Speaker 1: like jumping or attacking or something. And some people take
Speaker 1: this further than others. They will type out and chat
Speaker 1: using character appropriate phrasing and language, and so they're actually
Speaker 1: acting out a role. In fact, there are some servers
Speaker 1: that were better known for that kind of play. Other
Speaker 1: types of players find that kind of behavior really cringeworthy,
Speaker 1: and they'll just chat and modern language and slang. They'll
Speaker 1: use you know, abbreviations and stuff to communicate things quickly
Speaker 1: to each other, using it more as a strategy game,
Speaker 1: and looking at the game is sort of a series
Speaker 1: of achievements to to accomplish, and not so much of
Speaker 1: playing out a role. Now. I'm not saying either version
Speaker 1: of gameplay is better or worse than the other. They're
Speaker 1: just different and they appeal to different types of gamers.
Speaker 1: I certainly have been the type who have enjoyed role
Speaker 1: playing games where I play a role, But I've also
Speaker 1: been the type who have I've seen some very awkward
Speaker 1: examples of that, and I have wanted to avoid it,
Speaker 1: So I get both schools of thought. Now, these games
Speaker 1: typically have missions in the form of quests that are
Speaker 1: handed out by n PC's or non player characters. These
Speaker 1: are computer controlled characters. Players can also join with other
Speaker 1: like minded players to form their own groups or guilds,
Speaker 1: and they can go on coordinated missions or raids together.
Speaker 1: They can also wage war against players from opposing factions.
Speaker 1: So m m O RPGs present a real challenge to
Speaker 1: game developers because, on the one hand, you want players
Speaker 1: to feel as though their actions matter, and it sort
Speaker 1: of breaks the illusion that you're inhabiting a fantasy world.
Speaker 1: If you, for example, you just finish a quest to
Speaker 1: return I don't know a frying pan to an elf,
Speaker 1: and then that elf turns around and offers that same
Speaker 1: lost frying pan quest to the person who's standing right
Speaker 1: next to you in the game, that kind of breaks
Speaker 1: the illusion because you literally just did that. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, you can't really let the world change
Speaker 1: that much because not everyone in the game world would
Speaker 1: be there at the same time, right, so they wouldn't
Speaker 1: see the world change until they logged in again, and
Speaker 1: then suddenly there would be content that would be unavailable
Speaker 1: to them because the world had literally changed at that point.
Speaker 1: New players should get the same chance to experience content
Speaker 1: the way everyone else does. Now, most of the time,
Speaker 1: m m O RPGs air on the side of making
Speaker 1: sure everyone gets a chance to play the game the
Speaker 1: same way. That means that the game world tends to
Speaker 1: be pretty static from day to day, with some minor changes,
Speaker 1: like World of Warcraft in particular changes throughout the year
Speaker 1: to reflect certain seasonal things like around Halloween, you'll see
Speaker 1: some seasonally appropriate stuff appearing in the game, but otherwise
Speaker 1: the game world doesn't really change that much unless there's
Speaker 1: a major expansion rolled out, and that is one way
Speaker 1: that game developers can make big changes to the world.
Speaker 1: They can release expansion packs. World of Warcraft has done
Speaker 1: this multiple times, and in some cases has made truly
Speaker 1: dramatic changes to the online world in the process. The
Speaker 1: mythical World and World of Warcraft is called as a roth,
Speaker 1: and the game's events generally take place a few years
Speaker 1: after the events that were depicted in the real time
Speaker 1: strategy game Warcraft three, So that story ends and then
Speaker 1: you typically here that four years later you've got the
Speaker 1: events of World of Warcraft. Early on, when the game
Speaker 1: was first released, players had access to two continents that
Speaker 1: they could explore, but later expansion packs increase the game
Speaker 1: areas dramatically and then transformed some of the existing ones
Speaker 1: quite extensively. Players could choose to play as one of
Speaker 1: several races of beings, which in turn determined which faction
Speaker 1: they belonged to. So in the original game, you could
Speaker 1: be human dwarf or a night elf uh or Gnome
Speaker 1: and that represented the Alliance faction. Or you could play
Speaker 1: as an orc, a troll, a turn which is a
Speaker 1: humanoid with bull like features, sort of like a minotaur
Speaker 1: uh and the or minatar if you prefer, and or
Speaker 1: the Forsaken, which were a race of undead creatures. They
Speaker 1: made up a faction called the Horde, and they still do.
Speaker 1: The choice of Alliance versus Hoarde determines lots of stuff,
Speaker 1: not just who your allies are and who your enemies are,
Speaker 1: but also which areas of the map you are able
Speaker 1: to explore, and which quests will be available to you,
Speaker 1: and which bits of lore you will encounter as you
Speaker 1: play through the game. Later expansion packs would increase the
Speaker 1: number of races players would have access to, as well
Speaker 1: as the types of classes you could play, so not
Speaker 1: just your race, you also have to determine what class
Speaker 1: you are. This is sort of like what type or
Speaker 1: occupation your character has, so a player of either faction
Speaker 1: could become either a druid, a hunter, a major, a priest,
Speaker 1: a rogue, a warlock, or a warrior. And in addition,
Speaker 1: alliance players could be a paladin and Hoarde players could
Speaker 1: be a shaman. Again, later expansion packs would increase the
Speaker 1: number of playable classes, so for a monthly fee, players
Speaker 1: can create a character and go on quests throughout a
Speaker 1: persistent online world. They can form alliances with other players,
Speaker 1: and they can unlock the somewhat complicated and frankly confusing
Speaker 1: story of asar Roth. Now I say confusing only because
Speaker 1: I never really got into these games, so I didn't
Speaker 1: get an introduction, and by now the lore is so
Speaker 1: deep that I can't really suss out what it means.
Speaker 1: Blizzard executives hope that the company would be able to
Speaker 1: sell around four hundred thousand copies of the game within
Speaker 1: its first year of release. They thought, if we can
Speaker 1: sell four hundred thousand copies in the United States eights,
Speaker 1: then this will be a viable business and we can
Speaker 1: run the game. They actually managed to hit four hundred
Speaker 1: thousand copies within the first month. That far outperformed their hopes.
Speaker 1: Of course, that also meant that they had to quickly
Speaker 1: ramp up more servers to host games because they were
Speaker 1: starting to fill up to capacity pretty quickly. That's not
Speaker 1: a bad problem to have, except in those cases where
Speaker 1: players who were joining the game relatively late, we're having
Speaker 1: trouble linking up with friends because their friends were on
Speaker 1: more crowded servers and there was no availability for them
Speaker 1: to log into those same servers. The later expansions, by
Speaker 1: the way, include here are all the names. The Burning Crusade,
Speaker 1: Wreath of the Lynch King Cataclysm. That's the one that
Speaker 1: really dramatically changed the online world and made new areas
Speaker 1: accessible while eliminating some traditional areas in the base game.
Speaker 1: Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of dran Our Legion, Battle of Azaroth,
Speaker 1: and then there's the upcoming shadow Lands expansion. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go into all of these because honestly, I
Speaker 1: could do a full episode just dedicated to World of
Speaker 1: Warcraft and all these different expansions, but that's really going
Speaker 1: too far. But this was generally away for Blizzard Entertainment
Speaker 1: to provide ongoing content for dedicated players who might otherwise
Speaker 1: have experienced pretty much everything the base game had to offer.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you have advanced your character to as
Speaker 1: maximum a level as is allowable in the game, and
Speaker 1: you've pretty much explored the whole world, you might not
Speaker 1: have any reason to keep playing that game. And this
Speaker 1: is one of the major differences between an m m
Speaker 1: O RPG and a standalone game, right because with a
Speaker 1: traditional standalone game, the old style standalone games, you would
Speaker 1: go out and purchase the game and that would be it.
Speaker 1: You would play the game, and you play it as
Speaker 1: long as you wanted, and maybe you finish it, maybe
Speaker 1: you don't, whatever, but you've already purchased it. You've you've
Speaker 1: laid down your money, and that is the end of
Speaker 1: the revenue stream in that traditional app coach. Companies like
Speaker 1: Blizzard began to develop expansion titles to generate additional revenue. Right,
Speaker 1: you would expand the base game, and typically those expansions
Speaker 1: required the player to own the original copy of the
Speaker 1: game itself. So in those cases, you would sell the
Speaker 1: base game to players. They hopefully love the game, they
Speaker 1: want more of it, So you create an expansion that
Speaker 1: keeps those players happy. They stay in the game world
Speaker 1: they love, and they get to play more content, and
Speaker 1: they buy the expansion. That's the most important part. They
Speaker 1: put down new money to keep playing the game they've
Speaker 1: already played. Plus you might even attract new players to
Speaker 1: your game. But those folks have to buy both the
Speaker 1: expansion and the original game if they want to get
Speaker 1: all the content. They can't just buy the expansion because
Speaker 1: the expansion is built on top of the existing game.
Speaker 1: So with an m m O RPG, you also have
Speaker 1: a monthly subscription fee, and that is a healthy stream
Speaker 1: of revenue coming into the company. At its peak, World
Speaker 1: of Warcraft had about twelve million active player accounts around
Speaker 1: the world. When it originally launched, the base game of
Speaker 1: World of Warcraft cost about fifty dollars, and there was
Speaker 1: also a collector's edition if you wanted to pony up
Speaker 1: eighty bucks a princely Some either version of those games
Speaker 1: included a one month subscription, but after that month you
Speaker 1: would have to subscribe at one of three plans. The
Speaker 1: month to month plan, where you're just paying for each
Speaker 1: month of service as you're playing, was fifteen dollars every month.
Speaker 1: A three month package would knock that down to being
Speaker 1: equivalent to about fourteen dollars per month, and if you
Speaker 1: committed to six months of a package it would be
Speaker 1: it would even out to more like thirteen dollars per month.
Speaker 1: So you know, you buy in bulk and you save money.
Speaker 1: I guess. The game was a huge hit, and so
Speaker 1: every month those subscriptions were rolling in as additional revenue.
Speaker 1: But it was also clear that Blizzard would need to
Speaker 1: keep adding or content to keep the players engaged or
Speaker 1: else they were likely to become bored and disenchanted and
Speaker 1: walk away once their subscription lapsed, and that's where those
Speaker 1: expansions came in. The first one, the Burning Crusade, launched
Speaker 1: three years after the base game it launched in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven. Blizzard had announced it way back in October
Speaker 1: two thousand five and intended to launch it earlier, but
Speaker 1: as is the case with Blizzard, they wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure that the expansion was absolutely as good as it
Speaker 1: could be before they pushed it out the door, so
Speaker 1: they delayed its launch in order to make sure that
Speaker 1: it was right. This is one of those things about
Speaker 1: Blizzard that becomes like a an ongoing thing with that company.
Speaker 1: They frequently would delay launches in order to try and
Speaker 1: get something just right, and I think more often than
Speaker 1: not that ended up benefiting the company, because while it
Speaker 1: is frustrating to see a launch date get pushed back,
Speaker 1: it's way more frustrated to get a broken game and
Speaker 1: have to wait for something to get patch so it's playable.
Speaker 1: The expansion, The Burning Crusade, sold two point four million
Speaker 1: copies in the first twenty four hours. Not keep in
Speaker 1: mind the original game sold four hundred thousand copies in
Speaker 1: the first month. This expansion sold two point four million
Speaker 1: copies in twenty four hours. It broke PC game sale
Speaker 1: records back in uh those days, so it was the
Speaker 1: fastest selling PC game at that time. Now, like the
Speaker 1: base game, players would have to cough up some dough
Speaker 1: to buy this expansion pack like thirty bucks, and then
Speaker 1: they would also then have to maintain their subscription to
Speaker 1: continue playing the game. In two thousand and eleven, Blizzard
Speaker 1: chose to roll in all the content from the Burning
Speaker 1: Crusade into the base game, so if you went and
Speaker 1: bought World of Warcraft from two thousand eleven on, the
Speaker 1: Burning Crusade was included with it, you wouldn't have to
Speaker 1: go out and purchase the expansion pack, and this would
Speaker 1: be the start of a trend that the company would
Speaker 1: follow over time, leading up to the present practice where
Speaker 1: the base game includes all of the previous expansion packs
Speaker 1: except for whatever is the most recent one, and that
Speaker 1: one you would have to purchase to get access to that,
Speaker 1: but everything else would already be included in the base game.
Speaker 1: In two thousand eighteen, the company also made the base
Speaker 1: game free to all players, so you don't even have
Speaker 1: to buy World of Warcraft anymore. You can play the
Speaker 1: game for free, or at least you can get access
Speaker 1: to the game for free, but you have to pay
Speaker 1: for the monthly subscription so that you can actually continue
Speaker 1: to play the game. So if you wanted to play
Speaker 1: World of Warcraft right now, you would not have to
Speaker 1: buy the base game. You would just have to pay
Speaker 1: for the monthly subscription to be able to do so.
Speaker 1: Blizzard also let players advance up to level twenty without
Speaker 1: having to subscribe to the game, giving players a taste,
Speaker 1: maybe just enough to get hooked before the players would
Speaker 1: hit a level cap that they could not go beyond
Speaker 1: without subscribing to the full game. Another thing Blizzard introduced
Speaker 1: in World of Warcraft were micro transactions, which really got
Speaker 1: started back in two thousand nine. The company allowed players
Speaker 1: to spend real world money, you know, cash money, to
Speaker 1: buy in game pets for their characters, and the pets
Speaker 1: were cosmetic additions that meant that they didn't change the
Speaker 1: game play at all. They didn't give advantages to players.
Speaker 1: They're just sort of cute additions to the game. And
Speaker 1: this was when a player could opt to have a
Speaker 1: Pandaran monk with a Pandaran is sort of an anthropomorphic panda.
Speaker 1: You could have that as a pet, which is a
Speaker 1: bit weird because later on, in another expansion, The Mists
Speaker 1: of Pandaria, you could play as a Pandaran. Yikes. Later on,
Speaker 1: Blizzard would introduce many other potential micro transactions, and the
Speaker 1: company didn't do this, you know, universally. Uh, some in
Speaker 1: game items were only sold in certain markets, such as Asia.
Speaker 1: Asia had consumables in World of Warcraft that they could purchase,
Speaker 1: but in other markets that was not an option. So
Speaker 1: it Blizzard was kind of weighing out where these strategies
Speaker 1: would work best, and uh, you know, maximizing that revenue
Speaker 1: the expansion packs and micro transactions would become an enormous
Speaker 1: sea change in the world of video games. Developing games
Speaker 1: is expensive. One estimate for the cost of developing World
Speaker 1: of Warcraft, the base game of World of Warcraft was
Speaker 1: around sixty five million dollars to develop that game, and
Speaker 1: of course, businesses exist in order to create profits, so
Speaker 1: business owners are always interested in finding new ways to
Speaker 1: generate streams of revenue. When it's done well, then it
Speaker 1: can enhance the experience of a game, and players typically
Speaker 1: are are happy to get more of what they love.
Speaker 1: When it's done poorly, it creates a sense that you
Speaker 1: have to pay to win the game, and that players
Speaker 1: who have more cash to burn end up with an
Speaker 1: unfair advantage over everyone else who might really be into
Speaker 1: the game, but they might not have the spare change
Speaker 1: to buy all the do Dads and nick next. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: this tied back to an idea that the original Diablo
Speaker 1: team had if you remember from my previous episodes, and
Speaker 1: that concept players would end up buying a physical CD
Speaker 1: that would contain in game items that they could use
Speaker 1: to enhance their characters, like weapons and armor and that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. This was early enough that delivering stuff
Speaker 1: digitally online wasn't as popular as using physical media. People
Speaker 1: still went out and bought CDs, and some people still do,
Speaker 1: but it's increasingly rare and now it's almost all digital delivery. Well. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the Diablo team did not pursue that strategy, which was
Speaker 1: probably for the best, since the rampant cheating in that
Speaker 1: game would have made that additional material moot Anyway. Recently,
Speaker 1: Blizzard Entertainment released World of Warcraft Classic, which updates many
Speaker 1: things about the original game, but brings back the game
Speaker 1: world and the quests the players could find if they
Speaker 1: had logged in way back in two thousand four when
Speaker 1: the game for launched. The version of World Warcraft UH
Speaker 1: is now running parallel to, but but separate from, the
Speaker 1: ongoing official World of Warcraft game that has evolved over
Speaker 1: the course of all those expansion sets. So now you've
Speaker 1: got two flavors of World of Warcraft. You've got the
Speaker 1: one that has evolved over the time since two thousand
Speaker 1: four with all those expansion packs, and you have World
Speaker 1: of Warcraft Classic. That is the way the game came
Speaker 1: out originally, with some enhancements thrown in, and it's a
Speaker 1: nod to those loyal fans of the series who missed
Speaker 1: the good old days of the original World of Warcraft.
Speaker 1: The games subscription fees and the number of active players
Speaker 1: means that a rough estimate of the revenue generated by
Speaker 1: this game is at its peak around a billion dollars
Speaker 1: per year, which is crazy. Uh. That number has fluctuated
Speaker 1: over time. It peaked at twelve million, and it went
Speaker 1: into decline afterward, but it's still an incredibly popular M
Speaker 1: M O RPG and still a healthy moneymaker for Blizzard.
Speaker 1: All right. So that's our basic rundown on World of Warcraft.
Speaker 1: And of course we could spend a lot more time
Speaker 1: going over all of the details, but instead I'm going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break and then get back to
Speaker 1: what was happening to the company in general over the
Speaker 1: last decade or so. So let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: The enormous early success of World of Warcraft had a
Speaker 1: downside because it meant that projects like StarCraft two and
Speaker 1: Diablo three would actually receive less attention so that Blizzard
Speaker 1: could cater to the Wow community World of Warcraft community. Then,
Speaker 1: if you listen to my last episode, you know that
Speaker 1: two major camps from Blizzard North that was the team
Speaker 1: responsible for creating Diablo and Diablo two. Two camps had
Speaker 1: split off from Blizzard North to form new video game
Speaker 1: development studios, and that left the Blizzard North team severely
Speaker 1: understaffed and without key leadership. Diablo three, as a result,
Speaker 1: was floundering in development. The art design was stuck at
Speaker 1: least a generation behind, the team was having trouble creating
Speaker 1: a good game, and Blizzards new owner Vivendi was still
Speaker 1: kind of a scary shadow over the whole company. So ultimately,
Speaker 1: the leaders at Blizzards South decided that to make games
Speaker 1: up to the standards of Blizzard, they needed to be
Speaker 1: able to oversee the whole process that and they couldn't
Speaker 1: really do that from southern California for a team that
Speaker 1: was located in the Bay Area in northern California. This
Speaker 1: is exactly the kind of thing that Blizzard North was
Speaker 1: trying to protect itself from in its early days. And
Speaker 1: so with all those considerations, Blizzard South decided to shut
Speaker 1: down Blizzard North, and that was the branch that had
Speaker 1: formerly been known as on Door. So Blizzard South offered
Speaker 1: jobs to the team's up at Blizzard North. They said,
Speaker 1: you can still work for Blizzard, but to do it,
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to move down to southern California. So
Speaker 1: some people, but not everybody, took them up on that offer.
Speaker 1: So that meant that it would almost be an entirely
Speaker 1: new team working on Diablo three, and as part of that,
Speaker 1: they decided to start over from scratch, so that's set
Speaker 1: that project back considerably. In October two thousand five, Blizzard
Speaker 1: hosted the first blizz Con in Anaheim, California. This was
Speaker 1: a convention for fans of the company's games, so attendees
Speaker 1: got early looks at games and development, including StarCraft Ghost,
Speaker 1: which would ultimately be canceled, so some people got a
Speaker 1: chance to kind of get some hands on time with
Speaker 1: early builds of games that just never came out. They
Speaker 1: attended presentations that were given by Blizzard employees about the
Speaker 1: games and the lore around the games, the art design,
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff, and the company would hold
Speaker 1: another one in two thousand seven. So between two thousand
Speaker 1: and five and two thousand seven was the year. Two
Speaker 1: thousand and six. There was no blizz Con that year,
Speaker 1: but from two thousand seven onward it would become an
Speaker 1: annual event. It became so popular and so useful that
Speaker 1: eventually Blizzard decided that in two thousand nine it wouldn't
Speaker 1: go to E three anymore. It didn't need to because
Speaker 1: it had its own promotional event with a very engaged
Speaker 1: group of of users. The community of Blizzard was really
Speaker 1: passionate about this, so why would they go to E
Speaker 1: three where they would just be another company competing for
Speaker 1: attention from press and retailers. And we've seen other companies
Speaker 1: follow blizzards lead, and many of them now hold their
Speaker 1: own events and either they also attend E three or
Speaker 1: they skip E three entirely. Uh. Their events tend to
Speaker 1: be a little less elaborate than blizz Con tends to be,
Speaker 1: so they don't tend to be full on conferences the
Speaker 1: way blizz Con is, but they are similar in effect,
Speaker 1: and that it's a company holding its own event on
Speaker 1: its own terms instead of sticking with the three. In
Speaker 1: two thousand six, the year without a blizz Con, Blizzard
Speaker 1: made another big announcement. The studio revealed that it had
Speaker 1: entered into a project with the movie studio Legendary Pictures
Speaker 1: for the purposes of developing a Warcraft motion picture. Now,
Speaker 1: the original plan was to script and shoot a movie
Speaker 1: in time for a two thousand nine release, and this
Speaker 1: whole move to doing a film wasn't that surprising because
Speaker 1: since two thousand Blizzard had been publishing novels that were
Speaker 1: set in the Warcraft universe, and they were also exploring
Speaker 1: opportunities and other media like comic books. So the original
Speaker 1: plan was that Sam Ramy, who had just recently finished
Speaker 1: directing Spider Man two, to come over and direct the
Speaker 1: Warcraft movie. However, like some other Blizzard projects, this one
Speaker 1: hit more than a few snags in development and would
Speaker 1: not launch in two thousand nine. There were issues with
Speaker 1: the script and there was a real struggle to turn
Speaker 1: the film into something other than just another generic fantasy epic.
Speaker 1: The Lord of the Rings films had set a pretty
Speaker 1: high bar, and there was a real danger of being
Speaker 1: viewed as sort of a copycat of that franchise. So
Speaker 1: as time went on, Sam Raimi would leave the project
Speaker 1: to pursue other opportunities, and Duncan Jones, the son of
Speaker 1: David Bowie, signed on to direct the Warcraft movie. Jones
Speaker 1: worked with Blizzard to create a new script, reportedly because
Speaker 1: he felt that the initial draft fell into the cliche
Speaker 1: of humans are the good guys Orcs are the bad guys,
Speaker 1: and they fight. He wanted there to be more ambiguity
Speaker 1: in the story and for both sides to have motivations
Speaker 1: that the audience could get behind. Actually, ultimately some critics
Speaker 1: would say that the Orcs got a much deeper presentation
Speaker 1: than the humans did, and so almost aired on the
Speaker 1: flip side of what Jones was concerned about. Now, all
Speaker 1: of this meant that the movies released was delayed multiple times.
Speaker 1: It missed the initial plan to premiere in two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: it missed another date in two thousand and eleven, and
Speaker 1: Blizzard remained tight lipped about the film for a good
Speaker 1: long while. Like after they announced it, they didn't really
Speaker 1: talk about it so much. But while progress was slow
Speaker 1: and intermittent, it was at least happening, and in two
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen, the movie was finally ready for audiences, a
Speaker 1: decade after it's been announced, and a hundred sixty million
Speaker 1: dollars reportedly for the budget. It's global box office got
Speaker 1: a little close to half a billion dollars, but it
Speaker 1: was still largely viewed as a commercial failure. It actually
Speaker 1: made less than fifty million dollars in the United States. Now,
Speaker 1: I cannot comment on the quality of the movie because
Speaker 1: I never saw it, But on rotten Tomatoes it has
Speaker 1: a twenty eight percent approval rating, meaning it's a rotten film.
Speaker 1: But just a quick reminder for you guys, on rotten
Speaker 1: Tomatoes does not mean that the movie is way worse
Speaker 1: than say, a different movie that got a forty percent rating,
Speaker 1: because the percentage doesn't actually tell you how good or
Speaker 1: bad a film is. Rather, it tells you the percentage
Speaker 1: of critics who gave the film either a positive or
Speaker 1: a negative review. And these are critics that Rotten Tomatoes
Speaker 1: recognizes as legitimate critics, So it's not all critics, it's
Speaker 1: a selection of them, And it's really more like saying
Speaker 1: around thirty of the critics who reviewed the film gave
Speaker 1: it a mediocre to positive response, but it doesn't necessarily
Speaker 1: mean that the movie is objectively better or worse than
Speaker 1: other movies that have similar scores, or even scores that
Speaker 1: are slightly higher slightly lower. Also, I should add that
Speaker 1: the audience score for the film is much higher at
Speaker 1: seventy six percent. So the critics weren't thrilled with it,
Speaker 1: but you know, audiences seemed to be more positive about
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Now, considering Blizzard Entertainment's reputation for highly
Speaker 1: produced cut scenes and video games, some of which featured
Speaker 1: animation that could easily rival that of the c g
Speaker 1: I you found in feature films, I'm sure this came
Speaker 1: as a major disappointment to the company. It's still exceeded
Speaker 1: the performance of most other video game film adaptations, but
Speaker 1: that bar wasn't set terribly high to begin with. I mean,
Speaker 1: just watch the Super Mario Brothers movie, so maybe that
Speaker 1: wasn't such a stretch goal. The critical consensus was that
Speaker 1: the movie was just too deeply mired in mythology that
Speaker 1: might be familiar to hardcore warcraft players but not to
Speaker 1: anyone else, and so there are entire sequences that were
Speaker 1: inscrutable and absurd to someone just viewing the material. For
Speaker 1: the first time. While Duncan Jones expressed a desire to
Speaker 1: continue the storyline in two thousand eighteen, he we did
Speaker 1: that such a possibility was at best unlikely. Okay, so
Speaker 1: let's rewind again to two thousand seven, and you may
Speaker 1: wonder why I'm not talking about other games that Blizzard
Speaker 1: was making right now. That's because Blizzard was really dedicating
Speaker 1: the vast majority of its focus on World of Warcraft,
Speaker 1: which again makes sense when you realize how that game
Speaker 1: was responsible for the financial performance of the company overall.
Speaker 1: So two thousand seven would be a really big year
Speaker 1: for Blizzard. Part of that was because they launched the
Speaker 1: Burning Crusade, which was the World of Warcraft first expansion
Speaker 1: pack that year. Another reason was that the World of
Speaker 1: Warcraft game would hit eight point five million subscribers, big milestone.
Speaker 1: Blizzard also announced that StarCraft two would officially become a
Speaker 1: thing in two thousand seven, and they did that during
Speaker 1: their third Worldwide Invitational event, as an event that takes
Speaker 1: place in South Korea, where StarCraft competition is huge. But
Speaker 1: above all of that was another big corporate move outside
Speaker 1: of Blizzards direct control. So Vivendi, the parent company, announced
Speaker 1: that it was going into a merger deal with the
Speaker 1: video game company Activision, and that would happen towards the
Speaker 1: end of two thousand seven when they announced this. The
Speaker 1: actual acquisition happened into two thousand eight. So Activision and
Speaker 1: Vivindi Games, the division of Vindy that was all about games. Obviously,
Speaker 1: they would come together and they would form a new
Speaker 1: kind of parent company, publishing company really, and it was
Speaker 1: going to be called Activision Blizzard, non Activision Vivendi Activision Blizzard.
Speaker 1: That's how much clout Blizzard had. They could demand that
Speaker 1: their name would get equal billing with Activision. So this
Speaker 1: new company would still trade on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange
Speaker 1: under the Activision ticker of a t v I, and
Speaker 1: the merger would make Activision Blizzard the world's largest video
Speaker 1: game publisher. Activision was writing high at that time from
Speaker 1: the release of Call of Duty for Modern Warfare. Vivendi
Speaker 1: Games was enjoying the tremendous financial success of World of Warcraft,
Speaker 1: and the company, Vivendi Games had a value of eight
Speaker 1: point one billion dollars at that time, and according to
Speaker 1: UH a lot of sources, they would contribute about one
Speaker 1: point seven billion dollars towards this acquisition deal. So when
Speaker 1: you lump that cash offering along with the value of
Speaker 1: the company, that comes up to nine point eight billion dollars.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of cheddar right there, A princely some
Speaker 1: if ever there was one. In return, Vivendi would get
Speaker 1: a fifty two steak in Activision Blizzard. Activisions CEO, a
Speaker 1: guy named Bobby Kodik would head up the new company,
Speaker 1: and the two companies completed the acquisition. As I said
Speaker 1: in two thousand eight, now skipping ahead a bit just
Speaker 1: to stick with this particular part of the story. About
Speaker 1: six years later, Codek would lead an investment group to
Speaker 1: purchase most of the fifty of the ownership from the Vindy,
Speaker 1: and they did it with an offer of eight point
Speaker 1: two billion dollars. Now, remember Vivendi Games when it went
Speaker 1: into this acquisition was worth eight point one So they
Speaker 1: offer eight point two billion dollars and buy back most
Speaker 1: of that steak. The Vendi would still hold on to
Speaker 1: a little bit more of its ownership of Activision Blizzard,
Speaker 1: but it did divest itself of those shares in two
Speaker 1: future transactions. One happened in two thousand fourteen and one
Speaker 1: for two thousand sixteen, and together they accounted for about
Speaker 1: two billion dollars combined um, which I realized I just
Speaker 1: said in a redundant and repetitive way. I just want
Speaker 1: to reiterate that, as Brendan Sinclair of Games Industry dot
Speaker 1: Biz would observe, that would mean that the Vendi itself
Speaker 1: would effectively hand over nine point eight billion dollars that
Speaker 1: would be the value of the company and the cash
Speaker 1: they paid during the acquisition, and in return ten years
Speaker 1: later it would net ten point one five billion dollars.
Speaker 1: That's a net gain of around three hundred fifty million bucks,
Speaker 1: which is a princely sum, but it represents just a
Speaker 1: three point five percent gain in value over a decade,
Speaker 1: Whereas if you had just purchased shares in the company
Speaker 1: back when the acquisition happened and sat on them and
Speaker 1: then sold them when Vivendi sold off the final shares,
Speaker 1: you would have seen a return of three hundred sixties
Speaker 1: seven percent. So not a great move on Vivindy's part.
Speaker 1: They made this decision, by the way, because the company, Vivendi,
Speaker 1: was in thirteen billion dollars of debt around that time,
Speaker 1: so they needed to be able to sell off assets
Speaker 1: in order to settle some of that debt. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: none of that is really a concern for Blizzard the
Speaker 1: video game development company. It was more of a questionable
Speaker 1: mark on Blizzards parent company and the decisions of its
Speaker 1: executive team, up being Vindi Games. As for Blizzard, the
Speaker 1: company was able to operate almost as if it were
Speaker 1: an independent studio even under this merger because the revenue
Speaker 1: was bringing in made it an incredibly valuable asset, so
Speaker 1: it just made sense not to mess with it too much.
Speaker 1: So while Activision Blizzard would publish the games, Blizzard the
Speaker 1: development company, because it's a different thing, would otherwise operate
Speaker 1: without too much interference from anyone higher up on the chain,
Speaker 1: at least for the time being, because Blizzard had that
Speaker 1: much clout. In two thousand and eight, it was more Warcraft,
Speaker 1: with music from the game's becoming tracks on iTunes and
Speaker 1: the second expansion for Wow, that being Wrath of the
Speaker 1: lich King that launched at the end of two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: and like its predecessor, the expansion pack broke PC sales
Speaker 1: records for most copies sold within twenty four hours, and
Speaker 1: around that time, while hit a subscription base of eleven
Speaker 1: million players almost at its peak. Blizzard would not release
Speaker 1: another title until and that's when StarCraft two Wings of
Speaker 1: Liberty finally came out, twelve years after the original title
Speaker 1: had published way back in now. Along with the game,
Speaker 1: Blizzard released an updated version of its battle Net service. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Blizzard would update battle nets so that it was sort
Speaker 1: of a universal log in for all Blizzard games, including
Speaker 1: World of Warcraft. Eager gamers Zurg rushed the stores to
Speaker 1: get their copies of StarCraft two. Oh and you know what,
Speaker 1: I never even talked about the Zurg rush and the
Speaker 1: previous episode, but I guess I should because it's a
Speaker 1: meme that goes beyond the games itself. So here we go.
Speaker 1: So in the StarCraft games, one of the three faction
Speaker 1: or races that you can control as a player are
Speaker 1: an insectoid race called the Zerg z e r G.
Speaker 1: An early unit that you can produce with the Zurg
Speaker 1: are these zurg Lings, which are not terribly powerful, but
Speaker 1: if you're fast, if you're really a fast player, you
Speaker 1: can produce a whole bunch of them early on in
Speaker 1: the game. So there's a tactic that was really developed
Speaker 1: in South Korea where StarCraft is a popular sport, and
Speaker 1: that tactic is to produce as many Zurglings as you
Speaker 1: possibly can early in the game, and then you send
Speaker 1: them to overwhelm and wipe out an opponent while your
Speaker 1: opponent is still just getting set up. It's called a
Speaker 1: zerg rush. Also in the lore is that Korean players
Speaker 1: who use this tactic would end up responding to opponents.
Speaker 1: Their opponents would cry out an alarm, they say, oh
Speaker 1: my god, zurg rush, and the South Koreans would respond
Speaker 1: with key ki ki k e k e k e.
Speaker 1: That's similar to how you would write l O l
Speaker 1: O l L, you know, laugh out loud, over and
Speaker 1: over lola la la uh. And it was meant to
Speaker 1: convey a kind of mischievous chuckle. The meme got popular
Speaker 1: enough for Google to use it in an Easter egg
Speaker 1: in two thousand twelve. And if you search the term
Speaker 1: zerg rush and Google to get a little playable game
Speaker 1: in which lower case oh letters start to come out
Speaker 1: and destroy all your search results. It's adorable anyway. The
Speaker 1: general reception was that StarCraft two was more than worth
Speaker 1: the weight it delivered upon its promise. The game was
Speaker 1: set just a few years after the events of the
Speaker 1: StarCraft brood War expansion packs, So even though the actual
Speaker 1: game came out twelve years later, it was set four
Speaker 1: years later. It would be followed by three expansion packs
Speaker 1: of its own, the first two of which gave more
Speaker 1: in depth treatment to one of the three factions in
Speaker 1: the game. The Human faction was actually taken care of
Speaker 1: in the initial release of the base game, which, you know.
Speaker 1: Typical critics loved the game. They said it was one
Speaker 1: of the best RTS titles for the PC. Ever. Now,
Speaker 1: when we come back, I'm going to catch you up
Speaker 1: on what's been going on since StarCraft two with Blizzard Entertainment.
Speaker 1: But first let's take another quick break. StarCraft two debuted
Speaker 1: in mid Blizzard Entertainment put out another expansion for World
Speaker 1: of Warcraft in eleven, but otherwise no new titles in
Speaker 1: Blizzard published Diablo three to great anticipation, and once again
Speaker 1: the company saw one of its titles break records for
Speaker 1: the most copies sold within twenty four hours. Now, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, this version of Diablo three was different
Speaker 1: from what the creators of Diablo had originally intended. The
Speaker 1: leaders behind the Diablo franchise had not been part of
Speaker 1: Blizzard since two thousand three, when they all left in
Speaker 1: mass and UH and Blizzard North, the studio that had
Speaker 1: actually developed Diablo and Diablo two ceased to exist in
Speaker 1: two thousand five. So the team that built Diablo three
Speaker 1: included some folks who were famous for working on other
Speaker 1: big games for different companies. For example, Leonard Boyarski, who
Speaker 1: worked as a head designer on the game, had been
Speaker 1: one of the original creators for the game series Fallout.
Speaker 1: And there was also j Wilson, who worked on titles
Speaker 1: like Company of Heroes and Warhammer for d K, and
Speaker 1: he served as the lead designer for Diablo three. In
Speaker 1: some ways, the game was very similar to previous versions
Speaker 1: of Diablo. It had an emphasis on loot to boost
Speaker 1: a player's abilities and stats. It used an overhead view
Speaker 1: that was similar to the isometric view that Diablo and
Speaker 1: Diablo two used. It also had some new things like
Speaker 1: destructible environments where you could have certain effects that actually
Speaker 1: would affect the environment you were in. That was new.
Speaker 1: All the other environments and Diablo and Diablo two, although
Speaker 1: they were randomly generated, were largely static, so that was
Speaker 1: kind of cool. Um this was done. It was made
Speaker 1: possible by the fact that Blizzard was using its own
Speaker 1: proprietary engine that had been built out of a previously
Speaker 1: established game engine. One thing that Diablo three had that
Speaker 1: did not excite people too much was a requirement for
Speaker 1: all gamers, which was, if you want to play the game,
Speaker 1: you had to have a persistent online connection. Even if
Speaker 1: you were only playing as a single player. So you're
Speaker 1: playing a single player game, the game exists on your computer,
Speaker 1: you still had to have a persistent Internet connection to
Speaker 1: Blizzards servers. UH. This was a DRM feature. DRM stands
Speaker 1: for Digital Rights Management. It was meant to ensure that
Speaker 1: the people who were playing the game, we're using authorized
Speaker 1: copies of the game, because Blizzard had seen many of
Speaker 1: its titles pirated. StarCraft two in particular, had a huge
Speaker 1: problem with people pirating the game. So this was a
Speaker 1: way to make sure that the people who were playing
Speaker 1: the game were doing so on authorized copies and they
Speaker 1: had purchased the game. The online requirement left some critics
Speaker 1: and some players unhappy. UH. Server issues during high demand
Speaker 1: made this worse. I mean, if a server goes down,
Speaker 1: you cannot verify that your copy is legitimate. You could
Speaker 1: have gone out and bought a game, spent money supporting
Speaker 1: the video game company, brought it home and found out
Speaker 1: you can't play it because their authentication server is down.
Speaker 1: That's not great. That is an example of how legitimate
Speaker 1: players can feel like they're being punished for playing by
Speaker 1: the rules when they say, Hey, if I had broken
Speaker 1: the rules and I had found a way to get
Speaker 1: around this, I could actually play the game I I
Speaker 1: paid for, So why are you punishing me? Which is
Speaker 1: a pretty legit argument if you ask me. Um, It's
Speaker 1: it's not easy to explain to a player why they
Speaker 1: can't enjoy a single player experience on a game they've
Speaker 1: purchased and installed on their computer just because their internet
Speaker 1: connection goes down or a server goes offline. So that
Speaker 1: was a kind of black mark against Diablo three. Now,
Speaker 1: since Diablo three, we've seen lots of other games used
Speaker 1: this same method of DRN and I don't think gamers
Speaker 1: are any happier about this. A lot of them have
Speaker 1: sort of become used to it, just because it's become
Speaker 1: kind of a common uh strategy among a lot of
Speaker 1: different game developers. Now between two thousand and twelve and
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, Blizzard released expansion packs for StarCraft two
Speaker 1: and World of Warcraft, as well as a console version
Speaker 1: of Diabo three, but that was it. There were no
Speaker 1: other new games coming out in two thousand twelve to
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, But in two thousand fourteen, Blizzard would
Speaker 1: actually release a brand new game. Now, granted, it was
Speaker 1: a brand new game that was still tied to the
Speaker 1: Warcraft universe, so it wasn't totally original i p. But
Speaker 1: the game was called Hearthstone, still an incredibly popular game.
Speaker 1: This is a digital card games similar to physical trading
Speaker 1: card games like Magic the Gathering. So in Hearthstone, you
Speaker 1: are a player who's building a deck of cards. It
Speaker 1: contains various units and abilities, and you're using it in
Speaker 1: an effort to take down opponents who have their own
Speaker 1: deck of cards, and your opponents might be computer controlled
Speaker 1: or there might be other human players. More importantly, it's
Speaker 1: a game that's absolutely married to the concept of micro transactions.
Speaker 1: Now you can play the game without making in game purchases,
Speaker 1: but the fastest way to augment a deck is to
Speaker 1: buy packs of virtual cards, so it's like buying a
Speaker 1: booster pack, and then you can construct a deck of
Speaker 1: thirty cards that best matches your playing style. You can't
Speaker 1: guarantee that you're going to have any particular card in
Speaker 1: your hand when you start off, but you can create
Speaker 1: a deck that's more likely to be useful at various
Speaker 1: stages of a match. The game is free to play,
Speaker 1: so you can play Hearthstone without ever spending a dime
Speaker 1: on it if you want to. But if you're going
Speaker 1: up against other players who are purchasing booster packs, that
Speaker 1: might prove to be a challenge because your odds of
Speaker 1: getting a card you might really need uh in order
Speaker 1: to build a good deck are low, and it takes
Speaker 1: a lot more time to earn booster packs than it
Speaker 1: does to just buy them out right. Blizzards released a
Speaker 1: lot of new cards for the games several times since
Speaker 1: it has introduced Hearthstone, and in November two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: the company announced not only an expansion for the game,
Speaker 1: but also a new game mode within Hearthstone called Battlegrounds,
Speaker 1: which is what is called an auto battler. And I
Speaker 1: had to actually look this up because I had no
Speaker 1: idea what an auto battler was. I play video games,
Speaker 1: but I had not come across this term. So in
Speaker 1: an Auto Battler. There is a board upon which players
Speaker 1: can place pieces, and it's kind of like a chess
Speaker 1: game you but you can actually figure out where you're
Speaker 1: going to put each piece, and the pieces they select
Speaker 1: and the positions that they take determine their side's strengths
Speaker 1: and weaknesses, and their opponent does the same thing on
Speaker 1: their side. Then they get matched up together and the
Speaker 1: conflict automatically resolves, So players are not directing anything at
Speaker 1: that point. They've already made all their choices based upon
Speaker 1: the pieces they've picked and the position as they've chosen,
Speaker 1: and the computer system determines which side wins based on
Speaker 1: the criteria, and it all sounds like a type of game.
Speaker 1: I'd be really really terrible at As for Hearthstone, it
Speaker 1: has been in the news recently as of the recording
Speaker 1: of this podcast due to some political controversies and Blizzards
Speaker 1: response to them. So in October two thousand nineteen, a
Speaker 1: professional Hearthstone player express support for Hong Kong protesters, who
Speaker 1: as of this recording are still protesting against the Chinese
Speaker 1: government for reasons that are far too complicated to get
Speaker 1: into in this podcast, but are very important. Blizzard banned
Speaker 1: the player who supported Hong Kong from the tournament that
Speaker 1: the player was participating in and banned them from all
Speaker 1: future tournaments, and essentially you said you don't get to
Speaker 1: earn any money off of Hearthstone anymore. And they cited
Speaker 1: a rule that said players are not allowed to do
Speaker 1: anything that would bring the game or Blizzard into disrepute
Speaker 1: or to hurt their public imag in some way. But
Speaker 1: that really opens up an entire can of worms, because
Speaker 1: a lot of people suggested that it made Blizzard appear
Speaker 1: to be complicit with the actions and philosophy of the
Speaker 1: Chinese government, which if you've listened to my episode about
Speaker 1: why is everything made in China, you'll understand that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily a great thing. And after a lot of criticism,
Speaker 1: the company walked back some of the penalties it placed
Speaker 1: on this professional gamer. They reduced those penalties, but they
Speaker 1: didn't remove them entirely. And the situation was made more
Speaker 1: complicated by the fact that the Chinese government Tencent, owns
Speaker 1: a stake in Activision Blizzard. So this led to a
Speaker 1: big discussion about how more and more companies are at
Speaker 1: least becoming partly dependent upon Chinese companies, and that Chinese
Speaker 1: companies by and large are state backed entities or even
Speaker 1: state owned entities, which means that the Chinese government itself
Speaker 1: has influence over those companies. And so you could argue
Speaker 1: that through these Chinese companies, the Chinese government is exerting
Speaker 1: political influence on companies that are in other parts of
Speaker 1: the world. UH, and that appears to be what happened
Speaker 1: in this case. So it's still a situation that's unfolding
Speaker 1: as of the recording of this episode. UH. And it's
Speaker 1: something that has extended far beyond just Blizzard. There's been
Speaker 1: a lot of discussion about this for other types of companies,
Speaker 1: largely media companies. Let's get back to the timeline. In
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen, Blizzard released Heroes of the Storm, which
Speaker 1: was a multiplayer online battle arena game or mobile UH.
Speaker 1: This game features characters from various Blizzard titles and pits
Speaker 1: players in an arena in which teams try to establish
Speaker 1: control over the playing area. So generally speaking, with a
Speaker 1: mobile UH, typically you play as part of a team
Speaker 1: and you have a goal of protecting your team and
Speaker 1: your little home base while you battle for control of
Speaker 1: the playing board, and your ultimate goal is to defeat
Speaker 1: the opposing team by either completely exhausting their resources by
Speaker 1: killing off all of their their units, or by invading
Speaker 1: their side of the board and taking it over and
Speaker 1: making sure that they don't have control over any part
Speaker 1: of the board. There are various ways of getting to
Speaker 1: a win scenario, so this game kind of marries strategy
Speaker 1: with action. In two thousand and sixteen, Blizzard released the
Speaker 1: team based shooter Overwatch, and this game has lots of
Speaker 1: different modes of play, ranging from stuff like zone offense
Speaker 1: or defense games or escort missions and other types of games.
Speaker 1: But it's all in the style of a first person
Speaker 1: shooter with a you know, team based first person shooter.
Speaker 1: So players take on the roles of one of several characters.
Speaker 1: I think there's up to thirty now. Each of those
Speaker 1: characters have their own strengths and weaknesses and abilities, and
Speaker 1: play is really fast paced and a good team, like
Speaker 1: a team that actually knows each other's strengths, they can
Speaker 1: really coordinate to be incredibly effective. Watching a team where
Speaker 1: they really you know each other and they know how
Speaker 1: to communicate, watching them play this game is insane. Um.
Speaker 1: I've played the game casually online with people I didn't know,
Speaker 1: and we are obviously nowhere close to as effective because
Speaker 1: we don't have that level of communication and familiarity. Also,
Speaker 1: I found out that I am most useful as a
Speaker 1: support class character, like someone who gives healing boosts and stuff,
Speaker 1: because it turns out people can move faster than I
Speaker 1: can see, and so if I land a shot on someone,
Speaker 1: it's almost always by accident. So I'm really impressed by
Speaker 1: people who are really good at this game. Over time,
Speaker 1: Blizzard has released updates to Overwatch with new characters. It
Speaker 1: didn't start off with thirty, but that's how many it
Speaker 1: has now, and the company has reported that since its release,
Speaker 1: the game has earned a billion dollars in revenue with
Speaker 1: more than fifty million players. And like many other Blizzard games,
Speaker 1: this one also has micro transactions, which players can purchase lootboxes.
Speaker 1: Opening up a lootbox gives you a chance to win
Speaker 1: certain types of items. You will get items in every
Speaker 1: loot box you open. It might not be the ones
Speaker 1: you want, but you'll get something, and they have different
Speaker 1: levels of rarity, so some you might just get a
Speaker 1: bunch of common pieces of of cosmetic stuff like that's
Speaker 1: not meant to influence the actual gameplay. You're not supposed
Speaker 1: to get any advantages, like you're not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to jump higher or move faster or anything. You'll look different,
Speaker 1: or you might have a different catchphrase you can say
Speaker 1: in the game, or a different pose you might make
Speaker 1: before after a match, but otherwise it's not supposed to
Speaker 1: really affect gameplay. So the idea is that, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a way to make money, but you could play the
Speaker 1: game without ever buying a lootbox and it's not going
Speaker 1: to change the actual gameplay. However, lootboxes in general are
Speaker 1: now a controversial topic. A lot of governments around the
Speaker 1: world are investigating as to whether or not they constitute gambling,
Speaker 1: since you cannot guarantee you're going to get a particular
Speaker 1: item when you purchase the lootbox. But these are things
Speaker 1: that are obviously of monetary value, or else they would
Speaker 1: not be able to sell lootboxes. It's um something that
Speaker 1: has not yet been resolved, so we'll have to revisit
Speaker 1: that concept in the future. During blizz Con twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: Blizzard announced that it was working on the sequel to
Speaker 1: Overwatch Overwatch two, and that it would allow players to
Speaker 1: port over the stuff they've unlocked from the first game,
Speaker 1: which is good because if you spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time and or money unlocking your favorite costumes for your
Speaker 1: favorite characters, you'd probably be a little ticked off if
Speaker 1: that didn't transfer over to the sequel. Other upcoming Blizzard
Speaker 1: games include Diablo Immortal, which was it is a Diablo
Speaker 1: game based for mobile devices like smartphones. When they announced
Speaker 1: that at blizz Con a while back, um it did
Speaker 1: not get a good reception. Fans really unhappy because they
Speaker 1: really wanted a full blown Diablo see quell and look
Speaker 1: like they were going to have to settle for a
Speaker 1: what they viewed as a watered down experience for mobile. However,
Speaker 1: in blizz Con twenty nineteen, the company did announce the
Speaker 1: Diablo four, the the actual full PC sequel to Diablo
Speaker 1: three uh, and that got a slightly better response. Some
Speaker 1: other little notes. In two thousand eighteen, Michael Mooreheim, one
Speaker 1: of the three original founders of the company, announced that
Speaker 1: he was leaving Lizzard, although he would remain on as
Speaker 1: sort of an advisory role. He had been serving as
Speaker 1: president for you know, a couple of decades, and Jay
Speaker 1: Alan Brack, who had been with the company since two
Speaker 1: thousand six and who had served as the executive producer
Speaker 1: of World of Warcraft, would take over as the president
Speaker 1: of the company the following summer. In two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: Frank Pierce, the third original co founder, announced that he
Speaker 1: was retiring and would leave Blizzard as well. Now you
Speaker 1: might remember from a previous episode I mentioned and that
Speaker 1: Alan Adham had left in the mid two thousand's he
Speaker 1: wanted to pursue a career in in finance. He had
Speaker 1: been totally burnt out on the process of developing games
Speaker 1: and he needed to kind of step away. Well, he
Speaker 1: actually returned to Blizzard in two thousand and sixteen, so
Speaker 1: he still serves as a senior vice president at Blizzard Entertainment.
Speaker 1: So while he was the first of the original founders
Speaker 1: to leave, he's now the last one to still be
Speaker 1: there because he came back in sixteen. He's also the
Speaker 1: founder that Pierce and Moreheim both credited with being the
Speaker 1: actual force that brought the company together. So I just
Speaker 1: find it interesting that he returned not long before the
Speaker 1: other two co founders decided to step away. Now, over
Speaker 1: the last year or so, the company has been at
Speaker 1: the center of criticism not just because of the Hong
Speaker 1: Kong controversy, but also because they cut jobs while they
Speaker 1: were also posting record profits, which that seemed weird to people.
Speaker 1: There's been a concern that Activision is pushing a more
Speaker 1: aggressive approach to managing costs and maximizing profits at the
Speaker 1: expense of the quality of the games. You know, this
Speaker 1: is tough for a company that really established a reputation
Speaker 1: of making sure a game is absolutely the best it
Speaker 1: can be before it launches, So that's been an issue
Speaker 1: for Blizzard recently as well. That being said, there's still
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of anticipation for Blizzard games. That their
Speaker 1: games tend to be really well received by critics and
Speaker 1: by fans alike. It's not a guarantee in every case, obviously,
Speaker 1: but they've got a really strong track record, so they're
Speaker 1: still weathering some pretty rough criticisms, and the Activision connection
Speaker 1: remains something that a lot of fans are very leery about.
Speaker 1: But I expect that we're gonna continue to see a
Speaker 1: lot of passionate support and anticipation around their games, and
Speaker 1: blizz Con every year is a testament to that because
Speaker 1: it sells out within half an hour of tickets going
Speaker 1: on sale. So I believe that it happens every year
Speaker 1: in Anaheim, California. I have never been. I know I've
Speaker 1: got friends who go there or have gone there pretty
Speaker 1: much every year. One of these years, I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to try and get my way over there. But you know, hey, Blizzard,
Speaker 1: if you ever want meet out there, let me know.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I'll just have to take some vacation time. Not
Speaker 1: that I am above that. I'd be happy to, but
Speaker 1: if I can get there forming order, I'll just come
Speaker 1: out there, you know. So that wraps up this episode
Speaker 1: of text Stuff, this exhaustive look at Blizzard. It was
Speaker 1: fun to take a deeper look at this company and
Speaker 1: to really look at some of the things that drove
Speaker 1: the decisions behind making those games, as well as some
Speaker 1: of the stories, like the controversies behind them that I
Speaker 1: wasn't really familiar with before I started researching this. If
Speaker 1: you guys have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: send me an email the addresses tech Stuff at how
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