Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff dot com. Hello, everyone, welcome
Speaker 1: to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Palette, and I
Speaker 1: am an editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting
Speaker 1: across from me as always, his senior writer, Jonathan Strickland. Oh,
Speaker 1: the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful.
Speaker 1: So since we've no place to go, well, you know, yeah, somehow,
Speaker 1: I you know, he never tells me what the quote
Speaker 1: is before we start, and I had a feeling actually
Speaker 1: predicted this one in my head. But there's going to
Speaker 1: be that particular song. H Well, then, well, before we
Speaker 1: talk about what our topic is, I have a Jeopardy
Speaker 1: challenge for you. All right, you ready? Now here is
Speaker 1: your answer. This popular massively multiplayer online role playing game
Speaker 1: was featured in a question on Jeopardy is College We
Speaker 1: in two thousand five? What is World of Warcraft? You
Speaker 1: didn't buzz in? So I'm sorry, We're taking all of
Speaker 1: your money and we're going to break your legs. This
Speaker 1: is this is how he plays the Predictions game too.
Speaker 1: That is yes, I will change the rules so that
Speaker 1: I win, no matter what. No, that is correct. We
Speaker 1: are going to talk today not about World of Warcraft
Speaker 1: specifically Alba, that will definitely be a large part of
Speaker 1: the conversation, but about Blizzard, Blizzard Entertainment or Activision Blizzard,
Speaker 1: the company behind such big hits as World of Warcraft, Warcraft, StarCraft,
Speaker 1: and actually I thought we were going to talk about
Speaker 1: silicon and synapse. That is in fact where we start.
Speaker 1: Our story officially begins at u c l A in
Speaker 1: around n that's the University of California at Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: thank you for those of you not in the now.
Speaker 1: So they were at UCLA, and at UCLA there was
Speaker 1: a student, a computer science student named Allan Adam who
Speaker 1: met a fellow he actually, according to him, his official
Speaker 1: story about how he met, uh Mike Moreheim was that
Speaker 1: Alan was sitting in the computer lab and was typing
Speaker 1: away Tappy, Tappy, tappy, and then decided that he needed
Speaker 1: to get up and get himself a hot beverage and
Speaker 1: maybe a quick trip to the gents. So he locks
Speaker 1: himself out of his computer and leaves and he comes back,
Speaker 1: turns on his computer again, gets a ray into types
Speaker 1: of his password and it launches. Meanwhile, Michael Moreheim says, Hey, there,
Speaker 1: big guy, I have a question for you. How did
Speaker 1: you make it so that your computer unlocked automatically while
Speaker 1: you were away? I had to lock it again for you.
Speaker 1: And then then the process of their conversation, they find
Speaker 1: out the most unlikely of coincidences, that Adam and Mike
Speaker 1: both were using the same password for their computers. That
Speaker 1: is there, that is That's the way Alan tell the story.
Speaker 1: Mike tells a different story. Mike story is that he
Speaker 1: saw this fellow who was in his uh, his a
Speaker 1: couple of his computer science classes, and this is their
Speaker 1: senior year at UCLA, and uh he sees this guy
Speaker 1: and he thinks, this fellow looks like he's from Israel,
Speaker 1: and he looks really smart. So he walks up to
Speaker 1: him and says, what part of Israel are you from?
Speaker 1: And Alan says, I'm from Egypt. Those are the two
Speaker 1: stories that they tell. Yeah, there's an official like Blizzard
Speaker 1: retrospective video which is actually pretty cool. I really recommend
Speaker 1: you watch it if you if you're into, like just
Speaker 1: want to know more about the history of the company. Um.
Speaker 1: The reason why that video was posted was because this year,
Speaker 1: when we're recording this podcast is the twentieth anniversary of
Speaker 1: that of the founding of the company. Because once Alan graduated,
Speaker 1: he decided he wanted to make video games. Actually, he
Speaker 1: knew he wanted to make video games even before he
Speaker 1: had graduated college, and so he wanted to create a company.
Speaker 1: And he called upon Mike Morheim to join him, and
Speaker 1: Mike was working at uh Western Digital at the time,
Speaker 1: and he left the company because Mike had graduated about
Speaker 1: three months before Alan did, but he left Western Digital
Speaker 1: to come and work with Alan at this new company,
Speaker 1: which probably upset Mike's family a bit because there you
Speaker 1: were working for alish established company with a with an
Speaker 1: actual like revenue generating plan and everything, and then striking
Speaker 1: out to form this this game's company. Uh. It was
Speaker 1: probably a nerve wracking experience. Uh that he also called
Speaker 1: upon a second friend. Alan had met another person in
Speaker 1: the computer science department named Frank Pierce, and he called
Speaker 1: upon Frank Pierce as well and said, Hey, I'm starting
Speaker 1: up this video game company. Would you like to join me. Now,
Speaker 1: Frank had also gone to UCLA and uh was did
Speaker 1: not know Mike. So Frank and Mike didn't know each
Speaker 1: there the connecting element here is allan yes. But Frank
Speaker 1: decides to come over and he actually left another established
Speaker 1: company called Rockwell. Yes, he left Rockwell to go and
Speaker 1: join this new company, which, as Chris has revealed, was
Speaker 1: called Silicon and Synapse. Wow. What a catchy name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they there are reasons behind that name. Well. First of all, silicon,
Speaker 1: of course, is the basis for a lot of our electronics.
Speaker 1: That's the silicon chip. It's the whole the whole foundation
Speaker 1: for the modern transistor. Uh. That was that where that's
Speaker 1: where the whole silicon part came from. Synaps of course,
Speaker 1: meaning that the connections in your brain, the stuff that
Speaker 1: fires off that you can complete thoughts. So to them,
Speaker 1: they thought this is a great idea. But according to
Speaker 1: their video, other people just didn't get it. First of all,
Speaker 1: they thought that silicon was the material that went into
Speaker 1: breast augmentation surgery. That would be silicone. That would be silicone.
Speaker 1: But other people were like, why are you calling your
Speaker 1: company after boobies, And they said, we're not calling our
Speaker 1: company after boobies. We are calling our company. But you know,
Speaker 1: you tell that story. And then the other response to
Speaker 1: get us what's a synapse? Now? I kind of like
Speaker 1: the name Silicon and Synapse because, for one thing, it
Speaker 1: reminds me of other uh companies or other products that
Speaker 1: have blank and blank, for example, Dungeons and Dragons, And
Speaker 1: these guys clearly had at least some love for the
Speaker 1: old Dungeons and Dragons role playing system because a lot
Speaker 1: of the stuff they worked on had that kind of
Speaker 1: flare to it. So the first few years they're working
Speaker 1: under the title of Silicon and synaps the company name
Speaker 1: of Silicon and Synapse, and they had done work previously
Speaker 1: in their college years with companies like Interplay. Do you
Speaker 1: know what kind of games Interplay made off top of
Speaker 1: your head? Um? Well, I do remember some Interplay titles
Speaker 1: yum and uh, but I don't remember any of them
Speaker 1: off the top of Some big names would include like
Speaker 1: Balter's Gate and Descent, and the original Fallout games were
Speaker 1: Interplay games. Uh. And then they also had done some
Speaker 1: work for data Soft, which is another game company. They
Speaker 1: did things like Zaxon and Pole Position and Time and Magic.
Speaker 1: So um, the following statement is a joke. So then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Silicon and Synapse made World of
Speaker 1: warcraft and lots of money. No. Uh. First, the first
Speaker 1: thing they started to do is they started working on
Speaker 1: ports from certain platforms into other platforms. So so when
Speaker 1: a game is made for a particular platform, say the
Speaker 1: PC or or Windows. Let's say, and you wanted to
Speaker 1: write a version of it for the Macintosh, you would
Speaker 1: port the game over, the original code over to work
Speaker 1: on a different type of computers. What we're saying, which
Speaker 1: could take quite a bit of time because as we know,
Speaker 1: these different operators is ms uh don't necessarily support the
Speaker 1: same kind of models, So you would have to go
Speaker 1: in and re like you've built all the resources in
Speaker 1: your code, but now you've got to repurpose it for
Speaker 1: different types of code. And uh. They started porting Amiga
Speaker 1: and Mac titles. Strangely enough, one of their first ports
Speaker 1: was for a game that I loved back in the
Speaker 1: early nineties called Battle Chess. Yes, so Battle Chess, in
Speaker 1: case you have never seen, it was a game of chess.
Speaker 1: It was you know, played out on a chessboard. But
Speaker 1: the the the figures that you're moving, the chess pieces
Speaker 1: you're moving around are actually three D modeled or well,
Speaker 1: I guess they were originally two d rendered um uh
Speaker 1: cartoonish figures, so your ponds look like little foot soldiers.
Speaker 1: The queen is this slinky uh, deadly woman who who
Speaker 1: dispatches her enemies in creative ways. And there were different
Speaker 1: animations when you would take a piece, so let's say,
Speaker 1: you know, pawn takes pawn, it would play out as
Speaker 1: a little battle on your screen for that square. Now,
Speaker 1: the way battle chess worked was that you would if
Speaker 1: you made the move to take a square, that was
Speaker 1: the piece that was going to win every time. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like it had inserted some sort of element of
Speaker 1: chance where you would try and take us square and
Speaker 1: your piece would end up getting defeated. That didn't happen,
Speaker 1: but the animations were very cute. And so that was
Speaker 1: one of the first ports they began to work on. Um.
Speaker 1: They also uh and they poured that over took for
Speaker 1: windows in the compose sixty four. Actually even that late
Speaker 1: in the game, so to speak. And then the first
Speaker 1: do you know what the first game they developed was
Speaker 1: the first the first game they developed, Yeah, yeah, it
Speaker 1: wasn't a port. It was a game that they created
Speaker 1: from the ground up. It was it was called RPM Racing. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, I thought you were going to mention Death
Speaker 1: and Return of Superman before you got to that. Oh no,
Speaker 1: I don't know this. Why don't you talk about that? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know a ton of uh, you know, a
Speaker 1: ton of information about that specific game, but uh, one
Speaker 1: of the the articles I used as a reference mentioned
Speaker 1: Battle Chess two and and the Death and Return of Superman,
Speaker 1: which was released in an example of a port that
Speaker 1: they had done. And they were sort of cruising along
Speaker 1: before they got to the point where they were developing
Speaker 1: their own titles. Well, they did develop a couple of
Speaker 1: titles before that, but it was for the S and
Speaker 1: S Super Nintendo Entertainment System or the Super Famicom if
Speaker 1: you prefer um, because the first one they did with
Speaker 1: that was in ninety two for RPM Racing, and then
Speaker 1: in ninety three they released one called Rock and Roll Racing,
Speaker 1: which was one of the first games for the Nintendo
Speaker 1: to feature the Supernintendo to feature rock and roll music.
Speaker 1: But that was like again, that was for the Super
Speaker 1: ne S. That wasn't a PC game or or mad
Speaker 1: game whatever. It's not a computer game. That was a
Speaker 1: console game. So they've done a few console games just
Speaker 1: a few they're more known for, at least today, they're
Speaker 1: more known for their their computer titles rather than their
Speaker 1: con soul titles. UH. But this was kind of where
Speaker 1: they started to develop their art style and they hired
Speaker 1: a few artists. Had some great stories in that video.
Speaker 1: I was talking about about the weird interview process and
Speaker 1: they're playing it really fast and loose because these were
Speaker 1: all guys who were fresh off college and had never
Speaker 1: really done this before. So they had a kind of
Speaker 1: relaxed way of going about business. But they really working
Speaker 1: for them. And the titles that they developed ended up
Speaker 1: winning awards for RPM Racing I think, or maybe it
Speaker 1: was Rock and Roll Racing one, uh, the title the
Speaker 1: best racing Game of the Year that came out and
Speaker 1: uh and and so they were doing well, but they
Speaker 1: still hadn't moved on to doing computer games. They also
Speaker 1: developed a game for the Supertantendo entertainment system called The
Speaker 1: Lost Vikings, which ended up being very popular. It was
Speaker 1: originally so the the original idea was that was going
Speaker 1: to be kind of like Lemmings. And if you don't
Speaker 1: if you're not familiar with the game Limings and Lemmings,
Speaker 1: you your task is to guide a group of little
Speaker 1: limings from one side of a screen to another side
Speaker 1: of the screen, and uh, and you assign specific tasks
Speaker 1: to particular livings to try and create a pathway for
Speaker 1: the livings to get there safely. And the livings will
Speaker 1: just walk in a in a in a direction until
Speaker 1: they encounter an obstacle or they die, and of course
Speaker 1: some of them are doomed another in order to make
Speaker 1: the rest of the herd, you might have to explode
Speaker 1: one on purpose. So yeah, now, now Blizzard did not
Speaker 1: make Limings, but when they thought that the Livings game
Speaker 1: was really interesting and so originally The Lost Vikings was
Speaker 1: going to be a game where you would have, you know,
Speaker 1: around a hundred different kinds of vikings that could do
Speaker 1: different tasks. But through the development process they decided to
Speaker 1: narrow that down and then they got down to five vikings,
Speaker 1: and then by the time they actually got to the
Speaker 1: point where they're putting the game together, they just it
Speaker 1: on three vikings, and using the three vikings you would
Speaker 1: go through a series of puzzles. So it ultimately was
Speaker 1: a puzzle game, but again it was very popular. One
Speaker 1: an award for the Best Puzzle Game that year, and
Speaker 1: then and ninety three, uh Silicon sonerhaps throws in the
Speaker 1: booby towel and decides to rename their company Chaos Studios, Yes,
Speaker 1: which lasted for a few months, and then they changed
Speaker 1: your name again to Blizzard Entertainment. All this stuff. While
Speaker 1: it's not as glamorous as some of the stuff they've
Speaker 1: done in the last say, fifteen years, over those first
Speaker 1: three or four years, they really were making a name
Speaker 1: for themselves. And then no pun intended with the name
Speaker 1: changes names for themselves, um because a company named Davidson
Speaker 1: and Associates acquired the company in ten and also for
Speaker 1: ten million dollars um. So you know, just even as
Speaker 1: a a fledgling company, uh, Chaos Studios was becoming known
Speaker 1: for its work and it was obvious that these these
Speaker 1: guys knew what they were doing. Yeah, And actually that
Speaker 1: that ended up getting really complicated too, because so Blizzard
Speaker 1: gets purchased by Davidson and Associates. Davidson Associates gets purchased
Speaker 1: by a company called c U C International see you
Speaker 1: see International then goes on to merge with a company
Speaker 1: called h F S Corporation, and the new parent company
Speaker 1: is called Sendent c e N d E n T
Speaker 1: and oh do you Oh I have D E N T. Interesting,
Speaker 1: But anyway, it's uh, that's the company that also owns
Speaker 1: Sierra Online. So now you've got Sierra Online and Blizzard
Speaker 1: Entertainment are kind of mashed together as a division within
Speaker 1: this parent company called Sendant and uh, we'll get back
Speaker 1: to send It and a little bit, but we're still
Speaker 1: in right now. And that's also when demos begin to
Speaker 1: circulate in that summer for a new game called Warcraft
Speaker 1: Orcs Versus Humans. Yes, this is the game that really
Speaker 1: really puts Blizzard on the map. I mean, Blizzard had
Speaker 1: already won awards for its Super Nintendo Entertainment System games,
Speaker 1: but these are the games that make it a name
Speaker 1: in PC gaming and Matt gaming eventually. Yes, yes, as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, well, of course ORCS really sort
Speaker 1: of come from um to yeah, the Lord of the
Speaker 1: Rings and uh and really they're sort of borrowing that idea. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: this actually in a way goes along with the story
Speaker 1: of Nintendo not directly, but um one of the things
Speaker 1: that they were doing with this title was too basically
Speaker 1: levin the computer game with story. This the the story
Speaker 1: of the War between the Orcs and the Humans isn't
Speaker 1: just a computer game. It's also got a backstory about
Speaker 1: how the Orcs are being used by another power, and
Speaker 1: that will eventually develop later in other titles. But um,
Speaker 1: they had they had a new sort of game on
Speaker 1: their hands with the real time strategy game and m
Speaker 1: and let's let's explain what a real time strategy game is,
Speaker 1: just in case some of our listeners don't know. So,
Speaker 1: typically a real time strategy game plays out in real time.
Speaker 1: So there it's not turn based, so you don't you
Speaker 1: don't uh make a move then wait in order to
Speaker 1: make another move. Everything's going on around the same time.
Speaker 1: While you're preparing your armies to attack, your opponent is
Speaker 1: preparing his or her armies to attack at the same time, right,
Speaker 1: So unlike games like Risk or Civilization where it is
Speaker 1: turn based, it's all going on simultaneously. Then, uh. The
Speaker 1: way you create your armies as you build a resource
Speaker 1: gathering uh units, you build special buildings that allow you
Speaker 1: to create military units, and so you have to build
Speaker 1: buildings with various types of characters that you have. So
Speaker 1: you might have some characters that are not warriors. They're
Speaker 1: like farmers or or woodcutters or whatever. They go out,
Speaker 1: they gather the resources you need to build the other
Speaker 1: stuff you need, and then might fol right, and then
Speaker 1: you might have to build something like a barracks which
Speaker 1: will allow you to produce troops. And then there's certain
Speaker 1: specialized units that you can only produce if you build
Speaker 1: other buildings as well. So it becomes a balancing act
Speaker 1: of creating military units and also creating the resources you
Speaker 1: need to produce the units you need. Um. And you
Speaker 1: know all of this is coming from the same raw materials.
Speaker 1: So the strategy is is multifaceted. You have the production
Speaker 1: strategy like how many how much effort do you put
Speaker 1: towards gathering resources, how much do you put towards producing
Speaker 1: basic units, how much do you put towards enhancing the
Speaker 1: buildings you already have? Uh? And then also how do
Speaker 1: you explore and defeat your opponent? Now, in the original
Speaker 1: Warcraft game, you pretty much could see everything on the map,
Speaker 1: but uh, the the other Another development comes up a
Speaker 1: little bit later that changes that. Also, it was top down,
Speaker 1: so you're looking it's as if you were directly overhead
Speaker 1: of the map. In the original Warcraft game, it was
Speaker 1: a top down view, um and it it Actually there
Speaker 1: was a game that came out before Warcraft. You're thinking
Speaker 1: probably of Westwood Studios due to Yeah. Dune two was
Speaker 1: another real time strategy game that that that follows the
Speaker 1: same general philosophy as Warcraft. Has a totally different feel
Speaker 1: to it than Warcraft, but um uh it became like
Speaker 1: a kind of a battle between Blizzard and Westwood to
Speaker 1: see who was gonna win out. But the art style
Speaker 1: of Warcraft, the the backstory to Warcraft, the whimsy really
Speaker 1: of Warcraft all helped to really push that game ahead.
Speaker 1: I loved. One of the things that I loved about
Speaker 1: that game and and the game's like it that followed
Speaker 1: is just it's not even part of the game. It's
Speaker 1: continuing to click on people after you've because when you
Speaker 1: want to have a unit do something, say you want
Speaker 1: to uh, one of your one of your units to
Speaker 1: go chop wood so that you have wood for your buildings,
Speaker 1: you click on it and you say, you know, okay,
Speaker 1: I want you, and then you click on the trees
Speaker 1: to go over here and cut, you know, cut down
Speaker 1: wood for lumber. And you know, when the Blizzard had
Speaker 1: the idea to um to basically give you a verbal acknowledgement, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: my lord, and then you But the thing is, somebody said,
Speaker 1: you know what, you need to keep clicking on the guy.
Speaker 1: So I said, all right, and I did and I
Speaker 1: and as as you continue to click on that one unit,
Speaker 1: they become increasingly annoyed with you. Well you will, you will,
Speaker 1: And as far as I know that continues. I don't
Speaker 1: have StarCraft Tube, but even in the StarCraft game they
Speaker 1: would do that, and I it's one of the things
Speaker 1: that I just love about it because it goes along
Speaker 1: with the game. Of course, you can waste time while
Speaker 1: the other guys building up his army, but it's just
Speaker 1: I thought there was a kick to do that. So
Speaker 1: we're still in right now. At this point, Blizzard has
Speaker 1: about twenty five employees. Uh. They've only been in business
Speaker 1: for three years and they've got twenty five employees. They
Speaker 1: created a small booth at c e S that year,
Speaker 1: and that's where they kind of showed off the idea
Speaker 1: of Warcraft and UH and got a lot of attention
Speaker 1: there and so it created a lot of buzz um
Speaker 1: And then of course later in the year Warcraft came
Speaker 1: out was a big Hit and then near the end
Speaker 1: of just a year later, they released Warcraft two Tides
Speaker 1: of Darkness, and that's where they introduced the idea of
Speaker 1: a fog of war. Now, if you're not a gamer
Speaker 1: and you don't really know these terms, what fog war
Speaker 1: means is that part of the map is intentionally obscured
Speaker 1: from your view as a player, and you only can
Speaker 1: uncover that part of the map part of me once
Speaker 1: you start it's sending units in to to explore it. Yeah, basically,
Speaker 1: I think that that is sort of a role playing
Speaker 1: game addition, because if you think about your players as characters, uh,
Speaker 1: and yourself as a character in the game as the
Speaker 1: if you will, the general behind behind your troops, you
Speaker 1: haven't been there yet. Your troops haven't been in this
Speaker 1: part of the forest yet, so they don't know what's there,
Speaker 1: right And and because you don't have any eyes there,
Speaker 1: it's not like you can you know, if you were
Speaker 1: on the ground, you would not be able to see
Speaker 1: that far like. So the idea is that the fog
Speaker 1: of war limits what you can see until you start
Speaker 1: sending units and to explore. So that gave the option
Speaker 1: of creating things like scouting units things like that changes
Speaker 1: the strategy a lot. You couldn't just immediately glance in
Speaker 1: the maps see what your enemy was up to and
Speaker 1: then adjust. You had to h anticipate what your enemy
Speaker 1: might do and try and and head them off. Um.
Speaker 1: And and also Warcraft had already introduced this the idea
Speaker 1: of being able to play against human opponents, not just
Speaker 1: the computer opponents, but human opponents, either over a modem
Speaker 1: or over a local area network. That I can't stress
Speaker 1: enough how important that was to the success of Warcraft,
Speaker 1: because playing against the computer is fun. Playing against your
Speaker 1: friends as a blast, right, I mean, you know, there's
Speaker 1: the whole element of smack talk. There's bragging rights. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're the great stories that you tell where you know,
Speaker 1: it looked like all the way up until the last
Speaker 1: half hour of that game, it looked like you were
Speaker 1: gonna lose, but you somehow turned it around just because
Speaker 1: this this crazy tactic that had just a sliver of
Speaker 1: a chance to work actually paid off. That kind of
Speaker 1: stuff is really invaluable for a game. I mean, it
Speaker 1: really pushed it too into a phenomenon. And Warcraft too
Speaker 1: continued that. Uh. And also players were taking it upon
Speaker 1: themselves to find creative ways to create matches against each
Speaker 1: other online. This predates Blizzards own online service. So what
Speaker 1: they were using was a service called Collie k a
Speaker 1: l I and they were creating matches over that. But
Speaker 1: that sort of served, you know, Blizzard took took notice
Speaker 1: that and they that sort of served as a model
Speaker 1: for them, and they began to develop their own online service,
Speaker 1: which would become known as battle Net or battle dot
Speaker 1: Net if you prefer. UM. Just an interesting note, and
Speaker 1: we were talking about the serendipitous nature of the founders
Speaker 1: of Blizzard UH meeting one another. UM. Actually there's something
Speaker 1: else it's about to come up that has its roots
Speaker 1: back at a C E S. When they were when
Speaker 1: the company was developing titles for the S N E S. UM,
Speaker 1: they had been asked by a company called Sunsoft develop
Speaker 1: a d C comics fighting game for the S N
Speaker 1: E S and they had a copy of it to
Speaker 1: show off at C S. Well. As it turns out,
Speaker 1: a company called Condor UH Condor Software UM had been
Speaker 1: asked to do the same thing for the Sega Genesis
Speaker 1: and the two companies didn't know one another, but they
Speaker 1: the founders at the CUP and he's met at at
Speaker 1: c S and they basically stayed in contact with one another.
Speaker 1: In fact, from what I understand, Um, Dave Brevick of
Speaker 1: Condor was given an opportunity to beta test Warcraft, the
Speaker 1: early version of Warcraft, because he liked what he saw
Speaker 1: and thought it was really cool. Um. So this game,
Speaker 1: this game company called Condor, Yes, were they developing a
Speaker 1: game that would become a worldwide phenomenon? Do do do?
Speaker 1: Do do? They might have been, and and did Blizzard
Speaker 1: uh get into the opportunity to actually acquire said company Condor? Well? Was?
Speaker 1: It turns out the Warcraft games were a hit and
Speaker 1: hit and they brought a lot of money into if
Speaker 1: you'll pardon my pardon my joke, Blizzards war Chest. Nice,
Speaker 1: I didn't say battle chest. Actually that's why I picked
Speaker 1: up my first just as inside I picked up my
Speaker 1: first Warcraft. I got the battle chest with Warcraft Aircraft
Speaker 1: two and the expansion, and I played the living daylights
Speaker 1: out of those three. Um. But anyhow, yes, they with
Speaker 1: with that money, they contacted Condor and said, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: we're friends. Why don't we work together? Work together? And
Speaker 1: and so yeah, Blizzard acquired Condor and they came Blizzard North.
Speaker 1: They renamed it Blizzard North. It was located in San Mateo, California,
Speaker 1: and uh and Condor was working on a game that
Speaker 1: it would become insanely popular, so much so that there
Speaker 1: that right now as we record this podcast, there are
Speaker 1: people begging to get into the beta of the most
Speaker 1: current version of that game. And that game was a
Speaker 1: dungeon crawler and a mouse killer. Yes. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, it from from what I understand, people credit
Speaker 1: this game with with launching the dungeon crawler. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: also launching Battle neet. Uh. It is, of course Diablo
Speaker 1: a game where you created a fantasy inspired character and
Speaker 1: you would have various weapons. You would go into dungeons
Speaker 1: and you would click on things to kill them. And really,
Speaker 1: when you get down to the gameplay, it was pretty simple.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not of clicking, but it was addictive
Speaker 1: because the for lots of reasons, the game design was fantastic.
Speaker 1: The art was great, the leveling system was cool, the
Speaker 1: loot system was very satisfying as a gamer. So everything
Speaker 1: in this game, considering how simple it was, was done correctly,
Speaker 1: just to the point where people just fell in love
Speaker 1: with it. And it launched with the battle Neet service,
Speaker 1: which was a free online service where people could go
Speaker 1: and make matches to play online together. Um and it
Speaker 1: made money through online advertising through web advertising. Actually made
Speaker 1: quite a bit of money because it was incredibly popular.
Speaker 1: Now around n a couple of different things are happening.
Speaker 1: For one Blizzard to start starts to develop a game
Speaker 1: that would be you know, actually they were supposed to
Speaker 1: release the game in ninety seven called Warcraft Adventures. Now,
Speaker 1: this was going to be a game that was going
Speaker 1: to be an adventure based game. So adventure games when
Speaker 1: we talked about that, that that those are games like
Speaker 1: the Monkey Island series um or the Old King's Quest
Speaker 1: series or Space Quest. These are games where you solve puzzles,
Speaker 1: you wander around, you interact with other characters. Um. Generally
Speaker 1: you have to collect a lot of items and then
Speaker 1: combine stuff in your inventory in order to uh to
Speaker 1: achieve certain tasks, to complete certain tasks. Um And it
Speaker 1: was fairly popular for a while. So Blizzard thought, well,
Speaker 1: why don't we create a Warcraft adventure kind of in
Speaker 1: the model of the Old Monkey Island games and flesh
Speaker 1: out this mythology we've created about the Orcs, and this
Speaker 1: will give you more of a backstory about what the
Speaker 1: Orcs are and why they are the way they are. Um,
Speaker 1: and they started developing it. But here's the thing about Blizzard.
Speaker 1: They take game development very seriously and if a game
Speaker 1: is not ready for release, they will not release it.
Speaker 1: So they don't release games prematurely. They don't want to
Speaker 1: have they don't want to introduce a buggy, bad game
Speaker 1: into the market because it all it's a black eye
Speaker 1: for the company. Yeah, they have a they're they're famous
Speaker 1: actually for their release date when it's ready. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: they learned that less in the hard way because they
Speaker 1: had announced that this game was going to launch and
Speaker 1: it didn't and as the there were delays in the
Speaker 1: development process, the the adventure model changed. For one thing.
Speaker 1: Companies started to develop three D adventure games. So, uh,
Speaker 1: one of the Monkey Island games, one of the later
Speaker 1: Monkey Island games, was in a was rendered as a
Speaker 1: three D style game, so that the characters were no
Speaker 1: longer this kind of flat animated look. Grimm Fandango is
Speaker 1: another example. So at that point, the Warcraft Adventures was
Speaker 1: starting to look dated because it was doing the old
Speaker 1: two D design and because of that other other reasons, Uh,
Speaker 1: Blizzard decided ultimately to kill the product and and it
Speaker 1: never it would never reach store shelves. Um do that.
Speaker 1: And that same year, in ninety seven, that's when you
Speaker 1: had the scandal at scindent UH, the company that the
Speaker 1: parent company that owned Blizzard. So here's the scandal. Apparently
Speaker 1: the company had sort of fibbed about its income and
Speaker 1: inflated it by about a third because analysts had expected
Speaker 1: the company to do incredibly well, and so in order
Speaker 1: for it to look like the company had met those expectations,
Speaker 1: they cooked the books over at Sindant And in the
Speaker 1: wake of the scandal, they ended up selling off Sierra Online,
Speaker 1: which included Blizzard Entertainment, and they sold it to a
Speaker 1: French company called Havas UH. And then that company then
Speaker 1: was bought by another company called the then d the Plumbers.
Speaker 1: So I know that yet another company that's in video
Speaker 1: games now that was in something completely different essentially. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll get back to we'll get back to their their
Speaker 1: adventure in a few years. So yeah. Again, what was
Speaker 1: remarkable though, is through all this corporate change where they're
Speaker 1: being acquired and merged and sold off and reacquired and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. While all this is happening,
Speaker 1: Blizzard remained remarkably cohesive. Uh. The at this point, the
Speaker 1: three founders are all still there, um and uh. And
Speaker 1: they were still working on on games. Now. That same year,
Speaker 1: in nine seven, they were developing a new real time
Speaker 1: strategy game and they showed it off at the second
Speaker 1: ever E three conference. And this was an isometric view
Speaker 1: science fiction real time strategy game called StarCraft. Uh. Isometric
Speaker 1: view meaning that it's instead of being a direct top
Speaker 1: down view, you're viewing at an angle, kind of like
Speaker 1: iagine you're hovering over the landscape and you're looking down
Speaker 1: and ahead of you. That's kind of what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here, and isometric you and um uh. The StarCraft
Speaker 1: game featured three races, the pro Toss, the Terran, and
Speaker 1: the Zerg. And and it's kind of interesting because unlike
Speaker 1: other games and in Warcraft, in Orcs versus humans, you
Speaker 1: had Orc units and you had human units, but they
Speaker 1: were essentially analogs to each other. Yeah, you had the
Speaker 1: same essential buildings. You had you had to mind gold.
Speaker 1: You had a barracks where you produced your your warriors. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, they used the same buildings, but they looked
Speaker 1: different and spoke differently different arts style, but they behaved
Speaker 1: very much the same way, So not the case with StarCraft.
Speaker 1: StarCraft each race had its own unique units, its own
Speaker 1: unique UH strategies, so a strategy that would work for
Speaker 1: one race would not work for another one. You'd have
Speaker 1: to develop a totally different race depending upon a totally
Speaker 1: different strategy rather depending on what upon what race you
Speaker 1: were playing and UH. They also had some other cool features,
Speaker 1: like the game would it would feature your mission objectives
Speaker 1: might change in the course of a mission, which meant
Speaker 1: that you had to be flexible. You couldn't you couldn't
Speaker 1: commit all of your resources to doing a specific task
Speaker 1: because if that task changed halfway through, then you might
Speaker 1: be stuck. So it meant that you have to be
Speaker 1: really quick on your feet when you were playing this.
Speaker 1: And in fact, there are professional gamers who specialize in
Speaker 1: StarCraft to this day. Yes, as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: South Korea as a huge StarCraft following. There are StarCraft
Speaker 1: TV shows. Yeah, and we've talked about that a little
Speaker 1: bit when we talked about a professional gamer podcast. But yeah,
Speaker 1: these StarCraft it was a huge Actually, this this game
Speaker 1: helped launch that movement. Yeah, they're like professional athletes in
Speaker 1: some countries and they and and when if you ever
Speaker 1: watch a truly adept player, it is it's it's incomprehensible
Speaker 1: to me. I mean, they're they're they're executing so many
Speaker 1: commands per second that I can't Like, I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: where's my little guy who says hello when I click
Speaker 1: on it? And the meanwhile they've they've wiped out half
Speaker 1: my units, And I like, what happened. By the time
Speaker 1: that you find him, he'll be the only guy left. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm yeah. So StarCraft became a worldwide phenomenon and and
Speaker 1: it was a big hit when it launched. It it
Speaker 1: didn't it wasn't like a slow burn. It it took
Speaker 1: off pretty quickly, although it's popularity was grew exponentially once
Speaker 1: it went overseas. So in Blizzard announced Warcraft three. Now,
Speaker 1: originally Warcraft three was supposed to be a new type
Speaker 1: of game. It was supposed to be a role playing
Speaker 1: strategy game, not a real time strategy game. And the
Speaker 1: idea again because Blizzard was very much interested in the
Speaker 1: storytelling aspect of video games and conveying a kind of
Speaker 1: a tale to hell and that the the gamer is
Speaker 1: part of that story and helps generate that story. Um.
Speaker 1: They thought that this was going to be a really
Speaker 1: immersive game that would connect the player to the game
Speaker 1: in a way that had not been done in previous
Speaker 1: Warcraft games. So the announced in Unfortunately, really by the
Speaker 1: time it came out, I mean, although Warcraft three is
Speaker 1: an amazing game, it was not the same sort of
Speaker 1: game that they had talked about back in ninety nine
Speaker 1: when it finally debuted, because again, you know, they found
Speaker 1: what worked what didn't work, and they were not going
Speaker 1: to release a game that was just okay. They wanted
Speaker 1: it to be the best that could be based on
Speaker 1: their resources and their knowledge. I know, Warcraft three, if
Speaker 1: you've played the first two Warcraft games in StarCraft for
Speaker 1: that matter, um, StarCraft one, well we'll see somewhat familiar
Speaker 1: and somewhat unfamiliar because um and that where you could
Speaker 1: actually play, uh through a long game where you had
Speaker 1: many many scenarios, you were also required um and Warcraft
Speaker 1: three to take a turn with each of the races. UM.
Speaker 1: And again, Warcraft three took the StarCraft model where each
Speaker 1: of the races has a little bit of a different ability. Um,
Speaker 1: the things that work for night Elves won't necessarily work
Speaker 1: for you know, I'm dead. And they introduced the hero
Speaker 1: classes as well, so that changed things of the hero
Speaker 1: units rather. Yeah, and and there was a story that
Speaker 1: goes to the game. You start off with the human
Speaker 1: units and you're working there, uh with a prince who's
Speaker 1: your hero, leading your units through battle. And well, I
Speaker 1: won't have a story spoiler, but the story continues as
Speaker 1: you go through the other races. And I think it's
Speaker 1: more of at least in my opinion, it's more of
Speaker 1: a battle Neet type game where you're, um, yeah, you
Speaker 1: can play it, uh, just yourself, but the real value
Speaker 1: and that game is to play it online or with
Speaker 1: other people. Um, because it was really designed to be
Speaker 1: an expansive online, real time strategy as opposed to something
Speaker 1: that you spend hours trying to solve yourself. So between
Speaker 1: when they announced Warcraft three and when Warcraft three actually debuts,
Speaker 1: which is about three years. In that three year period,
Speaker 1: they're not just trying to create Warcraft three and and
Speaker 1: switching things around. They also in two thousand released Diablo two,
Speaker 1: which was again very hugel and and they started releasing
Speaker 1: expansion packs for their games, and those expansion packs were
Speaker 1: also very popular, and that's one of those things where,
Speaker 1: you know, Blizzard was one of the kind of pioneering
Speaker 1: companies to show that expansion packs could really help you
Speaker 1: extend the lifespan of a title and to really enhance
Speaker 1: the the player experience for those titles. It was like
Speaker 1: a win win for everybody. The players loved it because
Speaker 1: there was this game that they were truly emotionally invested
Speaker 1: in that they got to play more of, and the
Speaker 1: you know, of course Blizzard liked it because it meant
Speaker 1: more revenue coming in and they didn't without having to
Speaker 1: develop an entirely new game. You you develop an expansion
Speaker 1: pack that's built on the foundation of the game that
Speaker 1: it's expanding. But in a I'm sorry, go ahead, I
Speaker 1: was going to note that, according to Blizzard, UM, Diablo
Speaker 1: Too set a record at that time for the fastest
Speaker 1: selling PC game ever. Um. And then in two thousand one,
Speaker 1: when Diablo two, Lord of Destruction, the expansion pack was released,
Speaker 1: that sold more than a million copies in its first month.
Speaker 1: That's pretty impressive. Yeah, And uh, two thousand one was
Speaker 1: also when Blizzard went to the European Computer Trade Show
Speaker 1: and announced the development for a game that would take
Speaker 1: that kind of dwarfed the success of all the other
Speaker 1: games combined, ultimately called World of Warcraft. And this actually
Speaker 1: shocked people that Blizzard was going to get into the
Speaker 1: massively multiplayer online role playing game game because at that point,
Speaker 1: really there were there had only been two big m
Speaker 1: m O RPGs in North America at that point. There
Speaker 1: was Ultimate Online, which was kind of the first one,
Speaker 1: but by this time Ultimate Online Star was in serious decline,
Speaker 1: and there was ever Quest, which was a Sony property. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and ever Request was still going on strong, and people
Speaker 1: were a little skeptical that Blizzard could create a game
Speaker 1: that could compete against ever Quest. Now, granted this is
Speaker 1: two thousand one when they announced it. It wouldn't be
Speaker 1: till two thousand four when the game actually launches, So
Speaker 1: between two thousand and one and two thousand four there's
Speaker 1: massive development being put behind World of Warcraft. Also in
Speaker 1: two thousand two, there was another story about a failed
Speaker 1: attempt to bring another Blizzard game to market. In this
Speaker 1: case it was a console game. Yeah, they were the
Speaker 1: re emergency the console uh attempt. But also you can
Speaker 1: tell by this point that Blizzard gets the idea that
Speaker 1: their franchises. By expanding on their franchises, they can continue
Speaker 1: the success of these games and build the universe a
Speaker 1: little bit more each time. With each iteration, I believe
Speaker 1: you're talking about StarCraft Ghost. Yeah, StarCraft Ghost. This was
Speaker 1: supposed to be a first person for that. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be a first person shooter game, stealth game,
Speaker 1: so kind of like uh, you know games, other stealth
Speaker 1: games we can think of like um, the um except
Speaker 1: excepted skipped on my head. Let me try this again. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: StarCraft Ghost was StarCraft Ghost was a game based on
Speaker 1: a unit from the StarCraft series. The Ghost is a
Speaker 1: Terran unit that has the ability to use stealth technology
Speaker 1: to hide. Um. And I think the idea would be, uh,
Speaker 1: that you would be able to become one of these
Speaker 1: ghosts and sneak up on on your enemies and become
Speaker 1: essentially a sniper or sapper and get behind enemy lines
Speaker 1: and and do that which is you know, spy games
Speaker 1: are are always kind of fun because you have that
Speaker 1: element of I've got to be sneaky, I've gotta you know,
Speaker 1: hide out and and sneak up on the enemy and Uh, anyway,
Speaker 1: splinter cell splindor cell. Yeah. Um. So anyway, this is
Speaker 1: what I get for having four hours of sleep. Uh, kids,
Speaker 1: get your sleep. Um. Yeah. So they first partnered with Nihilistic.
Speaker 1: Nihilistic was a company that had created a game called
Speaker 1: Vampire the Masquerade, based off the role playing game of
Speaker 1: the same name. Uh, done by White Wolf Studios, if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, located of Stone Mountain, Georgia. Yeah. Nice
Speaker 1: guys over at White Wolf. I've I've met several of them.
Speaker 1: So they had created this game for uh called Vampire
Speaker 1: the Masquerade, and Nihilistic and Blizzard together we're going to
Speaker 1: try and bring StarCraft Goes to to market. But there
Speaker 1: were delays in the development process, and eventually, because Nihilistic
Speaker 1: had other contract obligations, uh, the partnership had to dissolve.
Speaker 1: So then Blizzard partnered with a different company called Swinging Ape. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They actually acquired Swinging Ape in on May sixteenth, two
Speaker 1: thousand five. Um. And that was the point, was that
Speaker 1: they were going to become the Calm Soul team and
Speaker 1: continue working on StarCraft Ghost. Yeah. Now, at the abandonment
Speaker 1: process was a long and painful one. First, Blizzard abandoned
Speaker 1: the plans to create a GameCube version of StarCraft Ghost.
Speaker 1: Then they abandoned the PS two and Xbox plans because
Speaker 1: at the point at that point, the next generation consoles
Speaker 1: were starting to come out, so now if they were
Speaker 1: going to develop it, they were going to have to
Speaker 1: develop it for the next generation ones, and it kind
Speaker 1: of those have kind of become vapor That game has
Speaker 1: become vaporware essentially. Yeah, it's it hasn't been, uh as
Speaker 1: far as I know, officially discontinued, but it's on an
Speaker 1: indefinite hiatus. So two thousand and four is when World
Speaker 1: of Warcraft officially launches, and it launch is late in
Speaker 1: two thousand four, but by January two five, it had
Speaker 1: sold over six hundred thousand units. So for an m
Speaker 1: m O RPG to sell that, that's pretty that's pretty
Speaker 1: significant because you've got to remember, a classic computer game,
Speaker 1: you plunk down your money, you've bought your game, you
Speaker 1: take it home, and you play it until you're either
Speaker 1: tired of it or you complete it, or maybe you
Speaker 1: never stopped playing it, maybe you just love it that much.
Speaker 1: But an MMO RPG is a continuing investment because you
Speaker 1: buy the game, and then you have to subscribe to
Speaker 1: the service to allow you to continue to play. So
Speaker 1: for it to make that many sales is pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: You know that it's they had Blizzard had really made
Speaker 1: a name for itself, and people trusted that name, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people bought it. And then again it
Speaker 1: used that sort of cartoonish style, not a cartoonish so
Speaker 1: much that it it was like off putting, but just
Speaker 1: a little bit of the cartoonish style that Blizzard had
Speaker 1: kind of developed over its ears as a game developer
Speaker 1: that really I think appealed to a wide audience. I
Speaker 1: think that uh, well, of course, Blizzards sort of has
Speaker 1: a signature style of art that they use, and I
Speaker 1: think that again Blizzard has enough of a sense of
Speaker 1: humor that the units can be have a cartoonish l
Speaker 1: man and it kind of softens the gore of all
Speaker 1: the slaying that goes on in the game because it's
Speaker 1: you know, a little a little quirky and a little
Speaker 1: uh softer and friendlier looking. Now, after the development was
Speaker 1: over for World War Crap, but before it had actually debuted,
Speaker 1: one of the three founders, Alan Adam, actually the guy
Speaker 1: who was the the lynch pen for the original Glue. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the glue that held the original team together left Blizzard,
Speaker 1: although he was still a consultant. Yeah, and and he's
Speaker 1: still I mean, if you watch the video like I
Speaker 1: said that I was talking about on on Blizzard site,
Speaker 1: he's featured very heavily in it, and he has nothing
Speaker 1: but good things to say about the company. So it's
Speaker 1: not like there was any bad feelings or anything. It
Speaker 1: may have just been that that was it was time
Speaker 1: to go. It was time to go, time to do
Speaker 1: something else like that. He had set out to create
Speaker 1: a successful video game company, he had done that and
Speaker 1: now was time to move on to the next next thing. So, um,
Speaker 1: the other two founders are still there at they still
Speaker 1: are working there. Um. And in two thousand five, Blizzard
Speaker 1: through the very first blizz Con, which is a game
Speaker 1: festival of gaming festival that that focuses on Blizzard titles,
Speaker 1: and so they'll have things like they'll have tournaments, and
Speaker 1: they have they'll they'll allow people to play demos of
Speaker 1: various games that haven't come out yet, and they'll have
Speaker 1: costume contests and a lot of the people that a
Speaker 1: lot of my professional peers love to go to blizz Con.
Speaker 1: I have never been. Uh frankly, I've I've played several
Speaker 1: Blizzard titles, but I've never gotten into World of Warcraft.
Speaker 1: So I'm not I'm not as heavily uh tied to
Speaker 1: the company as some of my friends are. But folks
Speaker 1: like Tom Marrin and Veronica Belmont, Scott Johnson, like all
Speaker 1: these these other podcasters and crazy people love to go there.
Speaker 1: So I love following Twitter during blizz Con because it
Speaker 1: is hysterical and awesome. I mean, you to see that
Speaker 1: kind of excitement behind game titles is always fun, right,
Speaker 1: And so, uh, two thousand five was the very first
Speaker 1: blizz Con, and they've just gotten larger and more elaborate
Speaker 1: every year. Uh and then in two thousand seven. Keep
Speaker 1: in mind, over all this time, Blizzard continues to release
Speaker 1: expansion packs. Yeah, there was one thing I wanted to
Speaker 1: mention that in August of two thousand five, August first,
Speaker 1: in fact, the Redwood City Studio closed. Um, just about
Speaker 1: everybody got moved to the Irvine, California office, which is
Speaker 1: where Blizzards based. Um, but they actually closed Blizzard North Studios,
Speaker 1: the actual building, and quite a few people left Blizzard
Speaker 1: North at that time to people who you know, left
Speaker 1: on their own to found other companies. But in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven, Vivendi, if you remember, that was the company
Speaker 1: that had purchased Sierra Online, and thus um um Blizzard
Speaker 1: Entertainment merged its game division with Activision, which then creates
Speaker 1: a new branch called Active Vision Blizzard, whis where we
Speaker 1: stand right now, although you never know by the time
Speaker 1: this podcast comes out. And of course Activision was was
Speaker 1: founded by former Atari people who had worked on titles
Speaker 1: for the and so then uh, they're old hands in
Speaker 1: the gaming business too. That's kind of bringing us up
Speaker 1: to date. StarCraft two came out in again massive massive hit.
Speaker 1: Another big expansion pack called Cataclysm came out for World
Speaker 1: of Warcraft, which which dramatically changed the game it was.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to be this this essentially a world
Speaker 1: altering event within the game world, so that places and
Speaker 1: and activities that had been familiar now suddenly weren't. Um
Speaker 1: it was and it was designed to be that. It
Speaker 1: was really designed to shake things up so that people
Speaker 1: have been playing the game forever would suddenly have new
Speaker 1: stuff to do, and it wouldn't just be like a
Speaker 1: new map that they could explore because they had reached
Speaker 1: you know, the level cap and and now they had
Speaker 1: nothing else to do. Um. And so that was a
Speaker 1: big deal when that came out. And uh, and this year,
Speaker 1: the game Diablo three is in beta. It's one of
Speaker 1: those those betas that people are really I can think
Speaker 1: of two games off the top of my head that
Speaker 1: have had gamers scrabbling at the chance to be in
Speaker 1: the beta. One of them is Diablo three, the other
Speaker 1: is The Old Republic. So those would be the two
Speaker 1: big games I would think of even that people are
Speaker 1: trying to get into. And Diablo three, of course, just
Speaker 1: has this huge history behind it and uh, and people
Speaker 1: are eager to play a new Diablo game. I mean
Speaker 1: it's been years since Diablo two came out, so um,
Speaker 1: that's something that's going on right now. And something that
Speaker 1: happened earlier the week that we're recording this podcast I
Speaker 1: thought was interesting is that Blizzard auctioned off some of
Speaker 1: the original server blades from its first server for World
Speaker 1: of Warcraft. Um, and they auctioned it off in a
Speaker 1: charity auction that would benefit St. Jude. St Jude Children's
Speaker 1: Research Hospital. So that was kind of cool that you
Speaker 1: know this, This piece of video game computer game history
Speaker 1: went on sale in order to benefit a charity. Um.
Speaker 1: And also there's I should add that there is the
Speaker 1: rumor it's not so much a rumor, it's just in
Speaker 1: development limbo of a Warcraft movie. Oh, interesting World of
Speaker 1: Warcraft movie. And and Sam Raimi is uh is inked
Speaker 1: to direct this film should it ever actually get into
Speaker 1: true development. Uh so Sam Ramy of course famous for
Speaker 1: the documentary Evil did Ah. And uh of course the
Speaker 1: blizz con announcements this year included, uh, the Defense of
Speaker 1: the Ancients game called Blizzard Doda d o t A
Speaker 1: being Defense the Ancients um. And also a couple of
Speaker 1: expansion packed StarCraft too Hard of the Swarm and there's
Speaker 1: going to be new units in that apparently, and uh
Speaker 1: what World of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria, which features a
Speaker 1: new monk unit and creators that are Pandas Apparently, if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, this actually started as a joke, and
Speaker 1: uh they decided to go all out with it and
Speaker 1: make an expansion. So again, I hope I love that
Speaker 1: about Blizzard. I hope would they attack now? Actually the
Speaker 1: Pandarin Race apparently debuted long time before uh Kung Fu
Speaker 1: Panda did, so I maintain my statement. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: but Blizzard has has really set itself apart, not just
Speaker 1: for the quality of its games, but for its willingness
Speaker 1: to add a little humor and mix it up in
Speaker 1: their plus uh um. I've always found it kind of
Speaker 1: nice that they released a Mac version of the game,
Speaker 1: you know, long before OS ten, back when Apple was
Speaker 1: considered a a a very an endangered species of computer.
Speaker 1: They were, but Blizzard was still releasing the Warcraft and
Speaker 1: StarCraft and Diablo games for the older versions of the
Speaker 1: Mac os and I always you know, it seems like
Speaker 1: they're not afraid to take chances with things and just
Speaker 1: to get a few, you know, to give other people
Speaker 1: an opportunity to to play the games. So they're one
Speaker 1: of my favorites. It's a pretty remarkable company as as
Speaker 1: video game companies go. And I'm curious to see, you know,
Speaker 1: how things pan out in the future. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: that World of Warcraft will continue to be a juggernaut.
Speaker 1: Uh And I'm really curious to see what their next
Speaker 1: totally new product will be. There's there's a a rumor
Speaker 1: about something called Titan and I'm not certain whether or
Speaker 1: not that is a tie into something else. So well,
Speaker 1: that's kind of where we are today, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: wrap up this discussion about Blizzard. If you guys have
Speaker 1: any companies you would like us to to highlight, or
Speaker 1: people within tech, or if you just always wondered how
Speaker 1: something works and you really wanted us to talk about it,
Speaker 1: let us know. You can email us. Our address is
Speaker 1: tech stuff at how stuff Works dot com, or you
Speaker 1: can let us know on ebook for Twitter are handled
Speaker 1: there as tech Stuff H s W and Chris and
Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon. Okay. Be
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