I started this book late November last year and I finished it yesterday on April 7th, so it took me about 5 months to finish this book (wow). I’ll have text blurbs for interesting ideas from the book rather than serving as a chronological summary. Also, this will be one of the longer summaries, most of my summaries in the future will likely only be a couple paragraphs or so.

Early Years at Blizzard

• 1991: Blizzard was founded as Silicon and Synapse by Allen Adham and Mike Morhaime, graduates from UCLA.

• Taking contracts from Interplay with assistance from Brian Fargo but created their first game, Warcraft, as a multiplayer fantasy variant of Dune II.

• Warcraft II emphasized approachability and depth for the sequel and was the first big success, selling 1 million copies, as well as establishing the company structure of QA teams.

• Diablo was developed by a separate studio (Condor) as a contract.

• Compensation was continually stifled and there was continual crunch.

• Starcraft was a massive success, in particular benefitting from internet infrastructure being built in Thailand and South Korea and the start of PC Cafes.

• Blizzard attempted to make a point and click adventure Warcraft game but canceled it, even after bringing in Steve Meretzky, the legendary designer behind adventure games like Sorceror and Zork Zero.

Before Overwatch

• World of Warcraft

  • It was based off the successful EverQuest MMORPG.
  • Relied on homegrown talent from QA/testers
  • Inspired early internet memes and forming a collaboration with South Park.

• Failure of Titan

  • 2008: development began as a new MMORPG, combining FPS game with sim game.
  • FPS portion was prelude to Overwatch which was a grand success for Blizzard, though not completely satisfying Kotich

• Heartstone

  • The game idea was incubated by a smaller team (as other developers shifted to work on battle.net)
  • An unexpected hit

• Diablo 3: launch missteps and the auction house was improperly done

  • Financial people at the game recommended that they don’t overcharge so monetization serves players well - this never happened at the company again
  • Reaper of Souls fixed the game up
  • Morhaime’s regret: not continuing to support the game

• Heroes of the Storm

  • DotA was a custom map in Warcraft III, developed by Icefrog, foucsed on singular units rather than commanding many
    • Valve contacted the developer and helped create DotA 2
  • Riot Games created League of Legends as another game based on that mode
  • The first time Blizzard missed the boat

• Battle.net

  • Pat Wyatt came up a novel idea: to provide free online infrastructure for Diablo and Starcraft,
    • Mike Morhaime approved, wanting to serve the players right.
  • He thought of a lucrative, industry-changing initiative: to turn Battle.net into a digital store for a variety of PC games instead of just Blizzard’s (this was shot down by executives who wanted to focus on Blizzard).
  • Big mistake in retrospect

Parental struggle for Blizzard

• Initially owned by Davidsons and Associates (an educational game company) which was bought by CUC (a consumer services conglomerate)
  • That company committed substantial financial fraud (overstating merger reserves that were reported as earnings).
• 1997: Blizzard was sold to publisher Havas which was itself purchased by Vivendi
• 2008: Activision merged itself with Vivendi Games, with Kotich leveraging his connections at JP Morgan and making the debt into shares to gain ownership
• 2023: Microsoft buys Activision-Blizzard after turmoil from sexual assault scandals

Esports

• After Starcraft took off in Korea, KESPA was founded to handle licensing for the sport
  • contentious meetings between Blizzard and KESPA - ‘you’re the ball’
• For Starcraft II, Starcraft reached an agreement with the organization.
• Overwatch emphasized esports with a professional league owned and operated by Blizzard.
  • Blizzard was interested in investing in Twitch but hesitated, leading Amazon to take the company.
  • OVerwatch also introduced lootboxes (1 billion in revenue)
  • They charged $20 million per franchise (Kotich pushed the number so high to get the interest of billionaire sports teams owners to invest)
    • Got owners of NFL teams (ex. Robert Kraft) to invest
    • Overwatch League was different in that the organization was set up to give Blizzard money
• However, game updates were slow and Team 4 resisted commercialization (including sponsorships)
• Overwatch 2, with most of its development focused on a PvE mode rather than the main PvP mode, came out half-baked.
• The pandemic and the switch to YouTube were the final nails in the coffin, with the league ending in 2023

Clashes between Activision and Blizzard

• Bobby Kotich grew up always interested in generating profits (with smaller businesses when he was younger)

• He and his roommate took a look at Mediagenic, started to fail despite creating hits long ago.

  • Kotich acquired the company, renamed it to its old name Activision, and was ruthless, heavily rewarding and punishing the people there.

• Brought in Armin Zerzha who was hated at Blizzard, fixated on profits

  • He eventually became CFO

• Blizzards culture contrasted as letting games simmer and given the proper time. This contrasted heavily with Ac culture.

• Activision’s corporatization of Blizzard

  • Stack ranking introduced.
  • Profit-sharing weighted toward hit games
  • There was still a Blizzard “tax”: High prestige, low pay.
  • QA and testers underpaid, overworked.

Cultural Issues

• Frat-like - company retreats to Las Vegas for partying, alcohol and blurred personal-professional boundaries
• Emphasized a blurring of lines in terms of personal life and corporate life
• Women pushed out and not in leadership
• 2023 - California Lawsuit
  • While mildly inaccurate, it highlighted sexist behavior at the company (example, a manager hitting on his suboordinate)
  • WSJ article - Kotich sent email dismissing the lawsuit and saved a COD producer after an investigation suggested that he should be fired

Microsoft Acquisition

• $69 billion - October 13, 2023
  • FTC’s lawsuit failed after Xbox promised COD on PS
• Leadership - Mike Ybarra as President and Xbox’s Matt Booty - emphasized hands off approach
  • Layoffs after and Adham’s two projects cancelled, so he left the company (all founders gone)

Timeline

• 1991 - Founded
• 1994 - Warcraft: Orcs and Humans
• 1995 - Warcraft II
• 1997 - Diablo
• 1998 - Starcraft
• 2000 - Diablo II
• 2004 - World of Warcraft
• 2010 - Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
• 2012 - Diablo III
• 2014 - Heartstone
• 2016 - Overwatch
• 2022 - Diablo Immortal
• 2022 - Overwatch 2
• 2023 - Diablo 4