Blizzard Meltdown

So in our last episode, which was longer for me than for you because I had a week of vacation between that episode and this one, I ended that episode just as Blizzard was launching what would become one of its major successes. In fact, it's biggest success, the m m O RPG, World of Warcraft. Now, I figured before I go on, it would help to explain what an m m O RPG is for those of you who may not know. So those letters stand for massively multiplayer

online role playing game. That helps break it down when you look at it that way. It's massively multiplayer because every server which you connect to over the Internet, that's the online parts, So that part sinking care of. But every server could have up to thousands of players on it um. The early version of World of Warcraft had servers that supported between around to players, at least according

to most accounts. I couldn't find an official Blizzard source that nailed it down, but somewhere between players per server. Later versions of World of Warcraft would hike that number up further, and private servers could potentially hold more players, but there's a diminishing returns problem because an overloaded server would not run the game as smoothly and could have

stability issues. On top of that, Blizzard runs this game on hundreds of servers, and Blizzard calls them realms, which means you and your fellow gamers would have to choose which one of your characters will um live on whichever realm so as you could all play together. You know, if you were on one realm and your friends were in a different realm, you would be in different instances of these fantasy worlds, so you wouldn't be able to

interact with each other. The worlds would all be the same, but you wouldn't be in the same instance, so you had to make sure you were all picking the same

server to play on. Role playing games, for their part, they involve a player taking on the role of a character, so to some degree you could argue that all games in which you control some sort of avatar are a type of role playing game, but stuff like simple arcade games like you know, Mario Brothers or something, or action adventure games like tomb Raider have some limited role playing,

but it's very limited. You're really just controlling a digital character to maneuver through some sort of environment in those games. Role playing games generally have you taken on more of the digital avatar's actions, including stuff that isn't so pivotal, like jumping or attacking or something. And some people take this further than others. They will type out and chat using character appropriate phrasing and language, and so they're actually acting out a role. In fact, there are some servers

that were better known for that kind of play. Other types of players find that kind of behavior really cringeworthy, and they'll just chat and modern language and slang. They'll use you know, abbreviations and stuff to communicate things quickly to each other, using it more as a strategy game, and looking at the game is sort of a series of achievements to to accomplish, and not so much of playing out a role. Now. I'm not saying either version

of gameplay is better or worse than the other. They're just different and they appeal to different types of gamers. I certainly have been the type who have enjoyed role playing games where I play a role, But I've also been the type who have I've seen some very awkward examples of that, and I have wanted to avoid it, So I get both schools of thought. Now, these games typically have missions in the form of quests that are handed out by n PC's or non player characters. These

are computer controlled characters. Players can also join with other like minded players to form their own groups or guilds, and they can go on coordinated missions or raids together. They can also wage war against players from opposing factions. So m m O RPGs present a real challenge to game developers because, on the one hand, you want players to feel as though their actions matter, and it sort of breaks the illusion that you're inhabiting a fantasy world.

If you, for example, you just finish a quest to return I don't know a frying pan to an elf, and then that elf turns around and offers that same lost frying pan quest to the person who's standing right next to you in the game, that kind of breaks

the illusion because you literally just did that. But on the other hand, you can't really let the world change that much because not everyone in the game world would be there at the same time, right, so they wouldn't see the world change until they logged in again, and then suddenly there would be content that would be unavailable to them because the world had literally changed at that point. New players should get the same chance to experience content

the way everyone else does. Now, most of the time, m m O RPGs air on the side of making sure everyone gets a chance to play the game the

same way. That means that the game world tends to be pretty static from day to day, with some minor changes, like World of Warcraft in particular changes throughout the year to reflect certain seasonal things like around Halloween, you'll see some seasonally appropriate stuff appearing in the game, but otherwise the game world doesn't really change that much unless there's a major expansion rolled out, and that is one way that game developers can make big changes to the world.

They can release expansion packs. World of Warcraft has done this multiple times, and in some cases has made truly dramatic changes to the online world in the process. The mythical World and World of Warcraft is called as a roth, and the game's events generally take place a few years after the events that were depicted in the real time strategy game Warcraft three, So that story ends and then you typically here that four years later you've got the

events of World of Warcraft. Early on, when the game was first released, players had access to two continents that they could explore, but later expansion packs increase the game areas dramatically and then transformed some of the existing ones quite extensively. Players could choose to play as one of several races of beings, which in turn determined which faction they belonged to. So in the original game, you could be human dwarf or a night elf uh or Gnome

and that represented the Alliance faction. Or you could play as an orc, a troll, a turn which is a humanoid with bull like features, sort of like a minotaur uh and the or minatar if you prefer, and or the Forsaken, which were a race of undead creatures. They made up a faction called the Horde, and they still do.

The choice of Alliance versus Hoarde determines lots of stuff, not just who your allies are and who your enemies are, but also which areas of the map you are able to explore, and which quests will be available to you, and which bits of lore you will encounter as you play through the game. Later expansion packs would increase the number of races players would have access to, as well as the types of classes you could play, so not just your race, you also have to determine what class

you are. This is sort of like what type or occupation your character has, so a player of either faction could become either a druid, a hunter, a major, a priest, a rogue, a warlock, or a warrior. And in addition, alliance players could be a paladin and Hoarde players could be a shaman. Again, later expansion packs would increase the number of playable classes, so for a monthly fee, players can create a character and go on quests throughout a

persistent online world. They can form alliances with other players, and they can unlock the somewhat complicated and frankly confusing story of asar Roth. Now I say confusing only because I never really got into these games, so I didn't get an introduction, and by now the lore is so deep that I can't really suss out what it means. Blizzard executives hope that the company would be able to sell around four hundred thousand copies of the game within

its first year of release. They thought, if we can sell four hundred thousand copies in the United States eights, then this will be a viable business and we can run the game. They actually managed to hit four hundred thousand copies within the first month. That far outperformed their hopes. Of course, that also meant that they had to quickly ramp up more servers to host games because they were

starting to fill up to capacity pretty quickly. That's not a bad problem to have, except in those cases where players who were joining the game relatively late, we're having trouble linking up with friends because their friends were on more crowded servers and there was no availability for them to log into those same servers. The later expansions, by the way, include here are all the names. The Burning Crusade,

Wreath of the Lynch King Cataclysm. That's the one that really dramatically changed the online world and made new areas accessible while eliminating some traditional areas in the base game. Mists of Pandaria, Warlords of dran Our Legion, Battle of Azaroth, and then there's the upcoming shadow Lands expansion. I'm not going to go into all of these because honestly, I could do a full episode just dedicated to World of Warcraft and all these different expansions, but that's really going

too far. But this was generally away for Blizzard Entertainment to provide ongoing content for dedicated players who might otherwise have experienced pretty much everything the base game had to offer. I mean, if you have advanced your character to as maximum a level as is allowable in the game, and you've pretty much explored the whole world, you might not

have any reason to keep playing that game. And this is one of the major differences between an m m O RPG and a standalone game, right because with a traditional standalone game, the old style standalone games, you would go out and purchase the game and that would be it. You would play the game, and you play it as long as you wanted, and maybe you finish it, maybe you don't, whatever, but you've already purchased it. You've you've laid down your money, and that is the end of

the revenue stream in that traditional app coach. Companies like Blizzard began to develop expansion titles to generate additional revenue. Right, you would expand the base game, and typically those expansions required the player to own the original copy of the game itself. So in those cases, you would sell the base game to players. They hopefully love the game, they want more of it, So you create an expansion that

keeps those players happy. They stay in the game world they love, and they get to play more content, and they buy the expansion. That's the most important part. They put down new money to keep playing the game they've already played. Plus you might even attract new players to your game. But those folks have to buy both the expansion and the original game if they want to get all the content. They can't just buy the expansion because the expansion is built on top of the existing game.

So with an m m O RPG, you also have a monthly subscription fee, and that is a healthy stream of revenue coming into the company. At its peak, World of Warcraft had about twelve million active player accounts around the world. When it originally launched, the base game of World of Warcraft cost about fifty dollars, and there was also a collector's edition if you wanted to pony up eighty bucks a princely Some either version of those games included a one month subscription, but after that month you

would have to subscribe at one of three plans. The month to month plan, where you're just paying for each month of service as you're playing, was fifteen dollars every month. A three month package would knock that down to being equivalent to about fourteen dollars per month, and if you committed to six months of a package it would be it would even out to more like thirteen dollars per month. So you know, you buy in bulk and you save money.

I guess. The game was a huge hit, and so every month those subscriptions were rolling in as additional revenue. But it was also clear that Blizzard would need to keep adding or content to keep the players engaged or else they were likely to become bored and disenchanted and walk away once their subscription lapsed, and that's where those expansions came in. The first one, the Burning Crusade, launched three years after the base game it launched in two

thousand seven. Blizzard had announced it way back in October two thousand five and intended to launch it earlier, but as is the case with Blizzard, they wanted to make sure that the expansion was absolutely as good as it could be before they pushed it out the door, so they delayed its launch in order to make sure that it was right. This is one of those things about Blizzard that becomes like a an ongoing thing with that company.

They frequently would delay launches in order to try and get something just right, and I think more often than not that ended up benefiting the company, because while it is frustrating to see a launch date get pushed back, it's way more frustrated to get a broken game and have to wait for something to get patch so it's playable. The expansion, The Burning Crusade, sold two point four million

copies in the first twenty four hours. Not keep in mind the original game sold four hundred thousand copies in the first month. This expansion sold two point four million copies in twenty four hours. It broke PC game sale records back in uh those days, so it was the fastest selling PC game at that time. Now, like the base game, players would have to cough up some dough to buy this expansion pack like thirty bucks, and then they would also then have to maintain their subscription to

continue playing the game. In two thousand and eleven, Blizzard chose to roll in all the content from the Burning Crusade into the base game, so if you went and bought World of Warcraft from two thousand eleven on, the Burning Crusade was included with it, you wouldn't have to go out and purchase the expansion pack, and this would be the start of a trend that the company would follow over time, leading up to the present practice where the base game includes all of the previous expansion packs

except for whatever is the most recent one, and that one you would have to purchase to get access to that, but everything else would already be included in the base game. In two thousand eighteen, the company also made the base game free to all players, so you don't even have to buy World of Warcraft anymore. You can play the game for free, or at least you can get access to the game for free, but you have to pay for the monthly subscription so that you can actually continue

to play the game. So if you wanted to play World of Warcraft right now, you would not have to buy the base game. You would just have to pay for the monthly subscription to be able to do so. Blizzard also let players advance up to level twenty without having to subscribe to the game, giving players a taste, maybe just enough to get hooked before the players would hit a level cap that they could not go beyond

without subscribing to the full game. Another thing Blizzard introduced in World of Warcraft were micro transactions, which really got started back in two thousand nine. The company allowed players to spend real world money, you know, cash money, to buy in game pets for their characters, and the pets were cosmetic additions that meant that they didn't change the game play at all. They didn't give advantages to players.

They're just sort of cute additions to the game. And this was when a player could opt to have a Pandaran monk with a Pandaran is sort of an anthropomorphic panda. You could have that as a pet, which is a bit weird because later on, in another expansion, The Mists of Pandaria, you could play as a Pandaran. Yikes. Later on, Blizzard would introduce many other potential micro transactions, and the

company didn't do this, you know, universally. Uh, some in game items were only sold in certain markets, such as Asia. Asia had consumables in World of Warcraft that they could purchase, but in other markets that was not an option. So it Blizzard was kind of weighing out where these strategies would work best, and uh, you know, maximizing that revenue the expansion packs and micro transactions would become an enormous sea change in the world of video games. Developing games

is expensive. One estimate for the cost of developing World of Warcraft, the base game of World of Warcraft was around sixty five million dollars to develop that game, and of course, businesses exist in order to create profits, so business owners are always interested in finding new ways to generate streams of revenue. When it's done well, then it can enhance the experience of a game, and players typically are are happy to get more of what they love.

When it's done poorly, it creates a sense that you have to pay to win the game, and that players who have more cash to burn end up with an unfair advantage over everyone else who might really be into the game, but they might not have the spare change

to buy all the do Dads and nick next. Interestingly, this tied back to an idea that the original Diablo team had if you remember from my previous episodes, and that concept players would end up buying a physical CD that would contain in game items that they could use to enhance their characters, like weapons and armor and that kind of stuff. This was early enough that delivering stuff

digitally online wasn't as popular as using physical media. People still went out and bought CDs, and some people still do, but it's increasingly rare and now it's almost all digital delivery. Well. Ultimately, the Diablo team did not pursue that strategy, which was probably for the best, since the rampant cheating in that

game would have made that additional material moot Anyway. Recently, Blizzard Entertainment released World of Warcraft Classic, which updates many things about the original game, but brings back the game world and the quests the players could find if they had logged in way back in two thousand four when the game for launched. The version of World Warcraft UH is now running parallel to, but but separate from, the ongoing official World of Warcraft game that has evolved over

the course of all those expansion sets. So now you've got two flavors of World of Warcraft. You've got the one that has evolved over the time since two thousand four with all those expansion packs, and you have World of Warcraft Classic. That is the way the game came out originally, with some enhancements thrown in, and it's a nod to those loyal fans of the series who missed the good old days of the original World of Warcraft.

The games subscription fees and the number of active players means that a rough estimate of the revenue generated by this game is at its peak around a billion dollars per year, which is crazy. Uh. That number has fluctuated over time. It peaked at twelve million, and it went into decline afterward, but it's still an incredibly popular M M O RPG and still a healthy moneymaker for Blizzard. All right. So that's our basic rundown on World of Warcraft.

And of course we could spend a lot more time going over all of the details, but instead I'm going to take a quick break and then get back to what was happening to the company in general over the last decade or so. So let's take a quick break. The enormous early success of World of Warcraft had a downside because it meant that projects like StarCraft two and Diablo three would actually receive less attention so that Blizzard

could cater to the Wow community World of Warcraft community. Then, if you listen to my last episode, you know that two major camps from Blizzard North that was the team responsible for creating Diablo and Diablo two. Two camps had split off from Blizzard North to form new video game development studios, and that left the Blizzard North team severely understaffed and without key leadership. Diablo three, as a result,

was floundering in development. The art design was stuck at least a generation behind, the team was having trouble creating a good game, and Blizzards new owner Vivendi was still kind of a scary shadow over the whole company. So ultimately, the leaders at Blizzards South decided that to make games up to the standards of Blizzard, they needed to be able to oversee the whole process that and they couldn't really do that from southern California for a team that

was located in the Bay Area in northern California. This is exactly the kind of thing that Blizzard North was trying to protect itself from in its early days. And so with all those considerations, Blizzard South decided to shut down Blizzard North, and that was the branch that had formerly been known as on Door. So Blizzard South offered jobs to the team's up at Blizzard North. They said, you can still work for Blizzard, but to do it,

you're gonna have to move down to southern California. So some people, but not everybody, took them up on that offer. So that meant that it would almost be an entirely new team working on Diablo three, and as part of that, they decided to start over from scratch, so that's set that project back considerably. In October two thousand five, Blizzard

hosted the first blizz Con in Anaheim, California. This was a convention for fans of the company's games, so attendees got early looks at games and development, including StarCraft Ghost, which would ultimately be canceled, so some people got a chance to kind of get some hands on time with

early builds of games that just never came out. They attended presentations that were given by Blizzard employees about the games and the lore around the games, the art design, all that kind of stuff, and the company would hold another one in two thousand seven. So between two thousand and five and two thousand seven was the year. Two thousand and six. There was no blizz Con that year, but from two thousand seven onward it would become an

annual event. It became so popular and so useful that eventually Blizzard decided that in two thousand nine it wouldn't go to E three anymore. It didn't need to because it had its own promotional event with a very engaged group of of users. The community of Blizzard was really passionate about this, so why would they go to E three where they would just be another company competing for

attention from press and retailers. And we've seen other companies follow blizzards lead, and many of them now hold their own events and either they also attend E three or they skip E three entirely. Uh. Their events tend to be a little less elaborate than blizz Con tends to be, so they don't tend to be full on conferences the way blizz Con is, but they are similar in effect, and that it's a company holding its own event on

its own terms instead of sticking with the three. In two thousand six, the year without a blizz Con, Blizzard made another big announcement. The studio revealed that it had entered into a project with the movie studio Legendary Pictures

for the purposes of developing a Warcraft motion picture. Now, the original plan was to script and shoot a movie in time for a two thousand nine release, and this whole move to doing a film wasn't that surprising because since two thousand Blizzard had been publishing novels that were set in the Warcraft universe, and they were also exploring

opportunities and other media like comic books. So the original plan was that Sam Ramy, who had just recently finished directing Spider Man two, to come over and direct the Warcraft movie. However, like some other Blizzard projects, this one hit more than a few snags in development and would not launch in two thousand nine. There were issues with the script and there was a real struggle to turn the film into something other than just another generic fantasy epic.

The Lord of the Rings films had set a pretty high bar, and there was a real danger of being viewed as sort of a copycat of that franchise. So as time went on, Sam Raimi would leave the project to pursue other opportunities, and Duncan Jones, the son of David Bowie, signed on to direct the Warcraft movie. Jones worked with Blizzard to create a new script, reportedly because he felt that the initial draft fell into the cliche of humans are the good guys Orcs are the bad guys,

and they fight. He wanted there to be more ambiguity in the story and for both sides to have motivations that the audience could get behind. Actually, ultimately some critics would say that the Orcs got a much deeper presentation than the humans did, and so almost aired on the flip side of what Jones was concerned about. Now, all of this meant that the movies released was delayed multiple times.

It missed the initial plan to premiere in two thousand nine, it missed another date in two thousand and eleven, and Blizzard remained tight lipped about the film for a good long while. Like after they announced it, they didn't really talk about it so much. But while progress was slow and intermittent, it was at least happening, and in two thousand sixteen, the movie was finally ready for audiences, a decade after it's been announced, and a hundred sixty million

dollars reportedly for the budget. It's global box office got a little close to half a billion dollars, but it was still largely viewed as a commercial failure. It actually made less than fifty million dollars in the United States. Now, I cannot comment on the quality of the movie because I never saw it, But on rotten Tomatoes it has a twenty eight percent approval rating, meaning it's a rotten film.

But just a quick reminder for you guys, on rotten Tomatoes does not mean that the movie is way worse than say, a different movie that got a forty percent rating, because the percentage doesn't actually tell you how good or bad a film is. Rather, it tells you the percentage of critics who gave the film either a positive or

a negative review. And these are critics that Rotten Tomatoes recognizes as legitimate critics, So it's not all critics, it's a selection of them, And it's really more like saying around thirty of the critics who reviewed the film gave it a mediocre to positive response, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the movie is objectively better or worse than other movies that have similar scores, or even scores that

are slightly higher slightly lower. Also, I should add that the audience score for the film is much higher at seventy six percent. So the critics weren't thrilled with it, but you know, audiences seemed to be more positive about the whole thing. Now, considering Blizzard Entertainment's reputation for highly produced cut scenes and video games, some of which featured animation that could easily rival that of the c g I you found in feature films, I'm sure this came

as a major disappointment to the company. It's still exceeded the performance of most other video game film adaptations, but that bar wasn't set terribly high to begin with. I mean, just watch the Super Mario Brothers movie, so maybe that wasn't such a stretch goal. The critical consensus was that the movie was just too deeply mired in mythology that might be familiar to hardcore warcraft players but not to anyone else, and so there are entire sequences that were

inscrutable and absurd to someone just viewing the material. For the first time. While Duncan Jones expressed a desire to continue the storyline in two thousand eighteen, he we did that such a possibility was at best unlikely. Okay, so let's rewind again to two thousand seven, and you may wonder why I'm not talking about other games that Blizzard

was making right now. That's because Blizzard was really dedicating the vast majority of its focus on World of Warcraft, which again makes sense when you realize how that game was responsible for the financial performance of the company overall. So two thousand seven would be a really big year for Blizzard. Part of that was because they launched the Burning Crusade, which was the World of Warcraft first expansion

pack that year. Another reason was that the World of Warcraft game would hit eight point five million subscribers, big milestone. Blizzard also announced that StarCraft two would officially become a thing in two thousand seven, and they did that during their third Worldwide Invitational event, as an event that takes place in South Korea, where StarCraft competition is huge. But above all of that was another big corporate move outside

of Blizzards direct control. So Vivendi, the parent company, announced that it was going into a merger deal with the video game company Activision, and that would happen towards the end of two thousand seven when they announced this. The actual acquisition happened into two thousand eight. So Activision and

Vivindi Games, the division of Vindy that was all about games. Obviously, they would come together and they would form a new kind of parent company, publishing company really, and it was going to be called Activision Blizzard, non Activision Vivendi Activision Blizzard. That's how much clout Blizzard had. They could demand that

their name would get equal billing with Activision. So this new company would still trade on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange under the Activision ticker of a t v I, and the merger would make Activision Blizzard the world's largest video game publisher. Activision was writing high at that time from

the release of Call of Duty for Modern Warfare. Vivendi Games was enjoying the tremendous financial success of World of Warcraft, and the company, Vivendi Games had a value of eight point one billion dollars at that time, and according to UH a lot of sources, they would contribute about one point seven billion dollars towards this acquisition deal. So when you lump that cash offering along with the value of the company, that comes up to nine point eight billion dollars.

That's a lot of cheddar right there, A princely some if ever there was one. In return, Vivendi would get a fifty two steak in Activision Blizzard. Activisions CEO, a guy named Bobby Kodik would head up the new company, and the two companies completed the acquisition. As I said in two thousand eight, now skipping ahead a bit just

to stick with this particular part of the story. About six years later, Codek would lead an investment group to purchase most of the fifty of the ownership from the Vindy, and they did it with an offer of eight point two billion dollars. Now, remember Vivendi Games when it went into this acquisition was worth eight point one So they offer eight point two billion dollars and buy back most

of that steak. The Vendi would still hold on to a little bit more of its ownership of Activision Blizzard, but it did divest itself of those shares in two future transactions. One happened in two thousand fourteen and one for two thousand sixteen, and together they accounted for about two billion dollars combined um, which I realized I just

said in a redundant and repetitive way. I just want to reiterate that, as Brendan Sinclair of Games Industry dot Biz would observe, that would mean that the Vendi itself would effectively hand over nine point eight billion dollars that would be the value of the company and the cash they paid during the acquisition, and in return ten years later it would net ten point one five billion dollars.

That's a net gain of around three hundred fifty million bucks, which is a princely sum, but it represents just a three point five percent gain in value over a decade, Whereas if you had just purchased shares in the company back when the acquisition happened and sat on them and then sold them when Vivendi sold off the final shares, you would have seen a return of three hundred sixties seven percent. So not a great move on Vivindy's part.

They made this decision, by the way, because the company, Vivendi, was in thirteen billion dollars of debt around that time, so they needed to be able to sell off assets in order to settle some of that debt. Now, granted, none of that is really a concern for Blizzard the video game development company. It was more of a questionable mark on Blizzards parent company and the decisions of its

executive team, up being Vindi Games. As for Blizzard, the company was able to operate almost as if it were an independent studio even under this merger because the revenue was bringing in made it an incredibly valuable asset, so it just made sense not to mess with it too much.

So while Activision Blizzard would publish the games, Blizzard the development company, because it's a different thing, would otherwise operate without too much interference from anyone higher up on the chain, at least for the time being, because Blizzard had that

much clout. In two thousand and eight, it was more Warcraft, with music from the game's becoming tracks on iTunes and the second expansion for Wow, that being Wrath of the lich King that launched at the end of two thousand eight, and like its predecessor, the expansion pack broke PC sales records for most copies sold within twenty four hours, and around that time, while hit a subscription base of eleven

million players almost at its peak. Blizzard would not release another title until and that's when StarCraft two Wings of Liberty finally came out, twelve years after the original title had published way back in now. Along with the game, Blizzard released an updated version of its battle Net service. Eventually, Blizzard would update battle nets so that it was sort of a universal log in for all Blizzard games, including World of Warcraft. Eager gamers Zurg rushed the stores to

get their copies of StarCraft two. Oh and you know what, I never even talked about the Zurg rush and the previous episode, but I guess I should because it's a meme that goes beyond the games itself. So here we go.

So in the StarCraft games, one of the three faction or races that you can control as a player are an insectoid race called the Zerg z e r G. An early unit that you can produce with the Zurg are these zurg Lings, which are not terribly powerful, but if you're fast, if you're really a fast player, you can produce a whole bunch of them early on in

the game. So there's a tactic that was really developed in South Korea where StarCraft is a popular sport, and that tactic is to produce as many Zurglings as you possibly can early in the game, and then you send them to overwhelm and wipe out an opponent while your opponent is still just getting set up. It's called a zerg rush. Also in the lore is that Korean players who use this tactic would end up responding to opponents.

Their opponents would cry out an alarm, they say, oh my god, zurg rush, and the South Koreans would respond with key ki ki k e k e k e. That's similar to how you would write l O l O l L, you know, laugh out loud, over and over lola la la uh. And it was meant to convey a kind of mischievous chuckle. The meme got popular enough for Google to use it in an Easter egg

in two thousand twelve. And if you search the term zerg rush and Google to get a little playable game in which lower case oh letters start to come out and destroy all your search results. It's adorable anyway. The general reception was that StarCraft two was more than worth the weight it delivered upon its promise. The game was set just a few years after the events of the StarCraft brood War expansion packs, So even though the actual game came out twelve years later, it was set four

years later. It would be followed by three expansion packs of its own, the first two of which gave more in depth treatment to one of the three factions in the game. The Human faction was actually taken care of in the initial release of the base game, which, you know. Typical critics loved the game. They said it was one of the best RTS titles for the PC. Ever. Now, when we come back, I'm going to catch you up on what's been going on since StarCraft two with Blizzard Entertainment.

But first let's take another quick break. StarCraft two debuted in mid Blizzard Entertainment put out another expansion for World of Warcraft in eleven, but otherwise no new titles in Blizzard published Diablo three to great anticipation, and once again the company saw one of its titles break records for the most copies sold within twenty four hours. Now, as I mentioned earlier, this version of Diablo three was different

from what the creators of Diablo had originally intended. The leaders behind the Diablo franchise had not been part of Blizzard since two thousand three, when they all left in mass and UH and Blizzard North, the studio that had actually developed Diablo and Diablo two ceased to exist in two thousand five. So the team that built Diablo three included some folks who were famous for working on other

big games for different companies. For example, Leonard Boyarski, who worked as a head designer on the game, had been one of the original creators for the game series Fallout. And there was also j Wilson, who worked on titles like Company of Heroes and Warhammer for d K, and he served as the lead designer for Diablo three. In some ways, the game was very similar to previous versions of Diablo. It had an emphasis on loot to boost

a player's abilities and stats. It used an overhead view that was similar to the isometric view that Diablo and Diablo two used. It also had some new things like destructible environments where you could have certain effects that actually would affect the environment you were in. That was new. All the other environments and Diablo and Diablo two, although they were randomly generated, were largely static, so that was

kind of cool. Um this was done. It was made possible by the fact that Blizzard was using its own proprietary engine that had been built out of a previously established game engine. One thing that Diablo three had that did not excite people too much was a requirement for all gamers, which was, if you want to play the game, you had to have a persistent online connection. Even if

you were only playing as a single player. So you're playing a single player game, the game exists on your computer, you still had to have a persistent Internet connection to Blizzards servers. UH. This was a DRM feature. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. It was meant to ensure that the people who were playing the game, we're using authorized copies of the game, because Blizzard had seen many of its titles pirated. StarCraft two in particular, had a huge

problem with people pirating the game. So this was a way to make sure that the people who were playing the game were doing so on authorized copies and they had purchased the game. The online requirement left some critics and some players unhappy. UH. Server issues during high demand made this worse. I mean, if a server goes down,

you cannot verify that your copy is legitimate. You could have gone out and bought a game, spent money supporting the video game company, brought it home and found out you can't play it because their authentication server is down. That's not great. That is an example of how legitimate players can feel like they're being punished for playing by the rules when they say, Hey, if I had broken the rules and I had found a way to get around this, I could actually play the game I I

paid for, So why are you punishing me? Which is a pretty legit argument if you ask me. Um, It's it's not easy to explain to a player why they can't enjoy a single player experience on a game they've purchased and installed on their computer just because their internet connection goes down or a server goes offline. So that was a kind of black mark against Diablo three. Now, since Diablo three, we've seen lots of other games used this same method of DRN and I don't think gamers

are any happier about this. A lot of them have sort of become used to it, just because it's become kind of a common uh strategy among a lot of different game developers. Now between two thousand and twelve and two thousand fourteen, Blizzard released expansion packs for StarCraft two and World of Warcraft, as well as a console version

of Diabo three, but that was it. There were no other new games coming out in two thousand twelve to two thousand fourteen, But in two thousand fourteen, Blizzard would actually release a brand new game. Now, granted, it was a brand new game that was still tied to the Warcraft universe, so it wasn't totally original i p. But the game was called Hearthstone, still an incredibly popular game. This is a digital card games similar to physical trading

card games like Magic the Gathering. So in Hearthstone, you are a player who's building a deck of cards. It contains various units and abilities, and you're using it in an effort to take down opponents who have their own deck of cards, and your opponents might be computer controlled or there might be other human players. More importantly, it's a game that's absolutely married to the concept of micro transactions.

Now you can play the game without making in game purchases, but the fastest way to augment a deck is to buy packs of virtual cards, so it's like buying a booster pack, and then you can construct a deck of thirty cards that best matches your playing style. You can't guarantee that you're going to have any particular card in your hand when you start off, but you can create a deck that's more likely to be useful at various

stages of a match. The game is free to play, so you can play Hearthstone without ever spending a dime on it if you want to. But if you're going up against other players who are purchasing booster packs, that might prove to be a challenge because your odds of getting a card you might really need uh in order to build a good deck are low, and it takes a lot more time to earn booster packs than it

does to just buy them out right. Blizzards released a lot of new cards for the games several times since it has introduced Hearthstone, and in November two thousand nineteen, the company announced not only an expansion for the game, but also a new game mode within Hearthstone called Battlegrounds, which is what is called an auto battler. And I had to actually look this up because I had no idea what an auto battler was. I play video games, but I had not come across this term. So in

an Auto Battler. There is a board upon which players can place pieces, and it's kind of like a chess game you but you can actually figure out where you're going to put each piece, and the pieces they select and the positions that they take determine their side's strengths and weaknesses, and their opponent does the same thing on their side. Then they get matched up together and the conflict automatically resolves, So players are not directing anything at

that point. They've already made all their choices based upon the pieces they've picked and the position as they've chosen, and the computer system determines which side wins based on the criteria, and it all sounds like a type of game. I'd be really really terrible at As for Hearthstone, it has been in the news recently as of the recording of this podcast due to some political controversies and Blizzards

response to them. So in October two thousand nineteen, a professional Hearthstone player express support for Hong Kong protesters, who as of this recording are still protesting against the Chinese government for reasons that are far too complicated to get into in this podcast, but are very important. Blizzard banned the player who supported Hong Kong from the tournament that the player was participating in and banned them from all future tournaments, and essentially you said you don't get to

earn any money off of Hearthstone anymore. And they cited a rule that said players are not allowed to do anything that would bring the game or Blizzard into disrepute

or to hurt their public imag in some way. But that really opens up an entire can of worms, because a lot of people suggested that it made Blizzard appear to be complicit with the actions and philosophy of the Chinese government, which if you've listened to my episode about why is everything made in China, you'll understand that's not necessarily a great thing. And after a lot of criticism, the company walked back some of the penalties it placed

on this professional gamer. They reduced those penalties, but they didn't remove them entirely. And the situation was made more complicated by the fact that the Chinese government Tencent, owns a stake in Activision Blizzard. So this led to a big discussion about how more and more companies are at least becoming partly dependent upon Chinese companies, and that Chinese companies by and large are state backed entities or even state owned entities, which means that the Chinese government itself

has influence over those companies. And so you could argue that through these Chinese companies, the Chinese government is exerting political influence on companies that are in other parts of the world. UH, and that appears to be what happened in this case. So it's still a situation that's unfolding as of the recording of this episode. UH. And it's something that has extended far beyond just Blizzard. There's been a lot of discussion about this for other types of companies,

largely media companies. Let's get back to the timeline. In two thousand fifteen, Blizzard released Heroes of the Storm, which was a multiplayer online battle arena game or mobile UH. This game features characters from various Blizzard titles and pits players in an arena in which teams try to establish

control over the playing area. So generally speaking, with a mobile UH, typically you play as part of a team and you have a goal of protecting your team and your little home base while you battle for control of the playing board, and your ultimate goal is to defeat the opposing team by either completely exhausting their resources by killing off all of their their units, or by invading their side of the board and taking it over and making sure that they don't have control over any part

of the board. There are various ways of getting to a win scenario, so this game kind of marries strategy with action. In two thousand and sixteen, Blizzard released the team based shooter Overwatch, and this game has lots of different modes of play, ranging from stuff like zone offense or defense games or escort missions and other types of games. But it's all in the style of a first person shooter with a you know, team based first person shooter.

So players take on the roles of one of several characters. I think there's up to thirty now. Each of those characters have their own strengths and weaknesses and abilities, and play is really fast paced and a good team, like a team that actually knows each other's strengths, they can really coordinate to be incredibly effective. Watching a team where they really you know each other and they know how

to communicate, watching them play this game is insane. Um. I've played the game casually online with people I didn't know, and we are obviously nowhere close to as effective because we don't have that level of communication and familiarity. Also, I found out that I am most useful as a support class character, like someone who gives healing boosts and stuff, because it turns out people can move faster than I can see, and so if I land a shot on someone,

it's almost always by accident. So I'm really impressed by people who are really good at this game. Over time, Blizzard has released updates to Overwatch with new characters. It didn't start off with thirty, but that's how many it has now, and the company has reported that since its release, the game has earned a billion dollars in revenue with more than fifty million players. And like many other Blizzard games, this one also has micro transactions, which players can purchase lootboxes.

Opening up a lootbox gives you a chance to win certain types of items. You will get items in every loot box you open. It might not be the ones you want, but you'll get something, and they have different levels of rarity, so some you might just get a bunch of common pieces of of cosmetic stuff like that's not meant to influence the actual gameplay. You're not supposed to get any advantages, like you're not gonna be able

to jump higher or move faster or anything. You'll look different, or you might have a different catchphrase you can say in the game, or a different pose you might make before after a match, but otherwise it's not supposed to really affect gameplay. So the idea is that, yeah, it's a way to make money, but you could play the game without ever buying a lootbox and it's not going to change the actual gameplay. However, lootboxes in general are

now a controversial topic. A lot of governments around the world are investigating as to whether or not they constitute gambling, since you cannot guarantee you're going to get a particular item when you purchase the lootbox. But these are things that are obviously of monetary value, or else they would not be able to sell lootboxes. It's um something that has not yet been resolved, so we'll have to revisit

that concept in the future. During blizz Con twenty nineteen, Blizzard announced that it was working on the sequel to Overwatch Overwatch two, and that it would allow players to port over the stuff they've unlocked from the first game, which is good because if you spend a lot of time and or money unlocking your favorite costumes for your favorite characters, you'd probably be a little ticked off if

that didn't transfer over to the sequel. Other upcoming Blizzard games include Diablo Immortal, which was it is a Diablo game based for mobile devices like smartphones. When they announced that at blizz Con a while back, um it did not get a good reception. Fans really unhappy because they really wanted a full blown Diablo see quell and look like they were going to have to settle for a

what they viewed as a watered down experience for mobile. However, in blizz Con twenty nineteen, the company did announce the Diablo four, the the actual full PC sequel to Diablo three uh, and that got a slightly better response. Some other little notes. In two thousand eighteen, Michael Mooreheim, one of the three original founders of the company, announced that he was leaving Lizzard, although he would remain on as

sort of an advisory role. He had been serving as president for you know, a couple of decades, and Jay Alan Brack, who had been with the company since two thousand six and who had served as the executive producer of World of Warcraft, would take over as the president of the company the following summer. In two thousand nineteen, Frank Pierce, the third original co founder, announced that he

was retiring and would leave Blizzard as well. Now you might remember from a previous episode I mentioned and that Alan Adham had left in the mid two thousand's he wanted to pursue a career in in finance. He had been totally burnt out on the process of developing games and he needed to kind of step away. Well, he actually returned to Blizzard in two thousand and sixteen, so he still serves as a senior vice president at Blizzard Entertainment.

So while he was the first of the original founders to leave, he's now the last one to still be there because he came back in sixteen. He's also the founder that Pierce and Moreheim both credited with being the actual force that brought the company together. So I just find it interesting that he returned not long before the

other two co founders decided to step away. Now, over the last year or so, the company has been at the center of criticism not just because of the Hong Kong controversy, but also because they cut jobs while they were also posting record profits, which that seemed weird to people. There's been a concern that Activision is pushing a more aggressive approach to managing costs and maximizing profits at the

expense of the quality of the games. You know, this is tough for a company that really established a reputation of making sure a game is absolutely the best it can be before it launches, So that's been an issue for Blizzard recently as well. That being said, there's still an enormous amount of anticipation for Blizzard games. That their games tend to be really well received by critics and

by fans alike. It's not a guarantee in every case, obviously, but they've got a really strong track record, so they're still weathering some pretty rough criticisms, and the Activision connection remains something that a lot of fans are very leery about. But I expect that we're gonna continue to see a lot of passionate support and anticipation around their games, and blizz Con every year is a testament to that because it sells out within half an hour of tickets going

on sale. So I believe that it happens every year in Anaheim, California. I have never been. I know I've got friends who go there or have gone there pretty much every year. One of these years, I'm gonna have to try and get my way over there. But you know, hey, Blizzard, if you ever want meet out there, let me know. Otherwise I'll just have to take some vacation time. Not that I am above that. I'd be happy to, but if I can get there forming order, I'll just come

out there, you know. So that wraps up this episode of text Stuff, this exhaustive look at Blizzard. It was fun to take a deeper look at this company and to really look at some of the things that drove the decisions behind making those games, as well as some of the stories, like the controversies behind them that I

wasn't really familiar with before I started researching this. If you guys have suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, send me an email the addresses tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com or drop me a line on Facebook or Twitter. Hand over both of those is tech Stuff hs W. Don't forget we have our website tech Stuff Podcast dot com that has our archive of every episode text Stuff has ever recorded, and you can also find a link to our online store, where every purchase

you make goes to help the show. We greatly appreciate it, and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.