Blizzard Considers Creating Its Own "Pixar University"

[JerrytheBullfrog]

Bobby sees the profit in this:
-The costs equalling an expensive private college
-"Students" come up with ideas and games for free that Activision can exploit. I guarantee you there will be some contract somewhere that will allow for that.

Yeah, it's good to see that irrational paranoia is as prevalant as it ever was.

Come on, where did you see that this would be an actual college? Did you actually read about the Pixar studio? If anything, it's a work/study program.

You're ridiculous.

A) It'd cost money to be there
B) I put students in quotation marks
C) Any ideas or games anyone develops or works on there would automatically be property of Activision.

You think they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and love of making video games? Bobby said he wants to take the fun out of making them, and this is obviously a potential profit making venture since he'll have a lot of free concept work and development of ideas. In fact, they'd pay him for the privilage of giving them ideas

And you call me paranoid and recockulous

Oh please, stop your WAHHHH BOBBY KOTICK MAKES MONEY WAHHHHHH whining, it's childish and makes you look like a preteen.

A.) Prove it. What other company charges its hires to work there?
B.) This proves nothing.
C.) You're assuming it'd be like Digipen where you create games instead of a technical college where each individual goes to improve his or her own skill. And if a bunch of Blizzard employees made a game with Blizzard resources on Blizzard's dime? No shit it would belong to them.

You're Chicken Little, crying that the sky is falling when Pixar does just this and nobody bitches about it.

Also, have you SEEN any of the Blizzard-office visitation videos? Or their Rock Band tournaments with full stage setups, etc. Blizzard has a LOT of fun. Activision =/= Blizzard, kiddo.

 

[RA92]

Valve is still just taking. Blizzard is at least trying. You can also coax creativity out of people that don't have programming skills.

Valve gives significant access to their source code to the modder community - something even the freeware UDK doesn't. They also made a community site with complete Source SDK documentation. This is why their modding community has burgeoned - Valve has made it possible for people to learn how to use SDK for free.

Blizzard here, on the other hand, as Enkidu88 puts it, is branching out into another price-gouging marketplace - colleges.



In order:
-Yeah, a lot of other games had that. It never can carry a narratively driven story and usually only tangentially helps.

-That irritates me to no end. "Cutscene-less narratives" is a bunch of bullshit.

Wiki defines a cutscene as:

"A sequence in a video game over which the player has no or only limited control, breaking up the gameplay and used to advance the plot, present character development, and provide background information, atmosphere, dialogue, and clues."

Half Life has them despite what anyone thinks. And they're some of the most jarring things I have ever seen. What kind of situation has people talking up a man that has no voice? They give Gordon Freeman so much damn praise in the cutscenes and all he does is shoot things, bludgeon people and plug stuff in. That's it. There is absolutely no narrative depth or characterization present within that man and it irritates me that I cannot stick the fucking crowbar in Alyx's head. She's like what Tali is in ME2: an ingame fan girl for the lead character.

I, on the other hand, hate cut scenes with my heart. It's very jarring and breaks my immersion when they change the perspective and take away my control. Each man to his own I guess...

Physics puzzles are part of the technical achievements. They are made by physics objects and well developed physics coding.

So the Portal puzzles was merely a technical feat and required no creative input...?

Perfecting level designs is also somewhat of a technical feat, but it's subjective (long ass car rides for supply caches that you will probably only get a single thing from ftw!). The subjectivity makes it an invalid point.

I found the airboat levels very pleasant, and Ravenholm was very atmospheric. Again, each man to his own.

Dark humor of GLaDOS I will cede, but I do so grudgingly because I didn't think it was that amusing, but everyone else seemed to think it was.

Accepting the fact that other people might like something you don't? A rare quality these days...





Source has more mods than it does IP's. That may be a testament to mod confidence, but doesn't say much in professional developer confidence.

Valve released, since 2004, HL2, HL2 Ep1 & 2, TF2, Portal 1 & 2, L4D1 & 2 and is releasing DOTA2 this year. That is impressive for a 200+ member team, while constantly and updating TF2 and CS:S, not to mention maintaining the servers. And of course there will be more mods than IPs - the modding community is on an open platform, and there are thousands of people working on SDK everyday. Expecting otherwise is ridiculous.





Your pretentious Latin phrase aside, were you not reading that they hired the original developers?

Pretentious? The term's common enough. Also, the guys from OMM were previously just critics, and had no game development experience prior to working with Valve. As for hiring out original devs and modders - well, it's a good business practice. I don't see a problem with that. Isn't that what it's all about? Good business? At least they don't milk franchises to death...

But did you enjoy the cheesy cheese-fest that is the Texan Raynor and his shitty one-liners in SC2?

Nope.

How I hated the devs for ruining a perfectly good game...

Hmmm?

That's an arse way to ask a question.

It was. Apologies.

Oh, boo hoo. They ripped off some artistic designs for a few things. They still had to do a little bit more than the basic units of the races.

Look, when I was a kid, I loved StarCraft. I've been playing it since back in '99. Imagine my shock when I found out my favorite Zerg design, the Hydralisk, was a rip-off of some other franchise...

Yes, GLaDOS in no way resembles SHODAN.

GLaDOS is rather misguided and tries to manipulate you with her limited understanding of the human mind and its bonding mechanisms (leading her to believe that you grew attached to the companion cube, for example), resulting in unintentional dark humor. SHODAN wasn't funny.

Also, 3 minutes is plenty of time to understand a character. What if he's a manipulator just like GLaDOS? What if he wants to kill Chell after he's done escaping? You don't know anything about him or what he intends to do.

Well, what does killing me or not killing me have to do anything? I love GLaDOS either way, and I trust the writers to make Wheatley interesting as well. The trailers have been rather promising.

But yeah, 3 minutes ain't 'nuff to gauge a character.



I was actually going to avoid Bioware, but let's create a hypothetical. What if someone offered a genuine critique on Mass Effect 2, explained why some dialogue is stilted or cliched and offered some improvement? That poster would have a shitton of fanboys raining down on them. Elitism was the wrong term, but the point was to be that the Escapist has enough fanboys to inundate any good, cerebral discussion with pointless defense of people that don't give a shit.

I'm personally a big Bioware fan, but that never stopped me from criticizing their morality system, linearity of ME2, planet-scanning, Shepard's ubiquitous flirtiness, uncanny groping sex scenes, etc. Hell, I found L4D2's character's unappealing, as well as Valve's attempt at trying to market its coop feature in Portal 2's boxart instead of the simplicity of the original one, and the fact that Eli was literally offering Alyx to Gordon on a silver platter was disturbing.

I'm a fanboy, and I'll defend my favorite games when I see fit (as I did at the beginning), and I'll pick on even the pettiest things when I see fit (as I did just now).
We go either way.

 

[Nurb]

Bobby sees the profit in this:
-The costs equalling an expensive private college
-"Students" come up with ideas and games for free that Activision can exploit. I guarantee you there will be some contract somewhere that will allow for that.

Yeah, it's good to see that irrational paranoia is as prevalant as it ever was.

Come on, where did you see that this would be an actual college? Did you actually read about the Pixar studio? If anything, it's a work/study program.

You're ridiculous.

A) It'd cost money to be there
B) I put students in quotation marks
C) Any ideas or games anyone develops or works on there would automatically be property of Activision.

You think they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and love of making video games? Bobby said he wants to take the fun out of making them, and this is obviously a potential profit making venture since he'll have a lot of free concept work and development of ideas. In fact, they'd pay him for the privilage of giving them ideas

And you call me paranoid and recockulous

Oh please, stop your WAHHHH BOBBY KOTICK MAKES MONEY WAHHHHHH whining, it's childish and makes you look like a preteen.

A.) Prove it. What other company charges its hires to work there?
B.) This proves nothing.
C.) You're assuming it'd be like Digipen where you create games instead of a technical college where each individual goes to improve his or her own skill. And if a bunch of Blizzard employees made a game with Blizzard resources on Blizzard's dime? No shit it would belong to them.

You're Chicken Little, crying that the sky is falling when Pixar does just this and nobody bitches about it.

Also, have you SEEN any of the Blizzard-office visitation videos? Or their Rock Band tournaments with full stage setups, etc. Blizzard has a LOT of fun. Activision =/= Blizzard, kiddo.

Prove they'll have to pay? You think it might be a FREE "gaming school"? AAAAHHHHAHAHAA! If they were basically unpaid interns, that still gives blizzard a bunch of free work.

Blizzard and all of their IP is owned by Activision, who gets final say on everything if they feel like it and they get a chunk of the profits on top of it. That's how publishers work when they own the developer. Go back to bed, Bobby.

 

[Freechoice]

Snip

This isn't getting anywhere, is it?

But if there's one thing I will always try not to be, it is a fanboy. Not only did Yahtzee say fans are clingy complaining dipshits who will never, ever be grateful for any concession you make, but he also said that the worst thing you can do to an artist is to tell them their work is perfect when it isn't. Something needs to get nitpicked the fuck out of to even come remotely close to being perfect. If dumbass [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DumbassHasAPoint] can have a point, jackass can too. Hell, the best critic is probably gonna be the one that hates something the most.

Yahtzee said that too. He's much smarter than most internet goers give him credit for.

 

[Dragonpit]

I can only reply with one word.

Yes.

 

[Heartcafe]

The world is finally complete.

 

[MajWound]

Are we really in the middle of a Valve vs Blizzard fight? Can't we save it for the MM Championship?

 

[Craorach]

I can see a negative side of this.

The guys who left Blizzard to make Hellgate recently said that while their experiences at Blizzard were amazing, they didn't prepare them for the real world of game developing. Outside companies like Blizzard, you need to have direction, and certainty, and most importantly deadlines.

The high ups at Blizzard may be willing to say "Yes, have more money and time" when their Diablo team says they need it.. but when you leave the fold, suddenly you realise that its a pretty unique idea.

 

[Exort]

Bobby sees the profit in this:
-The costs equalling an expensive private college
-"Students" come up with ideas and games for free that Activision can exploit. I guarantee you there will be some contract somewhere that will allow for that.

Yeah, it's good to see that irrational paranoia is as prevalant as it ever was.

Come on, where did you see that this would be an actual college? Did you actually read about the Pixar studio? If anything, it's a work/study program.

You're ridiculous.

Yea, It always astonish me that whatever Blizzard say or do no matter good or bad, someone can link it back to Activision and Kotick.

 

[JerrytheBullfrog]

Bobby sees the profit in this:
-The costs equalling an expensive private college
-"Students" come up with ideas and games for free that Activision can exploit. I guarantee you there will be some contract somewhere that will allow for that.

Yeah, it's good to see that irrational paranoia is as prevalant as it ever was.

Come on, where did you see that this would be an actual college? Did you actually read about the Pixar studio? If anything, it's a work/study program.

You're ridiculous.

A) It'd cost money to be there
B) I put students in quotation marks
C) Any ideas or games anyone develops or works on there would automatically be property of Activision.

You think they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and love of making video games? Bobby said he wants to take the fun out of making them, and this is obviously a potential profit making venture since he'll have a lot of free concept work and development of ideas. In fact, they'd pay him for the privilage of giving them ideas

And you call me paranoid and recockulous

Oh please, stop your WAHHHH BOBBY KOTICK MAKES MONEY WAHHHHHH whining, it's childish and makes you look like a preteen.

A.) Prove it. What other company charges its hires to work there?
B.) This proves nothing.
C.) You're assuming it'd be like Digipen where you create games instead of a technical college where each individual goes to improve his or her own skill. And if a bunch of Blizzard employees made a game with Blizzard resources on Blizzard's dime? No shit it would belong to them.

You're Chicken Little, crying that the sky is falling when Pixar does just this and nobody bitches about it.

Also, have you SEEN any of the Blizzard-office visitation videos? Or their Rock Band tournaments with full stage setups, etc. Blizzard has a LOT of fun. Activision =/= Blizzard, kiddo.

Prove they'll have to pay? You think it might be a FREE "gaming school"? AAAAHHHHAHAHAA! If they were basically unpaid interns, that still gives blizzard a bunch of free work.

Blizzard and all of their IP is owned by Activision, who gets final say on everything if they feel like it and they get a chunk of the profits on top of it. That's how publishers work when they own the developer. Go back to bed, Bobby.

No, it's going to be a "farm team" to use baseball lingo. Do you understand how Pixar University works? Do you not understand that many of the people here would already be hired by Blizzard? Or, if not, they would be given a guaranteed job at Blizzard after graduation, and make their tuition back?

This is not to make money. This is to create good designers.

Blizzard is an autonomous branch of Activision-Blizzard, which is owned by Vivendi Universal, who owned Blizzard prior to acquiring Activision. In theory, yes, Bobby K could come down and order them around, but every single reliable source says that Activision does not interfere. Nor were you paying attention to my point, which was that the "take the fun out of making games" quote is clearly not applicable to Blizzard, given that their offices are pretty much geek heaven.

And lo, every developer-to-be went to this new institute and they all made WoW-clones and StarCraft expansions because they realized they couldn't do anything else with their lives.

Seriously. I can't believe they view themselves in such a high regard. With them not being called out on their bullshit, speaks of the ignorance of the audience, I guess. After Starcraft 2 (read: your shitty writing and your attitude towards the consumer) and what Diablo 3 looks like (read: your zero artistic integrity), people should stay away from you, you shouldn't be the one teaching. Right now, creatively, Blizzard is below nothing special.

Oh hey, it's the Blizzard-kicked-my-dog-and-punched-my-mom kid again! You're so adorable in your frothing rage, it's really kind of cute.

A.) Pixar was the one that made the comparison to Blizzard, not Blizzard. They're one of the most respected studios in the industry for a reason.

B.) Starcraft 2, silly script aside, was one of the finest RTSes made since, well, the first Starcraft. Whatever you think of their storytelling--and it's never been special--their gameplay is peerless. And yeah, I was miffed about the lack of LAN beforehand, but having been playing SC2 since launch on Battle.net, in practicality? It actually works pretty damn well for just finding a game with someone of reasonable skill. The "hardcore" basement-dwellers may lose out, but for the general consumer who just wants to play the game, it's actually very useful. Not to mention that they're overhauling the stuff that's still pretty crappy, like the Custom Games method and the chat client.

C.) "Zero artistic integrity"? Oh, you really are precious. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I played Diablo I and Diablo II until my eyes bled. Diablo III looks pretty damn good to me.

 

[Mako SOLDIER]

If they offer scholarships then I'm in.

 

[Riobux]

Wouldn't it just consist of 95% behavioural psychology lessons?

 

[Mister Benoit]

And so everyone who thinks they would like to do games goes to Blizzard, only to come out as a self-entitled prissy little spoilt kid.

They'll complain about Dev software crashing when they do something stupid.
They'll complain about how long a game takes to be created.
They'll complain about how they don't have bleeding edge PC's to make something good.
They'll complain about optimization.
They'll complain about not getting a job.

They will make a game, publish it, and in interviews, drop the name Blizzard at least a bajillion times to show off that they know their stuff, and as soon as it's gets booted for being a crappy game, everyone from the team will either disappear off the face of the Earth and merge into Mobile Games or keep on being 'proud students of Blizzard and Co.' whenever they send their portfolio around.

God, I hope Blizzard has a good plan for this, or else they're not different then other Schools for Games...

I'm surprised you didn't mention something along the lines of:

They'll complain when they don't have 10 year development cycles.

 

[Mister Benoit]

Bobby sees the profit in this:
-The costs equalling an expensive private college
-"Students" come up with ideas and games for free that Activision can exploit. I guarantee you there will be some contract somewhere that will allow for that.

Yeah, it's good to see that irrational paranoia is as prevalant as it ever was.

Come on, where did you see that this would be an actual college? Did you actually read about the Pixar studio? If anything, it's a work/study program.

You're ridiculous.

A) It'd cost money to be there
B) I put students in quotation marks
C) Any ideas or games anyone develops or works on there would automatically be property of Activision.

You think they're doing this out of the goodness of their hearts and love of making video games? Bobby said he wants to take the fun out of making them, and this is obviously a potential profit making venture since he'll have a lot of free concept work and development of ideas. In fact, they'd pay him for the privilage of giving them ideas

And you call me paranoid and recockulous

Oh please, stop your WAHHHH BOBBY KOTICK MAKES MONEY WAHHHHHH whining, it's childish and makes you look like a preteen.

A.) Prove it. What other company charges its hires to work there?
B.) This proves nothing.
C.) You're assuming it'd be like Digipen where you create games instead of a technical college where each individual goes to improve his or her own skill. And if a bunch of Blizzard employees made a game with Blizzard resources on Blizzard's dime? No shit it would belong to them.

You're Chicken Little, crying that the sky is falling when Pixar does just this and nobody bitches about it.

Also, have you SEEN any of the Blizzard-office visitation videos? Or their Rock Band tournaments with full stage setups, etc. Blizzard has a LOT of fun. Activision =/= Blizzard, kiddo.

Prove they'll have to pay? You think it might be a FREE "gaming school"? AAAAHHHHAHAHAA! If they were basically unpaid interns, that still gives blizzard a bunch of free work.

Blizzard and all of their IP is owned by Activision, who gets final say on everything if they feel like it and they get a chunk of the profits on top of it. That's how publishers work when they own the developer. Go back to bed, Bobby.

Where did you get that Activision owns Blizzards IPs?

Regardless, Activision Blizzard was a merger and they have a parent company Vivendi.

 

[DTWolfwood]

I don't know about you, but I'd totally have gone to Blizzard University if I'd had the option. It's the only school where "Jim's having a party Saturday night" means "We're running heroic dungeons and need a tank, want to come?"

i don't believe i've read a geekier line this year XD

+1

 

[Azmael Silverlance]

Ararara i wish i had talanet or somekind of political pull to get my ass into that UNI! There is no doubt that it would be the best university EVER!
Ive seen bonus contents on Pixar dvd`s and those guys look like they are having a BLAST! I can only imagine what it would be at Blizzard`s offices.

Dragons flying around and ppl sitting in giant chairs made of skulls....half naked Blood Elf girls X_X

 

[D_987]

Meh, I bet its still better for game development than just taking general computer science at any old university.

Well seems I didn't read the article properly as it doesn't even mention game design. I guess then in terms of getting a job as a programmer or artist it'd be a great way of getting in the industry. Whether it'd make you a good artist or not, whether you'd be able to actually adapt to another companies way of working, would be the problem on that front.