Blizzard Looks Back on 20 Years of Games

[Andy Chalk]

Blizzard Looks Back on 20 Years of Games

​

Blizzard has released a long and immensely entertaining video retrospective that traces the company from its earliest days as Silicon & Synapse to StarCraft 2 and beyond.

Blizzard is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month and to mark the occasion, the company has put together a 48-minute look back at its long and storied history. And it's not just a dull recitation of facts and high-water marks; it's a much more intimate look at a company that in the span of two decades grew from a shoestring operation that survived on credit card cash advances to one of the most dominant forces in the videogame industry

You'll learn about things like the Jawa Wall; about how Blizzard almost wound up as a division of Interplay; about the contortions involved in changing the name from Silicon & Synapse to Blizzard Entertainment; and about how Frank Pearce makes a really cute little receptionist. The video touches on the company's history with titles like Rock & Roll Racing, The Lost Vikings and Blackthorne before settling down to talk more in-depth about the Warcraft and StarCraft franchises. Surprisingly little is said about Diablo, however, beyond its early concept as a turn-based, claymation RPG.

It's a long video, but a lot of fun to watch and completely worth the time. If you're any kind of Blizzard fan, you won't want to miss it.


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[Ne1butme]

well, Diablo wasn't developed in Irvine. This seems to be the history of the main blizzard branch.

However, i'm a little disappointed they didn't mention LotC or Ghost. Used as an example of their commitment to games by mentioning the ones they didn't release.

 

[Who Dares Wins]

I would love to see what would have happened if Blizzard actually became a division of Interplay (AKA the makers/publishers of best RPGs ever). Other than that I can't say much because 50 minutes if fucking long. Maybe in two weeks.

 

[GoGo_Boy]

This isn't a retrospective to talk about every game and especially not about every game in detail.

It's more about the roots of Blizzard, focus on the first years and then a brief overview how it all got bigger and bigger.
So don't worry if they don't talk too much of every game. If they wanted to do that in depths this would be 10 times as long ;P

However while talking about Blizzard retrospectives, you should definitely check out the amazing Warcraft Retrospective on Gametrailers:
http://www.gametrailers.com/video/part-i-the-warcraft/41869

Some of the most well made things I've ever seen.

 

[Baldr]

I would love to see what would have happened if Blizzard actually became a division of Interplay (AKA the makers/publishers of best RPGs ever). Other than that I can't say much because 50 minutes if fucking long. Maybe in two weeks.

I was wondering the same thing.

 

[GeorgW]

I think they released this now just to win votes for March Mayhem.
I didn't know how small they started out, this will be an interesting watch if I ever find the time.

 

[Therumancer]

well, Diablo wasn't developed in Irvine. This seems to be the history of the main blizzard branch.

However, i'm a little disappointed they didn't mention LotC or Ghost. Used as an example of their commitment to games by mentioning the ones they didn't release.

Actually I suspect the issue is that Diablo doesn't fit with the mainstream image they are trying to cultivate. It was a very dark and nasty game, with some very dark and nasty spin offs into novels and such. Not the kind of thing that people who look at things like WoW with it's "coke and pepsi" kind of evil, and cartoon wonderland looks are going to associate with the company.

One also has to remember that Diablo has a ridiculously bad reputation for it's borked online community, which had some of the worst administration, and most outrageous player asshattery ever.... which is at odds with them promoting Battle.net in it's current form. Not to mention all the issues with the auctions over Ebay with people selling loot drops for massive piles of real money. While most serious gamers have fond memories of Diablo, remember we're in the age of casual, mainstream gamers, many of whom came into gaming after Diablo, or who are not aware of it other than as a name.

When Diablo 3 launches with it's new, brighter, more cartoony, less hardcore presentation (by all apperances) you'll probably see Blizzard saying more about it in "company profiles" like this one. Diablo was a success, but the kind of success I think they want to sweep under the rug for the majority of their consumer base right now. I think if most of those WoW players were aware of Diablo and the early history of Battle.net, their big changeover in forcing people to use it probably would have met with a lot of resistance simply due to it's reputation as the armpit of online gaming that came from Diablo (even if it's no longer the case).

 

[GoGo_Boy]

Oh god if the guy above me is serious, consider me laughing my ass off.

a) they do mention Diablo
b) this isn't a retrosp. about all their games but the company
c) ARE YOU SERIOUS? lol

 

[Baldr]

well, Diablo wasn't developed in Irvine. This seems to be the history of the main blizzard branch.

However, i'm a little disappointed they didn't mention LotC or Ghost. Used as an example of their commitment to games by mentioning the ones they didn't release.

Actually I suspect the issue is that Diablo doesn't fit with the mainstream image they are trying to cultivate. It was a very dark and nasty game, with some very dark and nasty spin offs into novels and such. Not the kind of thing that people who look at things like WoW with it's "coke and pepsi" kind of evil, and cartoon wonderland looks are going to associate with the company.

One also has to remember that Diablo has a ridiculously bad reputation for it's borked online community, which had some of the worst administration, and most outrageous player asshattery ever.... which is at odds with them promoting Battle.net in it's current form. Not to mention all the issues with the auctions over Ebay with people selling loot drops for massive piles of real money. While most serious gamers have fond memories of Diablo, remember we're in the age of casual, mainstream gamers, many of whom came into gaming after Diablo, or who are not aware of it other than as a name.

When Diablo 3 launches with it's new, brighter, more cartoony, less hardcore presentation (by all apperances) you'll probably see Blizzard saying more about it in "company profiles" like this one. Diablo was a success, but the kind of success I think they want to sweep under the rug for the majority of their consumer base right now. I think if most of those WoW players were aware of Diablo and the early history of Battle.net, their big changeover in forcing people to use it probably would have met with a lot of resistance simply due to it's reputation as the armpit of online gaming that came from Diablo (even if it's no longer the case).

That wasn't the case at all. Most the of the resistance to Battle.net came from fact it was more of a security risk than previous login system. By then most of the World of Warcraft database sites had been bought out by gold selling companies. They used those websites as a way to generate thousands of user email addresses and then sold those list to hackers and others. When they switched over to email as main account login all the hackers had to do was use those lists to bruteforce passwords and boom the huge rise in hacked accounts. It was a stupid move on Blizzard part, but at the same time it allow you access to Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft all under one account.
The only other reason people complained is that they were to lazy to want to switch to begin with.

As for the art style, there are tremendous benefits reason to go more stylized. Game that go for realism don't age very well. It may be the most realistic thing this year, but in five years it will look like garbage. You can pick up a stylized game and know exactly what company made it, this works out extremely well marketing wise, look at Nintendo. You can recognize a Mario or Pokemon game really fast and they sell just as many games as most realistic AAA games.

 

[New Troll]

Was that a hint towards a possible Blizzardland in thier futures!?! But yeah, been with them since the beginning and found it a little disappointing they skipped the years I look back most fondly upon; Diablo II.

 

[John Funk]

I love Samwise. He's great.

That was a really fun watch.

 

[Bretty]

This video proves, to me anyway, why no MMO (besides Blizzards next MMO) will gain more users than WoW. The development team took part in 2 years of crunch time, 2 YEARS!!! Then after the beta and with release they brought on some amazing development people.

When WoW was released there was nothing like it, the feel/atmosphere/history. I don't see any other game besting WoW's numbers.

Amazing.

 

[technoted]

Just finished watching it, loved every second of it. So much of my childhood has been spent playing Blizzard games, probably more than any over developer apart from Squaresoft/Squarenix.

 

[Exort]

2) The more casual players will find the cartoonish style Blizzard went with for D3 more appealing. I mean who wants an actually brutal, visceral looking game? That's right, only fanbaby elitists.

You just remind me where the bard's head got torn off by a boss in the 2008 announcement demo. That sure wasn't brutal or visceral.
And surely haven't forgot it is M rated game, right?

Also if you rewatch the demo trailer I remember there was dynamic shadow.

 

[John Funk]

As for the art style, there are tremendous benefits reason to go more stylized. Game that go for realism don't age very well. It may be the most realistic thing this year, but in five years it will look like garbage. You can pick up a stylized game and know exactly what company made it, this works out extremely well marketing wise, look at Nintendo. You can recognize a Mario or Pokemon game really fast and they sell just as many games as most realistic AAA games.

You can't say a modern game will look like garbage in another 10 years (Let alone five, this is preposterous. Games from 5 years ago look better than D3 does now). We're past that point now. Going stylized at this point with Diablo 3 and fucking up any authenticity the franchise had is because of these reasons:

1) Cutting corners:
a) Less graphical programming to be done. Less polygons, non-existant lighting, low quality shaders, that sort of stuff. Stylization hides bad graphics.
b) More PCs can run shittier graphics. Bigger audience, explains itself.
2) The more casual players will find the cartoonish style Blizzard went with for D3 more appealing. I mean who wants an actually brutal, visceral looking game? That's right, only fanbaby elitists.

You comparing them to Nintendo sort of proves the point in a weird way. They're not making the game for the same audience they (well, devs who worked for 'em) made all those 12 years ago.

But that's enough of that.

Can we get over this already? The ridiculous whining about D3's art style is just absurd at this point. I've played the game at all three of the past Blizzcons, it looks phenomenal in motion and is every bit as visceral and gory as fans want from the series. Hell, it's more so. Yes it's an exaggerated style, but if you think that means it can't have atmosphere then you're dead wrong.

There is absolutely no question that D3 is a worthy successor to D2 and LOD, and everyone I know who's played the game agrees.

 

[Halfs-]

Overall I thought the video was pretty damn good and, at least for the first 30 minutes, quite frank about a lot of the ups and downs that Blizzard went through and was pretty open about how tough things were while still celebrating what a lot of people regard as one of the best game development companies in the world.

Was almost ruined by how overtly cooperate it got in the last 15 minutes but I guess that's to be expected as it's all well and good for companies to admit their past failings, if you could even call them that in this case, but not so acceptable to the PR department to speak about them now.

Would of loved a bit more Diablo 1/2 talk but I suppose as it wasn't developed by the "original" Blizzard team down in Irvine I can see why. I also think as it's already been admitted they should of mentioned the downside of WoW becoming this giant project was the very late release of both SC2 and D3, both were pushed back due to the money sink their now monolithic MMO had corned them into and again, it's always nice to see companies admitting their faults and critiquing even their most prolific success stories.

Samwise retains my love with the line "So I came in for the interview and the first thing I saw was this cute little receptionist... err.. named Frank Pearce", I am forever his.

 

[Throwitawaynow]

As for the art style, there are tremendous benefits reason to go more stylized. Game that go for realism don't age very well. It may be the most realistic thing this year, but in five years it will look like garbage. You can pick up a stylized game and know exactly what company made it, this works out extremely well marketing wise, look at Nintendo. You can recognize a Mario or Pokemon game really fast and they sell just as many games as most realistic AAA games.

You can't say a modern game will look like garbage in another 10 years (Let alone five, this is preposterous. Games from 5 years ago look better than D3 does now). We're past that point now[footnote]Not to mention Blizzard has enough of an income to fund another Diablo 3 every month, and still have money leftover. None of this is a question of whether they can do it or not.[/footnote]. Going stylized at this point with Diablo 3 and fucking up any authenticity the franchise had is because of these reasons:

1) Cutting corners:
a) Less graphical programming to be done. Less polygons, non-existant lighting, low quality shaders, that sort of stuff. Stylization hides bad graphics.
b) More PCs can run shittier graphics. Bigger audience, explains itself.
2) The more casual players will find the cartoonish style Blizzard went with for D3 more appealing. I mean who wants an actually brutal, visceral looking game? That's right, only fanbaby elitists.

You comparing them to Nintendo sort of proves the point in a weird way. They're not making the game for the same audience they (well, devs who worked for 'em) made all those 12 years ago.

But that's enough of that.

1) They scrapped almost everything graphically to try again for something better. You're wrong. How does PC's ability to run on lower graphics come to cutting corners. Cancer: Lamma's, explains itself.
2) Blizzard has always done cartoonish stuff, blizzard north made the original diablo, I also don't see a big difference.[footnote]Not to mention throwing money at something makes it better, faster, and stronger. And holding on to a bigger employee base than needed for something is a good business plan.[/footnote]

 

[Lbsjr]

Say what you want about Blizzard, they made games good enough to enough people to make it 20 years in an industry that cuts out any slack in the market. That's pretty badass, even if you hate their games.

 

[BlindMessiah94]

Great video, confirms my suspicions that they were a company who really had a good philosophy at its core in the way they conduct their creative business.

A great watch.