The Chilling Origins of Blizzard

Regardless of platform, running in the 90’s…


…is the last place you want to be.

In certain respects, in any case, and like most things: context is key. Which relates to my quickie today, as I recommend you checking out a really insightful interview over on Eurogamer, involving Tom Phillips talking to Jason Schreier about his new book, “Play Nice“, which launched just a couple of days ago, and details the vast history of the entirety of Blizzard. A monumental undertaking, which Schreier comments on by saying his initial intent was to just cover the recent years of the companies massive, modern day success story that would ultimately lead to Activision’s takeover of everything Blizzard. However, when Schreier started getting into the weeds of the project, there was so much more of a story to tell.


Hellish tales about Blizzard’s backstory…
even beyond just the development of
the Diablo series, from the sounds of things

The book sounds exhaustive, with Schreier going into in-depth detail in his interview with Phillips involving the very early days of what made Blizzard tick, their eventual rule under Bobby Kotick, and the myriad of controversies that followed:

“From a business standpoint, it’s impossible to understand why it matters so much that Activision did this kind of takeover at Blizzard, and started interfering with their operations more, without understanding where Blizzard came from in the first place. Also, how Blizzard was started by video game fans who wanted to make games that they love playing, in contrast to a lot of other gaming companies in the 90s. And also from the cultural standpoint, it’s impossible to understand how we got to the point where the State of California was suing Blizzard for sexual harassment and discrimination without looking at the rise of that ‘boys club’ culture and where it came from in the 90s, when it was nearly all men at the company.

You can see how Blizzard became the company it did, how some of those cultural elements that started in the 90s lingered and evolved, and how they turned into both good and bad aspects of Blizzard. You can’t tell the modern Blizzard story without going way back from the very beginning, so the early parts in this book expanded a lot more than I ever thought they would.“


The devil is in the details

It’s always a painful reality when one realizes there favorite creators or the people behind childhood nostalgia were responsible for so much heinous betrayal behind the scenes, but it is a story all too common in the media industry these days. Though Blizzard may have put out some of gaming’s most iconic games, like Diablo, Starcraft, and World of Warcraft, the companies lewd and illicit behaviors created a litany of litigation and a catastrophic amount of collateral in it’s wake on the way to the top of the mountain of success. The interview over on Eurogamer is an engaging and sobering warmup to what looks to be a damning indictment of one of gaming’s best kept secrets. Check it out.

~Pashford

Bazillion Gun Salute

Between taking strolls down memory lane, and trying to treat myself better instead of beating myself up as of late, I’ve been absolutely stunned at the amount on my plate I’ve had to deal with.


Pictured: Attendants at an RFK JR. campaign utterly
dismayed at him not following through on the promises
he’s made on the campaign trail.

Which is probably why I did a staggeringly shit job at preparing to cover the news coming out of Gamescom, the largest gaming convention that occurs every year. E3 and TGS certainly seem like they draw more attention for various reasons, but Gamescom by sheer numbers usually does gangbuster attendance. Opening night happened in the past day (it takes place in Germany), and it looks as if, predictably so, there was a buttload of new games announced, among which was a teaser trailer for the new Borderlands game.


Presumably not starring Cate Blanchett for obvious
reasons

Outside of the hilarious irony this teaser follows the epic box office bomb that was the film, the trailer still looks miles more interesting, even if the teaser was about as teasery as a trailer gets, with very little outside of the info that Borderlands 4 is indeed coming out next year. As a fan of the series, I have mixed feelings, as the Borderlands games fall into a weird, haunted spot of terror for me. There have been a slew of games over the years that range in quality, but have largely been relegated to multiplayer only experiences in terms of my enjoyment of them. As in, I harvest no sense of glee actually playing them by my lonesome, inspite of their quality. Diablo 2 was one such title, which is crazy on some level, cause that game is of legendary caliber, it just did absolutely nothing for me when I played it by my lonesome.

What I always looked like while the Tristram theme
played in the pregame lobby before a game of Diablo 2
started when my friends were late in logging on

There is a master list in some abstract sense somewhere of which games fit this description, and one would think I would just be able to you know, think it aloud or transmute it into words on a fucking screen or some such nonsense, but I’m a freak on a leash in this rare hour, so that’s not going to happen right now. In any case, I know Borderlands is among the titles that would qualify for said list, as I absolutely lament the thought of ever playing it by myself, but have had an absolute blast with the games with friends in some legendary co-op experiences. And though I am no man of superstition, I am quite weary of the thought of the 4th one coming out to grace us with it’s cursed presence, as the three major co-op buddies I went through the original trilogy with are all of them, no longer apart of my life for one reason or another. I’m not legit paranoid that it’s not a door we totally shouldn’t open again…


…but maybe we shouldn’t open it again

So yeah, some consternation plagues me involving the titles release, and I will have to think thoroughly about the mighty urge to jump in with a friend once again to risk it all for a silly little loot and shootin. Time will make fools of us all, I fear.

~Pashford