The Day I Lost Faith in Blizzard Entertainment

In 2007, my brothers and I did a summer road trip. We visited two of the biggest nerd attractions of the year: San Diego Comic Con (Biggest comic book convention in the world) and BlizzCon (Blizzard Entertainment’s fan convention). It was like three geeks going on a pilgrimage to a kind of nerd “mecca.”

My Love Affair with Blizzard

I remember playing Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness for the first time around 1996. We had two computers linked by a serial cable. I can’t begin to describe how amazed I was being able to play another person in a true strategy multiplayer experience. The armies seemed gigantic at the time as wave after wave of orcs and humans battled to the death.

Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness

1998 brought the release of one of Blizzard’s masterpieces Starcraft. The unit counts were higher, the gameplay more polished, and now there were three races to choose from. But online multiplayer via Battle.Net gave Starcraft a staying power that keeps it going even to this day. Playing over local area network until the early morning hours on weekends proved that Starcraft continued to be fresh and interesting no matter how many times I played it.

Starcraft

Then came Warcraft III, an absolute game changer. Whereas, an endless list of games had tried to capture the magic of Starcraft & Warcraft II by upping the unit counts and graphic quality, Warcraft III introduced an entirely new concept: heroes. Here came the ultimate “micro” game where you not only had to manage your armies but also manipulate your hero at the same time. It frustrated the die hard strategy players (who were used to the Starcraft strategy of “mass troops”) but the nuance of this game made it instantly my favorite. I even got so into it that I competed as a 2v2 team on Battle.Net, eventually reaching the top 100 best 2v2 teams in the world.

Warcraft III

World of Warcraft finally made MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) work for the masses. World of Warcraft made the previous user benchmark of Everquest (around 200,000 players) look like a “beta trial” by bringing in over 5 million players in its first year. I reached level 60 within less than two months of the game’s launch. (Yes, I wasted a lot of time on that game but it was SO fun).

World of Warcraft

So it was at the height of my Blizzard excitement, that we walked through the doors of BlizzCon 2007.

Blizzard Drops the Ball

Looking back, maybe it was a question of expectations. I knew Blizzard had finally “made it.” They were rich beyond their wildest dreams. Surely, BlizzCon would be magical. Compared to my experience at San Diego Comic Con the week before (which had been absolutely mind-blowing – meeting James Hong, the Blade Runner 25th anniversary panel including Ridley Scott, etc.), BlizzCon was a let down of epic proportions.

I was so distressed by the experience I wrote an open letter to Blizzard on the CrankLeft blog. Here’s an excerpt describing SwordBoy’s (my brother’s character name in WoW) experience trying to play the Lich King demo:

Swordboy goes and waits in line for an hour to play the Lich King demo. He finally sits down and selects a level 70 character to play (No, you couldn’t play level 80’s). He starts walking around, trying to figure out how to play the Death Knight class. He chats on GENERAL. “How do we play the Death Knight class?”. “You don’t”, says another player on the channel. “Its not playable at the conference.” Swordboy: “Then what are we supposed to do.” “I guess just walk around.”
I am not even joking. Blizzard announces the Death Knight class, the new Northrend land, and all they let you do in the beta was walk around in a single zone with a fake level 70 character. No Death Knight, no Rune experimentation, no new spells, no new talents. Some new enemy models and lots of trees (basically more of the same for WoW). Swordboy is so pissed, he leaves before his 20 minutes are up.

If you have the time, this is a funny read. I can’t believe how upset I was. The sarcasm and animosity just drips from this post.

Things Haven’t Improved

Frankly, it’s all been downhill since that day. I continued to play World of Warcraft for a few more years. Expansions came and went but the game basically stayed the same. One day, I realized I had other things to put my time into. The shine had come off the coins spent on the subscription.

Starcraft II arrived and ended up being a let down. It looked great to be sure but where was the innovation? A few new races, better graphics, new play modes but in the end, they could have just released another expansion for Starcraft that did all of this. My son and I played Diablo III. It was fun for the first few hours but it suffered from the same issues as Starcraft II. Amazing graphics, some new loot, and player classes but little innovation.

Where Do I Go From Here?

I don’t hate Blizzard. I’m happy they’re successful. I’ll always love the truly innovative games they built. I’ll continue to buy their products because they’re high quality and fun. But I won’t expect them to be innovators. At least not like they were.