The Rise of Blizzard
by Elizabeth Harper 
Jun 7th 2006 at 9:00AM
The Escapist Magazine outlines the history of Blizzard Entertainment and ponders the secret of their success. They ask, "how does a maker of B-quality DOS and console games go on to become the single most successful videogame company in the history of the world?" As I don't clearly recollect the world of games pre-Blizzard, the story of the company's start is new and interesting to me. However, I'm sure we all have our own opinions on this - what do you think has made Blizzard the huge success it is today? Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ryan Jun 7th 2006 10:32AM
W.O.M. advertising. Yeah they made b-quality dos games, but they were cult classics. They made addicting games that were easy to get into and easy to get involved in the stories. That combined with the fact that they didn't make a game that didn't win the game of the year award after Diablo right? I think that's right. They just know what gamers want and give it to them. Another thing I always appreciated was they cared about ALL of their gamers. Every disk they ever released was both Mac and PC compatable out of the box. Amazing really.
koovus Jun 7th 2006 10:45AM
Solo game play. High tolerence for farmers. Easy questing. Raid if ya wanna dynamic. Good rewards. First game to really get PVP fun, though it always needs tweaking. Constant expansion, every other month announce 4 more servers kinda thing. Constantly revising classes, new updates, always staying in yer ear tellin ya soon yer class will get a revamp. Attention to detail in game, graphics, atmosphere, voices, audio, music, models. all of rode on the wings of word of mouth baby.. cant beat that.
Mat Jun 7th 2006 11:26AM
The reason people have always played blizzard games is because they've always been fun. Even now I still have my Warcraft disk from when I was 14 years old :).
the Brightside Jun 7th 2006 3:01PM
I found it odd the article didn't mention the insane success that was (still is) Starcraft. I mean... televised Starcraft tourneys in South Korea, people. As in, still going on this year. Holy hell on three legs.
The Escapist is an alright magazine, but their layout is as pleasurable as a kidney infection.
Blizzard's games have high production values, fantastic, accessible narratives, and mechanics that are easy to learn and difficult to master (except for bum-rushing your opponent's base, but still). They put out quality work driven by a coherent artistic vision.
It's sad that there is an article that has to define success as "putting out a good product." I guess it goes to show how little gamers expect from developers these days.
James Jun 7th 2006 3:13PM
Diablo II for the win? Blizzard's game designs have always fasincated me. I would've never left D2 if it wasn't for the fact that my 3 accounts were hacked and lost 2 months worth of work, and all blizzard had to say is, "we do not comment on people breaking into other's people's accounts. We get logs of multiple password attempts, and that is all" :( Oh well.. tech support for the lose, but the game's are still fun. Modded D2 ruled before the shutdown of the "emulated" battlenet daemon. I'm just glad that add-on's are being promoted by Blizz now. I think that helps a lot of people play the game more. I can tell you right now, if I had that same crappy interface from the start, I wouldn't play so much. Not to mention, no CTRaid would be insanely hard and not cool. :)