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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Will work for Blizz
by Krystalle Voecks 
Jan 3rd 2009 at 8:00AM
But there again, it is Blizzard, and I'd be lying if I said most people I know wouldn't give their [insert requisite body part] to work there, just to experience the culture and be part of the company that makes some truly awesome games. The sheer coolness of the company and a lot of their outward facing policies seems like being part of that team would more than make up for any abuse you might get as a trade-off. How about you? Would you be willing to step onto the front lines, taking every nasty, mean comment you're dealt with a smile - or carefully constructed snark? Would you be willing to work at Blizzard on the front lines? Or is that a bit too much of a figurative bulls-eye than you'd want painted on yourself?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
Dave Jan 3rd 2009 12:43PM
I'm getting my info from a former programmer for the now dead Blizzard North that was in the Bay Area but was demolished a while back. They were paying above market back in the Diablo days, but once they consolidated to Irvine... things turned a bit more coorporate.
Don't believe articles written for a PR fluff piece. It only serves to enhance the reputation that you're expected to swap salary and security for "perks". The place I used to work for did the same thing, despite expecting people to work 14hr days, 6 days a week. Yeah, they had a cafeteria with free food 24/7 and free parking and tickets to literally everything in the area... but that didn't make it all better! They'll still make you feel ultimately replaceable and say that they have the best place around to work for, so you should be lucky to have your job here. It's a much better feeling to hear that they appreciate the work you do and that they're lucky to have you as an employee personally. Especially when it's more or less standard practice for any decent job to have a significant amount of perks to the job. (every job gives out swag here, I personally have 8 t-shirts, 2 jackets, 4 hoodies, an engraved ipod, several booze cruises, open bar holiday parties, notebooks, pencils, screen cleaners, whatever, it's the standard thing for any company with a forward-facing presence to gear up employees so they walk around as a billboard for the company when they're around).
As for the turnover, just look at the CM's for a start. If I'm not off, only 2-3 of them have been there since launch. The rest are replacements or additions. If the job is that great, people don't quit. Period. My current job has had literally 2 people leave in almost 4 years. Astoundingly small turnover in a generally high turnover industry. On the backend side, how many of the actual programmers are still working on the WoW team? There have been quite a few companies started by former leads from the WoW team and I think almost all of the executives are at different companies too. To me, that's always a sign that things are not rosy on the inside. If a guy's in charge of a project and he still finds a reason to leave... you're not treating them right somehow.
I'm not saying it's a horrible place to work, but seriously don't get jacked up to work somewhere just because you enjoy using what they make. You're in for some disappointment almost guaranteed.
Cadychan Jan 3rd 2009 2:43PM
I do agree with you...to a point.
Any large company with that kind of rep will garner the bright-eyed, eager young space cadets who will be like 'OMG I WORK FOR _______!!' I know people who have worked at Rockstar (GTA, etc), and it's HELL. They demand mandatory 70 hour work weeks, and one guy almost couldn't get two days off for his own wedding.
Another great example - my office is a few blocks away from EA...any gamer knows about the horrors of working there, despite the gorgeous office, gym, catered meals, etc.
Customer service, no matter where you go, can be hell, or really rewarding.
But from a financial perspective, I wouldn't be surprised if Blizz was a little...unsatisfactory with their initial pay. But then again, many industry jobs are either - work for less for a job you love, or the soul-killing vice versa.
I guess in the end it's up to you. Would I want to work at Blizzard? Yes, yes I would. Just how much are you willing to sacrifice?
No job on earth is THAT good....There will always be romantics who will look at it through rose-coloured lenses, and they'll just have to try it and see for themselves.
rosencratz Jan 3rd 2009 3:07PM
I think you miss the point of working for a company liek Blizzard.
It is a massively recognised company, they might underpay but that's because they can afford too, people are clambering over each other to get jobs there. It'd be like paying $100 for a fallen leaf that you could've picked up off the lawn for free.
The point in working for such a company in such an industry is to do what you truelly want to do and to come out of it with both the relevant work experience in one of the currently most sucessful companies of it's market and to have "Blizzard" on your CV which is going to go a long way to your landing other jobs more succesfully.
If it's not what you really want to do, then it's not worth it, if it doesn't pay enough for you to gather the work experience, then it's not worth it.
Heh heh. "I'd give an arm and a leg but I wont work for you unless you give me competitive pay?"
Darxide Jan 3rd 2009 11:01AM
I would probably take the job, because playing on the front lines gives you an insider look as to why some GM's are funny when talking to them about Blizzard coffee and others aren't when you mention exploding murlocs when they drink said coffee.
If possible, i would come into work dressed in those blue robes that they have too ! but it probably wouldnt ruin the game for me. i mean guild masters have to deal with a high amount of drama and immaturity here and there so thats half the criteria filled already !
AVY Jan 3rd 2009 11:22AM
Personally, Blizzard is far from my first choice of places to work mostly because it is such a big company with so many employees. I'm currently an artist going to school to try to become a 3d environmental modeler. Big companies like Blizzard, as Dave said in his earlier comment, don't value the new/younger employees as much and I think that working at a smaller company where you can be more involved with the actual games would be much more fulfilling than working for Blizzard.
Carda Jan 3rd 2009 11:49AM
I would definitely be willing to work for Blizzard, aforementioned potential "issues" notwithstanding. I spent three years in the Army, two years of that as a phone system operator/maintainer. I believe I'm capable of handling just about anything on the customer service front; when you've worked a real combat-pay war zone, everything else is pretty tame in comparison.
shibumi Jan 3rd 2009 11:52AM
This is an interesting question, and I think, from the comments, we can see the wide variety of folks that have an interest, or have done something like this (and have less interest).
I started an ISP *way* back in the 90s, just two of us. I did the networks, hardware, kept it running, learned on the fly how to do all this - my partner did the business side of things. He was good at it, having owned a very successful bulletin board for a number of years prior. When we grew to the point where we needed help, it was on the support side, something I knew I didn't want to do. We interviewed and hired folks based on their ability to know what they were responding to. I pointed out that the folks that called them were a different breed now, than either my partner or myself had engaged before - these folks did not understand the technology they were using. To call us in frustration basically was admitting they were 'stupid' (as one put it) and that was a large part of their anger. To admit to us they were stupid and couldn't understand or fix their issue. The requirement I laid out for our support folks was to identify that, earnestly engage the person to defuse that, and show them that you were working together to fix and issue - remove the confrontational part, become partners. It's a very hard thing to do, day after day, and I, for one, *know* I cannot do that. I wouldn't want to do that. Problem solving, yes.
Later, I was hired away from my own company to work for Cisco Systems, in network security (a job I thoroughly enjoy), and met another sort of human problem - the ones that cause (intentionally or not) vulnerabilities. This, tempered with the corporate need to support 'profit to the shareholder' gave me a very different point of view on support. Again, I thought I wouldn't do well with it - risk assessments, investigations, forensics, all this was the fun part. The engagement with the entities that needes to still do their work, but needed to be more secure about it, became the very same support issue I had at my ISP. They were often very defensive and reluctant to engage - thinking, as one put it during a meeting for an acquistion, that I was the guy 'that says you can't do it the way you are used to'. This is how the meeting started. That was a surprise to me, as this wasn't my job, nor my intent - but gave me insight into what folks *thought* we were all about. I realized they didn't know who I was or what I did at all, and first I had to show them that I was the front end of a huge amount of resources that could be brought to bare on a secufirty issue to *make it work*, not a guy that just flat says you have to do it my way. Perspectives.
This is an interesting question here, because I've thought about what it would be like to work for Blizzard, both from a career point of view and from a potential that I'd be getting into something perhaps just as surprising as the previous two examples. Believe me I've done enough jobs to tell the blindsides will come, regardless. We become fixed in our ways, and industry moves right along.
I"ve done beta testing on hardware and software since long before I started my ISP - my tneacity at trying to wrest out a solution from a sticky problem is very strong. I enjoy the puzzle and solution cycle. I, from my networking side, am very good at documenting and stepping through a problem to try and get past the '20 questions' that precede the actual work on the problem. For me, that part would be very interesting working at Blizzard. I'm a gamer, yes, but not so avid or silly to think that a job at Blizzard would grant me work time to sit around and level up another character in Wrath. I, like my time at Cisco, or at CERT/cc, would probably have *less* time to particpate, in the game. Though, this is pure speculation.
Would I? In phone support - no. In the background, working on what has to be one of the cutting edge network environments in the world - in a heartbeat.
/shibumi
Thiosion Jan 3rd 2009 12:06PM
A server-GM would be fun enough for awhile, but it would start getting boring after I run out of snarky responses.
What I would REALLY want to do at Blizzard? Zone design. Throughout Northrend, I really LIKED the zones, but I heard myself thinking "Oh, this zone would be more fluid if X quest hub and Y monster spawn where Z distance closer to W quest hub." or something along those lines.
Geometry isn't my thing, though, so I doubt I could pull off being a terrain designer.
Thander Jan 3rd 2009 12:15PM
I wouldn't be a customer rep there just because it's not rewarding enough. You put in a lot of hard work making customers happy and helping fix their problems, but you only get minimum wage or close to it.
Bottom line: If you want to make money, don't go into the game industry.
Daniel Jan 3rd 2009 12:58PM
Dave Writes: "They kinda treat people like crap with a "well, if you don't like working here, we've got a thousand people waiting to take your job!" and that's the truth. And it's demoralizing to say the least, which also helps to make the job and the rest around it revolving doors."
That has the ring of truth to it because that attitude is exactly the way they threat their customers. Indeed, as a blue admitted on the forums yesterday, they think their players are brain dead idiots and could care less about what they have to say.
So no, I wouldn't go to work for Blizzard. If I don't like the way they treat their customers, including me, why would I think they will treat their employees any better.
Nachomomma Jan 3rd 2009 1:34PM
As a full-time college student who has several years of experience working for call centers (and currently work in one 20 or so hours per week), I would much prefer doing the same sort of work for Blizzard. But working in a call center is nowhere near as easy as many people assume.
You sit in a cubible for hours on end, tethered to a telephone via headset and living and dying by the flashing light on the console that indicates calls in queue. Your numbers (lots of statistics that measure how long you take on each call, broken down into seconds) monitor your productivity and your potential for raises, promotions and bonuses. The call center can be a noisy and very stressful workplace.
All calls are recorded and you are frequently live monitored by supervisors; knowing that every call is subject to scrutiny can make some people paranoid. The calls from customers are usually non-stop; in an 8 hour shift, you could potentially process hundreds of calls.
You need top-notch communication and problem-solving skills; you never know who the next caller will be and sometimes getting to the nature of their concern takes some questioning. You need to be a good listener and genuinely like people. There is much satisfaction to be had in helping customers out; but there is also frustration when your hands are tied or you don't have the ability to solve their problems. You also need to maintain a certain formality in conversations; at my current workplace our quality scores are reduced if we used slang words like "uh-huh" and "okay" with customers. And of course, you need to tolerate the abusive and occasionally drunk callers. You just cannot take the abuse personally.
Although working in Blizzard's call center is a fantasy for me, I'm not sure I want to move to Texas or California to pursue the dream. When I go home I play WoW to unwind; I'm somewhat afraid that if I dealt with WoW issues for 8 hrs. a day at work, it would not be nearly as much fun for me to play after work!
0bsolete Jan 3rd 2009 2:12PM
I would do so. Even being underpaid, i would do so. My reason is that I have always respected blizzard's work and how much they have done for the game industry, primarily in the RTS and MMO induxstries. I think I would enjoy talking with co-workers who have some similar interests; not just WoW, but games, and to a lesser extent computers, nerd culture overall. To me, that would be a job I would be willing to suck up some pain for. TO make great games for other gamers and work with people who's company I could stand more than Jack who is constantly screaming out sports scores from his cubicle and makes every conversation about the Vikings or his surround system.
Fuerion Jan 3rd 2009 2:50PM
i worked there. move to austin, texas. have a decent amount of customer service history. be savvy with the computer. be able to balance politeness and getting people to stfu and move on so you can deal with 10-14 tickets an hour and youll do fine. Oh yeah look for a temp agency that advertises on craigslist something to the effect of: "do you like video games and have experience in customer service?"
i got fired because... well i didnt take tickets fast enough and i was not handling my shit at all. coming in late etc. The temp agency that hires the first line of gm's which blizzard uses to weed out the men from the boys, thier management is pretty cold and shitty. But tbh i was totally fucking up.
I have a bunch of shwag to show for it as blizzard is in the habit of just vomiting cool shit into the laps of their employees on a regular basis.
I did hate MOT(manditory overtime) especially when it lasted from thanksgiving through christmas. even though the paychecks were ballin' i was streched hella thin. If they have improved that and the awful check in hand bullshit(long boring story). Its is a pretty phenominal place to work.
If i ever get my shit togetehr and get a good enough work history to show ive changed you better damn well believe ill be applying there again.
Stacy Jan 3rd 2009 3:01PM
I was actually approached by a Blizzard recruiter about four months ago, so I have actually had to face this question. It wasn't for CS (I'm a Software Engineer), but it was still for Blizzard. At the time, I worked for another large SoCal company that makes MMOs (and not very good ones, if you ask me). I said no.
At this other company, I got in on the ground floor. I worked first as unpaid help, then as a Systems Engineer handling the late-night rolling restarts and patches, then, finally, as a Software Engineer. When I started, I loved the game and anything made by the company. Within a few months, I stopped playing the game because, well, I was just /saturated/ with it all the time. You lose a lot of the magic when you get to Oz, pull back the curtain and find out that the same corporate maladies apply at your favorite gaming company that do everywhere else. Not to mention learning just how fragile MMOs and the platforms they run on can be.
Then, there's the idea of working in the game industry all together. First note... CS and QA get paid HORRIBLY. In order to live in SoCal and work at their jobs, they had to room with one another and eat ramen all the time. Many of my original friends at the company started in CS. What kept them there was their burning desire to move their way into the gaming industry. They all successfully got where they wanted to go many years later, but you have to want to spend your time in the horrible trenches in order to get there.
Secondly, even the technical jobs are underpaid. Perhaps not severely, but unless you're a manger you can bet that doing whatever tech job you do, you'll get paid better somewhere OUTSIDE of the gaming industry. I actually brought up that I thought I was underpaid and was pointed to an article in a game magazine pointing to the median income of people in my position. Basically, I was told that EVERYONE is underpaid.
Thirdly, you have to pretty much give up your life in order to dedicate your life to getting anywhere in the gaming industry. Despite the suit against EA demanding better working conditions, it's considered a badge of honor to spend more time at work than at home when you work on a game (maybe that's why Blizzard has so many nice amenities that are just like home).
I left the gaming industry four months ago, and I'm still tickled pink about it. I'm getting paid more to get back to being a web developer, and I'm working at a company that isn't 'Oz' to me, so when I go home and game, I'm not thinking about the people who made the game or the corporate policies that went into effect to get this to be used over that... I'm just having fun. :)
Juliah Jan 3rd 2009 3:16PM
Not me. I prefer to keep my entertainment time separate from my work time ... I wouldn't want to blend the two. I speak from experience, having worked with the gaming industry for a few years in the earlier part of the decade.
Justin N. Jan 3rd 2009 5:25PM
I loved working in a Data Center, and I'd love to work in Blizzard's State-of-the-art Setup. Figuring out how everything works together, maybe helping to pinpoint instability issues on realms, knowing that my efforts during the day directly affect the gameplay of millions of people? That's a dream job for me, hands down.
blink Jan 3rd 2009 6:43PM
I have a friend who's a GM and it just seems like the most horrible of jobs. Customer service to adults is hard enough. But teens and preteens? Scary.
daryl Jan 4th 2009 6:03AM
yeah working with the public is one of the hardest jobs and angry kids aren't tactful. Most adults will try and remain calm in a difficult situation as they try and understand your position, but kids wouldn't hold back.
In one of his last posts, Tseric said something about dealing with difficult people every day for years.
quote
When you can understand how a group of belligerent and angry posters can drive away people from this game with an uncrafted and improvisational campaign of misery and spin-doctoring, then perhaps, you can understand the decisions I make. Until you face mobs of psychology, you will not see my side.
Until you see some bright-eyed player coming onto the forums wanting to know what they should spec as this class, and see them shat on and driven away by petty and selfish people who are simply leveraging for game buffs, you will not understand.
You will not understand until you have to see it daily, for years...
unquote
Daryl.
MechChef Jan 4th 2009 10:42AM
I don't think Blizzard has a need for aerospace engineers. I like their game, but beyond free car-washes and lunches, I want to know their pay-structure, and how it compares to the industry with cost of living factored in. (California = $$$. Texas not as much) How about annual-merit raises? I'm sitting at about 3.8%-4.2$ per year. So I don't feel bad when I don't get a bonus.
How about overtime? Currently, the engineering contract says if we work overtime, we get salary +$6 per hour. It's not time and a half, but it's nice to be paid for our time. This isn't always the case w/ salary jobs.
Also, what's the estimated technical skill-level advancement schedule? Where I am, entry-level takes 2-3 years to advance to a higher skill-grade. Then another 2-3 for lvl 3.
Kiristo Jan 4th 2009 12:28PM
I thoroughly hate customer support. I love IT, but I can't stand stupid customers, and they are everywhere.