Blizzard 20-year anniversary retrospective video now online
by Mathew McCurley 
Mar 7th 2011 at 9:00PM
Mike Morhaime and Allen Adham lead us through a 20-year retrospective about the foundation and formation of the company, their trials and tribulations, and how we got to the Blizzard of today from two guys in the same computer architecture class. The video is absolutely fascinating. Check it out at the Blizzard Entertainment 20-year anniversary site.
Filed under: Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Tolkfan Mar 7th 2011 9:06PM
What? The founders of Blizzard were some geeky kids with no corporate background?! I'm sure Bobby Kotick is appaled. I'm not.
http://us.media.blizzard.com/blizzard/movies/b20/blizzard-retrospective.flv
Direct download link if the blizzard flash player does not agree with you (ie. streaming at a blazing 20kb/s)
Mr. Tastix Mar 7th 2011 11:24PM
Lots of corporate suits that are situated in the gaming industry were, once upon a time, gamers. But many of them have "sold out", so to speak. Many of them betrayed their own childhood, their own love for games, for their newfound love of money and what little power they had.
Bobby Kotick is one of these people (oh yes, Kotick knows what software development is).
StClair Mar 8th 2011 12:48PM
We say "sold out out", they would no doubt say "grown up", "made it to the big leagues", etc.
Mr. Tastix Mar 9th 2011 1:24AM
The first rule of a business is to make money unless your company is a non-profit organisation. If you don't think about potential profitability of the services and products you're selling, you may come to find you don't last more than a month (if that) and your supply of cashflow starts running dry, very fast.
A lot of the people who manage game development or publishing companies didn't go into the business with the mindset of just making money but also providing a decent service. They thought they could do better for gamers than what was already being provided (this is how Activision started, in fact).
You can still "grow up", become professional, make money, and play with the "big leagues" without losing touch with what you once were and why you originally came into the business. If money was your goal then that's fine, but I think that will lead to problems with clients in the future (look at how most gamers see Bobby Kotick, for example).
Drakkenfyre Mar 7th 2011 9:13PM
Wait, someone screwed up bad on that timeline.
They don't show Diablo 2 in 2000, they show it in 1997.
Cephas Mar 7th 2011 9:55PM
Oops. You're right. 1997 is when the non-canonical Diablo I expansion that Blizzard didn't develop was released. It's kind of weird that they would screw that up.
Drakkenfyre Mar 7th 2011 10:07PM
I find it odd they are saying Diablo 2 shipped three years before it did.
I have a copy of Hellfire somewhere. It's hard as hell to find now. It had two classes that were unfinished, and could be added via an edit in the .ini file. Barbarian, and Bard (I think). Barbarian used the default Warrior model, and Bard used the default Wizard model.
It was published by Sierra, and originally going to be able to be played on Battle.net. Blizzard didn't like that because they didn't develop it. So no Battle.net support. Shame because it was a pretty good expansion for something that's non-official. It also extended the hidden cow level lore by a ton, with the cow quests, and cow jokes.
Gnorky Mar 7th 2011 11:01PM
Right, you would know what happened more so than the creators/founders of the game an company.
Drakkenfyre Mar 7th 2011 11:33PM
Gnorky, when Hellfire was released, that was the REASON they didn't support it.
I am not just guessing here, that's what was said.
Sierra and Davidson and Associates were together, Sierra wanted to do an expansion pack for Diablo. Blizzard didn't want to. But they were forced to let Sierra make it anyway, and publish it.
So it comes out as officially supported but non-official. None of the story has ever made it's way into any other Diablo product. And because they did not develop it, Blizzard would not let it work on Battle.net because they couldn't guarantee it's quality. These are all reasons explicitly put forth when it came out. People wanted it on Battle.net, but Blizzard said sorry, no.
Find a single mention of Hellfire anywhere on Blizzard's site. The only thing you are going to find is that it's not a Blizzard product, and is not supported by Blizzard. They distanced themselves from the game, because it was not their game.
A company comes along and says "Hey, we want to do an expansion for your game. You can't deny us because your parent company owns us. And we want it to be compatible with your online network." see how well that goes.
Drakkenfyre Mar 7th 2011 11:36PM
And if you are somehow talking about the release date, you are a complete and utter idiot. Diablo 1 was released in 1996. Diablo 2 was released in 2000. I preordered it, and got it the day it launched.
Russell Mar 9th 2011 8:01PM
I found it interesting that they didn't talk more about D2, perhaps because I was so addicted to that game. But I also see how it marks a progression in their RPGs and how various mechanics in WoW respond to problems in D2 (re-specing instead of being stuck with an accidentally misplaced point [spear mastery instead of sword, doh!], mail instead of dropping an item on the ground and running back with a different character, bank space instead of mules, instances instead of finding a different world in order to do a quest, etc.).
Drakkenfyre Mar 10th 2011 12:02AM
I am thinking a good portion of Diablo is skipped over because most of the team was let go.
Diablo was done at Blizzard North. After the 1.10 patch was released, they merged the two companies into one building, and some of the workers were kept, some were let go. Some were given the option to stay, and some did, and some didn't.
So a good chunk of the original team who did Diablo no longer works there. Indeed, Bill Roper left many years prior.
wolfess79 Mar 7th 2011 9:39PM
I wish Blizzard would include the fans in this 20 year celebration a little more. They use to have great events and commemorative gifts for company achievements (ie. Baby Blizzard Bear.) I don’t know if it’s because they are with ActiVision now, but more they seem to be pulling away from this model. Sad panda.
jfofla Mar 7th 2011 9:42PM
The Fans?
You mean the ones that cry, bitch, threaten Blizzard employees, and rage quit?
Yeah, include them in the celebration.
Portals Mar 7th 2011 10:06PM
Or do you mean the ones that cry & bitch about everyone else?
dropzoneguy Mar 7th 2011 10:22PM
The fans do sometimes cry, but they also play Blizzard games because at the core we love the content they create. Blizzard needs to remember that the fans are not the "enemy." They wouldn't be where they are today if it wasn't for their millions of crying fans, just like we wouldn't be so lucky to experience their wonderful games if it weren't for such a great development house.
So it isn't so crazy for them to show the fans some true love and respect. It also wouldn't hurt if the fans did the same.
CrimsonKing Mar 7th 2011 11:52PM
I seriously doubt them not including the fans like you say is because of Activision. It could even be from Vivendi which pretty much owns both Activision and Blizzard. Actually for the most part Blizzard's name is used in the Activision Blizzard company name more out of recognition than anything else since it was Vivendi that merged with Activision.
Chokaa Mar 8th 2011 7:09AM
Except the stock symbol is ATVI for ActiVision so its not like Vivendi is even really still around :(
But anyway, yea. Investing in em for btoh WOTLK and reselling the week after the xpac and doing the same thign for cata paid off a TON. Way more than just keeping my money in there. Thanks guys!
Juanin Mar 7th 2011 9:56PM
Finally we know the third hidden founder!
Cephas Mar 9th 2011 4:16PM
I assume you're talking about Allen Adham, but I'm not sure why you think he's the "hidden founder," though. People haven't really talked much about him since he left Blizzard in 2004, but it's not like Blizzard has been pretending that he never existed. He's even credited as a lead designer on World of Warcraft.