The toxic transformation of Warcraft maker Blizzard
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Hello and welcome to Decoder. I'm Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. Today I'm talking to Jason Schreier, a Bloomberg journalist and author of the new book, The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment. If you don't know Blizzard, you know it's games. The studio behind Warcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch is more than 30 years old, and it's achieved a kind of legendary status. At the same time, Blizzard has become emblematic of many of the video game industry's worst tendencies. From shareholder pressures to prioritized monetization over creativity, to the deep sexism that still pervades so much of gaming today. Jason's book is out on October 8th, and it is an incredible, detailed accounting of how Blizzard started, grew into one of the most beloved and most controversial companies in the world of video games, and then eventually became a victim of its own mismanagement.
Oh, and there are a series of chaotic, deeply culture-clashing acquisitions along the way, culminating with Microsoft closing its deal to buy a combined company known as Activision Blizzard last year in the biggest acquisition in Microsoft's history. As you'll hear Jason say, the story of Blizzard really revolves around two central themes. One is the inherent tension that exists between art and commerce, particularly commerce at scale. Blizzard's journey from small startup in California to subsidiary of Microsoft with thousands of employees? Well, that's been about as close to M&A hell as you can imagine. In particular, Jason goes into detail about how merging with Activision, the company behind Call of Duty, set Blizzard on a collision course that would rob it of so much of the creative agency that allowed it to flourish in the 90s.
The other big theme is how industries and intensely insular fandoms, like gaming, often have deeply problematic workplace cultures that take root from the very beginning and refuse to let go. That makes these companies almost impossible to change without industry shaking upheaval. The state of California filed a massive sexism and discrimination lawsuit against Activision Blizzard in 2021, a moment that would change the course of the company and precipitate its sale to Microsoft the next year. Activision Blizzard in California settled that suit in 2023, shortly after the Microsoft deal closed. There's a lot going on here. As you'll hear Jason say, the story of Blizzard is a quintessential tale about the perils of capitalism. about what growth and scale will do to a business, especially those in the business of making art, and the compromises that have to be made along the way to keep all that money flowing.
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