Gaming Spree

Disclaimer: I’m no longer at Blizzard, so this is not an official statement from them, or anyone on the Diablo 3 team. I also have no intention of violating my NDA or speaking ill of my former co-workers. It’s unprofessional, and frankly, would be untrue. The level of pride, craftsmanship and devotion that Blizzard puts into their games is the watermark of all their dedicated employees. That said, I don’t work there anymore, so I can turn down the PR filter a tiny bit and share some brief memories about my time on the project.

Prologue

I started on Diablo 3 a bit over 5 years ago, right when I joined Blizzard Entertainment and eventually was promoted up to a Senior Producer position. I had come from another studio called Liquid Entertainment where I worked as a Producer on various other titles. When I started at Blizzard, the team was much smaller than it is now, and we had a larger journey ahead of us than we may have admitted to ourselves. Personally, it was a period of huge growth, learning and experience.

I started on the team as the Producer responsible for the environment art and working with level designers. Over the course of the project, I would eventually work with almost every single sub-team, eventually landing with the programmers and system designers that put together all the systems that make the game run.

There’s something special about working on games. Long hours, tight deadlines and shared passion blurs the line between co-worker and friend. It can sometimes become a liability in the workplace, but it’s not something I’d trade for a suit-and-tie workplace. On that note, this is a few of my learnings about working at company with Blizzard’s prestige, with people whose resumes read like a list of the top 10 games ever made, and on an amazing project.

Why did it take so long to make Diablo 3?

I’ve met many fans at BlizzCon, read tons of blog posts and forum postings. One of the top things that always came up was about how long it took to make the game. They’re looking for a silver bullet answer that would account for it. Fingers were pointed all over the place at snippets of news coming from the studio or our various community managers. The biggest truth is simply that making games is not an exact science. It’s a complex and messy affair and countless things contribute to it. It can be a major decision to change the art style of the game. It can be deciding to go a new direction with a skill system that requires new UI, programming and design tuning. It can be deciding that you’re not happy with the way a level looks or plays. It can be a million small things like deciding to spend an extra 4 hours to tweak the way an art asset looks so it works better with game play or spending a few days to do a treatment on skill icons to make them easier for players to memorize.

In reality, you have an endless branching set of decisions to make a game because, to be honest, you don’t know the specifics of the final game until you’re there. The vision and intent of the game was laid out at the beginning and to the team’s credit, we stayed very true to it. But the devil hiding in the details is what adds up to those countless overages and weeks (and weekends) spent retooling all the aspects of the game. It was all with the end goal of making a game that lived up to our internal standards and our fans’ expectations.

And to counter the common myth that Blizzard doesn’t have schedules for their games: Patently false. I wouldn’t be a Producer worth my salt if we weren’t running on schedules and deadlines, and we had one of the best Production staffs I’ve seen. In reality, they were all internal and the public only saw the final launch date when we we’re sure that we could deliver on it. Could you imagine a project with artists and designers running around without deadlines and schedules? You’d have to rate it on the “Lord of the Flies”/”Hunger Games” scale.

How did you even get a job at Blizzard? What was it like working on Diablo 3?

I’ve told this story a few times before, but working at Blizzard was a goal I’d had since I first played Warcraft 1 on a friend’s PC. I’d gone through High School and college with the intent of getting into the game industry and working at Blizzard, or a similar company that made amazing games. I played every game I could get my hands on, dissected them to learn what made them great (and not great). In college, before the days of UC Santa Cruz’s great games program, I cherry picked classes that would approximate working on games, specifically as a Producer. I learned how to program in OpenGL, took classes on making 3d Art and took business classes, all with the thought that if I had to work with all these different disciplines, I should understand what they do and how they do it. The games industry was and still is a tough one to break into, and I wanted to make sure the deck was stacked in my favor. Fortunately, that paid off and I got a job as an Assistant Producer at Liquid Entertainment.

You can’t put a price on the sort of in-the-trenches work you’ll do and experience you’ll get at a small, independent game developer. Some of the tales you hear of the game industry rang true and were valuable lessons early in my career. The hours were long, the work was hard, but I made some lifelong friends and associates. I got to work on some games that, while sometimes rough around the edges, were a lot of fun. Learning about how to balance the needs of a team that wanted to make the best game possible and publishers who needed to keep their budgets and schedules was invaluable. After three and a half years at Liquid, and a handful of shipped games, I moved over to Blizzard. How I landed the job is probably a combination of a strong background and resume, a healthy dose of passion and a fair amount of good fortune. Well, and in true Blizzard style, an epic interview.

I recall having my rather intense on-site interview with every single lead in the team, along with Rob Pardo, on one side of the table. Only one of my soon-to-be fellow Producers, Nathan Lutsock was kind enough to sit on the same side of the table as me. Always wanting to be prepared, I did some Googling of who I was going to be interviewing with. The resumes were intimidating to say the least. These guys had made some of my favorite games, both inside and outside of Blizzard. Keeping my nerves in that meeting and not running out of the room screaming is still one of the highlights of my professional career. The questioning was tough, but fair and I walked away from it thinking I had a 50/50 chance on the job. Fortune smiled on me and I got hired on soon after.

So, how is actually working at Blizzard? It was great. Not going to lie. The company isn’t putting on a front for the public. They really do want to make awesome games and want to take care of their customers. The people I got to work with were amazing. I was among very talented and smart people who never ceased to impress you with what they could do. Events like BlizzCon really were as big of a treat for the developers as they were for the fans. I got to meet and talk to a ton of fans that were very supportive. Even after hours, when hanging out with co-workers, we’d often play Blizzard games or talk about things we were working on at work. That environment of commitment and dedication was a joy to work in.

Was it all idyllic days in the sunshine? Of course not. It was hard work. Very hard. The long hours thing didn’t go away. I can’t speak for the rest of the team, but for myself, the pressure of working on a Blizzard title would sometimes rear up. Not that I was worried we were going to fuck it up, but because I felt I owed it to everyone who played the game. I wanted them all to enjoy Diablo 3 as much as I enjoyed Diablo 2. Also, 5 years is a lifetime in the games industry. Some people’s careers don’t last that long and we were spending it all on one game. Your mindset has to completely change from a shorter, one-year development cycle to making solid, long term strategic choices over multiple years. As a Producer, there’s very little reference in the rest of the industry for how to handle the project and team in those situations. I recall going to an IGDA Producer conference once and asking the question, “If you had years to devote to shipping your game, how would you keep your team focused and motivated?” The only response I got was laughter and, “Only Blizzard has those problems.”

I didn’t always make the right calls, but fortunately Blizzard has a strong culture of iteration. We accepted our mistakes, tried to learn from them and move on.

How did you feel about Torchlight/Game X,Y,Z?

It’s a funny thing with game fans. They like to pick sides. I have an Xbox, PS3 and Wii all sitting side by side under my TV and they have yet to get into a fistfight or refuse to work because they can’t get along with the system next to it. It’s probably a relic of the Mario vs. Sonic advertising fights a few decades ago, but seriously, who cares? In reality, myself, like everyone that worked on Diablo 3 are huge gamers.

I played the hell out of Torchlight. On a professional level, to see what they had done and as a gamer because I respect the people who made it and it was just fun. Then I played it again on Xbox. I’m looking forward to Torchlight 2.

You’ll see a few feuds around the games industry, but for the most part, if you’re around events like GDC, or even around the Blizzard campus, you just see people who love games. These are folks who will spend their whole lunch debating the merits and demerits of everything from top tier games to the latest big title on iOS.

What’s your favorite memory of working on Diablo 3?

There are too many to count. Announcing the game in Paris at Worldwide Invitational was incredible. We had spent weeks working on that demo and I had spent a ton of time filming it. (Look for the barbarian named Sparker!) And the crowd’s reaction was insane. The cheering at that Diablo 3 logo coming up was something that will always bring a smile to my face. Playing multiplayer games with other people on the team and realizing that even after working on the game for years, it was still fun, was always refreshing. Staying late to play the StarCraft 2 alpha with some other guys on the team every single day for years was awesome, and actually gave me my work nickname of Sparker, since that was my login to the game.

But on a personal level, I felt the most accomplished when we’d have some major game issue that we were arguing about internally, sometimes for weeks, and after endless frustration we’d all sit down at a conference table and pledge to not leave until we sorted it out. I know that not everyone on the team always got along on a personal level, but seeing them work together and being able to walk out of that room with a solution was always the best part for me.

Epilogue:

I set an hour timeline for myself to write this up, so I’m going to wrap it here. I might revisit it if I hear more questions down the road. As for myself, I couldn’t be prouder of the game and the team that made it. And if this all sounds a bit too cheery and upbeat and a bit too much like Blizz PR, you can either believe I’m still a company shill or that I really did enjoy my time on the project. I’m going with the latter.

As for what’s next on the horizon for me? I hope to have something to share about that in the near future, but for now, mum’s the word.

In a week’s time we’re going to see the release of Nintendo’s new 3DS handheld in North America. It’s being launched with the requisite marketing blitz that a major publisher like Nintendo usually musters. And for good cause. Nintendo’s always championed unique, new game experiences over pushing pure horsepower. And as they usually do, I think it’s paid off.

If you go onto the typical gaming forum sites, they’ll call out games like Uncharted and Gears of War as stalwarts of the future of gaming. Sexy graphics. Cinematic experiences. For decades, I’ve heard the pitch line, “it’s like playing a movie!” as a way to sell the latest and greatest. And don’t get me wrong. I love those games. But I’m a sophisticated gamer with over 25 years of gaming experience. Those are really gamer’s games. What Nintendo is looking for is games for everyone.

I think the Wii was an easier sell than the 3DS in this respect. You can hand anyone in your family a Wii controller, fire up Wii Bowling and, “it’s like I’m really bowling!” is quickly the response. The 3DS’s main sell doesn’t translate quite so easily until you really get to check out some of the augmented reality stuff they’re putting out there. “My world is the game world” is a bit more abstracted than what the Wii offers, but it’s still a very tangible result. And that’s what’s really the mainstream gaming requirement.

And tangibility is a good amount of what makes the grade these days for many game players. Take a look at the current top-dog in the casual space, Angry Birds. You touch the screen, pull a slingshot and gameplay commences. There are no byzantine button combinations. And it’s strength is in its simplicity, and I think that’s a similar avenue to where Nintendo has been headed for years. It’s infuriating to advanced gamers, but the simple reality is that it works. There is a huge market with a large appetite for games like that.

Now, keep in mind that even Nintendo realizes that it needs to strike a balance between new and old. In fact, anyone who is proclaiming the death of the console because of games like Angry Birds is either being sensationalist or failing to consider the entire eco-system of gaming. It would be like saying that because many people eat fast food and do so on a frequent basis, there’s no room for fine dining. But that’s absurd because we see in practice that there’s more than enough market for both. Even within a single person. Some days you want a Big Mac because it’s easy, accessible and enjoyable. Some days you want the culinary delight of French Laundry because you really want to invest the time and enjoy the entire experience.

And I think that’s a powerful parallel to the 3DS in how Nintendo is positioning it in the marketplace. It’s going to provide a lot of your everyday fare that has become the hallmark of Nintendo’s last decade. Party games, mini games, simpler fare with straightforward access for day-to-day consumption. But I also think it will have enough of the master crafted, connoisseur level games that will act as the occasional fine dining supplement. And it will sell a ton. I’ve already got mine pre-ordered.

A little over a week ago was E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo. It’s a long-running industry show where companies show off their latest and greatest games with flashing lights, loud soundtracks and attractive female booth workers. It can be a bit overwhelming and a little hard to single out games above the noise. It can be crowded and exhausting. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Long lambasted for its over-the-top presentation and expensive cost, E3 has gone through a few different iterations. A few years back many major publishers became concerned at the cost/value equation of the show. It’s definitely not cheap to have a presence there, as publishers try to outspend and out spectacle each other. To combat that, E3 moved out of the massive LA Convention Center cross-town to hotel suites and an airplane hangar in Santa Monica.

And it flopped.

But why? Publishers had ideal conditions to show off their games. They had the rapt attention of the press. And they could do it for a lot less. So what went wrong? Well, part of it was the logistics of the whole thing. Thanks to a conspicuous lack of public transportation, getting anywhere in LA is a colossal pain in the ass. But that was really an inconvenience and not the real source of the issue. The real reason it didn’t work was simply because it wasn’t representative of the true spirit and culture of the industry.

It was very much the games industry that the publisher sees. A world of balance sheets and PR campaigns. Managed risk and measured rewards. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an essential part of shipping games on a global scale. Ad campaigns, accountants, lawyers, retail channels and so on are all just pieces of the chain that get the latest awesomeness into your living room. They are important, but the developers who make the games and the gamers who play them don’t relate to that culture.

And that was the real issue in the whole affair. Games can challenge the mind, give you a thrill, but most importantly they transport you to another place. Lands of verdant green where elves and orcs are locked in eternal battle. Or cold, dark space stations where space soldiers fight off alien hordes. Or a cul-de-sac where your family of Sims lives and plays. There’s a reason no one’s made a game about a business meeting in a hotel suite in Santa Monica.

As a culture, gamers crave the fantasy. We go for the escape. We gather for the spectacle.

E3 has gone back to its large halls, loud noise, and oneupmanship. Visitors pay ridiculous amounts for sub-par concourse food. The publishers pay through the nose for their booth space. Each of the major console makers rent out Los Angeles landmark theaters to showcase their newest products during extravagant press conferences. And millions of gamers follow along at home watching on Spike, G4 and countless gaming sites. An entire culture is held at rapt attention. Why? For a chance to see the latest games? Sure. For a glimpse of an LA celebrity or a videogame legend like Shigeru Miyamoto? Of course! But its definitely a case where the whole is worth much more than the sum of its parts. They watch and we attend because it’s a land where the gamer is king. A land where everything is over the top. Where we’re all celebrating our hobby, livelihood and passion.

We’re there for the Fantasy. The Escape. The Spectacle. E3.