I've disappeared over the past two months, and want to update everyone about what's going on.
When I posted at TeamLiquid, I was always doing so on my own time, with my own opinions. It was always a difficult balance, because as some of you know, I was also a Producer at Blizzard Entertainment the past two years, and was often involved with or leading projects that revolved around StarCraft. Maintaining that balance of posting as an individual, and not as someone representing the company, was always hard. I witnessed first-hand, many times, where the word or private thoughts of an individual employee was immediately taken as the company’s official gospel.
Many people say Blizzard is “distant” and “out of touch” with its communities. That may be true in the sense of not officially posting on a site like this, and that feeling is perpetuated by the carefully worded and PR-friendly statements you see on official outlets. In my personal view again, a company with fans that are as passionate about their games as Blizzard fans are simply has to be that way. You have to understand that everything you say will be analyzed, criticized, and studied for hidden meanings. When a company’s, or by extension its employees, words take on that much meaning you can’t afford to be indiscriminate about them anymore. The popular counter-examples of other game studios “doing it right” and getting down and dirty with the community and appearing to listen better are, frankly, because what they say doesn’t matter as much.
None of that isn’t to say I didn’t frequently disagree with the “Blizzard PR way” of doing things, and I often butted heads with the PR Director in order to do things and say things I thought the SC community would enjoy. It really stung when I saw the frequent and inevitable “Blizzard doesn’t care” and “Blizzard hates SC cause they got WoW” comments on sites and forums. You don’t know how many times I just felt like replying and telling those people they had no idea what they were talking about. But it boiled down to not crossing that line between posting as an individual and an employee, so I didn’t.
Now that I’ve left Blizzard, I will say so just once. The people who say that are simply wrong. The company cares deeply about the game and so do many of its employees. People still play it at work and the inherently geeky side of game company employees has come out more than once with heated lunchtime debates over zerglings. Here’s something to consider for those of you who haven’t worked in a game studio before: when you have an 8 year old game that isn’t bringing in much money anymore you don’t devote time to still patch it, try to keep on top of the endless hacks, and spend your time organizing events that are by no means cheap (BlizzCon, BWI) because you don’t care. Most of the rest of the game world thinks Blizzard is crazy to still be doing stuff for a game this old, and they’re probably right. So now, without any worry about being interpreted as an official statement, I can frankly say fuck off, a few of you really don’t know how good you have it with a company still willing to support a game this old.
That said, I really want to thank the people in the community that made it all worth it. You kept me motivated, and made me try my very best to overcome obstacles to be able to do some fun things for the community in return. Blizzard, and the SC community, really owes a lot to the people who helped so much behind the scenes. Some of their contributions were publicly visible, others were not, but they all rocked. A few that come to mind are FakeSteve, Uhjoo, Jonathan from GG.net, Bill307, Mora, Manifesto, SI, Wufan, Excal, Ashur, Illintar, Ilvy and Entropy. Two other people that just made things plain fun for me are Rekrul for the fun times showing Brett, myself, and bunny around Korea during BWI, and Legionnaire who was always lots of fun to go have a beer with at events and is just a genuinely classy person.
I needed to make a change in my life and for various reasons and have left the company. I won’t go into the reasons why I left. I’ll just say I enjoyed the years I worked there, met some great people at the company, and continue to believe that they will make top notch games well into the future. I’m also sorry that I won’t be able to see the Sandlot come to fruition. I hope you guys will be patient with Brett who had to take over when I left with basically no notice. On the technical side he had to basically figure out everything I was doing, who I was talking to, and try to pick it up with minimal delays to the event, which isn’t an easy task. The event is his as much as it was mine though.
Something you’ll never see on an official Blizzard site is how this event came to be. I’ve seen some nice theories like “make up for SC Ghost”, “increase sales in Korea”, etc. Want the truth? Brett and I were really drunk on a Wednesday work night at the Goat Hill Tavern in Costa Mesa. We started brainstorming something really unique and fun we could do for SC. Between downing beers and highly analytical statements about tournament mechanics like “fuck yeah that would kick ass” the Sandlot came to be.
Although I realize very few people will care to read this far into a post that’s way too long, but seriously… thank you to all of you guys at TL.net and in the community.
As for myself, I will be starting a new position on Monday with another company I really believe in: Razer. Although a lot of my new position will be behind the scenes, doing global strategic planning for the firm, it is a company that’s almost as tied into gaming as Blizzard is. Every one of their products is made with gaming in mind, for a gaming audience. I already know that a bit further down the road, there will be some exciting opportunities to get involved with the SC community again in that position. I can’t wait for the day.
You gotta ignore all the negativity that constantly flows from the community. There will always be ignorant teenage kids who have nothing better to do than complain. Good post btw, nice to read something like this ^^
Thanks to you sir for your time effort and love for the game and community.Im very glad that you were there making things happen.And i hope your new position well be great as well for you.\
Thank you agian sir. -FuDDx
P.s. how does one get into the type of work you do? Im an old fart with little schooling what type of schooling woud help just curios. gl yo
Too good to hear you are ok and not really bad things made you leaving Blizz, but you will missed there for sure. So hopefully you will stay in forum here as a user and post maybe new things from Razer. Gl there
Really a worth reading. Thanks for you huge contribution, to bad you aren't a blizzard employe anymore but more important i hope u're enjoying your life GL in the future!
Good post. Blizzard is still a company run by a company that needs to turn out a big profit, and sometimes people forget that. They kinda NEED to devote most of their attention to wow, the fact that they give us anything at all is good enough.
The only thing I'm pissed about is WGT saying they'll "launch 2 weeks after the patch". How long has it been now?
On September 15 2006 16:16 Drowsy wrote: The only thing I'm pissed about is WGT saying they'll "launch 2 weeks after the patch". How long has it been now?
You forget the "two weeks" are in the "blizzard" language, but spoken by the WGT representative
nice thanks!!! I'll probably always remember when you showed up to the SoCal LAN last year and were really nice and friendly and brought cool stuff to give out to us! Thanks again for all your work.
On September 15 2006 16:16 Drowsy wrote: The only thing I'm pissed about is WGT saying they'll "launch 2 weeks after the patch". How long has it been now?
You forget the "two weeks" are in the "blizzard" language, but spoken by the WGT representative
Wow, interesting story. I think most of us read to the last word . And yes, all but the stupid ungrateful kids appreciate that Blizzard still release patches and organize events to a 9 years old game!
Really great and infromative read. I'm glad you let us know the real way how Blizzard views StarCraft and its community. Many many thanks for coming up with the Sandlot. Best of luck at Razer yo.
Great read, I always looked forward to your posts a while back because you would tease us with little spoilers and I always looked forward to what Blizzard would have in store for us next.
Glad to see you're back . Hope you had a good vacation. Are you in the Netherlands now?
It must be a good feeling to finally be able to speak for yourself without having the weight of Blizzard on your every word.
Thank you for the StarCraft events you organized while at Blizzard. I'm sure everyone in the community either enjoyed them, or REALLY enjoyed them . Your large tournaments were a rare opportunity for non-korean gamers to compete against professional korean players. And the map-making competition gave multiple people an unprecedented opportunity to see one of their own works out in the world.
I hope you find your new job to be satisfying and enjoyable.
Thank you for those words. I think the passion about this game exists on both sides of the fence. I really hope that your new position at Razor does not mean you stop visiting here. Despite the immaturity in this community (and even this thread) there are those of us who think Blizzard has done well. You are a big part of that. Although you had to tow the company line many times, you did so with honesty and professionalism.
All the best in your future, Manifesto7 Trevor Allen.
On September 15 2006 15:59 nvnplatypus wrote: ... I already know that a bit further down the road, there will be some exciting opportunities to get involved with the SC community again in that position. I can’t wait for the day.
the inevitable sc 2 teaser? eh? eh!?!
anyways i read every word in that post it was very informative, it's really something to hear from someone who worked on, as mani put it, the "other side of the fence". we do have some great people doing things for sc but for most of us up till now the events put on by blizzard weren't attributable to faces or individuals, and that might explain a bit of our incessant "more! more!" attitude as opposed to an appreciating, understanding attitude. reading your post allows us to see the individuals and the "faces" behind the works of blizzard and i think that makes it much more significant and humanized. it was already greatly appreciated by the older, mature members of our community but i think still many of us only had the impersonal logo of Blizzard to thank for those events. now that is different, many of us are seeing the behind the scenes real people who made those events possible, and you warriors of blizzard join the hall of fame next to all of our other awesome sc powerhouses. thanks!
Good luck Theo! I still think that losing you at Blizz, was a great loss for the StarCraft (& warcraft) community. You were one of us deep at heart, it made all the difference.
I used to play The AoE series, I know what it was like. Blizzard is the shit when it comes to taking pride and putting effort into their games. For this, Blizzard has and will always have my upmost respect.
Although I realize very few people will care to read this far into a post that’s way too long, but seriously… thank you to all of you guys at TL.net and in the community.
Hahah no man I think with what you wrote, noone could stop reading before the end of the message. I didn't know officially you were working at blizzard but thats what I read between the lines something like a year ago.
I know there will always be people whining about "you dont care about us" but seriously Blizzard did improve their communication ALOT during the last years. I think the major turning point was 1.8 when replays came and then people though that would be the point when blizzard give up on bw. But blizzard did a lot after. And even if the simple gamer couldn't always feel how blizzard cared, when you work on a blizzard fan site, you know they care. You receive the betas, you receive a starcraft novel book...
what makes it exeptional in how dedicated blizzard is. Blizzard don't go bragging about how good they are in PR, they just do it, they take care about updating the games.
there is a similar situation by the structure of the feedback. When you work as a DJ you get people who are never satisfied and want specifics songs. Those who are happy, they just dance, they are usually the majority but they dont come to tell you good job, they show it to you they enjoy by dancing. The one guy who is unhappy that night will come over again and again to tell you you are working bad, you are a bad personn, noone likes you etc... I know its easier when you face the complain directly than over internet because you can shut him down. But usually the easiest way is just to say "ok ill play your song" and you dont play it. You write it down on a paper and the guy is happy for a while.
Sincerly I really hope that people from each blizzard game are as lucky as we are with brood war! I think brood war is also the game where blizzard learned the most
btw thanks for doing Sandlot and the other stuff that I don't know it was you who did it. Some say the worst of people come out when they are drunk, if Sandlot was your worst I have no idea what would come out with your best
[edit] are you the one that said "there is a drone bug?" in that video where tasteless replies as: "OMFG WAIT WAIT, 'THERE IS A DRONE BUG???'" or something?
Oh wow, so you're Theo. I've been wondering for a while now who the Blizzard contact who seemed to know so very much about the community was, and here I've been reading your posts all along.
That post was an awesome read, and I agree 100% with what you said. I've been a Blizzard fanboy since... 98-99 or so... and I've been consistently defending Blizzard's actions, mostly in the B.net forums themselves, for years. I've never doubted for a second that Blizzard doesn't care, and it's really nice to hear the confirmation from you (even though it really wasn't necessary).
Anyways, I guess I really don't have much more to add other than THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR EVERYTHING.
Good luck with Razer, I hope everything works out for you. ^_^
You have to know most of your and blizzard's work is appreciated by most of the community. There have been some ups and downs but blizzard always showed everyone how much they care about this game and the community. As for you, I really didn't hear from you until the Sandlot tournament, but I have to thank you a lot for your great idea, for your time and patience when talking at msn. You're a nice person and I hope you have the biggest success at your new job at razer
I don't mean to be a pest here since I understand the economics of it and I know that if Blizzard is making a profit off of Starcraft at this point then it is not making much of one, but I thought I should point out that when people say things like "Blizzard sucks" or "they don't care," it's mostly out of frustration rather than a general feeling that what is being said is true.
Take for example when 1.14 came out. All of a sudden, PGT maps couldn't be used in multiplayer games, and perhaps an unintended consequence of this was that you couldn't load up old PGT map replays and watch them with your friends. I'll bet anything that more than half of the people right now saying how much they love Blizzard were cursing at Blizzard at that time. That doesn't mean that those people are lying here, but it shows how if Blizzard does something that the community views is not in the communities best interest, we get frustrated and say things that perhaps we don't mean.
You're one of the coolest, most laid-back guys I know, but also one of the hardest-working. I remember meeting you at first at WCG 2004 and you carried yourself differently from most Blizzard representatives in the past. That is, you weren't afraid to show the fans that you were a fan as well. I can't imagine what would possess a man to leave the best gaming company in the world, but you have your reasons and things will no doubt turn out for the best. Best wishes and good luck at Razer!
EPT
Good luck man, and as always I GOT YER BACK.
