Jason Schreier

drama was after I had already started to think about writing the book, started to work on the book. So that's the kind of origin story. And then as far as the scope of the project, I had actually started out thinking... that it was mostly going to be about those later years.

To your point, I actually thought that that was kind of the original vision of the book, that it would mostly focus on the Activision takeover and how it kind of led to a lot of Blizzard's decline in a lot of ways. And then as I started reaching out to people who were there in the early days and just hearing their stories, I was like, well, two things happened.

To your point, I actually thought that that was kind of the original vision of the book, that it would mostly focus on the Activision takeover and how it kind of led to a lot of Blizzard's decline in a lot of ways. And then as I started reaching out to people who were there in the early days and just hearing their stories, I was like, well, two things happened.

One, I was like, this is super fascinating. And it would be a shame not to be able to go in depth on this rich history of Blizzard because there's so many wild anecdotes there. many of which had never been reported before. And there's just a lot of great history here that I feel like we should be getting into in this book.

One, I was like, this is super fascinating. And it would be a shame not to be able to go in depth on this rich history of Blizzard because there's so many wild anecdotes there. many of which had never been reported before. And there's just a lot of great history here that I feel like we should be getting into in this book.

And second of all was it is impossible to understand all of the issues that Blizzard would face later on without starting from the very beginning and kind of looking at the seeds of those issues. And that is true both in a business and in a cultural sense.

And second of all was it is impossible to understand all of the issues that Blizzard would face later on without starting from the very beginning and kind of looking at the seeds of those issues. And that is true both in a business and in a cultural sense.

In the business sense, you can't understand the Activision takeover and why that happened and why it matters and why it affected Mike Morhaime so much without going all the way back and looking at the revolving door of corporate parents and how Blizzard dealt with them

In the business sense, you can't understand the Activision takeover and why that happened and why it matters and why it affected Mike Morhaime so much without going all the way back and looking at the revolving door of corporate parents and how Blizzard dealt with them

And why Blizzard needed to get out of Vivendi so badly and why it would take that deal with Activision and think Activision was a good partner at first and so on and so forth. Like you can't understand what happened in the recent years of Blizzard, the last seven years of Blizzard, without going way back to the beginning and kind of tracing that story. And same with the cultural stuff.

And why Blizzard needed to get out of Vivendi so badly and why it would take that deal with Activision and think Activision was a good partner at first and so on and so forth. Like you can't understand what happened in the recent years of Blizzard, the last seven years of Blizzard, without going way back to the beginning and kind of tracing that story. And same with the cultural stuff.

You can't understand how Blizzard got to this point where it was being served with a lawsuit for sexual harassment and misconduct without going all the way back to the beginning and looking at the early kind of frat house days of Blizzard and then tracing that through the college campus days of Blizzard and really just seeing that a lot of those people who grew up with Blizzard in a certain cultural way

You can't understand how Blizzard got to this point where it was being served with a lawsuit for sexual harassment and misconduct without going all the way back to the beginning and looking at the early kind of frat house days of Blizzard and then tracing that through the college campus days of Blizzard and really just seeing that a lot of those people who grew up with Blizzard in a certain cultural way

stuck around and we're still there and we're in leadership positions by the time the lawsuit hit and problems started to emerge. So it's really, you can't tell the full story without going all the way back to the beginning, which is ultimately what led me to decide to structure the book this way.

stuck around and we're still there and we're in leadership positions by the time the lawsuit hit and problems started to emerge. So it's really, you can't tell the full story without going all the way back to the beginning, which is ultimately what led me to decide to structure the book this way.

And I also, I think that it's important also to be like, hey, remember that idyllic version of Blizzard, like the Blizzard that made all those games that you and I loved back in the 90s and 2000s. Even that Blizzard had a lot of issues, had staff rebellions over pay and people who felt like they were being treated unfairly and people who got abused at the workplace and

And I also, I think that it's important also to be like, hey, remember that idyllic version of Blizzard, like the Blizzard that made all those games that you and I loved back in the 90s and 2000s. Even that Blizzard had a lot of issues, had staff rebellions over pay and people who felt like they were being treated unfairly and people who got abused at the workplace and

including Andy Weir, who would go on to write The Martian, and women who were mistreated even back then when it was 95% men at the company. So it's important to also just kind of look back at Blizzard and be like, wow, this was a place that made so many great games, that was so great in so many ways, but also had this ugly side festering even back then.

including Andy Weir, who would go on to write The Martian, and women who were mistreated even back then when it was 95% men at the company. So it's important to also just kind of look back at Blizzard and be like, wow, this was a place that made so many great games, that was so great in so many ways, but also had this ugly side festering even back then.

So I would say the longer ago you were at Blizzard, the more likely you were to talk on the record. Whereas the people who were here, were at the company more recently, were more likely to talk. anonymously and on background and just kind of like they didn't want their names in the book. Sure. Which makes sense. Wounds are more recent and whatnot.