World of Warcraft News and Raiding Strategies

"Innovation makes for memorable talking points and feeds into the public’s perception of a visionary genius. People want to believe there are Promethean geniuses like Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs lighting the way. It’s a simple and romantic view. Why gum up the narrative with the minutiae? Who wants to hear about long work hours, internal failures, collaboration, and incremental progress? That stuff doesn’t sell magazines.

A disciplined developer targets a broad audience. Instead of creating features that demand expensive video cards, Blizzard always aims at low-end computers, making games everyone can play. This strategy isn’t exciting or “innovative,” nor does it energize the press, but it results in better sales—yet few studios embrace this attitude. Making games is unpredictable, complicated, and expensive. If executives want to avoid laying off hardworking devs, it’s incumbent on them to ensure their project will make enough money.

The words “proof of concept” means that a pilot feature is popular enough to be feasible. Investing in a better version of it seems prudent. If it’s fun gameplay to kill and loot monsters in an open world, making a game using this mechanic makes sense. If fantasy games outsell science fiction games, it’s logical to make fantasy games. These were the decisions that drove Blizzard toward WoW."

If you enjoyed this excerpt, there are many more like it in my book, The World of Warcraft Diary, written from the lessons learned while making WoW. I am crowdfunding the second printing.