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Can we get some cool series on the site and interviews with people that work all around blizzard? That would be really cool to watch and see the people who make this awesome game.
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We had a short run of something similar to what you describe with our "A Day in the Life" series, released during Blizzard's 20th anniversary: http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/b20/interviews.html (Even our team's own Bashiok is featured!)
There's definitely some value to opening up our doors a bit more, so to speak, and giving the community an opportunity to get to know more of the names and faces within Blizzard, and the work-related responsibilities those people have. That said, it does take a fair amount of resources from multiple departments to put features like that together. When possible we like to couple them with other announcements or initiatives to provide more background and context for what we're working on. One thing we do fairly often as well is sit various developers and other Blizzard content creators down with fan/media sites for interviews. Ideally that allows for more community-driven questions to be answered, as opposed to any of us rather aimlessly talking about our day-to-day operations. They're also easier to pull off given that we're not publishing the content ourselves -- meaning much fewer resources on our end are required. |
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Obligatory picture of my lunch from the Blizzard cafeteria. :D https://twitter.com/Rygarius/status/423217075121692672 |
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Would a fly-on-the-wall developer meeting series be possible? Let us see one of the fabled sit downs, if it is very clearly stated that what is being discussed is just ideas maybe the community could handle it. I can see how something like that would be cool. In reality though experiments like the recent "WoW Source" interviews would be closer to the final product than our weekly CM meetings with the developers. There's a certain production value and level of professionalism we want to achieve with any official Blizzard video, and not only are our meetings very informal, they're meant to accomplish something a little different than any public-facing interview. It's not really in anyone's best interest for us to repurpose those meetings for public consumption. Nah. I've seen people throw darts to make important decisions before. At least, that's what I hope they're doing. If they're actually thinking about it, we're all in big trouble with the major rework going into WOD. It's funny to hear blizzard (a multi-billion dollar company) talking about resources. But then again they are so stingy they can't hire a few programmers to fix bugs that have been around since vanilla, and they just recycle content over and over (see hearthstone, diablo 3 etc). Aka - We only NET about 95 Million dollars per month...Clearly we don't have enough resources for ANYTHING like this... Reality is often quite a bit more complicated than these clever little narratives devoid of facts people like to conjure up. I wish we could get together and chat about that in greater detail some day. I'm sure the three of you would exercise patience and understanding should the opportunity arise. :) |
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Yes there are so many of these mini-developers who all run very successful MMO's in their spare time. lol ;p |
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Sadly, there's quite a bit that can't be shared and/or you would find terribly boring. I've been neck deep in spreadsheets and planning documents as are many others. "Behind the scenes" would involve a lot of photos of people staring at computer screens, sounds of frantic typing, email notifications flickering across the screen, instant messages, and meetings involving spreadsheets and planning documents. ;) There's a lot of work that goes on and not as much shenanigans as some would like to hope for, but as Zarhym said, we do try to give more glimpses into individuals and what they do at Blizzard when we can. We'll keep working toward that end as much as possible for you. |
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There are puppy cams. Oh yeah... I can't see how THAT could go wrong. ;p |
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That's an interesting interpretation of what I said. I mention that I'm neck deep in spreadsheets and you assume that spreadsheets, emails, instant messages, and meetings with spreadsheets and documents don't apply to other people at the company including the designers. It does. I'm not saying that the developers don't do cool things, but as Zarhym said, to show off said cool things, it would take a lot of work and an unvarnished/unpolished behind the scenes look wouldn't be too terribly informative or interesting if not presented well. As for being "full of myself"... all I can do is smile and laugh. |
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*Shrugs* I just want to know who to blame now GC has left. You could always spread the blame out a bit more. ;) |
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After reading some of the follow-up responses to Neth's and my posts, I have a slightly different, more personal angle on this discussion I want to share!
I totally understand this desire you and others have expressed. I kind of relate it to desires I have to know more about how bands I listen to get along outside of playing music (social dynamic, if you will), what their rehearsals are like, how they collaborate when writing, what their production process is when making an album, etc. I have the same kinds of curiosities about movies and the actors/staff making them. It's pretty analogous across all arts and entertainment industries, and I think it's because the overarching goal is to create an extremely polished piece or product that moves, inspires, and/or entertains people. The audience is usually not given much of a view into the nuts and bolts of any particular project though, unless some sort of behind-the-scenes feature is released. But even then it's generally not raw video footage, or some producer's diary made public. In whatever format it's delivered, it's scrutinized, polished, and packaged for public consumption first. And that's really what I was getting at in my initial posts, including why it takes resources from around Blizzard to create any such behind-the-scenes material. Profits and revenue aside, employees are resources, of which there is a finite amount, who have any number of day-to-day tasks to keep this ship sailing. :) Maybe this is getting too esoteric or abstract... I believe that those who pour blood, sweat, and tears into creative endeavors to ideally entertain the masses want to have a lot of control over how information about the work and its creators is presented. The process of completing the work might sometimes be boring, or even dirty, and if an audience gets to peek behind the curtain too much it might irrevocably change their perception of the finished product -- not necessarily because the revelation is damning, but because it takes impact away from the intended experience of the creation itself. And, all that said, we still want to share with you what we can when we can, because World of Warcraft is ultimately an ongoing collaborative endeavor, in which having an engaged and informed audience providing input is incredibly important. That's why we talk everyday with the public on the forums and social media. We can talk more candidly without necessarily showing you all the nuts and bolts we use to generate the 1.21 gigawatts necessary to keep the mystery and the history unfolding. WHAT.
No harm, no foul! You originally said:
If the argument is that image matters to people -- whether it's the image of an individual, a company, or a brand -- and you're not usually seeing a person at "face value" by looking at their social media profile, I wholeheartedly agree. That's pretty much inherent in social media and not exclusive to any person or group of people, be they celebrities, "semi-celebrity nerd status" folks as you describe, or anyone else. ;) |
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We've done similar things in the past and it generally works. But it also kind of goes back to what I said about artists wanting to have control over how their art, or the process of creating that art, is presented. Even if a third party is brought in to shoot a bunch of footage and conduct interviews in order to piece together a documentary, we wouldn't just let them have full creative control and final approval. There's always the chance that something could be edited out of context and create frustration/confusion in the community, or something gets filmed we didn't intend for. In other words we're still very hands on in examples such as you brought up. We'd have Blizzard Communications staff with a camera crew at all times while they're on campus to monitor the b-roll and interviews -- standard protocol for any media visits anyway, and why you might see me in a lot of campus tour pictures, hehe -- and the completed product would require our review and have to be given our approval before it's ever made public. Again, that's not to say that we don't or won't consider/do this type of thing, but it doesn't reduce Blizzard resource requirements as much as you might think. |
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First, it didn't get to me. If you read everything with full context I responded to him because he implied (in response to Nethaera) that he might have made me sad. I wanted to be open about it and let him know that I didn't take offense. I sometimes respond to people who are critical of me or Blizzard because this is a discussion forum, which means constructive debates are welcome. While Artefon was being a little critical in his initial rant, and hinted that he thought he might have offended me in some way, I found a bit of common ground with him and decided to point it out. Second, I don't understand your point after reading the post a few times. I'm not sure what such way I'm displaying myself that you're faulting me for. His post about employees worrying too much about their image on Twitter wasn't directed at me specifically, which he said more directly in a follow-up post in this thread:
Third, it's not clear to me if you're suggesting that I shouldn't worry about how I'm perceived by the public on social media and the forums, or that I shouldn't be on social media at all because it's shallow. In either case, those suggestions are pretty much in direct opposition to a core component of how a Community Manager operates. Together with PR we're members of the Communications team at Blizzard and we're public spokespeople for the company. Interacting with the public on forums and social media is in the very fabric of my career, and I want people to get to know me. Showing a bit of my personality while engaging players reinforces the fact that this is a company of human beings who not only share common interests with many people in the community, but are also part of the community as well. So when we're engaging a large audience and interacting with many people via many outlets, image matters! Blue text shouldn't come from a nameless, faceless entity. :) Lastly, don't take my response to your post as some indication it "got to me." As I said before, this is a discussion forum. In the context of this discussion about players getting an inside look at Blizzard employees, I saw an opportunity to clarify some things after reading your assertions. It doesn't mean I took it personally. |
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That's not relevant to this thread at all. Please stay on topic, find a thread that's relevant to the topic you want to discuss, or (if there isn't one already) create a thread on the topic you want to discuss. |
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That's not relevant to this thread at all. Please stay on topic, find a thread that's relevant to the topic you want to discuss, or (if there isn't one already) create a thread on the topic you want to discuss. |
