Blizzard Entertainment Photo Tour - Starcraft.org
AJ
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Blizzard Entertainment. Even their name has become a symbol of excellence in the gaming world. From their earliest days of lesser-known gaming worlds to the penultimate game universes of Diablo, StarCraft and WarCraft gameplay and quality have been the abiding factors throughout. You’d think this would extend just to their gaming wizardry, but even their architectural surroundings are given this fine appreciation. Without too much further verbose wordplay, suffice it to say, Blizzard has an impressive new campus for their employees. Those who had seen their previous layout, consisting of multiple floors of multiple buildings in a generic office park would best appreciate the leap in environmental and architectural advances their new campus brings. Sadly most of us don’t have this frame of reference, but I think all of you will still find their campus just as impressive and distinguished as you’d imagine.
The image most people will see, just prior to attempting to scale the walls, is this. The Blizzard name etched in illuminated metal, directly above their front gates, staffed by two large Firebats (Firebats not shown for National Security purposes). You can hope and dream about passing beyond the gates, but without a pass or an appointment, you’re out of luck.
From the lobby doors outside their main building, you can see the two other buildings. On the right, their fitness center, cafeteria, and various offices located on the 2nd floor. On the left.. we have what you’d all wished we would have more of, photos of their various development teams, etc. We know the Web Team and unknown other developments reside in the building on the left, intense grilling of the employees taking a break just outside the building left us with the impression Blizzard is either A) Working on perfecting a true-to-life Goliath, B) A World of WarCraft amulet of anti-addiction, or C) Is really skilled at getting developers to not share their amazing unannounced titles with us. The courtyard is also home to Blizzard football games, volleyball games, and hippie picnics. One of those may not be true.
Inside the Lobby you are all but overwhelmed by the immense Blizzard culture right away. Your first sight is an impressive backlit Blizzard logo that shines out into the main campus space at dusk. Directly beneath it is their receptionist and waiting area. We spared the charismatic receptionist the agony of fawning from the fansite community.
If you looked closely at the previous picture of the Blizzard campus you would have seen the large open air/space in the direct center of the three buildings. This area, currently just full of generic mulch will soon be the recipient of a large Orc Statue, scaled up from the model shown above. Tales of its height were told while we waited in the Lobby, with various employees regaling us with purported heights of ten, twelve, sixteen or twenty feet! It’s hard to recall who told us what, though I vaguely remember Kevin Yu (Karune) mentioning twenty-feet, so be sure to call him out on that when we are able to confirm the final statue’s height.
Flanking the reception area are two small wings. On your right as you enter, you are immediately caught off guard by the deadly Nova. She stands ready to assault any unauthorized guests. Just next to her is a large flat screen looping high resolution copies of all of Blizzard’s cinematic genius – and a row of public computers, with basic software (Internet Explorer, etc) installed and World of WarCraft. I was unable to find StarCraft: Brood War on any of the machines!
Opposite Nova is the imposing statue of the Dwarven Rifleman. He stands quiet and alert, currently watching over the miniature Orc Statue and guarding the entrance to our next stop, the Blizzard Museum.
The Museum is Blizzard’s main semi-public display of their achievements and honors. Held within its walls are representative pieces of art from all three of their popular gaming worlds, unique pieces of publicity from across the globe, and copies of each of their Licensed Products.
On the left as you walk in is a 20 foot glass bookcase full of awards. Compiled from roughly twenty years of these three universes, these awards range from PCGamer, IGN, the Video Game Awards, Apple Design Awards, MacAddict, and so many more. They reflect a small piece of what Blizzard’s games have meant to so many over the years, and it was mentioned to us that these are solely awards given generically to game titles. Awards for specific teams such as Cinematics, are given and displayed within those team’s respective areas on campus, so one must imagine their award total greatly outnumbers just what is seen here.
Further down the wall on the left, we can see the many, many various Licensed Products that Blizzard has offered over the years, ranging from collectible action figures, to novels, to their more recent board games. Among these, you can also see in the second photo the StarCraft-specific novels – and in the third, the StarCraft-specific action figures. They had plans to produce more than just those shown, but these were not publicly available and are thus extremely collectible.
As posted many years ago on the StarCraft website on Blizzard.com, a copy of StarCraft was taken to space aboard a US space shuttle. As told to us while on the tour, apparently the story goes that the astronaut who brought the game along with him took it because of its importance to his family and himself. They had used Battle.net while he was away at training for this mission to keep in touch and to play together as a family, and he thus felt very strongly that he should somehow return something to Blizzard. This copy of SC along with the mission patch from his flight was given to them in honor of this.
Continuing along the edge of the room, we begin to look back towards the center, where several small dividing walls held concept art and finished renders from Blizzard’s various game worlds. Here we see their Diablo art, in recognition of the very popular (and patient!) Diablo fanbase.
Around the corner from this was a small nook, which had a marker designating it the “Blizzard Store” perhaps for a future area wherein they may sell some of their various products and paraphernalia. Regardless, for now it is used as another display area, currently showcasing some of their foreign publicity projects, StarCraft branded shoes are shown off in the second photograph especially. Also visible in the photographs are WarCraft III potato chips, World of WarCraft Coca-Cola from China, and a few other interesting advertising campaigns. Share the love with the US, Blizzard!
Also in that back area is the original mold used to produce the limited-run, somewhat expensive, Tychus Findlay statue. This was shown at BlizzCon, but it is an interesting piece to see again anyhow. Just whets the appetite for SC2 some more!
On the other wall of the room is a written note of congratulations to Blizzard for their Emmy win with the South Park episode revolving around World of WarCraft. (“Make Love, Not WarCraft”). The second photograph shows off a frame showcasing the 30 scripts it took to finalize, the signatures of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, and a bottle of champagne sent over from those two following their Emmy-win.
In similar fashion to the Diablo art on the walls, here we can see the various worlds of WarCraft (see what I did there?) featured, from its earliest years of WarCraft: Orcs & Humans, through WarCraft 2: Battle.net Edition, WarCraft 3, and finally World of WarCraft. It’s important to note that lots of this art is the original hand-drawn sketches by some of Blizzard’s most popular/famous artists.
Last in the Museum, but definitely not least, we have the StarCraft concept art and box art. Featuring some of the original concept art drawn by Samwise Didier and Chris Metzen, this is of course among out favorite pieces of art in the Museum, and one we hope to see grow with the addition of StarCraft II very soon!
While we cannot show you the inside of their offices, we did think you’d love a quick shot of what’s on top one of their flag poles. Other than the US and Californian flags on one side, there is a lone Blizzard flag flapping on the other. The fourth flag pole is currently empty, tales of an epic battle between the Alliance and the Horde over placement are told, though this author secretly hopes that the Terran forces might rise up and raise their golden logo high.
I hope this was an informative and fun feature for you all. I would have loved to have shown you all more, hell, I would have loved to have seen more, but alas this is all that we are able to share. Before we part, I leave you with the final view, the Blizzard front gates from the inside, just before driving out and leaving the campus. We hope to return as often as possible in the future!
Blizzard Entertainment. Even their name has become a symbol of excellence in the gaming world. From their earliest days of lesser-known gaming worlds to the penultimate game universes of Diablo, StarCraft and WarCraft gameplay and quality have been the abiding factors throughout. You’d think this would extend just to their gaming wizardry, but even their architectural surroundings are given this fine appreciation. Without too much further verbose wordplay, suffice it to say, Blizzard has an impressive new campus for their employees. Those who had seen their previous layout, consisting of multiple floors of multiple buildings in a generic office park would best appreciate the leap in environmental and architectural advances their new campus brings. Sadly most of us don’t have this frame of reference, but I think all of you will still find their campus just as impressive and distinguished as you’d imagine.
