Credit where credit is due

Credit where credit is due

I feel fortunate to have been part of Blizzard Entertainment when it started, now over thirty years ago. I got to work with amazing people; make games players loved; and learn a lot about design, programming, and business along the way. Some of those lessons were hard-earned, as my blog articles and the book describe.

While I’ve blogged about those early years of my career, I’ve always been busy with other pursuits, and so my articles have been few.

Fortunately Jason Schreier has written a book, Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment which shares more, based on over 300 interviews.

An article based on a portion of the book included an ambiguity about an anecdote that I feel the need to correct. [Note: the article has been updated; thanks Tyler]

Back in 1999 we talked at Blizzard about turning Battle.net into a digital store to sell PC games. While the article doesn’t quite come out and say it, from the context it appears that this was my idea, and that Mike O’Brien, the designer and programmer for Battle.net, agreed with the idea.

One of the reasons that Battle.net was so-named, when it could simply have been called Blizzard.net, was to allow for selling non-Blizzard games without creating confusion as to their authorship.

While Mike and I pitched this concept to the rest of the Blizzard leadership team, credit should go where credit is due: the original idea for Battle.net, the business model (free), the name Battle.net itself, and the original programming implementation, were all Mike O’Brien.