Ars tours the Blizzard Headquarters:)

[0roo0roo]

..

 

[blurredvision]

Good god that's impressive. Anyone like me want to work for Blizzard now?

 

[amddude]

Very nice

 

[Lonyo]

1,200 employees
I would never have figured they had that many.

 

[smackababy]

1,200 kind of seems low. They have at least 3 full development teams (WoW expansions, SC2, Diablo 3), a WoW maintenance team, plus everyone not involved directly with game development. I would easily see the number being much higher. I can't view the link at work, but from what I've seen of Blizzard HQ, it is really frickin' nice.

 

[Anubis]

1,200 kind of seems low. They have at least 3 full development teams (WoW expansions, SC2, Diablo 3), a WoW maintenance team, plus everyone not involved directly with game development. I would easily see the number being much higher. I can't view the link at work, but from what I've seen of Blizzard HQ, it is really frickin' nice.

theres 4 dev teams actually, you forgot the new IP they are working on

 

[smackababy]

theres 4 dev teams actually, you forgot the new IP they are working on

I know for awhile they were hiring for a new MMO set in a world differing from World of Warcraft. But, my point still remains, they are a large company and making PC games have needs met by people other than developers.

 

[Maximilian]

Nice place :thumbsup:

They have sinistar! Ive never heard of anyone else owning that game or even mentioning it lol.

 

[Lonyo]

I know for awhile they were hiring for a new MMO set in a world differing from World of Warcraft. But, my point still remains, they are a large company and making PC games have needs met by people other than developers.

That's not including non-development staff (it seems).

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25307
4600 people... doing WoW (including support staff/etc).

So 1200 people excluding the thousands of WoW ancillary people.

 

[ViviTheMage]

sweeeet.

I love how they never let you see into the server room, them and Google, so secretive!

 

[nanobreath]

Oh man, I just majorly geeked out. Nice to see they spent all that money from WoW well!!

 

[ravana]

That was sweet.

 

[I Saw OJ]

Would love to just wander around in there checking things out.

 

[Cheesetogo]

LOL, anyone remember that commercial?

 

[Kromis]

Wow those motherfuckers are BALLIN!

 

[xCxStylex]

The picture of the "Blizzard Arcade game" is a MAME box. It got moved from building 3 though to somewhere else.

I worked at Blizzard for 3.5 years, and one the hands down fucking coolest thing they haven't shown is the arcade cabinets in building 3.

One guy brought in his cabinet, which used to be champion edition. It got converted to SSFII turbo and last I knew of, it was alpha 2. So many fun times on Champion and SSFIIT :X

Another QA dude bought an SF3 3rd strike cabinet off craigslist and brought it in also. That cabinet was later converted to an emulator, but still ran 3rd strike. I never played 3rd strike before, but I still believe it is the most balanced, and the best fighting game in terms of twitch skill, technical knowledge, and mind games.

Another person got an MVC2 cabinet also.


Also, the GNOC, (global network operations center) looks way the fuck cooler than that artist depiction, which just seems old and outdated. It is NOT "the server room," it's just where servers are monitored. There are clusters and clusters of servers next door though, although I'm not even sure what those are.

 

[SPARTAN VI]

Just submitted an application. Srsly

 

[CU]

xCxStylex what did you do at Blizzard? If you don't mind telling.

Good luck Spartan VI. Do you have previous in the game industry?

 

[blurredvision]

Also, the GNOC, (global network operations center) looks way the fuck cooler than that artist depiction, which just seems old and outdated.

Yeah, I think they were just having fun with that pic.

EDIT: On a side note, I wish they'd make that global users map public. That'd be neat to check out.

 

[SPARTAN VI]

xCxStylex what did you do at Blizzard? If you don't mind telling.

Good luck Spartan VI. Do you have previous in the game industry?

Thanks!

I have absolutely no experience in the game industry outside of my modding projects for Oblivion and Fallout 3.

But I applied for their fraud manager position, of which I have 5 years financial industry experience to back me.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

I live near their headquarters in Irvine and I see some of their employees sometimes at the mall. I can tell because they are wearing a Blizzard jacket with their names on them. They are your typical nerdy looking guy that you would kinda expect, but I always see them walking out of stores like Louis Vuitton, Armani, Versache with lots of bags. Lottss.

Im jealous..