Jason Schreier Talks About Warcraft 4 & Blizzard Executives Departures

Jason Schreier, a journalist and industry insider, has his new book, Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, coming on October 8. It is dedicated to the history of Blizzard, the company behind World of Warcraft, and "chronicles its entire 33-year saga." In a recent Reddit post, the author answered some questions about the history of Blizzard that he managed to investigate and discussed the process of collecting information for the book, the release of Warcraft 4, Blizzard executives' departures, and more.

The book is based on interviews with more than 350 people, and the number itself is impressive. "Persistence, ambitious goals, and Google Meet," the journalist commented. He also shared that the more recent the event, the less people were inclined to talk on the record, both from Blizzard and Activision parts. "Which makes sense if you think about it - nobody's really worried about someone going after them because they spilled the beans on what it was like at Silicon Synapse in 1991," Schreier explained.

The journalist also revealed that the company tried to launch a new RTS, "making all sorts of pitches and prototypes, from Warcraft 4 to even, wildly, a Call of Duty RTS pitch." The devs hoped that if Warcraft 3 Reforged would be successful, this could open the doors to a new franchise installment. However, it didn't happen, as Warcraft 3 Reforged turned out to be "the company's first bad game," and the plans for the next part were abandoned.

The upcoming book covers not only the creation of World of Warcraft but also the company's other titles, like Overwatch. The journalist investigated the details of the company executive departures from Team 4 before the release of Overwatch 2. He explained that after the successful start of Overwatch, the team faced the problem of having loads of work and the need to tackle several tasks simultaneously, such as updating Overwatch, working on its sequel, and more. Bobby Kotick suggested hiring more people, while other company executives, like Jeff Kaplan and Chacko Sonny, were resistant to this, as they believed strongly in the culture they'd built, and "it led to all sorts of problems as the years went on."

The book also contains details concerning the development of Blizzard's MOBA Heroes of the Storm, its merger with Activision, and other internal processes and issues that the company faced.

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