170: Behind the Blizzard

Jason Schreier joins us on a deep dive about the history, making, and almost undoing of Blizzard as chronicled in his new book Play Nice.Advertise on The Nextlander Podcast at Audioboom, or support us on Patreon!CHAPTERS(00:00:00) NOTE: Some timecodes may be inaccurate for versions other than the ad-free Patreon version due to dynamic ad insertions. Please use caution if skipping around to avoid spoilers. Thanks for listening.(00:00:10) Intro(00:00:53) Welcome Jason Schreier(00:02:27) How do book sales work?(00:08:05) The book tour(00:11:08) The Games Industry: Bleakness AND Hope?(00:16:42) Let's talk about Blizzard's early years(00:43:41) Moving to middle Blizzard(01:00:53) Project Titan(01:08:07) Overwatch saves the day(01:12:12) Overwatch League(01:19:49) The first of the PR disasters(01:24:32) Reckonings at Blizzard(01:27:02) Overwatch 2(01:33:26) Briefly mentioning some other Blizzard games during this time(01:34:56) The end of Activision Blizzard(01:49:11) Any tips for navigating news?(01:52:04) Microsoft enters the picture(02:03:12) Some other news that is actually related(02:03:18) 343 rebrands to Halo Studios(02:07:55) Is Tencent going to buy Ubisoft?(02:13:03) What is the next book?(02:18:33) Thanks again to Jason for joining us(02:20:22) Wrapping up and thanks(02:20:57) Mysterious Benefactor Shoutouts(02:22:04) Nextlander content updates(02:23:21) See ya!