Innovation lessons from Blizzard
I'm sure many wonder what's so special about Blizzard that set them apart from their competition. Lately it's been a big subject for debate where one CEO said you need around a billion dollars to stand a chance when developing a new MMO and intend to compete with World of Warcraft. Others say you simply need a lot of time and no publisher to breath down your necks. I'd like to say this is one of the most important parts.
Blizzard Entertainment, the envy of the computer game industry, has learned 11 lessons on innovation that can help almost any business.
Irvine-based Blizzard used these innovation methods not only to create the world's most popular massively multi-player online game, World of Warcraft, but also to keep the game fresh and challenging for more than 10 million players.
Because many of those customers pay $15 a month to continue playing, Blizzard's ongoing creative achievement is worth more than $1 billion a year in revenues, not counting the multi-millions it tallies from its other games, such as StarCraft, Diablo II and Warcraft III, plus trading cards, comic books, etc.
This combination of creativity and profitability is much of the reason for the upcoming merger of game company Activision with Blizzard's parent company, Vivendi Games. The new company, to be called Activision Blizzard, will be valued at about $18.9 billion.
The following lineup of innovation lessons emerged from a video game conference, an interview, and several experts' comments.
Blizzard executives discussed the company's innovation processes during the D.I.C.E. video game conference last month in Las Vegas. Then, in early March, World of Warcraft lead producer J. Allen Brack explained his teams' work methods during an interview at Blizzard's new headquarters in Irvine. I also invited several business and innovation experts in Orange County to comment on how Blizzard works and how it and other creative enterprises such as the Walt Disney Co. innovate to keep their customers interested.
RELY ON CRITICS
Blizzard welcomes criticism – seeks it, in fact – both during game development and after the launch, when games need to be fine-tuned and freshened up.
In a process that is common for software companies, an alpha test provides crucial pre-release feedback from company employees. When the game software is ready, Blizzard moves to a beta test involving a limited number of outside players. Blizzard plans a beta test of its upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack for World of Warcraft, but hasn't announced when it will begin.
In addition, tens of thousands of Blizzard subscribers sign in to the game's Public Test Realm area to test and give advance feedback on patches, upgrades and revisions for the current version of World of Warcraft.
"Seeking out customers' viewpoints and criticisms is an ideal way for businesses to align products and services to what their customers want," said Ardelle St. George, intellectual property attorney and chairman of the Orange County Innovation group.
Innovation educator Marty Wartenberg of UCI Extension and the ZB Global Design Center in Carlsbad said, "It is very useful when developing your design and product to have third-party objective folks review and critique the design."
"The idea is that colleagues will not be completely honest and critical with the participants present," he said. "It would be much healthier if folks could take well-meaning and constructive criticism as a chance to improve the product or service. Unfortunately human nature tends to resist. This is a challenge to overcome in the business world."
Mike Morhaime, Blizzard CEO and cofounder, said criticism is important, but it's hard to take at first, as he recalled from tests of Blizzard's early game The Lost Vikings.
"We thought the game was good enough, but Brian Fargo of Interplay took it home and played it, and had lots of feedback," Morhaime said. Fargo wanted all the Viking characters to be redrawn so they wouldn't look so similar, which the game team didn't want to hear.
"It means he really cares," Morhaime told them. "When I digested it, I thought, 'Hey, these are good comments.' "
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rojerlocklessAt least you don't have to run back to your corpse naked... and lose a full bubble of exp every time you die running back naked to your body..
yeah.. oh yeah.. that used to happen for you 15 year olds ;)