As it has now become known, Blizzard employees bullied the author Andy Weir from the company. This happened about 30 years ago, during the time of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. Weir was in his mid-20s back then, a programmer, and dreamed of working for Blizzard. But after his infamous end, he became a sci-fi author and wrote “The Martian,” a massive hit.
Where does the story come from? The story comes from Jason Schreier’s new book “Play Nice: The Rise, Fall and Future of Blizzard Entertainment”. The later bestselling author is quoted in a conversation with Schreier:
Andy Weir complained in the early 90s that he had to work unpaid overtime as a programmer. After he complained, the other Blizzard employees made it clear to him that he did “not fit into the culture of Blizzard”. From then on, he was ignored or humiliated.
Weir says that so many people were mean to him that he felt it was his fault. He also admits that he made some mistakes, but in his view, hardly anyone cared about him or trained him properly. After a year at Blizzard, he was fired.
Weir says: He was devastated because working for Blizzard was his dream job. Weir had started a computer science degree but dropped out. At Blizzard, he worked on Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.
This is where Andy Weir is known from:
Programmer becomes sci-fi author and is praised for his scientific accuracy
What happened next for him? Weir proved to have enormous potential as a sci-fi author. He published the sci-fi novel “The Martian” in 2011, many years after his time at Blizzard, which was later successfully adapted into a film starring Matt Damon and received an Oscar nomination.
The film has repeatedly been praised for its extremely high scientific accuracy. An employee with such ability would surely have been valuable at Blizzard, had those skills been recognized.
Weir is not a “one-hit wonder” but has written other successful sci-fi novels that sold well, such as Project Hail Mary.
Money and a bad work atmosphere have been ongoing issues at Blizzard
Is this typical for Blizzard? As gamedeveloper reports from Schreier’s book, “Blizzard pays poorly and demands overtime” seems to be a recurring theme in the glorious history of the company.
There have reportedly always been issues regarding Blizzard’s salary structure. In many cases, the base salary was low, but there were high bonuses offered. However, these bonuses were always in jeopardy if things didn’t go as planned.
For instance, in 2005, those who worked on WoW reportedly received only small bonuses of around $2,000. In 1998, during StarCraft’s development, developers were told they would receive no bonus because the game was finished too late.
Anyway, it seems that things at Blizzard can get wild sometimes: It is said that some of the studio heads constantly contradicted each other, costing everyone in the team time and nerves. The bosses Metzen and Pardo reportedly had a heated argument about StarCraft II for an hour while the entire team watched.
Metzen said: It must be pink. Pardo immediately said it must be blue and only an idiot would make it pink. It was painful to watch.
Moreover, the people at Blizzard are such hardcore gamers that excessively long gaming sessions in Ultima Online delayed work on Diablo 2.
The full extent of the problems at Blizzard and a lack of seriousness in management became evident in 2021 when a sexism scandal shook the image of the glorious studio Blizzard: “Cocaine in the bathroom, sex in the lounge” – scandal surrounding WoW developers Blizzard escalates
