Pocket Realities

Former Blizzard Developer and ArenaNet, Undead Labs Founder: “We Need Unionization” – IGN:

I wish things like this were better covered in real-time rather than being a retrospective… I think if more of us realized how toxic Blizz was already starting to be way back when, it could have been steered to better outcomes.

“The Activision Blizzard disclosures this week have left me disgusted and repulsed — but not at all surprised,” Strain writes. “I joined a very early stage Blizzard as a game programmer in 1996 when there were several dozen employees.”

Strain recounts how in 1998 “after a cataclysmic meeting with one of the founders over our objections to dismembered and impaled female body parts in the beta version of Diablo, my wife and I began planning to leave Blizzard. Ultimately, I joined with a few like-minded colleagues and moved a thousand miles away from the Blizzard sphere of influence to start an independent studio.”