The Warcraft III team diligently works on the game inside of the Blizzard office.

The collaborative work environment still exists at Blizzard in Irvine.

Part of the community feel comes from the team-driven atmosphere at the company - you'll never see a Blizzard game arrive with one employee's name above the title. The company also goes to significant lengths to make sure that employees feel a sense of belonging by organizing activities such as a company-wide screening of the movie X-Men this past summer. "I call it planned spontaneity," says Roper. "You really do need to knowingly put together things so employees can get to know each other."

Matt Householder and Max Schaefer discuss the collaborative atmosphere at Blizzard.

Once employees do get to know each other, the results are development teams that collaborate on building new products. "The biggest secret to our success is that no one person calls all the shots on a game," states Pardo. In fact, Blizzard doesn't just ask people to be creative and collaborate; it demands communication among team members. "Part of what we offer people is a real chance to contribute," says Matt Householder, the "voice of reason" at Blizzard North. "We don't say to people, 'You do what I say to do' with three layers of hierarchy between Max and an artist. It's a team feeling."

One employee at Blizzard in Irvine has quite the collection of action figures.

This philosophy births what Pat Wyatt calls a "democracy of the loudest voices" because ultimately there has to be someone to take ownership of a decision. For example, during Diablo II's development the team debated whether to allow player killing. "There were high-level representatives on all sides of the issue," says Roper, "but eventually we had to make a decision." (Player killing is allowed in Diablo II, but it's incredibly hard to pull off.) Although high-level employees feel confident going against the grain, Wyatt says it was sometimes hard for the newer hires to feel the same way. "We really had to fight hero worship by new employees," he recalls.
 

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