Blizzard Entertainment Interview

The editors at gamesindustry.biz have interviewed Blizzard’s Frank Pearce about a variey of topics.

How interesting has it been for you to watch the success of World of Warcraft?

Frank Pearce: I don’t know if I’d describe it as “interesting” as much as exhausting. We’ve got almost 3000 employees worldwide now, and the majority of that growth is due to the success of World of Warcraft.

As a company we’ve found ourselves spread very, very thin – because the World of Warcraft community has a voracious appetite for content. That development team is 130 people, they’re working on content patches, they’re working on an expansion set, they’ve got their hands full – and then we’ve got the other development teams that we need to continue to support as well.

So it’s great, it’s a great problem to have, but it is a lot of work. We’ve learned a lot, made a lot of mistakes along the way. It’s been good experience for us, I wouldn’t say that we’ve regretted it… but “interesting” isn’t how we’d describe it necessarily.