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Chronicling the ups and downs of a popular video game empire.

Beginning with the friendship and shared video game obsession of two UCLA tech buddies, Allen Adham and Mike Morhaime, who in 1991 founded a video game company called Silicon & Synapse, Bloomberg News journalist Schreier astutely charts the evolution of Blizzard Entertainment, whose hits like World of Warcraft and others put the entertainment developer on the gaming map. Though originality during the company’s early days was challenging to achieve, eventually, after numerous name changes and the development and immense popularity of Warcraft and its spawned sequels, Blizzard catapulted into the tech gaming arena. The ensuing contract negotiations, acquisitions, and mergers, namely with Activision, ushered the company forward, but those progressions came preloaded with pitfalls. Schreier doesn’t overlook or sugarcoat the less savory details of Blizzard’s sketchy “frat house” corporate culture, its “aura of secrecy,” its questionable office politics and philosophies, or how its games like Diablo and StarCraft suffered sagging sales. The author also digs into the scandal surrounding Morhaime, Blizzard’s president for two decades, who would abruptly leave to start his own company. A frequent documentarian of the gaming industry, Schreier cleverly incorporates commentary from original Silicon & Synapse programmers, tech experts, executives, game programmers, and Blizzard employees themselves to create a well-rounded image of the company as well as the grave mistakes costing the company its reputation, despite being purchased by Microsoft in 2023 in an acquisition lauded as the largest in tech and video game history.

A thorough, well-researched report on the evolution of Blizzard Entertainment.