The new issue of the Escapist has a piece up about how Blizzard began-- no, they didn't start out with World of Warcraft, or even Warcraft, or even Diablo. Blizzard started way back as a (somewhat failed-- ha!) offshoot of Sierra games, which you old timers (like myself) might remember used to make those terrible DOS games* that came on 5 1/4 inch floppies in big boxes.The article goes through a lot of the changes over the years-- the development of Blizzard's first console games and Diablo, and how they came to make the RTS Warcraft games, all the way up to Battle.net and our little game. About World of Warcraft, Mark Kern has a nice quote: "We had to build an entire company around [World of Warcraft]." There's no question that as big as Blizzard was after making classic, lasting games like Diablo II and Warcraft III, WoW has turned them into the 800lb gorilla of MMORPGs, if not the industry at large. The article is an interesting read, especially if you want to know more about where this company we all pay money to came from.
But I do have one bone to pick with you, Escapist. In this article, there is not one mention of one of Blizzard's best games ever. It was a console game, and it came out and amazed me before anyone had ever heard of Diablo or Warcraft. In fact, I still have the original cart sitting around my house, in the same box as my old Sega Nomad. Anyone guessed it? Of course I'm taking about The Lost Vikings. And not only did the Vikings find their way into Azeroth (you can meet them in Uldaman), but Blizzard now has a playable demo of this little pre-Blizzard gem on their website. Where were you on that one, Escapist?
*Ok, Sierra did make a lot of good DOS games, I'll admit. But no one remembers all the terrible ones-- that's what I'm here for.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-21-2006 @ 12:49AM
rich said...
> "which you old timers (like myself) might remember used
> to make those terrible DOS games that came on 5 1/2
> inch floppies in big boxes.
5 1/2 inch floppies? maybe you are getting old... alzheimers FTL?
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9-21-2006 @ 12:56AM
Mike Schramm said...
Yes, I am getting old. :) Fixed.
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9-21-2006 @ 1:11AM
g8rCody said...
"those terrible DOS games." WHAT?!? I loved Sierra games! They're what I grew up on. Kings Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest, Quest for Glory, Leisure Suit Larry, and all the other random Sierra games. They're classics, and had just as big an impact on computer gaming in their time as WoW is having on the world of online gaming today. So show some respect! Anyone else with me?
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9-21-2006 @ 1:42AM
AcceptableRisk said...
You did NOT just call Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist a bad game. That game was great.
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9-21-2006 @ 4:08AM
Dada said...
Actually I believe that The Lost Vikings was an original Amiga game... and it was great.
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9-21-2006 @ 4:56AM
Grunt said...
Oh Diablo... it's all coming back to me... the one weekend a friend of mine and me only had for a LAN session and we argued what we're gonna play the 2 days. He was already on Diablo for weeks and tried to fascinate me too but up to that weekend I wasn't appealed by that creepy hack'n slay game. So ">>Fast Forward"... 48h hours later we were SO close to get the endboss down when his father came in and told us to get ourselves ready for departure. Arwwwwwww...
Besides of the diablo series I played Vikings first but didn't remember that it was made by Blizzard until I read an article a while ago. Did you know that this lost dwarfes game wasn't even the first one actually? There were more!
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9-21-2006 @ 10:00AM
Nemesis said...
Daggerfall, the rats would always kill me because you couldn't adjust the camera view to see near your feet. Still have it somewhere.
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9-21-2006 @ 12:52PM
Brian Richerson said...
Oh, how I remember some of these games. The Aces over... series of flight sims. A-10 Tank Killer and the ever popular B.C.'s Quest. Yep, I've been playing games on computers since 1979. :)
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