May 1

Trammel May
CST300 Writing Lab
5 January 2017

Game Development

During an interview with Phil Fish, the developer behind the hit indie title, Fez

(Polytron Corporation, 2013), in the documentary film Indie Game: The Movie, he said, To

me, video games are the ultimate art form. Its just the ultimate media. I mean, its the sum total

of every expressive medium of all time, made interactive(Pajot & Swirsky, 2012). When

dissecting the assets alone in video games it becomes obvious that Phil Fish is correct; music,

three-dimensional modeling, motion capture, sound engineering, sound design, script writing,

textures and lighting, are just a few of the countless assets found in modern video games.

Perhaps this is why video games resonate with so many people. With video game sales grossing

$16.5 billion in 2015 (Computer and video game sales, 2016), it is clear that regardless of what

exactly attracts audiences to video games, the demand is high. With this high demand comes a

myriad of game development companies ready to grab market share.

Section I

Companies such as Nintendo, Electronic Arts, and 2K dominate the industry with a

combined net worth of $46.23 billion (Sarkar, P., 2016). These companies are no doubt industry

giants and to some, names like Nintendo are synonymous with gaming itself. This does not

mean that these companies cater and market to every audience, nor does it mean these companies

are even considered as the face of modern gaming. Often, video game companies target a

specific market demographic. One company, among others, stands out when it comes to

exceeding market expectations, generating interest from new demographics, and breathing new

life into old ideas. This company of course is Blizzard Entertainment.

 May 2

In the year 1991 the world would first be introduced to the company that would one day

become Blizzard Entertainment. It was on this year that Silicon & Synapse was founded by Mike

Morhaime, Frank Pearce, and Allen Adham. After reaching some critical acclaim with their

release of WarCraft and two more name changes, Blizzard Entertainment was finally christened

in 1994. Since that year, Blizzard has created notable intellectual properties such as Warcraft,

Starcraft, Diablo, and Overwatch (Blizzard Entertainment: 20th Anniversary., 2017). Blizzard

is currently headquartered in Irvine, CA with offices all over the world. Their global staff of

4,700 employees work out of offices in major cities such as Seoul, Shanghai, Sydney, and Taipei.

Their current lineup of titles include World of Warcraft: Legion, Starcraft II, Overwatch, Heroes

of the Storm, Diablo 3, and Hearthstone (Blizzard Entertainment: Games, 2017). This lineup of

products is important when analyzing the market trends and more importantly, the climate that

Blizzard has cultivated for itself.

Blizzards roster of talent is vast, as is the number of successful products they have

released over the years. Without a doubt, this is due largely to one of the company's founders

who is also their current CEO and President, Michael Morhaime. He graduated from UCLA in

1990 with a Bachelors degree in Electrical Engineering. When Michael became CEO of

Blizzard, he wanted a culture around inclusiveness to everyone, and this is one of the primary

reasons Blizzard games appeal to so many people. In an interview with GamesBeat, Morhaime

said, Were trying to make these games for everyone, even if theyre not already familiar with a

genre, and especially if theyre not already an expert at the genre(Blizzard CEO Mike

Morhaime, 2016). Jeff Kaplan, the Vice President of Blizzard Entertainment and one of their

Game Directors, has truly embraced this culture and lives it. In addition to making sure the

Overwatch cast is diverse in genders, ethnicities, nationalities and sexual orientations, Jeff makes
 May 3

a note to have dialogues with fans via YouTube developer updates and forum discussions to

address concerns, critiques, and praise (Senior Corporate Management, 2017).

2016 was a fascinating year for the gaming market. This is primarily due to the

independent game market provoking public interest in features that until now have been only

present in big budget titles. This includes games like No Mans Sky for showcasing its

procedural generation algorithms that were leveraged in creating a nearly infinite explorable

universe (Alexandra, H., 2016). Contrary to the independent game milieu, Blizzard has set focus

on the competitive gaming market and esports. The esports market is hardly a new market for

Blizzard, and in fact without Blizzard, modern esports as we know it may not exist. With

Starcraft releasing in 1998 (Blizzard Entertainment: 20th Anniversary., 2017), and a huge

economic crisis in South Korea and other east Asian countries (Radelet, S., & Sachs, J., 1998),

the perfect conditions were set to create modern esports. Starcraft was designed for multiplayer

over a local area network and the game itself had very low minimum system requirements to

play (StarCraft System Requirements, 2016). This allowed easy access for players with

varying systems to easily play together. Starcraft as a real-time strategy game (RTS) meant that

when players compete they are pitting their reaction times, strategies, and actions per minute

(APM) against other players. This game was therefore highly competitive by design. The

popularity of Starcraft in South Korea was so great that in the year 2000, the Korean e-Sports

Association (KeSPA) was founded. That same year KeSPA selected teams of professional gamers

and held nationally broadcasted Starcraft tournaments (KeSPA e-Sports, 2017). The Starcraft

community also gave birth to a completely new form of video games called a multiplayer online

battle arena (MOBA).

 May 4

Blizzard had included a map and scenario editing tool with Starcraft for players to create

their own maps and missions. A Starcraft player by the name of Aeon64 created a new map

called Aeon of Strife. This four player map allowed each player to control a single powerful unit

and team up with one other player against the other team of two. Alongside the player units,

weak computer controlled units swarmed the battlefield. The goal was for one team to destroy

the other teams structures before theirs was destroyed. It wasnt until Blizzards release of

WarCraft III in 2002 that this new type of game, a MOBA, would really catch on. The WarCraft

series up until this point has also been a series of RTS games and just as Blizzard included a map

and scenario editor for Starcraft, WarCraft III came with a very expansive piece of editing

software. WarCraft III also had several role playing elements such as a hero leveling and hero

inventory system. With all these tools available to them, another user created a map based on

Aeon of Strife called Defense of the Ancients (DOTA). This was the beginning of the era of

MOBAs (Funk, J., 2013).

In the year 2015, MOBAs were everywhere. Valves MOBA, DOTA 2 was responsible

for 5.09% of all PC online play time, whereas League of Legends, another popular MOBA,

accounted for a whopping 22.92% of all PC online play time (Most played PC games, 2016).

That year, Blizzard decided to release their own MOBA, Heroes of the Storm, filled with an all-

star cast of Blizzard characters and game types and modes that would break the current model of

MOBAs.

The current product lineup of Blizzard is all competitive in different ways. Starcraft II is

a competitive RTS game, Hearthstone is an online trading card game (TCG), World of Warcraft

is a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), Heroes of the Storm is a

MOBA, Diablo 3 a is dungeon crawler role playing game, and in 2016 Blizzard would release
 May 5

their first new intellectual property in 20 years, Overwatch. This game is important because the

cast of creators consist of some of the most influential names at Blizzard, and although the game

is nothing new in terms of game mechanics and type (a class based first person shooter), the viral

marketing campaign, developer-player dialogue, attention to detail, and flawless execution have

made it Blizzards fastest growing title and one of their most successful games (Overwatch has

now, 2016). Blizzard had in fact walked away with multiple awards in 2016 for Overwatch,

including Game of the Year, Best Studio/Game Direction, Best Multiplayer Game, and Best

Esports Game (The Game Awards 2016, 2016).

The history of any large gaming company in some way is also the history of gaming. In

the case of Blizzard, not only is their history intertwined with the history of gaming, but it

reflects the gaming industry itself and the current trends. The entire gaming market is filled with

so many niches and esoteric market demographics that there is no one particular trend in which

the industry leans. The prevalence of competitive games and esports has illustrated that

competitive games such as Blizzards lineup are front and center in the world stage of gaming

trends. Overwatch has grossed $585.6 million since its launch in May (Lee, T., 2016) and the

esports industry predicted to have reached $493 million (Esports Revenues in 2016 will Reach

$493 Million, 2016). Blizzards third quarter results putting them at 42 million MAUs, which

the report defines as the, number of individuals who played a particular game in a given month

averaged across the number of months in a respective period (Activision Blizzard, Inc., 2016).

It is clear that the market is in high demand for competitive games that are accessible to

everyone. This in turn leaves companies, such as Blizzard, with a high demand for talented

software developers who can produce well-polished and inclusive products.

Section II
 May 6

Working as a Senior Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) is a fascinating job

with many responsibilities. The core purpose of the position is to write Behavior Driven

Development (BDD) and/or Test Driven Development(TDD) layers for continuous integration.

Other responsibilities include writing numerous internal development and testing tools,

frameworks and libraries, as well as creating full stack internal web applications for data

visualization and application status reporting. As mobile and unity automation continue to

become standard roles in the development process, the need for SDETs will grow, and this means

job opportunities in any company that produces software. This work has allowed access and

development on large applications within an Agile environment. Working as a Senior SDET is a

great job, but the ideal career path leads towards some sort of software or game development.

At this point, all software engineering jobs require a degree and professional experience.

In order to further a career in software development, earning a bachelors degree is the highest

priority and it is therefore important to finish with a degree from the CSUMB. CSUMB offers

some great electives to assist in the acquisition of game development knowledge. CST 306 is a

class on game engine programming, this class will be great for discovering the low-level

concepts and methodologies used by game engines and can increase ones ability to leverage

lower level tools during the development process. CST 320 is an introduction to digital games

and teaches the life cycle, structure, and creative concepts necessary for game development.

CST 338 is a class on software design and teaches OOP software design concepts and strategies.

CST 438 is a class on software engineering and appears to teach extreme programming

methodologies for software development (Extreme Programming: A Gentle Introduction,

2009). In addition to a degree and experience, the most important skill companies are looking for

is the ability to learn and adapt quickly. While working at Disney Interactive, I have been
 May 7

dropped into numerous projects where the language, libraries, and structure are completely

foreign. The expectation is that one can drop in quickly to a new environment and begin

development with no ramp up time.

In order to succeed in getting a job as a game developer, having a finely tuned digital

portfolio is paramount. This is also very important, as software development experience does not

necessarily mean one can develop any software. Game developers are looking for other game

developers. The lifecycle, structure, and methodologies used for creating a game are unique to

game development. Developers for companies such as Blizzard are also less concerned with the

specifics on technologies one has used, as regardless of what tech one used in the past, Blizzard

has their own proprietary engine and tools. Instead, a finely tuned digital portfolio demonstrates

that the skills and knowledge necessary for creating games has been attached, rather than simply

listing off languages and frameworks on a resume.

Portfolios are not the only way to showcase work. Our team has been working on a new

automation framework that supports web, Android, iOS, tvOS, and Unity. Once this framework

is polished, documented, and has high enough code coverage, it will be opened sourced.

Internally, the framework has cut development time for automation in half by using a completely

different testing model while still providing an intuitive experience. Being part of a popular open

source project is often a guaranteed employment opportunity.

It is often recommended to read Cracking the Coding Interview by software developers,

in preparation for a coding interview (McDowell, G. L., 2011). The book goes over planning, job

titles and responsibilities, and common interview questions. In addition to reading through this

book, a common practice exercise is to join a daily toy problem group and solve the problem

daily in a new language each time. Another fun exercise is to approach solving each problem
 May 8

differently, for example one day it might be best to go for a code golf approach and solve the

problem with the fewest lines of code. Another time, solve the problem with consideration of the

optimum runtime, and practice Big O notation, or even more challenging, create a solution with

the worst possible runtime without adding unnecessary actions and redundancy. These types of

practices should prepare anyone for the infamous white board code interview.

Regardless of exactly where I will end up working, it is clear that CSUMB enables all of its

students with the skills, knowledge, and professional decorum necessary to succeed in the

technology industries.
 May 9

References

Activision Blizzard, Inc. (2016). Activision Blizzard Third Quarter 2016 Results. Retrieved from

http://investor.activision.com/results.cfm

Alexandra, H. (2016, October 18). A Look At How No Man's Sky's Procedural Generation

Works. Retrieved January 12, 2017, from http://kotaku.com/a-look-at-how-no-mans-

skys-procedural-generation-works-1787928446

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime on the last 25 years of games and the next 25. (2016).

Retrieved January 14, 2017, from http://venturebeat.com/2016/02/08/how-blizzard-ceo-

mike-morhaime-views-the-last-25-years-of-games-and-the-next-25/

Blizzard Entertainment: Games. (2017). Retrieved January 12, 2017, from

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/

Blizzard Entertainment: 20th Anniversary. (2017). Retrieved January 07, 2017, from

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/company/about/b20/timeline.html

Computer and video game sales in the United States from 2000 to 2015 (in billion U.S. dollars).

(2016). Retrieved January 07, 2017, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/273258/us-

computer-and-video-game-sales/

McDowell, G. L. (2011). Cracking the coding interview: 150 programming interview questions

and solutions. Palo Alto, CA: CareerCup, LLC.

Esports Revenues in 2016 will Reach $493 Million | Newzoo Esports. (2016). Retrieved January

12, 2017, from https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/esports-revenues-2016-adjusted-

upward-493m/

Extreme Programming: A Gentle Introduction. (2009). Retrieved January 14, 2017, from

http://www.extremeprogramming.org/
 May 10

Funk, J. (2013, September 02). MOBA, DOTA, ARTS: A brief introduction to gaming's biggest,

most impenetrable genre. Retrieved January 14, 2017, from

http://www.polygon.com/2013/9/2/4672920/moba-dota-arts-a-brief-introduction-to-

gamings-biggest-most

KeSPA e-Sports. (2017). Retrieved January 14, 2017, from http://www.e-

sports.or.kr/board_kespa2014.php?

b_no=9&_module=kespa&_page=view&b_pid=999998940

Lee, T. (2016). Overwatch Is The Top Grossing PC Game Of 2016. Retrieved January 14, 2017,

from http://www.ubergizmo.com/2016/12/overwatch-top-grossing-pc-game-2016/

Most played PC games. (2016). Retrieved January 14, 2017, from

https://www.statista.com/statistics/251222/most-played-pc-games/

Overwatch has now had 20 million players in five months. (2016, October 12). Retrieved

January 14, 2017, from http://www.pcgamesn.com/overwatch/overwatch-sales-numbers

Pajot, L., & Swirsky, J. (Directors). (2012). Indie Game: The Movie [Motion picture].

Alexandria, VA: Filmakers Library.

Polytron Corporation. (2013). Fez (Version 1.12)[video game]. Trapdoor

Radelet, S., & Sachs, J. (1998). The Onset of the East Asian Financial Crisis. Brookings Paper,

Vol. 28(1 ). doi:10.3386/w6680

Sarkar, P. (2016, July 05). Biggest Gaming Companies. Retrieved January 12, 2017, from

https://geeks.media/biggest-gaming-companies

Senior Corporate Management. (2017). Retrieved January 14, 2017, from

http://www.activisionblizzard.com/senior-corporate-management
 May 11

StarCraft System Requirements. (2016). Retrieved January 14, 2017, from

https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/StarCraft-System-Requirements

The Game Awards 2016. (2016). Retrieved January 14, 2017, from http://thegameawards.com/