Decades ago I used to think working at Blizz on their games would be an absolute dream job. Just curious what folks think about whether they would want to work at Blizz today.
Big N to the O good buddy.
Broad spectrum here, toxic work environments, piss poor management, zero job security, stifling creativity etc etc etc.
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Itās interesting to know , a lot can be extracted from this subject. Having such data or even a general consensus is a very powerful metric and indicator for the companyās current state of ā¦success.
Depends on the job character Iād sayā¦ If I were an artist Iād most certainly love to work for Blizz, but Iām kinda a low-tier mostly-backend code developer 
Well, what is salary there? 
Not if I had to read all of the comments from the know it allās on this forum.
My hat goes off to our CM, I truly do not know how she can do it everyday.
Overall, yes. I know quite a few folks who work there and have spent hours on campus myself. Last year I got to spend the whole day there with the WoW team. In 2016 I got to spend half the day with a combo of the Forum Support CS folks and the Diablo team.
The work environment is actually quite nice. Staff seem to be able to set their own schedules (within reason) outside of core meeting hours and such. The exception being those who have public facing jobs like covering the Customer Support Live Chat or Callback lines.
They do seem rather open to people being creative, offering suggestions and ideas, etc. However, once a decision is made you have to go with it.
What staff donāt have the ability to do, is influence the larger top decisions like what business model a game might have. But, they donāt have that power in any other larger company either.
Salary is actually not bad and the benefits are really nice. The issue is that Blizzard headquarters is located in Irvine, CA, which is one of the most expensive places to live in the US. So, even with a decent salary, you wonāt be buying a single family home on it easily. Again, this is an issue not exclusive to Blizzard. I asked Mike Morheim in 2016 about the possibility of opening an East Coast Blizzard office, especially given the big push into esports which is popular on the East Coast. (and I wanted an office out here I might be able to work in!). At the time, they were not considering it.
On job security, it is as secure as any other job these days. The days where you get hired and can count on working there 35 years then retiring are long gone. My previous jobs were even less secure than Blizzard because we were dependent on winning contracts and on Govt funding. Sure, I was there 14 years, but it is stressful not knowing.
So, with all that, why would I not work at the current Blizz Irvine office?
-You MUST work from campus on Blizz computers behind their firewall. No telecommute. I have medical issues and for me that is a nightmare. I get why they do it though. It allows them close control over all their game dev info, customer info, and ability to track who accesses what. Security matters and I donāt blame them.
-The cost of living there is insane. I own my own 3 bedroom house with a yard, garage, etc. For the cost of my mortgage I could rent a room in a shared dwelling out there. No thanks. Oh, and I probably could not keep all 3 of my cats.
-My family is East coast. My parents are older and my niece is only 8. I want to be there to see her grow up as well as to spend time with my parents while I can.
-I like seasons weather wise.
So, for me, it is not that Blizzard is bad at all. It really is not and I know people who have been happy there for 10+ years. It is that there are negatives to moving out there that impact me family wise and donāt work with my disabilities.
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Only if I didnāt have to work in California. If youāre not a homeless drug addict when you get there theyāll arrange it for you.
I would too love to work with Blizzard if I had the right skills for the right job.
Blizzard is successful and popular game company for years, so Iād rather be in Blizz than a random company.
Though I live in Europe, Sweden, and moving to a whole new country to me seems abit ā¦ edgy?
I mean it would be really cool to do so but moving away from my family into an unknown countryā¦ yeah.
But it is cool to hear many of the employees are from Europe, according to OW panel in BlizzCon, there was Canadian, Swedes and Italians working on specific maps etc, based on their homecountry.
But become a voice actor however would be the best to work with Blizz, I believe. So who knows 
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Iād be happy to even just be their librarian. Then I could hang out with Tux every day!
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I wouldnāt mind changing my living place. Aldo I travel a lot for company that I work now. And I got nice house, better than average car, 12 cats, big yard, pool, wife etc.
Aldo, Iām not sure if Blizz need someone with my skills, what I can offer are mainly ideasā¦
Plot twist: Your cats gave you those disabilities in a conspiracy to prevent you from moving anywhere. Cats are evil.
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No, because I donāt like to work on proprietary software projects. One of my biggest passions is contributing to the development of open source software, so working on any gaming company would go against what brought me into the world of computer science in the first place.
Sure, Iād happily try working there. Canāt say if Iād love it or hate it, but Iām interested.
I think as far as companies go, itās definitely a very good one.
I would, probably decent pay and a friendly environment. Would like to hear from some of the Diablo devs how being a developer on the game affects their joy of playing it, for me I just know Iād be super analytical while playing and constantly looking at things like a developer and not a gamer.
Iām a game programmer - been in the industry for several years now - and no. Too many reports of bad pay and hours at Blizzard for me.
Iād imagine the majority of game developers would be at least somewhat interested in working at a game company with as rich a history as Blizzard, even if their brand is taking a hit these days. But maybe that is not the case.
If I could go back and change career patch, I most likely would still not try to get into video game development, but if I did, then sure, working at a company like Blizzard would seem great.
Besides I would not want to move to the US no matter what.
From what David Brevik said a while ago, the salary is far below industry standards. If you are trying to make a living, you might want to look elsewhere.
However, if you are a fresh college graduate, working at Blizzard would be a dream job. You get to put down āBlizzardā on your resume, and you get to work with the company that made your favorite childhood games. Once you hit the mid 20s with a few years of experience under your belt, you can start exploring elsewhere.
Itās like professional sports. Join super-teams to pick up a few easy rings. Once your rookie contract expires, you start going after max money in free agency. Your goal shifts from winning championships to financially supporting yourself and your family.
a new game every 10 years.
sure man i would like to work without deadlines 
I donāt know, seems like the dream era to work there was back when it was a smaller company. Working at Blizzard North would have been great, or working on the Warcraft 3 or WoW teams. Those guys seemed like they really had a blast doing what they did and their sense of humor comes through. You can tell from playing WoW Classic the devs were having the time of their life making it.
However, now looking back over the past several years, it seems like itās a case of committees tying themselves into knots trying to ājustifyā one ridiculous game design axiom after another, like a 19th century philosopher feverishly writing hundreds of pages of rebuttals to some arcane topic, rather than the tried and true common sensical approach of the prior years.
Iāve thought since D4 was announced how awesome it would be to work on it, then again, part of me cringes when I imagine some meeting where no clear game direction is established because thereās some kind of metaphysical debate about infinity versus finite game mechanics.