Real-time strategy games aren't awfully common these days, but back when Blizzard was working on the original StarCraft, the RTS market was booming. Creating a game that stood out among the many RTS titles released in a given year was a challenge, and to face it, Blizzard’s team of developers established a fiercely competitive internal culture. One developer dubbed it "the piranha effect."
Author David L Craddock is wrapping up his second book on Blizzard, titled Stay Awhile and Listen: Book II, and he's given us a chance to read a pre-publication version of Chapter 7: Hubris or Fear, which delves into the intense development of StarCraft.
Blizzard wound up creating World of Warcraft, which is still one of the .
The piranha effect referred to a sink or swim mentality in Blizzard’s programming department, where senior engineers and programmers were intimidating presences for new hires.
"It basically was, if you did anything wrong you can expect the programming team to jump all over it," recounted Gage Galinger, a software engineer who worked on StarCraft.
Craddock's interviewees describe an atmosphere at Blizzard where there was no 'onboarding' process for new hires, they were simply expected to perform from day one. It was a deliberate pressure, since Blizzard was expected to deliver up another hit with StarCraft. Any mistakes were immediately pointed out by senior staff.
"You were so careful with the code. The code was sacred," said Galinger. "If you're going to check something into that code base, it better be fucking spotless."