IRVINE, Calif. — At Blizzard Entertainment’s three-building campus in Irvine, Calif., there’s a big iron fence. I’m not sure if it is there to keep the rabid fans of the game maker — of which there are many — out. Or perhaps it’s there to keep the grizzled veterans, the grognards of the game industry, inside.
As I wandered through their headquarters, accompanied, of course, by a PR handler, I got a glimpse of what it’s like to live and breathe gaming. These teams have made hit after hit, and they live inside cocoons in their cubicles. Blizzard should really just keep them chained to their desks. But I suspect that, even if they were prisoners, they wouldn’t run away.
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Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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