So it’s April, I’m worried about finals and all that good stuff when I receive an email from Blizzard Entertainment asking to interview me for their Quest Design / Writing internship. I had applied in early fall, had even given up hope but getting that email made me incredibly excited so I replied that I would love to. After an interview, and other tests, I was then told I had been hired to work for twelve weeks at Blizzard Entertainment! I, of course, dropped my cellphone in shock.
The environment at Blizzard is, to be blunt, a nerd haven: from league of legends teams at lunch to the video game / anime collectibles filling the office space. There is even a library where D&D campaigns are regular and the books, video games, as well as board games are all available to check out for a week or so. All this does not, however, compare to how awesome the creative atmosphere of Blizzard was! The process of writing for the game was incredibly specialized and therefore completely outside my comfort zone. But with my mentor, I quickly learned and have become almost competent at game writing.
My twin and I in front of the blizzard sign.
I then got to meet the rest of my team. My supervisor was Brian Kindregan, Lead Writer of the Diablo team at Blizzard. I also worked closely with Leonard Boyarsky a senior world designer, Valerie Watrous an associate writer, John Chambers the story editor, and Skye Chandler the producer. These guys were the coolest, most fun people to work with!
Me @ the annual Blizzard Summer fest!
Now not only did I have awesome co-workers but while hanging with the other interns there was never a dull moment! I could begin to list everything the cool University Relations Reps did for us but I’ll just elaborate on the best one! We had a campus raid where all interns participated to earn swag. There were water balloons, basketball, hula hooping, trivia questions, photo ops, and dancing all in the confines of the Blizzard campus. My team, being way too into these activities in the coolest way possible, won collector’s editions of WoW: Catalyst that were also signed!
The highlight of my first day at Blizzard was not the amazing Orc statue outside the main buildings, nor was it receiving literally a massive bag of free swag, it was meeting my mentor, Michael Chu, a Game Designer on the Diablo team, and having ramen with him for lunch. Now I was terrified when I shook his hand, but after that lunch, I realized that at Blizzard, that I had nothing to fear.
Now most internships usually have you doing mundane, or menial tasks. That is not how it flies at Blizzard. They put me to hard work day one. In the end I can say proudly that I wrote lots of monster lore books, drafted an event, emoted lots of scenes, and wrote some legendary flavor text. I also no longer fear commas, or writing knowing others will judge / tear it apart!
The epic orc statue.
Those activities, the people, and the environment made my summer at Blizzard truly epic! I couldn’t have asked for a better team to help me learn and grow as a writer. I couldn’t have asked for more cool interns to hang out with that summer. It was a remarkable experience, and to those who wish to pursue a similar experience I say in the cheesiest way possible, shoot for the stars.
