Overseas Business Trips: A Journalist’s Perspective
Overseas business trips are tough. Back in the Precambrian era, when I was still a young journalist in my twenties, overseas business trips were the greatest privilege, opportunity, and thrilling adventure of this profession. But now, 10 years later, I am at an age where I lack physical strength. As most office workers who frequently travel abroad can relate, overseas business trips are mostly a schedule with zero romance, with only the work place changing and the same thing going back and forth between work and hotel. In addition, if the distance is far, there is also the nightmare of jet lag. I have never seen anyone wake up in perfect condition the morning following arriving halfway around the world, except for me in my 20s. ▲ The weather was strangely nice. This is Korea, not the US.
Still, my steps were light. News regarding the first expansion pack for Diablo 4, and the first playthrough of the previously unheard class, ‘Spiritualist’. It was only natural to go for something like this. A two-hour delay in departure, a sudden surge of people, a line for immigration that was longer than the SNS restaurant, and an Uber ride that cost more than the price of the limited edition of Diablo 4, all kinds of obstacles stood in my way, but nothing might stop the online Doomguy who has been beating up demons for over 20 years. So, 21 hours following leaving home, I arrived at a hotel in Irvine, California. ▲ I don’t think the immigration process was originally like this…
Why do you keep talking in such detail? Anyway, information regarding ‘Honryungsa’ will be explained in more detail through additional articles, and more detailed information will be released. However, since this event itself is one that only a few people in Korea can attend, I wrote down every move until the end of the event with the hope that it would be like going to the event together with the omniscient reporter. ▲ Irvine has a general atmosphere like this. If you come to Blizzard, say hello to your sister first.
The next day, at 9:30 in the morning, reporters from each country gathered in the lobby. They looked at each other curiously. It was an awkward scene that can often be seen during overseas reporting. It is the same for us, but regardless of the country, those with the job of ‘game reporter’ are highly likely to not enjoy interacting with others. Even Western reporters who are serious regarding small talk often find it difficult to properly respond to the sudden ‘Good morning!’ and end up awkwardly dragging out their words. Only following the Blizzard representative had forced tension and smashed the awkwardness head-on did the reporters shyly board the bus like middle school students who had been reluctantly dragged on a school trip. And 15 minutes later, the familiar ‘Blizzard Campus’ appeared before our eyes. ▲ Their backs, awkwardly distanced
Visiting Blizzard headquarters is a rare experience even for game journalists. Since many journalists come to BlizzCon, which has been gone for a while since last year, you might think it would be easy to visit the headquarters, but the Anaheim Convention Center where BlizzCon is held is quite far from the Blizzard campus. This means that you have to have a reason to come, like this event. And, Blizzard also thought they wanted to show something this time, so they held a campus tour before going into the main event. The Blizzard campus is structured as the word ‘campus’ suggests. Unlike a typical game company, it is not a single high-rise building with several floors, but rather a group of small two-story buildings, which is very similar to a university campus. And in the center of it all is the famous Orc Rider statue. ▲ It is visible right in the center
As you pass the statue and walk across the lawn, you will see a familiar ‘sister’. It is the very same statue that looks exactly like the ‘Altar of Lilith’ found in Diablo 4. It is a Lilith statue with the names of those who have reached Hardcore Level 100 engraved on it. As they were reporters who came because of ‘Diablo’, they all smiled brightly in front of this statue. A reporter who had to eat only fruit because the bread given out for breakfast ran out too quickly laughed, a reporter whose dark circles were at their maximum due to jet lag laughed, and a reporter who reached the max level of a druid 3 times in season 4 laughed. Why on earth did the last person laugh? Anyway, since I greeted Lilith, it was time to start the Blizzard campus tour in earnest. ▲ The lower stage is regarding the height of a person. In reality, it feels quite large. The road to the library full of things to see
There’s nothing really that great regarding it. The Blizzard Campus is just a development studio where developers reside, not a museum. There’s a lot to introduce when you go to an exhibition, but if you take them home, there’s really nothing to show them. "This is the living room… This is the bathroom… Oh, you can’t do this here," you’d say. Still, there were definitely interesting spaces. The most noticeable thing are the giant statues. The large statues that are often displayed at game shows around the world are mostly transported back to the headquarters following the exhibition ends. You can see various characters from Blizzard’s game franchises in person. Since there are quite a lot of them, there are also many pictures. ▲ A trio of very high quality. Illidan is painted with UV paint, so it glows when exposed to light.
▲ 700-pound Tyrael and a 3-meter-tall Tracer marionette for some unknown reason
▲ ‘That axe’ and
▲ Cold method
As I walked around looking at each sculpture, I arrived at the ‘library’. The small library located inside Blizzard is not very spacious, but it boasts a pretty solid collection of books, and of course, you can actually rent them. Movies can be rented for 7 days, games for 14 days, and books for 21 days, and there is a librarian on duty. ▲ Available for rental!
▲ P’s lie that he was treated strangely well.
▲ There are books related to development, but most of them are just fun things to see.
After looking around the library, we visited the cafeteria that was combined with the ‘Star Cafe that you all know’. As expected, there were all kinds of objects scattered everywhere along the way, but I mightn’t take pictures of them all. In fact, I ‘tried’ to see more places, but since Blizzard doesn’t often do campus tours (one of the developers just came out and guided us), the time allocation was wrong and it ended, so we moved on to the next and most important course, the ‘Spirit Master’ presentation. ▲ When lunch time comes, the seats are full.
The presentation was held in a small theater that was packed to capacity as soon as the reporters entered. Unfortunately, the entire presentation was not allowed to be recorded or filmed, so we were unable to leave a record of it, but we will provide more detailed information regarding the spirits through play experiences, interviews, and follow-up articles. ▲ I thought the tarot really fit well with the Diablo worldview.
▲ Detailed information regarding the spirit world is covered in experiences and interviews. After eating, there is more reporting left.
This is the end of the main event, the presentation. However, the reporting is not over. After the presentation, we split into groups and one group goes to experience the game, while the other group goes to do additional reporting. The main reporting topic is interviews conducted in various buildings on campus. We meet the main PD and talk regarding the game, and we also talk to other game people who pass by while we are there. As I mentioned earlier, most game reporters are somewhat shy, but in most cases, their professional consciousness overcomes and suppresses this. Of course, you have to eat before that. On this day, breakfast and lunch were all held in one place. The cafeteria introduced earlier might not accommodate everyone, and during lunch time, the seats were full due to employees, so Blizzard set up a tent and tables on the lawn in front of the cafeteria and created a media-only restaurant. I heard later that the lawn was also used for various events and functions within the company. ▲ A space decorated roughly like this.
▲ For lunch, we had mac and cheese and LA galbi. It was ‘Korean Short Rib BBQ’ to be exact.
After the meal, each person will carry out their assigned interview schedule. We conducted a separate interview regarding the spirit master, and the interview content can be found in a separate article. After the interview, we had time to play the spirit master for 2 hours, and since it would be a shame to cover it briefly here, we prepared a separate experience report on that as well. To summarize briefly, I think it can be summarized as an all-rounder whose play style is very diverse depending on the build. The gameplay on this day was able to record the entire process, and this recorded video might be stored on a 512GB USB prepared separately by Blizzard, which was truly an incredibly high-performance USB disk. I’m not talking regarding read speed and capacity. I accidentally washed it in my pocket and even put it in the dryer, but it worked without any problems. Of course, it’s still fine a week later. What on earth is it made of? ▲ I also met the developer.
▲ I also took a look around the lounge.
▲ I also watch other reporters’ travel stories and work until the evening. The end of overseas reporting is the rooftop.
After finishing my reporting work, I would probably go back to my hotel, get some rest, and prepare to return home… but that’s not the case. Usually, when I go on an overseas reporting assignment, I usually grab my laptop and start writing an article as soon as I get back to my hotel following finishing the assignment. However, in two cases, the final schedule is fulfilled. One is when there is an embargo on the entire event, so it cannot be reported before a certain point. The other is when the thought of letting go and having fun for a while while shifting responsibility to the future self contaminates the brain. And the event that is often held as a finale is the ‘network party’. In Korea, this happens every night on the streets of Haeundae during ‘G-Star’, and at overseas game shows, network parties like this are held in dozens of places every day. It is usually a place where event attendees gather to talk regarding the event or socialize with each other. Naturally, if game journalists gather together, they will be shy and not be able to start a conversation, so alcohol is usually included in these events. ▲ Two cocktails per person. I remember making and drinking something spicy at a company dinner and going crazy as a group.
As they drink like that, the shyly erected fence of game journalists becomes a little lower. However, there are always those who show no gaps. The journalist sitting next to me silently chewed his food as if dinner was the greatest task of his life, and even though he was sitting 10cm away, he emptied his plate like a machine without saying a single word until he left. It was a very awkward experience. Fortunately, there was a separate grace period for reporting, so there was no need to rush the article. I decided to leave the piled up work to me following I returned home, and following enjoying the party to my heart’s content, I returned. That’s how the schedule ended with the network party. I had another long flight scheduled the next day, but that’s something I’ll worry regarding the next day.
Overseas Business Trips: A Diablo 4 Expansion Pack Journey to Blizzard
Overseas business trips are tough. Back in the Precambrian era, when I was still a young journalist in my twenties, overseas business trips were the greatest privilege, opportunity, and thrilling adventure of this profession. But now, 10 years later, I am at an age where I lack physical strength. As most office workers who frequently travel abroad can relate, overseas business trips are mostly a schedule with zero romance, with only the work place changing and the same thing going back and forth between work and hotel. In addition, if the distance is far, there is also the nightmare of jet lag.
I have never seen anyone wake up in perfect condition the morning following arriving halfway around the world, except for me in my 20s. Still, my steps were light. News regarding the first expansion pack for Diablo 4, and the first playthrough of the previously unheard class, ‘Spiritualist’, had me excited. It was only natural to go for something like this. A two-hour delay in departure, a sudden surge of people, a line for immigration that was longer than the SNS restaurant, and an Uber ride that cost more than the price of the limited edition of Diablo 4, all kinds of obstacles stood in my way, but nothing might stop the online Doomguy who has been beating up demons for over 20 years. So, 21 hours following leaving home, I arrived at a hotel in Irvine, California.
Reporting on Diablo 4: The Spirit Master and Blizzard Headquarters Tour
Why do you keep talking in such detail? Anyway, information regarding ‘Honryungsa’ will be explained in more detail through additional articles, and more detailed information will be released. However, since this event itself is one that only a few people in Korea can attend, I wrote down every move until the end of the event with the hope that it would be like going to the event together with the omniscient reporter.
The Blizzard Campus Tour: A Glimpse into the Home of Blizzard Entertainment
The next day, at 9:30 in the morning, reporters from each country gathered in the lobby. They looked at each other curiously. It was an awkward scene that can often be seen during overseas reporting. It is the same for us, but regardless of the country, those with the job of ‘game reporter’ are highly likely to not enjoy interacting with others. Even Western reporters who are serious regarding small talk often find it difficult to properly respond to the sudden ‘Good morning!’ and end up awkwardly dragging out their words. Only following the Blizzard representative had forced tension and smashed the awkwardness head-on did the reporters shyly board the bus like middle school students who had been reluctantly dragged on a school trip. And 15 minutes later, the familiar ‘Blizzard Campus’ appeared before our eyes.
Visiting Blizzard headquarters is a rare experience even for game journalists. Since many journalists come to BlizzCon, which has been gone for a while since last year, you might think it would be easy to visit the headquarters, but the Anaheim Convention Center where BlizzCon is held is quite far from the Blizzard campus. This means that you have to have a reason to come, like this event. And, Blizzard also thought they wanted to show something this time, so they held a campus tour before going into the main event. The Blizzard campus is structured as the word ‘campus’ suggests. Unlike a typical game company, it is not a single high-rise building with several floors, but rather a group of small two-story buildings, which is very similar to a university campus. And in the center of it all is the famous Orc Rider statue.
As you pass the statue and walk across the lawn, you will see a familiar ‘sister’. It is the very same statue that looks exactly like the ‘Altar of Lilith’ found in Diablo 4. It is a Lilith statue with the names of those who have reached Hardcore Level 100 engraved on it. As they were reporters who came because of ‘Diablo’, they all smiled brightly in front of this statue. A reporter who had to eat only fruit because the bread given out for breakfast ran out too quickly laughed, a reporter whose dark circles were at their maximum due to jet lag laughed, and a reporter who reached the max level of a druid 3 times in season 4 laughed. Why on earth did the last person laugh? Anyway, since I greeted Lilith, it was time to start the Blizzard campus tour in earnest.
The Blizzard Campus: A Developer’s Haven
There’s nothing really that great regarding it. The Blizzard Campus is just a development studio where developers reside, not a museum. There’s a lot to introduce when you go to an exhibition, but if you take them home, there’s really nothing to show them. “This is the living room… This is the bathroom… Oh, you can’t do this here,” you’d say. Still, there were definitely interesting spaces.
The most noticeable thing are the giant statues. The large statues that are often displayed at game shows around the world are mostly transported back to the headquarters following the exhibition ends. You can see various characters from Blizzard’s game franchises in person. Since there are quite a lot of them, there are also many pictures.
As I walked around looking at each sculpture, I arrived at the ‘library’. The small library located inside Blizzard is not very spacious, but it boasts a pretty solid collection of books, and of course, you can actually rent them. Movies can be rented for 7 days, games for 14 days, and books for 21 days, and there is a librarian on duty.
After looking around the library, we visited the cafeteria that was combined with the ‘Star Cafe that you all know’. As expected, there were all kinds of objects scattered everywhere along the way, but I mightn’t take pictures of them all. In fact, I ‘tried’ to see more places, but since Blizzard doesn’t often do campus tours (one of the developers just came out and guided us), the time allocation was wrong and it ended, so we moved on to the next and most important course, the ‘Spirit Master’ presentation.
The Spirit Master Presentation: A Sneak Peek into the New Diablo 4 Class
The presentation was held in a small theater that was packed to capacity as soon as the reporters entered. Unfortunately, the entire presentation was not allowed to be recorded or filmed, so we were unable to leave a record of it, but we will provide more detailed information regarding the spirits through play experiences, interviews, and follow-up articles.
Post-Presentation: Interviews, Gameplay, and the Spirit Master’s Potential
This is the end of the main event, the presentation. However, the reporting is not over. After the presentation, we split into groups and one group goes to experience the game, while the other group goes to do additional reporting. The main reporting topic is interviews conducted in various buildings on campus. We meet the main PD and talk regarding the game, and we also talk to other game people who pass by while we are there. As I mentioned earlier, most game reporters are somewhat shy, but in most cases, their professional consciousness overcomes and suppresses this. Of course, you have to eat before that. On this day, breakfast and lunch were all held in one place. The cafeteria introduced earlier might not accommodate everyone, and during lunch time, the seats were full due to employees, so Blizzard set up a tent and tables on the lawn in front of the cafeteria and created a media-only restaurant. I heard later that the lawn was also used for various events and functions within the company.
After the meal, each person will carry out their assigned interview schedule. We conducted a separate interview regarding the spirit master, and the interview content can be found in a separate article. After the interview, we had time to play the spirit master for 2 hours, and since it would be a shame to cover it briefly here, we prepared a separate experience report on that as well. To summarize briefly, I think it can be summarized as an all-rounder whose play style is very diverse depending on the build.
The gameplay on this day was able to record the entire process, and this recorded video might be stored on a 512GB USB prepared separately by Blizzard, which was truly an incredibly high-performance USB disk. I’m not talking regarding read speed and capacity. I accidentally washed it in my pocket and even put it in the dryer, but it worked without any problems. Of course, it’s still fine a week later. What on earth is it made of?
Networking Party: A Chance to Connect and Relax
After finishing my reporting work, I would probably go back to my hotel, get some rest, and prepare to return home… but that’s not the case. Usually, when I go on an overseas reporting assignment, I usually grab my laptop and start writing an article as soon as I get back to my hotel following finishing the assignment. However, in two cases, the final schedule is fulfilled. One is when there is an embargo on the entire event, so it cannot be reported before a certain point. The other is when the thought of letting go and having fun for a while while shifting responsibility to the future self contaminates the brain. And the event that is often held as a finale is the ‘network party’.
In Korea, this happens every night on the streets of Haeundae during ‘G-Star’, and at overseas game shows, network parties like this are held in dozens of places every day. It is usually a place where event attendees gather to talk regarding the event or socialize with each other. Naturally, if game journalists gather together, they will be shy and not be able to start a conversation, so alcohol is usually included in these events. As they drink like that, the shyly erected fence of game journalists becomes a little lower. However, there are always those who show no gaps. The journalist sitting next to me silently chewed his food as if dinner was the greatest task of his life, and even though he was sitting 10cm away, he emptied his plate like a machine without saying a single word until he left. It was a very awkward experience. Fortunately, there was a separate grace period for reporting, so there was no need to rush the article. I decided to leave the piled up work to me following I returned home, and following enjoying the party to my heart’s content, I returned. That’s how the schedule ended with the network party. I had another long flight scheduled the next day, but that’s something I’ll worry regarding the next day.