Category Archives: paul-sams

BlizzCon 2010: Closing ceremonies

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As BlizzCon 2010 comes to an end, Paul Sams (chief operating officer of Blizzard) started out the ceremonies. A series of intentionally bad gamer jokes followed as he got the crowd ready. He then took it to a serious note and thanked attendees both attending in person and at home.

Blizzard used this opportunity to bring out the tournament winners. Warcraft 3 winner Remind (night elf) from South Korea and StarCraft 2 winner NEXGenius (protoss), also from South Korea, were presented with $25,000 for being grand prize winners. They will also be getting an eSports ring customized to their game that's the size of Superbowl rings. The WoW Arena tournament was still going on at this point (*aAa* vs compLexity.Red), so there was no winner to announce for it yet.

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BlizzCon 2010: Closing ceremonies originally appeared on WoW Insider on Sat, 23 Oct 2010 22:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Paul Sams: “We will not pull the rug out from under them”

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In a fascinating post over at Gamesindustry.biz, Blizzard COO Paul Sams takes great pains to emphasize that Blizzard will ship no game before its time (to rip off an old wine slogan): "We will not pull the rug out from under them and ship it before it's done, so people feel that when they out their heart and soul into a game, they'll be able to deliver the game they envisioned."

This is interesting to me on a couple of levels: the first is the long time between the original idea that World of Warcraft would get an expansion a year and the actual time (more than two) that it took for The Burning Crusade to ship. It seems that over time they must feel they've gotten more proficient at the development process since Wrath of the Lich King and now Cataclysm seem to be getting ready to ship even faster. You can read the excerpt from Sams at gamesindustry.biz (which requires creating a new account) as well as a full interview with Sams and executive producer Rob Pardo.

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Paul Sams: "We will not pull the rug out from under them" originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Interview with Paul Sams, Steelers owner

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As we reported the other week, Blizzard COO Paul Sams is now co-owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers (who are stepping up lately), and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette hit up Mr. Sams for a quick interview about being at the intersection of Azeroth and Steeler Nation. Turns out the man who collects everything Blizzard has also been a Steelers fan since he was four years old, even though he's from California. And we were right with all of the speculation: he got connected with the Steelers management through Legendary Pictures producer Thomas Tull, and when the chance came to own part of the franchise, he jumped.

They also talk about expanding out to Carnagie Mellon University -- Blizzard has a thriving educational program in Irvine, but Sams says that they are looking to expand that, so Pittsburgh is a possibility. And finally, he says that the Warcraft movie is being scripted at the moment -- Sam Raimi will do Spider-man 4, and then it's all Azeroth for him. In the meantime, let's see about getting some of this Steelers news in the game -- even if we can't get an epic football to toss around, surely we'll at least see a Tauren somewhere named "Bill COW-her," right?

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Interview with Paul Sams, Steelers owner originally appeared on WoW.com on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Paul Sams owns part of the Steelers

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Ok, admittedly, this is about as far away from the World of Warcraft as we go on this site, but stick with me here, it'll be worth it for the jokes: Blizzplanet has discovered that Blizzard COO Paul Sams and his family are now major shareholders in the Pittsburgh Steelers, of all things. The connection seems a little hard to find, until you check the rest of the list: Thomas Tull is also a shareholder, and he happens to be CEO of Legendary Pictures, the same company that has made a deal with Sams and Blizzard to make the Warcraft movie. I can't say I know that many CEOs personally, but I have to imagine that the conversation went something like, "Hey, wanna own part of a football team with me?" And who would pass up an opportunity like that?

Fortunately for Sams and his team, they're supposed to do pretty well this year (and of course they're coming off of a Super Bowl win last year), so the investment is likely a good one. But, more importantly, we can now point out that if the Steelers make their way to the conference championships and half of Blizzard travels to Pittsburgh to see the game, we'll know why the patch isn't coming out that week.

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Paul Sams owns part of the Steelers originally appeared on WoW.com on Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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