Internal e-mail from 2012 proves Blizzard was the first victim of Hearthstone addiction

Hearthstone was announced at the Penny Arcade Expo in March of 2013, but Blizzard seemed to know it had a hit on its hands long before that moment. Dustin Browder, lead designer of StarCraft 2 and now game director of Heroes of the Storm, sent this e-mail to Hearthstone lead designer Eric Dodds in September of 2012.

"Internally, Hearthstone's always draws crowds," Dave Wilson, Blizzard's "Branding/social media guy" tweeted with the above image. "The Blizzard museum displays a classic email between game directors..."

The rest, of course, is history. We can only hope the game was never banned in the office.