Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Entertainment® (often shortened to "Blizzard" or "Blizz") is a video game developer & publisher that is responsible for the Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, and Overwatch franchises. The company originally concentrated primarily on the creation of game ports for other studios before beginning development of their own program with the development of games like Rock n' Roll Racing & The Lost Vikings.

In July 2008, Blizzard's parent company, Vivendi, merged their Vivendi Games subsidiary with Activision to create a new holding company called Activision Blizzard. Five years later, in July 2013, Vivendi sold off most of its shares in Activision Blizzard, which now exists as an independent company. As of October 2014, the company employs over 3,900 individuals.

Blizzard Entertainment lists its eight core values on their mission statement page:

• 1) Gameplay first
• 2) Commit to quality
• 3) Play nice; play fair
• 4) Embrace your inner geek
• 5) Every voice matters
• 6) Think globally
• 7) Lead responsibly
• 8) Learn and grow

Originally under the name Silicon & Synapse, the company was founded on 8 February 1991 by three graduates of the : Allen Adham and Michael Morhaime. , the CEO and founder of Interplay Entertainment, was granted a share in the company to improve the prospects of working jointly for the young studio. Frank Pearce also joined the studio upon inception as the first employee.

The small company initially did many "ports", converting games from one platform operating system to another, including board games (Battle Chess, Lexicross), strategy games (Castles), sports games (Amiga Baseball), and others (Dvorak Teaches Typing), though the company did become the first American developer to release a Super Nintendo title with RPM Racing, which became one of the first ten launch titles for the platform in North America. It was not until Interplay Entertainment and Silicon & Synapse collaborated on the SNES side-scroller The Lost Vikings that its critical — though not commercial — breakthrough came. With some acclaim, the game hit the shelves in 1993. The game's release, along with Rock & Roll Racking (also 1993) led Nintendo to name the studio its "Developer of the Year". Tragically, the release of the two games coincided with the death of the 16-bit console market, and neither title sold well.

Sometime in 1993, co-founder Adham told the other executives that he did not like the name "Silicon & Synapse" anymore as the name was getting confused with the meaning of silicon the chemical element used in microchips. Late 1993, Adham changed the name to "Chaos Studios", reflecting on the haphazardness of their development processes. However, they would later be contacted by a Flordia company by the name of Chaos Technologies and would happily let them use "chaos" for $100,000. Instead of paying for the license, they decided on a rebrand again which lead to "Ogre Studios" but Jan Davidson, President of Davidson & Associates, stated that it may be too scary for the kids (as stated by Adham). The choice for "Blizzard" came down to Adham looking through the dictionary with a close contender being "Midnight Studios". The company would be renamed to Blizzard Entertainment on 24 May 1994.

In August 1995, the company moved from a 3,600 sq. ft. office in Costa Mesa to a 14,000 sq. ft. office in Irvine, CA.

Facing a lack of success in the console market, and not willing to bet solely on one market, the company continued developing several 16-bit console titles while branching out by starting development on two new games: Games People Play, a crossword/word-game that was never completed, and Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, whose development was led by its second employee and VP of Research & Development, Patrick Wyatt.

Blizzard turned 20 years old in 2012. The history is recorded on a timeline on its own site here.

In 2013, Blizzard announced an official partnership with to provide licensed StarCraft, Hearthstone and Heroes of the Storm in-game rewards to college gaming clubs. In early 2014, TeSPA and Blizzard Entertainment hosted the $5,000 North American Collegiate Hearthstone Open series, culminating in a live grand finals event at the stage at PAX East and PAX Prime.

On February 8, 2016, Blizzard celebrated their 25th year anniversary with a video and continued to celebrate it along with the Diablo 20th anniversary at BlizzCon 2016.

On October 3, 2018, Activision Blizzard announced J. Allen Brack as the new president of Blizzard Entertainment succeeding Mike Morhaime. In February 2019, Blizzard underwent a round of layoffs, though announced that it would be expanding its development staff. Teams for some of its IPs, including Warcraft and Hearthstone, will be expanded.

On March 7, 2019, Blizzard and partnered to release the classic Diablo on GOG.com's platform as well as Warcraft: Orcs & Humans and Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition by March 28. On June 5, 2019, Blizzard gave the OK to GOG.com to add the authorized non-canoncial expansion which was developed by to Diablo as a free add-on, due to popular demand.

On January 22, 2021, is now a subsidiary of Blizzard Entertainment, from. Vicarious Visions was merged with Blizzard on 12 April 2022 and renamed to Blizzard Albany and would be fully dedicated to Blizzard games.

Blizzard turned 30 years old in 2021 and celebrated it at BlizzConline with the release of Blizzard Arcade Collection.

From the late 2010s to 2022, Blizzard experienced a round of departures, with many employees going on to form their own development studios.

Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase who had licensing agreements since 2008 to bring Blizzard games to China were unable to come to an agreement on the renewal terms for the license. The license expired on 24 January 2023, with games and software such as World of Warcraft and the Warcraft III Battle Platform shutting down until a new licensing agreement can be made with an another company.

After the release of World of Warcraft, the company divided its development staff into numerically designated teams (e.g. Team 2 is the dev team for World of Warcraft), each team focusing on a specific project. While relatively small, each team is supported by a much larger cast of employees, as well as being overseen by other groups within the company.

In addition to the numerically designated teams, "strike teams" were formed, as a result of Chris Metzen's desire to keep the company's original culture intact. These teams are not assigned to any one project, but give feedback on separate projects. A "design council" also exists, a gathering of all of the game directors and lead designers throughout the company. As of August 2017, most of Blizzard's development focus is on supporting its existing IPs, but is working on new IPs as well. As of November 2018, Blizzard's current development model is to effectively have one team per IP and support indefinitely. As a team grows and reaches a certain size, elements of the team will be spun off to work on a new IP. Each team consists of around 100–300 people.

The list of teams of current and past include:

• Team 1
• This team previously worked on titles including StarCraft, Warcraft III, StarCraft II, and Heroes of the Storm.
• Team 2 - World of Warcraft
• Formed after the release of World of Warcraft to continue development of the game.
• There is a separate team working on the Classics, such as World of Warcraft: Classic.
• Proletariat is another studio working alongside Team 2.
• Team 3 - Diablo franchise
• Diablo IV team
• Diablo Immortal team
• Diablo Legacy - Diablo III and Diablo II: Resurrected (Diablo II remaster)
• Team 4 - Overwatch
• Formed in the "mid-2000s" to begin work on Titan, the company's big new IP, doomed to be scrapped in 2014. The team's current focus is Overwatch.
• Team 5 - Hearthstone
• Formed in 2008 for the express purpose of creating Hearthstone, Team 5 was designed as a "small and nimble" team, comprising only 15 members for most of the game's initial development.
• Classic Games †
• Formed c. 2015 to "restore" StarCraft, Warcraft III, and Diablo II. They were responsible for and Warcraft III: Reforged. This team was dismantled in 2020.
• Incubation
• Formed in 2016 to cultivate new projects. Currently focusing on mobile games.
• Cinematics team
• Headhunter
• Blizzard Albany - Diablo II: Resurrected (Diablo II remaster) and Diablo IV
• Moved from Activision to Blizzard as a subsidiary in early 2021 and merged in 2022.

On December 2, 2007, Vivendi (Blizzard Entertainment's parent company) announced that their subsidiary Vivendi Games (of which Blizzard Entertainment was a part) would be merging with Activision to form Activision Blizzard. The deal was finalized on July 8, 2008. Vivendi later divested themselves of Activision Blizzard in July 2013, and it now exists as an independent holding company.

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. remains Blizzard's brand, as it and Activision continue to exist as separate entities within the Activision Blizzard umbrella.

Blizzard Entertainment has conferences for Blizzard announcements and demonstrations, known as the Blizzard Entertainment World Wide Invitational and BlizzCon. The first WWI was held in Seoul, South Korea on May 19 and 20, 2007 when Blizzard officially announced StarCraft II. Paris, France hosted the second Invitational on June 28 and 29, 2008.

• Defunct

• Related pen-and-paper RPG materials
• Warcraft: The Board Game (Published: 2003)
• Expansion Set (Published: 2004)
• World of Warcraft: The Board Game (Published: 2005)
• Shadow of War (Published: 2006)
• BlizzCon Epic Armor Pack (Published: 2007)
• The Burning Crusade (Published: September 2007)

Note: Blizzard has confirmed that they are NOT working on a StarCraft or Diablo MMORPG.

• StarCraft III
• ''Untitled first-person game (TBA)
• Unannounced multiplayer game (TBA)
• Warcraft IV
• World of Warcraft 2

About 50% of all Blizzard games have been canceled during development.

• (codename for a StarCraft first-person shooter, cancelled on June 6, 2019 to put more resources into Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4)
• Bloodlines (concepts later used for StarCraft)
• Crixa (2D shooter)
• Crossroads (unused MMO concept)
• Denizen
• (trademark patented in 2001)
• (canceled second expansion for Diablo III)
• (intended for the Gameboy Color, scrapped due to production costs)
• (dropped concept)
• Games People Play (crossword puzzles, boggle, and other word games)
• (first Diablo IV iteration, cancelled)
• Neptune (''Warcraft mobile MMO, cancelled)
• Nomad (cancelled in favor of World of Warcraft)
• Orbis (''Warcraft mobile ARG, cancelled)
• Pax Imperia II (rights sold to THQ, later released as Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain)
• Raiko
• Ronin
• RPM II (sequel to RPM Racing, canceled in favor of Rock N' Roll Racing)
• (cancelled in favor of StarCraft)
• (ARPG in a sci-fi setting)
• (indefinitely postponed on March 24, 2006)
• (MMO, dropped concept)
• was the project name for a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) that was being developed as a new IP. In September 2014, Blizzard co-founder and CEO, Mike Morhaime, confirmed with Polygon that the project had been canceled. Some of the concepts would later be reworked into the original pitch for Overwatch.
• Untitled mobile game (cancelled in June, 2019)
• Untitled pirate-themed ARPG (cancelled after a year of development)
• Untitled project by Mike Booth (abandoned in June, 2015)
• Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans (canceled on May 22, 1998)
• Warcraft Legends (canceled RPG, elements re-used in Warcraft III)
• World of Warcraft: The Board Game - Scion of Darkness (canceled in 2008)
• World of Warcraft: Clash of Champions (a deck building game by Cryptozoic, game finished but never officially released by Blizzard)

• Mike Ybarra (president)
• Allen Adham (vice president and co-founder)
• Greg Canessa (Battle.net 2.0 project coordinator)
• Tom Chilton
• BTNTemp.png Samwise Didier (art director)
• Portrait Drawgoon.jpg Peter Lee
• Portrait RedKnuckle.jpg Mark Gibbons
• Frank Pearce (vice president and co-founder)
• Brian Holinka (WoW senior game designer)
• Chris Robinson (WoW senior art director)
• Ion Hazzikostas
• Portrait Raneman.jpg Glenn Rane
• Portait Thammer Wolf Worgen.jpg Thammer
• Portrait Twincruiser.jpg Twincruiser (René Koiter and Michel Koiter)
• Dustin Browder (lead designer of StarCraft II)
• Brian Sousa (senior 3D artist for StarCraft II)
• Andy Chambers (creative director)
• Robert "the Voice" Simpson (esports coordinator)
• David Kim (balance designer)
• Brian T. Kindregan (lead writer)
• (Hearthstone lead game designer)
• Matt Samia (senior director of cinematics)
• Kevin Yu, aka Karune (battle.net representative)

• Michael Morhaime (strategic advisor)
• J. Allen Brack (president)
• Metzen.jpg Chris Metzen (vice president of creative development)
• Rob Pardo (vice president of game design)
• Bill Roper
• Paul Sams (Chief Creative Officer)
• Greg Street
• Ben Brode (Hearthstone game director)

• Community Managers
• Voice actors
• Sons of the Storm
• Azeroth Choppers
• Team Alliance
• Team Horde

• Since their beginnings as a North American company focusing primarily on the English-speaking market, Blizzard has gone on to become a "global business". As of 2014, more than half of its players are in Asia.
• According to Hearthstone's Senior Producer Yong Woo, Blizzard employees receive some of their bonus money in "Blizzard bucks", which can be spent on company products such as card packs.
• Blizzard's main location in Irvine, California was sometimes referred to as Blizzard South to not confuse it with Blizzard North.

• Logos