Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Entertainment is a PC game developer and publisher. Since its release of Warcraft in 1994, it has been one of the most successful game development studios in the world. Its headquarters are based in Irvine, California. The company has a history of largely overshooting release dates; however, many Blizzard fans see this as somewhat of a blessing in disguise, as Blizzard has a reputation for producing classic games that are played for years to come. Blizzard also has a reputation for taking fierce legal action against anyone who reverse engineers their software, copies their game concepts, or publishes third-party server software that is compatible with all of their games.

Overview
Blizzard Entertainment was founded in February, 1991 as Silicon & Synapse by Mike Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce. The company developed games like Rock & Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings (published by Interplay Productions). In 1994, the company briefly changed its name to Chaos Studios, before finally settling on Blizzard Entertainment after it was discovered that another company with the Chaos name already existed. That same year, they were acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates for under USD$10 million. Shortly thereafter, Blizzard shipped their breakthrough hit Warcraft.

Blizzard has changed hands several times since then; Davidson was acquired by a timeshare company called CUC International in 1996; CUC then merged with a hotel, real-estate, and car-rental franchiser called HFS Corporation to form Cendant Software, in 1997. In 1998 it became apparent that CUC had engaged in accounting fraud for years before the merger; Cendant's stock lost 80% of its value over the next six months in the ensuing widely discussed accounting scandal. The company sold its consumer software operations, including Blizzard, to French publisher Havas in 1998, the same year Havas was purchased by Vivendi. Blizzard is now part of the VU Games group of Vivendi Universal.

In 1996, Blizzard acquired Condor Games, which had been working on the game Diablo for Blizzard at the time. Condor was renamed Blizzard North, and has since developed hit games Diablo, Diablo II, and its expansion pack Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. Blizzard North was located in San Mateo, California.

Blizzard launched their online gaming service Battle.net in December 1996 with the release of their action-RPG Diablo.

On November 23, 2004, Blizzard released World of Warcraft, which has grown to become one of the most popular MMORPGs in history.

On May 16, 2005, Blizzard announced the acquisition of Swingin' Ape, a console game maker, which is now Blizzard Console, currently working on Starcraft: Ghost, but in March 2006 (last mentioned on the website on March 30, 2006) they announced that Starcraft: Ghost was on indefinite hold.

On August 1, 2005, Blizzard announced the consolidation of Blizzard North into the headquarters in Irvine, California.

A few months after the closure of Blizzard North, Bill Roper, Erich Schaefer and his brother Max Schaefer co-founded Flagship Studios which developed Mythos (on July 19, 2008 it was announced that due to continuing financial hardships at Flagship Studios, Mythos would be going on hiatus) and Hellgate London released in the fall of 2007.

Blizzard is currently a division of Activision Blizzard, Inc. as a result of a merger that was announced on December 7, 2007. The merger was completed on July 9, 2008. For much of the decade that followed, Activision and Blizzard effectively remained separate entities. However, in the years leading up to 2018, Activision has reportedly begun to exert more influence over Blizzard, including the sale of Activision games in the Blizzard store. (Former) staff members have expressed concerns over the level of Activision's influence and cultural shifts within the company.

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 Diablo, will be expanded.

Organization
After the release of World of Warcraft, Blizzard split its development staff into numerically designated teams (e.g. the development team for Diablo III is Team 3. "Strike teams" also exist&mdash;not attached to any particular project, but exist to give feedback to the game-specific teams. A "design council" also exists, a gathering of all of the game directors and lead designers throughout the company. The existence of strike teams dates back to the development of Diablo II. As of August 2017, most of Blizzard's development is focused on supporting its existing IPs, but has a "pipleline" of new IPs. As of November 2018, Blizzard's current model is to continue providing support for existing IPs, but spin-off new teams from existing ones once they reach a certain size to work on new projects.

Released

 * 1991 - RPM Racing
 * 1992 - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I (Amiga port)
 * 1992 - Battle Chess II: Chinese Chess (Amiga port)
 * 1992 - Castles (Amiga port)
 * 1992 - Battle Chess (Windows port)
 * 1992 - MicroLeague Baseball (Amiga port)
 * 1992 - Lexi-Cross (Macintosh port)
 * 1992 - Dvorak on Typing (Macintosh port)
 * 1992 - The Lost Vikings
 * 1993 - Rock N' Roll Racing
 * 1993 - Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye
 * 1994 - Blackthorne
 * 1994 - The Death and Return of Superman
 * 1994 - The Lost Vikings 2 (SNES version)
 * 1994 - Warcraft: Orcs &amp; Humans
 * 1995 - Justice League Task Force
 * 1995 - Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
 * 1996 - Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal
 * 1996 - Diablo
 * 1997 - Warcraft II: The Dark Saga
 * 1998 - Diablo (PSX version)
 * 1998 - StarCraft
 * 1998 - StarCraft: Brood War
 * 1999 - Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition
 * 2000 - StarCraft 64
 * 2000 - Diablo II
 * 2001 - Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
 * 2002 - Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
 * 2003 - Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne
 * 2004 - World of Warcraft
 * 2007 - World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
 * 2008 - World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
 * 2010 - StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
 * 2010 - World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
 * 2012 - Diablo III
 * 2012 - World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria
 * 2013 - StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
 * 2013 - Diablo III (console version)
 * 2013 - Blackthorne (PC download)
 * 2014 - Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft
 * 2014 - Diablo III: Reaper of Souls
 * 2014 - The Lost Vikings (PC download)
 * 2014 - Rock n' Roll Racing (PC download)
 * 2014 - Curse of Naxxramas: A Hearthstone Adventure
 * 2014 - Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition
 * 2014 - World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor
 * 2014 - Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: Goblins vs. Gnomes
 * 2015 - Blackrock Mountain: A Hearthstone Adventure
 * 2015 - Heroes of the Storm
 * 2015 - Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: The Grand Tournament
 * 2015 - StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void
 * 2015 - Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: The League of Explorers
 * 2016 - StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops (part 1)
 * 2016 - Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: Whispers of the Old Gods
 * 2016 - Overwatch
 * 2016 - StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops (part 2)
 * 2016 - Hearthstone: One Night in Karazhan
 * 2016 - World of Warcraft: Legion
 * 2016 - StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops (part 3)
 * 2016 - Hearthstone: Mean Streets of Gadgetzan
 * 2017 - Hearthstone: Journey to Un'Goro
 * 2017 - Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: Knights of the Frozen Throne
 * 2017 - StarCraft: Remastered
 * 2017 - Hearthstone: Kobolds and Catacombs
 * 2018 - Hearthstone: The Witchwood
 * 2018 - Hearthstone: The Boomsday Project
 * 2018 - World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth
 * 2019 - Hearthstone: Rastakhan's Rumble
 * 2019 - Hearthstone: Rise of Shadows
 * 2019 - Hearthstone: Saviors of Uldum
 * 2020 - Warcraft III: Reforged
 * 2020 - Hearthstone: Ashes of Outland
 * 2020 - Hearthstone: Scholomance Academy
 * 2020 - World of Warcraft: Shadowlands
 * 2021 - Hearthstone: Forged in the Barrens
 * 2021 - Blizzard Arcade Collection
 * 2021 - Hearthstone: United in Stormwind
 * 2021 - Diablo II: Resurrected
 * 2022 - Hearthstone: Journey to the Sunken City
 * 2022 - Diablo Immortal

In Development

 * Overwatch 2 (2022)
 * Diablo IV (2023)
 * Untitled FPS (TBA)
 * Untitled Overwatch mobile game (TBA)
 * Untitled RPG (TBA)
 * Untitled survival game (TBA)
 * Warcraft Arclight Rumble (TBA)
 * World of Warcraft: Dragonflight (TBA)

Unreleased

 * Ares (canceled in June, 2019)
 * Bloodlines (concepts later used for StarCraft)
 * Crixa (2D shooter)
 * Crossroads (cancelled MMO)
 * Denizen
 * Diablo II: Salvation (trademark patented in 2001)
 * Diablo III: The King in the North (canceled second expansion for Diablo III)
 * Diablo Junior (intended for the Gameboy Color, scrapped due to production costs)
 * Diablo MMO (dropped concept)
 * Games People Play (crossword puzzles, boggle, and other word games)
 * Hades (canceled Diablo title)
 * Nomad (canceled in favor of World of Warcraft)
 * Pax Imperia II (rights sold to THQ, later released as Pax Emperia: Eminent Domain)
 * Raiko
 * Ronin
 * RPM II (sequel to RPM Racing, canceled in favor of Rock N' Roll Racing)
 * Shattered Nations (canceled in favor of StarCraft)
 * Starblo (ARPG in a sci-fi setting)
 * StarCraft: Frontiers (dropped concept)
 * StarCraft: Ghost (indefinitely postponed on March 24, 2006)
 * Titan (canceled on September 23, 2014)
 * Untitled mobile game (canceled in June, 2019)
 * Untitled pirate-themed ARPG (canceled after 1 year of development)
 * Untitled project by Mike Booth (abandoned by June, 2015)
 * Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans (canceled on May 22, 1998)
 * Warcraft Legends (cancelled RPG, elements re-used in Warcraft III)
 * Warcraft IV (mentioned in 2008, confirmed to not be in development as of 2013)
 * World of Warcraft II (under consideration as of 2004)
 * Untitled Warcraft mobile augmented reality location-based game (cancelled by 2022)

Personnel
Notable Blizzard personnel include:


 * "Bashiok" (community manager)
 * Leonard Boyarsky (lead world designer)
 * Jeff Kang (environmental artist)
 * Chris Metzen (vice-president of creative development)
 * Bryan Morrisroe (art director)
 * Jay Wilson (lead designer of Diablo III, now resigned)