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.

Core values
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

History
Originally under the name Silicon & Synapse, the company was founded on February 8, 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.

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.

The company temporarily re-branded itself as Chaos Studios and released the game Blackthorne under that studio name, but conflicts with an unregistered trademark for the name "Chaos" caused the company leadership to consider a new name. Upon acquisition by Davidson & Associates, then the #3 North American educational software publisher, in February 1994, the company changed its name to Blizzard Entertainment.

Blizzard turned 20 years old in 2012. The history is recorded on a timeline on its own site here. 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. Blizzard turned 30 years old in 2021 and celebrated it at BlizzConline with the release of Blizzard Arcade Collection.

Blizzard North

 * Main:

Blizzard North was originally founded in 1993 as Condor Inc. by David Brevik, Erich Schaefer, and Max Schaefer. Blizzard North came out in January of 1995 with an idea pitched with Allen for Diablo. The company was purchased and renamed later in March of 1996 and was the Bay Area division of Blizzard Entertainment, known for its Diablo series. The studio was originally based in Redwood City, California, before being moved a short distance away to San Mateo, California, with Blizzard proper being based in Irvine, southern California. On August 1, 2005, Blizzard Entertainment announced the closure of Blizzard North with a key reason for the closure was Blizzard's North poor development of what was to be Diablo III, which didn't meet Vivendi's expectations. There were also a couple of mentions of Blizzard South, which was known for the StarCraft and the Warcraft series. However, the name wasn't mentioned as much but it was used to keep confusion from Blizzard North as Blizzard South is based in Irvine, California, Blizzard's main location.


 * As Condor
 *  (1995)


 * As Blizzard North
 * Diablo (1996) - action role-playing game
 * Diablo II (2000) - action role-playing game
 * Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (2001) - expansion pack
 * Diablo III (in development 2000-2005 and later scrapped, remade from scratch by Blizzard Team 3) - originally was planned to be a massively multiplayer online role-playing game

TeSPA partnership
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.

Teams
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 World of Warcraft: Classic.
 * 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. Responsible for  and Warcraft III: Reforged.
 * Incubation
 * Formed in 2016 to cultivate new projects. Currently focusing on mobile games.
 * Cinematics team
 * Headhunter
 * Vicarious Visions - Diablo II: Resurrected (Diablo II remaster)
 * Moved from Activision to Blizzard as a subsidiary in early 2021.

Relationship with Activision Blizzard
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.

Conferences
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.

Applications

 * Defunct

Other

 * 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)

Rumored games
Note: Blizzard has confirmed that they are NOT working on a StarCraft or Diablo MMORPG.
 * StarCraft III
 * ''Untitled first-person game (TBA)
 * Warcraft IV
 * World of Warcraft 2

Unreleased/Cancelled games
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)
 * Nomad (cancelled in favor of World of Warcraft)
 * 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)
 *  (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)

Notable

 * J. Allen Brack (president)
 * Allen Adham (vice president and co-founder)
 * Mike Ybarra (exe. vice president and GM)
 * 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)

Previous notable employees

 * Michael Morhaime (strategic advisor)
 * 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)

Organizations

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

Notes and trivia

 * 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.

Gallery

 * Logos