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Wikipedia

Blizzard Entertainment

February 16, 2024

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded in February 1991 as Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles:[2] Michael Morhaime, Frank Pearce and Allen Adham. The company originally concentrated on the creation of game ports for other studios' games before beginning development of their own software in 1993, with games like Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. In 1993, the company became Chaos Studios, Inc., and then Blizzard Entertainment soon after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates early in the following year. Shortly after, Blizzard released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
Blizzard Entertainment's Irvine campus
Formerly
  • Silicon & Synapse, Inc.
  • (1991–1993)
  • Chaos Studios, Inc.
  • (1993–1994)
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryVideo games
FoundedFebruary 1991; 33 years ago (1991-02)
Founders
Headquarters
Irvine, California
,
US
Number of locations
9 studios and offices
Key people
Johanna Faries (president)
Products
ServicesBattle.net
Number of employees
 4,700[1] (2012)
Parent
SubsidiariesBlizzard Albany
Proletariat
ASN
  • 57976
Websiteblizzard.com

Since then, Blizzard Entertainment has created several Warcraft sequels, including highly influential massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft in 2004, as well as three other multi-million selling video game franchises: Diablo, StarCraft and Overwatch.[3][4][5] Their most recent projects include the online collectible card game Hearthstone; the multiplayer online battle arena Heroes of the Storm; the remaster of the original StarCraft and its expansion Brood War, StarCraft: Remastered; the replacement and sequel to the multiplayer first-person hero shooter Overwatch, Overwatch 2; the ninth expansion for World of Warcraft, Dragonflight; and the sequel to Diablo III, Diablo IV. The games operate through Blizzard's online gaming service Battle.net.

On July 9, 2008, Activision merged with Vivendi Games, culminating in the inclusion of the Blizzard brand name in the title of the resulting holding company.[6] On July 25, 2013, Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from the majority owner Vivendi, which resulted in Activision Blizzard becoming a completely independent company.[7] Since 2018, the company's reputation has suffered from a series of poorly received games, controversies involving players and staff, and allegations of sexual harassment and other misconduct against leading Blizzard employees.[8] In October 2023, Microsoft acquired parent company Activision Blizzard, maintaining that the company will continue to operate as a separate business. While part of the larger Microsoft Gaming division, Blizzard Entertainment retains its function as the publisher of games developed by their studios.

Blizzard Entertainment hosts annual gaming conventions for fans to meet and to promote their games: the first BlizzCon was held in October 2005 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California, which is where all of their conventions have been held since.[9] BlizzCon features game-related announcements, previews of upcoming Blizzard Entertainment games and content, Q&A sessions and panels, costume contests, and playable demos of various Blizzard games. Blizzard WorldWide Invitationals were events similar to BlizzCon held in South Korea and France between 2004 and 2008.

History edit

Founding (1991–1994) edit

 
Blizzard co-founder and former CEO Mike Morhaime

Blizzard Entertainment was founded by Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce as Silicon & Synapse in February 1991, after all three had earned their bachelor's degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles, the year prior.[10][2] The name "Silicon & Synapse" was a high concept from the three founders, with "silicon" representing the building block of a computer, while "synapse" the building block of the brain.[11] The initial logo was created by Stu Rose.[10] To fund the company, each of them contributed about $10,000, Morhaime borrowing the sum interest-free from his grandmother.[12] During the first two years, the company focused on creating game ports for other studios. Ports include titles such as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I and Battle Chess II: Chinese Chess.[13][14] In 1993, the company developed games such as Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings (published by Interplay Productions).

Around 1993, co-founder Adham told the other executives that he did not like the name "Silicon & Synapse" anymore, as people outside the company were confusing the meaning of silicon the chemical element used in microchips with silicone the materials used in breast implants. By the end of 1993, Adham changed the name to "Chaos Studios", reflecting on the haphazardness of their development processes.[11]

In early 1994, they were acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates for $6.75 million ($13.3 million today).[15] Shortly after this point, they were contacted by a Florida company, Chaos Technologies, who wanted the company to pay US$100,000 (equivalent to $197,441 in 2022) to keep the name.[16] Not wanting to pay that sum, the executives decided to change the studio's name to "Ogre Studios" by April 1994.[11] However, Davidson & Associates did not like this name, and forced the company to change it. According to Morhaime, Adham began running through a dictionary from the start, writing down any word that seemed interesting and passing it to the legal department to see if it had any complications. One of the first words they found to be interesting and cleared the legal check was "blizzard", leading them to change their name to "Blizzard Entertainment" by May 1994.[11][17]

Shortly thereafter, Blizzard Entertainment shipped their breakthrough hit Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, a real-time strategy (RTS) game in a high-fantasy setting.

Acquisition by Vivendi and World of Warcraft (1995–2007) edit

Blizzard Entertainment has changed hands several times since then. Davidson was acquired along with Sierra On-Line by a company called CUC International in 1996. CUC then merged with a hotel, real-estate, and car-rental franchiser called HFS Corporation to form Cendant 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, Sierra On-line (which included Blizzard) to French publisher Havas in 1998, the same year Havas was purchased by Vivendi.[18] Blizzard, at this point numbering about 200 employees, became part of the Vivendi Games group of Vivendi.[19]

In 1996, Blizzard Entertainment acquired Condor Games of San Mateo, California, which had been working on the action role-playing game (ARPG) Diablo for Blizzard at the time. Condor was renamed Blizzard North, with Blizzard's main headquarters in Irvine renamed to Blizzard South to distinguish the two.[20] Diablo was released at the very start of 1997 alongside Battle.net, a matchmaking service for the game. Blizzard North developed the sequel Diablo II (2000), and its expansion pack Lord of Destruction (2001). Following these releases, a number of key staff from Blizzard North departed for other opportunities, such as Bill Roper.[20] Blizzard's management mentioned made the decision August 2005 to consolidate Blizzard North into Blizzard South, relocating staff to the main Blizzard offices in Irvine, and subsequently dropping the "Blizzard South" name.[20]

Following the success of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Blizzard began development on a science-fiction themed RTS StarCraft and released the title in March 1998. The title was the top-selling PC game for the year,[21] and led to further growth of the Battle.net service and the use of the game for esports.[22] Around 2000, Blizzard engaged with Nihilistic Software to work on a version of StarCraft for home consoles for Blizzard. Nihilisitic was co-founded by Robert Huebner, who had worked on StarCraft and other games while a Blizzard employee before leaving to found the studio. The game, StarCraft: Ghost, was a stealth-oriented game compared to the RTS features of StarCraft, and was a major feature of the 2002 Tokyo Game Show. However, over the next few years, the game entered development hell with conflicts between Nihilisitic and Blizzard on its direction. Blizzard ordered Nihilistic to stop work on StarCraft: Ghost in July 2004, and instead brought on Swingin' Ape Studios, a third-party studio that had just successfully released Metal Arms: Glitch in the System in 2003, to reboot the development of Ghost.[22] Blizzard fully acquired Swingin' Ape Studios in May 2005 to continue on Ghost. However, while the game was scheduled to be released in 2005, it was targeted at the consoles of the sixth generation, such as the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox, while the industry was transitioning to the seventh generation. Blizzard decided to cancel Ghost rather than extend its development period to work on the newer consoles.[22]

Blizzard started to work on a sequel to the Warcraft II in early 1998, which was announced as a "role-playing strategy" game.[23][24] Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, the third title set in the Warcraft fictional universe, was released in July 2002.[25] Warcraft III has inspired many future games, having the influence on real-time strategy and multiplayer online battle arena genre.[26][27] Many of the characters, locations and concepts introduced in Warcraft III and its expansion went on to play major roles in numerous future Blizzard's titles.[26][28][29]

In 2002, Blizzard was able to reacquire rights for three of its earlier Silicon & Synapse titles, The Lost Vikings, Rock n' Roll Racing and Blackthorne, from Interplay Entertainment and re-release them for the Game Boy Advance handheld console.[30]

In 2004, Blizzard opened European offices in the Paris suburb of Vélizy, Yvelines, France.

Blizzard Entertainment released World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on the Warcraft franchise, on November 23, 2004, in North America, and on February 11, 2005, in Europe.[31] By December 2004, the game was the fastest-selling PC game in the United States, and by March 2005, had reached 1.5 million subscribers worldwide.[32] Blizzard partnered with Chinese publisher The9 to publish and distribute World of Warcraft in China, as foreign companies could not directly publish into the country themselves. World of Warcraft launched in China in June 2005.[33] By the end of 2007, World of Warcraft was considered a global phenomenon, having reached over 9 million subscribers[32] and exceeded US$1 billion in revenue since its release.[34] In April 2008, World of Warcraft was estimated to hold 62 percent of the MMORPG subscription market.[35] Blizzard's staff quadrupled from around 400 employees in 2004 to 1600 by 2006 to provide more resources to the game and its various expansions,[34] and Blizzard moved their headquarters to 16215 Alton Parkway in Irvine, California in 2007 to support the additional staff.

With the success of World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment organized the first BlizzCon fan convention in October 2005 held at the Anaheim Convention Center. The inaugural event drew about 6,000 people and became an annual event which Blizzard uses to announce new games, expansions, and content for its properties.[32]

Vivendi merger with Activision and continued growth (2008–2017) edit

Up through 2006, Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision, had been working to rebound the company from near-bankruptcy, and had established a number of new studios. However, Activision lacked anything in the MMO market. Kotick saw that World of Warcraft was bringing in over US$1.1 billion a year in subscription fees, and began approaching Vivendi's CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy about potential acquisition of their struggling Vivendi Games division, which included Blizzard Entertainment. Lévy was open to a merger, but would only allow it if he controlled the majority of the combined company, knowing the value of World of Warcraft to Kotick.[36] Among those Kotick spoke to for advice included Blizzard's Morhaime, who told Kotick that they had begun establishing lucrative in-roads into the Chinese market. Kotick accepted Lévy's deal, with the deal approved by shareholders in December 2007. By July 2008, the merger was complete, with Vivendi Games effectively dissolved except for Blizzard Entertainment, and the new company was named Activision Blizzard.[36]

Blizzard established a distribution agreement with the Chinese company NetEase in August 2008 to publish Blizzard's games in China. The deal focused on StarCraft II which was gaining popularity as an esport within southeast Asia, as well as for other Blizzard games with the exception of World of Warcraft, still being handled by The9. The two companies established the Shanghai EaseNet Network Technology for managing the games within China.[37] Blizzard and The9 prepared to launch the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King, but the expansion came under scrutiny by China's content regulation board, the General Administration of Press and Publication, which rejected publication of it within China in March 2009, even with preliminary modifications made by The9 to clear it. Rumors of Blizzard's dissatisfaction with The9 from this and other previous complications with World of Warcraft came to a head when, in April 2009, Blizzard announced it was terminating its contract with The9, and transferred operation of World of Warcraft in China to NetEase.[32][38][39]

They released an improved version of Battle.net (Battle.net 2.0) in March 2009 which included improved matchmaking, storefront features, and better support for all of Blizzard's existing titles particularly World of Warcraft.[40]

Having peaked at 12 million monthly subscriptions in 2010, World of Warcraft subscriptions sunk to 6.8 million in 2014, the lowest number since the end of 2006, prior to The Burning Crusade expansion.[41][42][43] However, World of Warcraft is still the world's most-subscribed MMORPG,[44][45][46] and holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers.[47][48][49][50] In 2008, Blizzard was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for the creation of World of Warcraft. Mike Morhaime accepted the award.[51][52]

Following the merger, Blizzard found it was relying on its well-established properties, but at the same time, the industry was experiencing a shift towards indie games. Blizzard established a few small teams within the company to work on developing new concepts based on the indie development approach that it could potentially use. One of these teams quickly came onto the idea of a collectible card game based on the Warcraft narrative universe, which ultimately became Hearthstone, released as a free-to-play title in March 2014.[53] Hearthstone reached over 25 million players by the end of 2014,[54] and exceeded 100 million players by 2018.[55]

Another small internal team began work around 2008 on a new intellectual property known as Titan, a more contemporary or near-future MMORPG that would have co-existed alongside World of Warcraft. The project gained more visibility in 2010 as a result of some information leaks. Blizzard continued to speak on Titan's development over the next few years, with over 100 people within Blizzard working on the project. However, Titan's development was troubled, and, internally, in May 2013, Blizzard cancelled the project (publicly reporting this in 2014), and reassigned most of the staff but left about 40 people, led by Jeff Kaplan, to either come up with a fresh idea within a few weeks or have their team reassigned to Blizzard's other departments. The small team came upon the idea of a team-based multiplayer shooter game, reusing many of the assets from Titan but set in a new near-future narrative. The new project was greenlit by Blizzard and became known as Overwatch, which was released in May 2016. Overwatch became the fourth main intellectual property of Blizzard, following Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo.[56]

In addition to Hearthstone and Overwatch, Blizzard Entertainment continued to produce sequels and expansions to its established properties during this period, including StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (2010) and Diablo III (2012).[57][58] Their major crossover title, Heroes of the Storm, was released as a MOBA game in 2015.[59][60] The game featured various characters from Blizzard's franchises as playable heroes, as well as different battlegrounds based on Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, and Overwatch universes.[61] In the late 2010s, Blizzard released StarCraft: Remastered (2017) and Warcraft III: Reforged (2020), remastered versions of the original StarCraft and Warcraft III, respectively.[62][63]

The May 2016 release of Overwatch was highly successful, and was the highest-selling game on PC for 2016.[64] Several traditional esport events had been established within the year of Overwatch's release, such as the Overwatch World Cup, but Blizzard continued to expand this and announced the first esports professional league, the Overwatch League at the 2016 BlizzCon event. The company purchased a studio at The Burbank Studios in Burbank, California, that it converted into a dedicated esports venue, the Blizzard Arena, to be used for the Overwatch League and other events.[65] The inaugural season of the Overwatch League launched on January 10, 2018, with 12 global teams playing. By the second season in 2019 it had expanded the League to 20 teams, and with its third season in 2020, it will have these teams traveling across the globe in a transitional home/away-style format.

In 2012, Blizzard Entertainment had 4,700 employees,[1] with offices across 11 cities including Austin, Texas, and countries around the globe. As of June 2015, the company's headquarters in Irvine, California had 2,622 employees.[66]

Change of leadership (2018–2022) edit

On October 3, 2018, Mike Morhaime announced his plans to step down as the company president and CEO while remaining an advisor to the company; he formally left on April 7, 2019. Morhaime was replaced by J. Allen Brack, the executive producer on World of Warcraft.[67][68]

Frank Pearce announced he would be stepping down as Blizzard's Chief Development Officer on July 19, 2019, though will remain in an advisory role similar to Morhaime.[69] Michael Chu, lead writer on many of Blizzard's franchises including Diablo, Warcraft, and Overwatch, announced he was leaving the company after 20 years in March 2020.[70]

On January 22, 2021, Activision transferred Vicarious Visions over to Blizzard Entertainment, stating that the Vicarious Visions team had better opportunity for long-term support for Blizzard.[71] Vicarious had been working with Blizzard for about two years prior to this announcement on the planned remaster of Diablo II, Diablo II: Resurrected, and according to Brack, it made sense to incorporate Vicarious into Blizzard for ongoing support of the game and for other Diablo games including Diablo IV.[72][73] Vicarious was completely merged into Blizzard by April 12, 2022.[74]

In celebration of the company's 30th anniversary, Blizzard Entertainment released a compilation called Blizzard Arcade Collection in February 2021, for various video game platforms. The collection includes their three classic video games: The Lost Vikings, Rock n' Roll Racing, and Blackthorne, each of which containing additional upgrades and numerous modern features.[75][76][77]

Activision Blizzard was the subject of a lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing in July 2021, asserting that for several years the management within Blizzard as well as Activision promoted a "frat boy" atmosphere that allowed and encouraged sexual misconduct towards female employees and discrimination in hiring practices.[78] The lawsuit drew a large response from employees and groups outside of Activision Blizzard. In the wake of these events, Brack, one of the few individuals directly named in the suit, announced he was leaving Blizzard to "pursue new opportunities", and will be replaced by co-leads Jen Oneal, the lead of Vicarious Visions and the first woman in a leadership role for the company, and Mike Ybarra, a Blizzard executive vice president.[79] Oneal announced in November 2021 that she would be leaving the company by the end of 2021, leaving Ybarra as the sole leader of Blizzard.[80][81]

As a result of the California lawsuit and of delays and release issues with their more recent games, Activision Blizzard's stock faced severe pressure. Subsequently, Microsoft seized the opportunity to become one of the largest video game companies in the world and announced its intent to acquire Activision Blizzard and its subsidiaries, including Blizzard, for $68.7 billion in January 2022. This exchange marks the largest acquisition in tech history, surpassing the $67 billion Dell-EMC merger from 2016. The deal closed on October 13, 2023, and Activision Blizzard moved into the Microsoft Gaming division.[82]

Blizzard acquired Proletariat, the developers of Spellbreak, in June 2022 as to help support World of Warcraft. The 100-employee studio remained in Boston but will shutter Spellbreak as they move onto Warcraft.[83]

Challenges with NetEase and Microsoft Acquisition (2023–present) edit

Ahead of their license renewal in January 2023, Blizzard (via Activision Blizzard) and NetEase stated in November 2022 that they had been unable to come to an agreement on the renewal terms for their license, and thus most Blizzard games will cease operations in China in January 2023 until the situation can be resolved.[84] According to a report by The New York Times, several factors influenced Activision Blizzard's decision to terminate the agreement, which included stronger demands made by the Chinese government to know of Activision Blizzard's internal business matters, NetEase's desire to license the games directly rather than run the license through a joint venture, and Activision Blizzard's concerns that NetEase was trying to start their own ventures, including the $100 million payment towards Bungie in 2018. NetEase was further concerned about the impact of the pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. Activision Blizzard stated they were looking to other Chinese firms as replacements for NetEase as to restore their games in China.[85]

Following completion of the acquisition, Microsoft announced it was laying off 1,900 staff from Microsoft Gaming on January 25, 2024. Alongside this, Blizzard President Mike Ybarra and Chief Design Officer Allen Adham announced they would be leaving the company. Further, the planned survival game from Blizzard was canceled.[86] On January 29, 2024, Johanna Faries, the former general manager of the Call of Duty series, was named Blizzard Entertainment's new president, taking office on February 5.[87][88]

Games edit

Main article: List of Blizzard Entertainment games
Release timeline
1994The Death and Return of Superman
Blackthorne
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
1995Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
1996Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal
1997Diablo
The Lost Vikings 2
1998StarCraft
StarCraft: Insurrection
StarCraft: Brood War
StarCraft: Retribution
1999Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition
2000Diablo II
2001Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
2002Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
2003Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne
2004World of Warcraft
2005–2006
2007World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade
2008World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
2009
2010StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
2011
2012Diablo III
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria
2013StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
2014Hearthstone
Diablo III: Reaper of Souls
World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor
2015Heroes of the Storm
StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void
2016Overwatch
World of Warcraft: Legion
StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops
2017Diablo III: Rise of the Necromancer
StarCraft: Remastered
2018World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth
2019World of Warcraft Classic
2020Warcraft III: Reforged
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands
2021World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Classic
Diablo II: Resurrected
2022Diablo Immortal
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King Classic
Overwatch 2
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight
2023Diablo IV
Warcraft Rumble
Hearthstone: Showdown in the Badlands
2024World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Classic
Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
World of Warcraft: The War Within
TBAWorld of Warcraft: Midnight
World of Warcraft: The Last Titan

Blizzard Entertainment has developed 19 games since the inception of the company in 1991.

Main franchises edit

The majority of the games Blizzard published are in the Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft series. Since the release of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994), Diablo (1997), and StarCraft (1998), the focus has been almost exclusively on those three franchises. Overwatch (2016) became an exception years later, bringing the number of main franchises to four. Each franchise is supported by other media based around its intellectual property such as novels, collectible card games, comics and video shorts. Blizzard announced in 2006 that they would be producing a Warcraft live-action movie. The movie was directed by Duncan Jones, financed and produced by Legendary Pictures, Atlas Entertainment, and others, and distributed by Universal Pictures.[89] It was released in June 2016. On October 4, 2022 Overwatch servers were officially shut off,[90] Later Overwatch 2 (2022) servers went up.

Spin-offs edit

Blizzard has released two spin-offs to the main franchises: Hearthstone (2014), which is set in the existing Warcraft lore, and Heroes of the Storm (2015), which features playable characters from all four of Blizzard's franchises.

Remasters edit

In 2015, Blizzard Entertainment formed "Classic Games division", a team focused on updating and remastering some of their older titles, with an initially announced focus on StarCraft: Remastered (2017), Warcraft III: Reforged (2020), and Diablo II: Resurrected (2021).[91][92]

Re-released games edit

In February 2021, Blizzard Entertainment released a compilation called Blizzard Arcade Collection for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. The collection includes five Blizzard's classic video games: The Lost Vikings, Rock n' Roll Racing, Blackthorne, The Lost Vikings 2 and RPM Racing, with the last two games added in April 2021. Some of the modern features include 16:9 resolution, 4-player split-screen, rewinding and saving of game progress, watching replays, and adding graphic filters to change the look of player's game.[75][76] Additionally, it contains upgrades for each game such as enhanced local multiplayer for The Lost Vikings, new songs and artist performances for Rock n' Roll Racing, as well as a new level map for Blackthorne.[77] A digital museum, which is included in the collection, features game art, unused content, and interviews.[75]

Unreleased and future games edit

Notable unreleased titles include Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans, which was canceled on May 22, 1998, Shattered Nations, and StarCraft: Ghost, which was "Postponed indefinitely" on March 24, 2006, after being in development hell for much of its lifespan. After seven years of development, Blizzard revealed the cancellation of an unannounced MMO codenamed Titan on September 23, 2014.[93] The company also has a history of declining to set release dates, choosing to instead take as much time as needed, generally saying a given product is "done when it's done."[94]

Pax Imperia II was originally announced as a title to be published by Blizzard. Blizzard eventually dropped Pax Imperia II, though, when it decided it might be in conflict with their other space strategy project, which became known as StarCraft. THQ eventually contracted with Heliotrope and released the game in 1997 as Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain.

The company announced in January 2022 that it was near release of another new intellectual property, named Odyssey according to Bloomberg News, a survival game that had been at work at the studio for nearly six years before its cancellation in 2024.[95][86] Bloomberg stated that the game's origins came from World of Warcraft developer Craig Amai, and was originally prototyped using the Unreal Engine, which Blizzard licensed from Epic Games. When the game was revealed in 2022, about 100 employees were working on it, but around the same time, there was effort to switch from Unreal to Synapse, Blizzard's engine used for mobile games, though artists continued to develop assets in Unreal. Near when Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, there was an internal belief that they would be able to bring on more developers to complete the transition to Synapse and have the game ready for a 2026 release, but with the culling of 1,900 staff from Microsoft Gaming in January 2024, the game's development was cancelled.[96]

Ports edit

The company, known at the time as the Silicon & Synapse, initially concentrated on porting other studio's games to computer platforms,[97] developing 8 ports between 1992 and 1993.

Company structure edit

As with most studios with multiple franchises, Blizzard Entertainment has organized different departments to oversee these franchises. Formally, since around the time of World of Warcraft in 2004, these have been denoted through simply numerical designations.[98] The original three teams were:

  • Team 1 manages the StarCraft property.[98] The team also oversaw the development of the StarCraft spin-off Heroes of the Storm.[99] Team 1 also included the Classics Team to work on remastering Blizzard's earlier properties for modern computers, which have included StarCraft: Remastered and Warcraft III: Reforged.[100] The Classic Games team was disbanded around August 2020, about eight months after Warcraft III: Reforged was released; according to Jason Schreier of Bloomberg News, this was due to Activision Blizzard driving Blizzard away from remastering its old properties, which figured into the launch issues with Warcraft III: Reforged.[101]
  • Team 2 continues to manage and create content for World of Warcraft.[98]
  • Team 3 oversees the Diablo franchise.[98]

Since 2004, two new teams were created:

  • Team 4 was created around 2007 to work on Blizzard's first new IP since World of Warcraft, that being Titan. Titan had development difficulties near 2013, and most of Team 4 was reallocated to the other teams, but the remaining members, led by Jeff Kaplan, revised Titan's concept into Overwatch, which remains in Team 4's hands since its release in 2016.[98]
  • Team 5 was created in 2008 to explore smaller games that could fit into Blizzard's portfolio. This resulted in the creation of Hearthstone, a collectible card game based on the Warcraft property, which became Team 5's priority.[53]

Technology edit

Battle.net 2.0 edit

Main article: Battle.net

Blizzard Entertainment released its revamped Battle.net service in 2009. The platform provides online gaming, digital distribution, digital rights management, and social networking service. Battle.net allows people who have purchased Blizzard products to download digital copies of games they have purchased, without needing any physical media.

On November 11, 2009, Blizzard required all World of Warcraft accounts to switch over to Battle.net accounts. This transition means that all current Blizzard titles can be accessed, downloaded, and played with a singular Battle.net login.[102]

Battle.net 2.0 is the platform for matchmaking service for Blizzard games, which offers players a host of additional features. Players are able to track their friend's achievements, view match history, avatars, etc. Players are able to unlock a wide range of achievements for Blizzard games.

The service provides the user with community features such as friends lists and groups, and allows players to chat simultaneously with players from other Blizzard games using VoIP and instant messaging. For example, players no longer need to create multiple user names or accounts for most Blizzard products.[103][104] To enable cross-game communication, players need to become either Battletag or Real ID friends.[105]

Warden client edit

Blizzard Entertainment has made use of a special form of software known as the 'Warden Client'. The Warden client is known to be used with Blizzard's online games such as Diablo and World of Warcraft, and the Terms of Service contain a clause consenting to the Warden software's RAM scans while a Blizzard game is running.[106]

The Warden client scans a small portion of the code segment of running processes in order to determine whether any third-party programs are running. The goal of this is to detect and address players who may be attempting to run unsigned code or third party programs in the game. This determination of third party programs is made by hashing the scanned strings and comparing the hashed value to a list of hashes assumed to correspond to banned third party programs.[107] The Warden's reliability in correctly discerning legitimate versus illegitimate actions was called into question when a large-scale incident happened. This incident banned many Linux users after an update to Warden caused it to incorrectly detect Cedega as a cheat program.[108] Blizzard issued a statement claiming they had correctly identified and restored all accounts and credited them with 20 days' play.[109] Warden scans all processes running on a computer, not just the game, and could possibly run across what would be considered private information and other personally identifiable information. It is because of these peripheral scans that Warden has been accused of being spyware and has run afoul of controversy among privacy advocates.[110][111][112]

Controversies and legal disputes edit

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. v. Valve Corporation edit

Shortly after Valve filed its trademark for "Dota" to secure the franchising rights for Dota 2, DotA-Allstars, LLC, run by former contributors to the game's predecessor, Defense of the Ancients, filed an opposing trademark in August 2010.[113] DotA All-Stars, LLC was sold to Blizzard Entertainment in 2011. After the opposition was over-ruled in Valve's favor, Blizzard filed an opposition against Valve in November 2011, citing their license agreement with developers, as well as their ownership of DotA-Allstars, LLC.[114] Blizzard conceded their case in May 2012, however, giving Valve undisputed commercial rights to Dota name, while Blizzard would rename their StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm mod "Blizzard All-Stars", which would eventually become the stand-alone game, Heroes of the Storm.[115]

California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard edit

Main article: California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard

Following a two-year investigation, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard in July 2021 for gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment, principally within the Blizzard Entertainment workplace. The DFEH alleges that female employees were subjected to constant sexual harassment, unequal pay, retaliation, as well as discrimination based on pregnancy. The suit also described a "pervasive frat boy workplace culture" at Blizzard that included objectification of women's bodies and jokes about rape.[116] Activision Blizzard's statement described the suit as meritless, contending that action had been taken in any instances of misconduct. The company also objected to the DFEH not approaching them prior to filing.[117] The lawsuit prompted an employee walkout, as well as leading J Allen Brack, and head of human resources, Jesse Meschuk, to step down.[116][118][119] Because of these allegations, Blizzard changed names that referenced employees in multiple of its franchises, including Overwatch and World of Warcraft.[120]

Founder Electronics infringement lawsuit edit

On August 14, 2007, Beijing University Founder Electronics Co., Ltd. sued Blizzard Entertainment Limited for copyright infringement claiming 100 million yuan in damages. The lawsuit alleged the Chinese edition of World of Warcraft reproduced a number of Chinese typefaces made by Founder Electronics without permission.[121]

FreeCraft edit

Main article: Stratagus

On June 20, 2003, Blizzard issued a cease and desist letter to the developers of an open-source clone of the Warcraft engine called FreeCraft, claiming trademark infringement. This hobby project had the same gameplay and characters as Warcraft II, but came with different graphics and music.

As well as a similar name, FreeCraft enabled players to use Warcraft II graphics, provided they had the Warcraft II CD. The programmers of the clone shut down their site without challenge. Soon after that the developers regrouped to continue the work by the name of Stratagus.[122]

Hearthstone ban and Hong Kong protests edit

Main article: Blitzchung controversy

During an October 2019 Hearthstone Grandmasters streaming event in Taiwan, one player Ng Wai Chung, going by his online alias "Blitzchung" used an interview period to show support for the protestors in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests. Shortly afterwards, on October 7, 2019, Blitzchung was disqualified from the current tournament and forfeited his winnings to date, and banned for a one-year period. The two shoutcasters engaged in the interview were also penalized with similar bans. Blizzard justified the ban as from its Grandmasters tournament rules that prevents players from anything that "brings [themselves] into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages [Blizzard's] image".[123][124][125]

Blizzard's response led to several protests from current Hearthstone players, other video game players, and criticism from Blizzard's employees, fearing that Blizzard was giving into the censorship of the Chinese government.[126] Protests were held, including through the 2019 BlizzCon in early November, to urge Blizzard to reverse their bans.[127] The situation also drew the attention of several U.S. lawmakers, fearing that Blizzard, as a U.S. company, was letting China dictate how it handled speech and also urged the bans to be reversed.[128]

Blizzard CEO J. Allen Brack wrote an open letter on October 11, 2019, apologizing for the way Blizzard handled the situation, and reduced the bans for both Blitzchung and the casters to six months. Brack reiterated that while they support free speech and their decision was in no way tied to the Chinese government, they want players and casters to avoid speaking beyond the tournament and the games in such interviews.[129]

King's "Diversity Tool" controversy edit

On May 12, 2022, Blizzard Entertainment released a blog post about the Diversity Space Tool, developed by a team at King – a mobile business unit at Activision Blizzard – alongside the MIT Game Lab. Jacqueline Chomatas, King's globalization project manager, described the tool as a "measurement device" to analyze how diverse the characters are "when compared to the 'norm'". The post showed example images of the tool being used on Overwatch's cast, with graphs showing breakdowns of the character attributes, and stated that "The Overwatch 2 team at Blizzard has also had a chance to experiment with the tool, with equally enthusiastic first impressions." Blizzard shared the intent to release the tool during the summer and fall of 2022, with the goal of "making the tool available to the industry as a whole".[130][131]

The tool received heavy backlash online. Many people asked why Blizzard would create the tool instead of hiring diverse teams, and raised questions regarding the tool's rating scale.[131][132] The blog post originally suggested that the tool was used in an active development, mainly for Overwatch, which led some Blizzard employees working on the game to publicly deny the tool was used in Overwatch development and to criticize the tool further.[131] On May 13, 2022, the blog post was edited to remove the example images of the tool and any mention of Overwatch.[132][133] Later, the post was deleted altogether.

MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. edit

Main articles: Glider (bot) and MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

On July 14, 2008, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona ruled on the case MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.. The Court found that MDY was liable for copyright infringement since users of its Glider bot program were breaking the End User License Agreement and Terms of Use for World of Warcraft. MDY Industries appealed the judgment of the district court, and a judgment was delivered by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on December 14, 2010, in which the summary judgment against MDY for contributory copyright infringement was reversed.[134][135] Nevertheless, they ruled that the bot violated the DMCA and the case was sent back to the district court for review in light of this decision.[136][137]

MDY v. Blizzard's decision did affirm a prior Ninth Circuit ruling in Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc. that software licenses, such as the one used by Blizzard for WoW, were enforceable and enshrined the principle that video games could be sold as licenses to players rather than purchased. This ruling, though limited to the states of the Ninth Circuit, has been used by the industry to continue to sell games as licenses to users.[138]

Privacy controversy and Real ID edit

On July 6, 2010, Blizzard Entertainment announced that they were changing the way their forums worked to require that users identify themselves with their real name.[139][140] The reaction from the community was overwhelmingly negative with multiple game magazines calling the change "foolhardy"[141] and an "epic fail".[142] It resulted in a significant user response on the Blizzard forums, including one thread on the issue reaching over 11,000 replies.[143][144][145][146][147] This included personal details of a Blizzard employee who gave his real name "to show it wasn't a big deal".[148] Shortly after revealing his real name, forum users posted personal information including his phone number, picture, age, and home address.[143]

Some technology media outlets suggested that displaying real names through Real ID is a good idea and would benefit both Battle.net and the Blizzard community.[149] But others were worried that Blizzard was opening their fans up to real-life dangers such as stalking, harassment, and employment issues, since a simple Internet search by someone's employer can reveal their online activities.[143][150][151][152]

Blizzard initially responded to some of the concerns by saying that the changes would not be retroactive to previous posts, that parents could set up the system so that minors cannot post, and that posting to the forums is optional.[145] However, due to the significant negative response, Blizzard President Michael Morhaime issued a statement rescinding the plan to use real names on Blizzard's forums for the time being.[153] The idea behind this plan was to allow players who had a relationship outside of the games to find each other more easily across all the Blizzard game titles.[143][154]

StarCraft privacy and other lawsuits edit

In 1998, Donald P. Driscoll, an Albany, California, attorney filed a suit on behalf of Intervention, Inc., a California consumer group, against Blizzard Entertainment for "unlawful business practices" for the action of collecting data from a user's computer without their permission.[155][156]

On May 19, 2014, Blizzard Entertainment filed a lawsuit in federal court in California, alleging that the unidentified programmers were involved in creation of software that hacks Starcraft II. Most of the alleged charges are related to copyright infringement.[157][158]

Back in May 2010, MBCPlus Media, which operates the network MBCGame (Korean television stations that are broadcasting tournaments built around StarCraft), was revealed to be sued by Blizzard for broadcasting StarCraft tournaments without the company's consent, insisting that StarCraft is not a public domain offering, as Blizzard has invested significant money and resources to create the StarCraft game.[159]

World of Warcraft private server complications edit

On December 5, 2008, Blizzard Entertainment issued a cease and desist letter to many administrators of high population World of Warcraft private servers (essentially slightly altered hosting servers of the actual World of Warcraft game, that players do not have to pay for). Blizzard used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to influence many private servers to fully shut down and cease to exist.[160]

Related companies edit

Over the years, some former Blizzard Entertainment employees have moved on and established gaming companies of their own. Several of these occurred following the merger between Activision Holdings and Blizzard's parent company at the time, Vivendi Games in 2008, and more recently as Activision Blizzard has directed Blizzard away from properties like Warcraft and Starcraft that are not seen as financial boons to the larger company. These employees left to form their smaller studios to give themselves the creative freedom that they were lacking at Blizzard. Collectively these studios are known as "Blizzard 2.0".[161]

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Further reading edit

  • Winkie, Luke (February 27, 2021). "How Blizzard Transforms Its Fans Into Employees". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Archived from the original on September 28, 2021.

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Blizzard Entertainment.
  • Official website

February 16, 2024
blizzard, entertainment, american, video, game, developer, publisher, based, irvine, california, subsidiary, activision, blizzard, company, founded, february, 1991, silicon, synapse, three, graduates, university, california, angeles, michael, morhaime, frank, . Blizzard Entertainment Inc is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine California A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard the company was founded in February 1991 as Silicon amp Synapse Inc by three graduates of the University of California Los Angeles 2 Michael Morhaime Frank Pearce and Allen Adham The company originally concentrated on the creation of game ports for other studios games before beginning development of their own software in 1993 with games like Rock n Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings In 1993 the company became Chaos Studios Inc and then Blizzard Entertainment soon after being acquired by distributor Davidson amp Associates early in the following year Shortly after Blizzard released Warcraft Orcs amp Humans Blizzard Entertainment Inc Blizzard Entertainment s Irvine campusFormerlySilicon amp Synapse Inc 1991 1993 Chaos Studios Inc 1993 1994 Company typeSubsidiaryIndustryVideo gamesFoundedFebruary 1991 33 years ago 1991 02 FoundersAllen AdhamMichael MorhaimeFrank PearceHeadquartersIrvine California USNumber of locations9 studios and officesKey peopleJohanna Faries president ProductsDiablo seriesHearthstoneHeroes of the StormOverwatch seriesStarCraft seriesWarcraft seriesServicesBattle netNumber of employees4 700 1 2012 ParentDavidson amp Associates 1994 1998 Vivendi Games 1998 2008 Activision Blizzard 2008 present SubsidiariesBlizzard AlbanyProletariatASN57976Websiteblizzard comSince then Blizzard Entertainment has created several Warcraft sequels including highly influential massively multiplayer online role playing game World of Warcraft in 2004 as well as three other multi million selling video game franchises Diablo StarCraft and Overwatch 3 4 5 Their most recent projects include the online collectible card game Hearthstone the multiplayer online battle arena Heroes of the Storm the remaster of the original StarCraft and its expansion Brood War StarCraft Remastered the replacement and sequel to the multiplayer first person hero shooter Overwatch Overwatch 2 the ninth expansion for World of Warcraft Dragonflight and the sequel to Diablo III Diablo IV The games operate through Blizzard s online gaming service Battle net On July 9 2008 Activision merged with Vivendi Games culminating in the inclusion of the Blizzard brand name in the title of the resulting holding company 6 On July 25 2013 Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from the majority owner Vivendi which resulted in Activision Blizzard becoming a completely independent company 7 Since 2018 the company s reputation has suffered from a series of poorly received games controversies involving players and staff and allegations of sexual harassment and other misconduct against leading Blizzard employees 8 In October 2023 Microsoft acquired parent company Activision Blizzard maintaining that the company will continue to operate as a separate business While part of the larger Microsoft Gaming division Blizzard Entertainment retains its function as the publisher of games developed by their studios Blizzard Entertainment hosts annual gaming conventions for fans to meet and to promote their games the first BlizzCon was held in October 2005 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim California which is where all of their conventions have been held since 9 BlizzCon features game related announcements previews of upcoming Blizzard Entertainment games and content Q amp A sessions and panels costume contests and playable demos of various Blizzard games Blizzard WorldWide Invitationals were events similar to BlizzCon held in South Korea and France between 2004 and 2008 Contents 1 History 1 1 Founding 1991 1994 1 2 Acquisition by Vivendi and World of Warcraft 1995 2007 1 3 Vivendi merger with Activision and continued growth 2008 2017 1 4 Change of leadership 2018 2022 1 5 Challenges with NetEase and Microsoft Acquisition 2023 present 2 Games 2 1 Main franchises 2 2 Spin offs 2 3 Remasters 2 4 Re released games 2 5 Unreleased and future games 2 6 Ports 3 Company structure 4 Technology 4 1 Battle net 2 0 4 2 Warden client 5 Controversies and legal disputes 5 1 Blizzard Entertainment Inc v Valve Corporation 5 2 California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v Activision Blizzard 5 3 Founder Electronics infringement lawsuit 5 4 FreeCraft 5 5 Hearthstone ban and Hong Kong protests 5 6 King s Diversity Tool controversy 5 7 MDY Industries LLC v Blizzard Entertainment Inc 5 8 Privacy controversy and Real ID 5 9 StarCraft privacy and other lawsuits 5 10 World of Warcraft private server complications 6 Related companies 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External linksHistory editFounding 1991 1994 edit nbsp Blizzard co founder and former CEO Mike MorhaimeBlizzard Entertainment was founded by Michael Morhaime Allen Adham and Frank Pearce as Silicon amp Synapse in February 1991 after all three had earned their bachelor s degrees from the University of California Los Angeles the year prior 10 2 The name Silicon amp Synapse was a high concept from the three founders with silicon representing the building block of a computer while synapse the building block of the brain 11 The initial logo was created by Stu Rose 10 To fund the company each of them contributed about 10 000 Morhaime borrowing the sum interest free from his grandmother 12 During the first two years the company focused on creating game ports for other studios Ports include titles such as J R R Tolkien s The Lord of the Rings Vol I and Battle Chess II Chinese Chess 13 14 In 1993 the company developed games such as Rock n Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings published by Interplay Productions Around 1993 co founder Adham told the other executives that he did not like the name Silicon amp Synapse anymore as people outside the company were confusing the meaning of silicon the chemical element used in microchips with silicone the materials used in breast implants By the end of 1993 Adham changed the name to Chaos Studios reflecting on the haphazardness of their development processes 11 In early 1994 they were acquired by distributor Davidson amp Associates for 6 75 million 13 3 million today 15 Shortly after this point they were contacted by a Florida company Chaos Technologies who wanted the company to pay US 100 000 equivalent to 197 441 in 2022 to keep the name 16 Not wanting to pay that sum the executives decided to change the studio s name to Ogre Studios by April 1994 11 However Davidson amp Associates did not like this name and forced the company to change it According to Morhaime Adham began running through a dictionary from the start writing down any word that seemed interesting and passing it to the legal department to see if it had any complications One of the first words they found to be interesting and cleared the legal check was blizzard leading them to change their name to Blizzard Entertainment by May 1994 11 17 Shortly thereafter Blizzard Entertainment shipped their breakthrough hit Warcraft Orcs amp Humans a real time strategy RTS game in a high fantasy setting Acquisition by Vivendi and World of Warcraft 1995 2007 edit Blizzard Entertainment has changed hands several times since then Davidson was acquired along with Sierra On Line by a company called CUC International in 1996 CUC then merged with a hotel real estate and car rental franchiser called HFS Corporation to form Cendant 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 Sierra On line which included Blizzard to French publisher Havas in 1998 the same year Havas was purchased by Vivendi 18 Blizzard at this point numbering about 200 employees became part of the Vivendi Games group of Vivendi 19 In 1996 Blizzard Entertainment acquired Condor Games of San Mateo California which had been working on the action role playing game ARPG Diablo for Blizzard at the time Condor was renamed Blizzard North with Blizzard s main headquarters in Irvine renamed to Blizzard South to distinguish the two 20 Diablo was released at the very start of 1997 alongside Battle net a matchmaking service for the game Blizzard North developed the sequel Diablo II 2000 and its expansion pack Lord of Destruction 2001 Following these releases a number of key staff from Blizzard North departed for other opportunities such as Bill Roper 20 Blizzard s management mentioned made the decision August 2005 to consolidate Blizzard North into Blizzard South relocating staff to the main Blizzard offices in Irvine and subsequently dropping the Blizzard South name 20 Following the success of Warcraft II Tides of Darkness Blizzard began development on a science fiction themed RTS StarCraft and released the title in March 1998 The title was the top selling PC game for the year 21 and led to further growth of the Battle net service and the use of the game for esports 22 Around 2000 Blizzard engaged with Nihilistic Software to work on a version of StarCraft for home consoles for Blizzard Nihilisitic was co founded by Robert Huebner who had worked on StarCraft and other games while a Blizzard employee before leaving to found the studio The game StarCraft Ghost was a stealth oriented game compared to the RTS features of StarCraft and was a major feature of the 2002 Tokyo Game Show However over the next few years the game entered development hell with conflicts between Nihilisitic and Blizzard on its direction Blizzard ordered Nihilistic to stop work on StarCraft Ghost in July 2004 and instead brought on Swingin Ape Studios a third party studio that had just successfully released Metal Arms Glitch in the System in 2003 to reboot the development of Ghost 22 Blizzard fully acquired Swingin Ape Studios in May 2005 to continue on Ghost However while the game was scheduled to be released in 2005 it was targeted at the consoles of the sixth generation such as the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox while the industry was transitioning to the seventh generation Blizzard decided to cancel Ghost rather than extend its development period to work on the newer consoles 22 Blizzard started to work on a sequel to the Warcraft II in early 1998 which was announced as a role playing strategy game 23 24 Warcraft III Reign of Chaos the third title set in the Warcraft fictional universe was released in July 2002 25 Warcraft III has inspired many future games having the influence on real time strategy and multiplayer online battle arena genre 26 27 Many of the characters locations and concepts introduced in Warcraft III and its expansion went on to play major roles in numerous future Blizzard s titles 26 28 29 In 2002 Blizzard was able to reacquire rights for three of its earlier Silicon amp Synapse titles The Lost Vikings Rock n Roll Racing and Blackthorne from Interplay Entertainment and re release them for the Game Boy Advance handheld console 30 In 2004 Blizzard opened European offices in the Paris suburb of Velizy Yvelines France Blizzard Entertainment released World of Warcraft a massively multiplayer online role playing game MMORPG based on the Warcraft franchise on November 23 2004 in North America and on February 11 2005 in Europe 31 By December 2004 the game was the fastest selling PC game in the United States and by March 2005 had reached 1 5 million subscribers worldwide 32 Blizzard partnered with Chinese publisher The9 to publish and distribute World of Warcraft in China as foreign companies could not directly publish into the country themselves World of Warcraft launched in China in June 2005 33 By the end of 2007 World of Warcraft was considered a global phenomenon having reached over 9 million subscribers 32 and exceeded US 1 billion in revenue since its release 34 In April 2008 World of Warcraft was estimated to hold 62 percent of the MMORPG subscription market 35 Blizzard s staff quadrupled from around 400 employees in 2004 to 1600 by 2006 to provide more resources to the game and its various expansions 34 and Blizzard moved their headquarters to 16215 Alton Parkway in Irvine California in 2007 to support the additional staff With the success of World of Warcraft Blizzard Entertainment organized the first BlizzCon fan convention in October 2005 held at the Anaheim Convention Center The inaugural event drew about 6 000 people and became an annual event which Blizzard uses to announce new games expansions and content for its properties 32 Vivendi merger with Activision and continued growth 2008 2017 edit Up through 2006 Bobby Kotick the CEO of Activision had been working to rebound the company from near bankruptcy and had established a number of new studios However Activision lacked anything in the MMO market Kotick saw that World of Warcraft was bringing in over US 1 1 billion a year in subscription fees and began approaching Vivendi s CEO Jean Bernard Levy about potential acquisition of their struggling Vivendi Games division which included Blizzard Entertainment Levy was open to a merger but would only allow it if he controlled the majority of the combined company knowing the value of World of Warcraft to Kotick 36 Among those Kotick spoke to for advice included Blizzard s Morhaime who told Kotick that they had begun establishing lucrative in roads into the Chinese market Kotick accepted Levy s deal with the deal approved by shareholders in December 2007 By July 2008 the merger was complete with Vivendi Games effectively dissolved except for Blizzard Entertainment and the new company was named Activision Blizzard 36 Blizzard established a distribution agreement with the Chinese company NetEase in August 2008 to publish Blizzard s games in China The deal focused on StarCraft II which was gaining popularity as an esport within southeast Asia as well as for other Blizzard games with the exception of World of Warcraft still being handled by The9 The two companies established the Shanghai EaseNet Network Technology for managing the games within China 37 Blizzard and The9 prepared to launch the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King but the expansion came under scrutiny by China s content regulation board the General Administration of Press and Publication which rejected publication of it within China in March 2009 even with preliminary modifications made by The9 to clear it Rumors of Blizzard s dissatisfaction with The9 from this and other previous complications with World of Warcraft came to a head when in April 2009 Blizzard announced it was terminating its contract with The9 and transferred operation of World of Warcraft in China to NetEase 32 38 39 They released an improved version of Battle net Battle net 2 0 in March 2009 which included improved matchmaking storefront features and better support for all of Blizzard s existing titles particularly World of Warcraft 40 Having peaked at 12 million monthly subscriptions in 2010 World of Warcraft subscriptions sunk to 6 8 million in 2014 the lowest number since the end of 2006 prior to The Burning Crusade expansion 41 42 43 However World of Warcraft is still the world s most subscribed MMORPG 44 45 46 and holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers 47 48 49 50 In 2008 Blizzard was honored at the 59th Annual Technology amp Engineering Emmy Awards for the creation of World of Warcraft Mike Morhaime accepted the award 51 52 Following the merger Blizzard found it was relying on its well established properties but at the same time the industry was experiencing a shift towards indie games Blizzard established a few small teams within the company to work on developing new concepts based on the indie development approach that it could potentially use One of these teams quickly came onto the idea of a collectible card game based on the Warcraft narrative universe which ultimately became Hearthstone released as a free to play title in March 2014 53 Hearthstone reached over 25 million players by the end of 2014 54 and exceeded 100 million players by 2018 55 Another small internal team began work around 2008 on a new intellectual property known as Titan a more contemporary or near future MMORPG that would have co existed alongside World of Warcraft The project gained more visibility in 2010 as a result of some information leaks Blizzard continued to speak on Titan s development over the next few years with over 100 people within Blizzard working on the project However Titan s development was troubled and internally in May 2013 Blizzard cancelled the project publicly reporting this in 2014 and reassigned most of the staff but left about 40 people led by Jeff Kaplan to either come up with a fresh idea within a few weeks or have their team reassigned to Blizzard s other departments The small team came upon the idea of a team based multiplayer shooter game reusing many of the assets from Titan but set in a new near future narrative The new project was greenlit by Blizzard and became known as Overwatch which was released in May 2016 Overwatch became the fourth main intellectual property of Blizzard following Warcraft Starcraft and Diablo 56 In addition to Hearthstone and Overwatch Blizzard Entertainment continued to produce sequels and expansions to its established properties during this period including StarCraft II Wings of Liberty 2010 and Diablo III 2012 57 58 Their major crossover title Heroes of the Storm was released as a MOBA game in 2015 59 60 The game featured various characters from Blizzard s franchises as playable heroes as well as different battlegrounds based on Warcraft Diablo StarCraft and Overwatch universes 61 In the late 2010s Blizzard released StarCraft Remastered 2017 and Warcraft III Reforged 2020 remastered versions of the original StarCraft and Warcraft III respectively 62 63 The May 2016 release of Overwatch was highly successful and was the highest selling game on PC for 2016 64 Several traditional esport events had been established within the year of Overwatch s release such as the Overwatch World Cup but Blizzard continued to expand this and announced the first esports professional league the Overwatch League at the 2016 BlizzCon event The company purchased a studio at The Burbank Studios in Burbank California that it converted into a dedicated esports venue the Blizzard Arena to be used for the Overwatch League and other events 65 The inaugural season of the Overwatch League launched on January 10 2018 with 12 global teams playing By the second season in 2019 it had expanded the League to 20 teams and with its third season in 2020 it will have these teams traveling across the globe in a transitional home away style format In 2012 Blizzard Entertainment had 4 700 employees 1 with offices across 11 cities including Austin Texas and countries around the globe As of June 2015 update the company s headquarters in Irvine California had 2 622 employees 66 Change of leadership 2018 2022 edit On October 3 2018 Mike Morhaime announced his plans to step down as the company president and CEO while remaining an advisor to the company he formally left on April 7 2019 Morhaime was replaced by J Allen Brack the executive producer on World of Warcraft 67 68 Frank Pearce announced he would be stepping down as Blizzard s Chief Development Officer on July 19 2019 though will remain in an advisory role similar to Morhaime 69 Michael Chu lead writer on many of Blizzard s franchises including Diablo Warcraft and Overwatch announced he was leaving the company after 20 years in March 2020 70 On January 22 2021 Activision transferred Vicarious Visions over to Blizzard Entertainment stating that the Vicarious Visions team had better opportunity for long term support for Blizzard 71 Vicarious had been working with Blizzard for about two years prior to this announcement on the planned remaster of Diablo II Diablo II Resurrected and according to Brack it made sense to incorporate Vicarious into Blizzard for ongoing support of the game and for other Diablo games including Diablo IV 72 73 Vicarious was completely merged into Blizzard by April 12 2022 74 In celebration of the company s 30th anniversary Blizzard Entertainment released a compilation called Blizzard Arcade Collection in February 2021 for various video game platforms The collection includes their three classic video games The Lost Vikings Rock n Roll Racing and Blackthorne each of which containing additional upgrades and numerous modern features 75 76 77 Activision Blizzard was the subject of a lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing in July 2021 asserting that for several years the management within Blizzard as well as Activision promoted a frat boy atmosphere that allowed and encouraged sexual misconduct towards female employees and discrimination in hiring practices 78 The lawsuit drew a large response from employees and groups outside of Activision Blizzard In the wake of these events Brack one of the few individuals directly named in the suit announced he was leaving Blizzard to pursue new opportunities and will be replaced by co leads Jen Oneal the lead of Vicarious Visions and the first woman in a leadership role for the company and Mike Ybarra a Blizzard executive vice president 79 Oneal announced in November 2021 that she would be leaving the company by the end of 2021 leaving Ybarra as the sole leader of Blizzard 80 81 As a result of the California lawsuit and of delays and release issues with their more recent games Activision Blizzard s stock faced severe pressure Subsequently Microsoft seized the opportunity to become one of the largest video game companies in the world and announced its intent to acquire Activision Blizzard and its subsidiaries including Blizzard for 68 7 billion in January 2022 This exchange marks the largest acquisition in tech history surpassing the 67 billion Dell EMC merger from 2016 The deal closed on October 13 2023 and Activision Blizzard moved into the Microsoft Gaming division 82 Blizzard acquired Proletariat the developers of Spellbreak in June 2022 as to help support World of Warcraft The 100 employee studio remained in Boston but will shutter Spellbreak as they move onto Warcraft 83 Challenges with NetEase and Microsoft Acquisition 2023 present edit Ahead of their license renewal in January 2023 Blizzard via Activision Blizzard and NetEase stated in November 2022 that they had been unable to come to an agreement on the renewal terms for their license and thus most Blizzard games will cease operations in China in January 2023 until the situation can be resolved 84 According to a report by The New York Times several factors influenced Activision Blizzard s decision to terminate the agreement which included stronger demands made by the Chinese government to know of Activision Blizzard s internal business matters NetEase s desire to license the games directly rather than run the license through a joint venture and Activision Blizzard s concerns that NetEase was trying to start their own ventures including the 100 million payment towards Bungie in 2018 NetEase was further concerned about the impact of the pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft Activision Blizzard stated they were looking to other Chinese firms as replacements for NetEase as to restore their games in China 85 Following completion of the acquisition Microsoft announced it was laying off 1 900 staff from Microsoft Gaming on January 25 2024 Alongside this Blizzard President Mike Ybarra and Chief Design Officer Allen Adham announced they would be leaving the company Further the planned survival game from Blizzard was canceled 86 On January 29 2024 Johanna Faries the former general manager of the Call of Duty series was named Blizzard Entertainment s new president taking office on February 5 87 88 Games editMain article List of Blizzard Entertainment games Release timeline1994The Death and Return of SupermanBlackthorneWarcraft Orcs amp Humans1995Warcraft II Tides of Darkness1996Warcraft II Beyond the Dark Portal1997DiabloThe Lost Vikings 21998StarCraftStarCraft InsurrectionStarCraft Brood WarStarCraft Retribution1999Warcraft II Battle net Edition2000Diablo II2001Diablo II Lord of Destruction2002Warcraft III Reign of Chaos2003Warcraft III The Frozen Throne2004World of Warcraft2005 20062007World of Warcraft The Burning Crusade2008World of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King20092010StarCraft II Wings of LibertyWorld of Warcraft Cataclysm20112012Diablo IIIWorld of Warcraft Mists of Pandaria2013StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm2014HearthstoneDiablo III Reaper of SoulsWorld of Warcraft Warlords of Draenor2015Heroes of the StormStarCraft II Legacy of the Void2016OverwatchWorld of Warcraft LegionStarCraft II Nova Covert Ops2017Diablo III Rise of the NecromancerStarCraft Remastered2018World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth2019World of Warcraft Classic2020Warcraft III ReforgedWorld of Warcraft Shadowlands2021World of Warcraft Burning Crusade ClassicDiablo II Resurrected2022Diablo ImmortalWorld of Warcraft Wrath of the Lich King ClassicOverwatch 2World of Warcraft Dragonflight2023Diablo IVWarcraft RumbleHearthstone Showdown in the Badlands2024World of Warcraft Cataclysm ClassicDiablo IV Vessel of HatredWorld of Warcraft The War WithinTBAWorld of Warcraft MidnightWorld of Warcraft The Last TitanBlizzard Entertainment has developed 19 games since the inception of the company in 1991 Main franchises edit The majority of the games Blizzard published are in the Warcraft Diablo and StarCraft series Since the release of Warcraft Orcs amp Humans 1994 Diablo 1997 and StarCraft 1998 the focus has been almost exclusively on those three franchises Overwatch 2016 became an exception years later bringing the number of main franchises to four Each franchise is supported by other media based around its intellectual property such as novels collectible card games comics and video shorts Blizzard announced in 2006 that they would be producing a Warcraft live action movie The movie was directed by Duncan Jones financed and produced by Legendary Pictures Atlas Entertainment and others and distributed by Universal Pictures 89 It was released in June 2016 On October 4 2022 Overwatch servers were officially shut off 90 Later Overwatch 2 2022 servers went up Spin offs edit Blizzard has released two spin offs to the main franchises Hearthstone 2014 which is set in the existing Warcraft lore and Heroes of the Storm 2015 which features playable characters from all four of Blizzard s franchises Remasters edit In 2015 Blizzard Entertainment formed Classic Games division a team focused on updating and remastering some of their older titles with an initially announced focus on StarCraft Remastered 2017 Warcraft III Reforged 2020 and Diablo II Resurrected 2021 91 92 Re released games edit In February 2021 Blizzard Entertainment released a compilation called Blizzard Arcade Collection for Microsoft Windows Xbox One PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch The collection includes five Blizzard s classic video games The Lost Vikings Rock n Roll Racing Blackthorne The Lost Vikings 2 and RPM Racing with the last two games added in April 2021 Some of the modern features include 16 9 resolution 4 player split screen rewinding and saving of game progress watching replays and adding graphic filters to change the look of player s game 75 76 Additionally it contains upgrades for each game such as enhanced local multiplayer for The Lost Vikings new songs and artist performances for Rock n Roll Racing as well as a new level map for Blackthorne 77 A digital museum which is included in the collection features game art unused content and interviews 75 Unreleased and future games edit Notable unreleased titles include Warcraft Adventures Lord of the Clans which was canceled on May 22 1998 Shattered Nations and StarCraft Ghost which was Postponed indefinitely on March 24 2006 after being in development hell for much of its lifespan After seven years of development Blizzard revealed the cancellation of an unannounced MMO codenamed Titan on September 23 2014 93 The company also has a history of declining to set release dates choosing to instead take as much time as needed generally saying a given product is done when it s done 94 Pax Imperia II was originally announced as a title to be published by Blizzard Blizzard eventually dropped Pax Imperia II though when it decided it might be in conflict with their other space strategy project which became known as StarCraft THQ eventually contracted with Heliotrope and released the game in 1997 as Pax Imperia Eminent Domain The company announced in January 2022 that it was near release of another new intellectual property named Odyssey according to Bloomberg News a survival game that had been at work at the studio for nearly six years before its cancellation in 2024 95 86 Bloomberg stated that the game s origins came from World of Warcraft developer Craig Amai and was originally prototyped using the Unreal Engine which Blizzard licensed from Epic Games When the game was revealed in 2022 about 100 employees were working on it but around the same time there was effort to switch from Unreal to Synapse Blizzard s engine used for mobile games though artists continued to develop assets in Unreal Near when Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard there was an internal belief that they would be able to bring on more developers to complete the transition to Synapse and have the game ready for a 2026 release but with the culling of 1 900 staff from Microsoft Gaming in January 2024 the game s development was cancelled 96 Ports edit The company known at the time as the Silicon amp Synapse initially concentrated on porting other studio s games to computer platforms 97 developing 8 ports between 1992 and 1993 Company structure editAs with most studios with multiple franchises Blizzard Entertainment has organized different departments to oversee these franchises Formally since around the time of World of Warcraft in 2004 these have been denoted through simply numerical designations 98 The original three teams were Team 1 manages the StarCraft property 98 The team also oversaw the development of the StarCraft spin off Heroes of the Storm 99 Team 1 also included the Classics Team to work on remastering Blizzard s earlier properties for modern computers which have included StarCraft Remastered and Warcraft III Reforged 100 The Classic Games team was disbanded around August 2020 about eight months after Warcraft III Reforged was released according to Jason Schreier of Bloomberg News this was due to Activision Blizzard driving Blizzard away from remastering its old properties which figured into the launch issues with Warcraft III Reforged 101 Team 2 continues to manage and create content for World of Warcraft 98 Team 3 oversees the Diablo franchise 98 Since 2004 two new teams were created Team 4 was created around 2007 to work on Blizzard s first new IP since World of Warcraft that being Titan Titan had development difficulties near 2013 and most of Team 4 was reallocated to the other teams but the remaining members led by Jeff Kaplan revised Titan s concept into Overwatch which remains in Team 4 s hands since its release in 2016 98 Team 5 was created in 2008 to explore smaller games that could fit into Blizzard s portfolio This resulted in the creation of Hearthstone a collectible card game based on the Warcraft property which became Team 5 s priority 53 Technology editBattle net 2 0 edit Main article Battle net Blizzard Entertainment released its revamped Battle net service in 2009 The platform provides online gaming digital distribution digital rights management and social networking service Battle net allows people who have purchased Blizzard products to download digital copies of games they have purchased without needing any physical media On November 11 2009 Blizzard required all World of Warcraft accounts to switch over to Battle net accounts This transition means that all current Blizzard titles can be accessed downloaded and played with a singular Battle net login 102 Battle net 2 0 is the platform for matchmaking service for Blizzard games which offers players a host of additional features Players are able to track their friend s achievements view match history avatars etc Players are able to unlock a wide range of achievements for Blizzard games The service provides the user with community features such as friends lists and groups and allows players to chat simultaneously with players from other Blizzard games using VoIP and instant messaging For example players no longer need to create multiple user names or accounts for most Blizzard products 103 104 To enable cross game communication players need to become either Battletag or Real ID friends 105 Warden client edit Blizzard Entertainment has made use of a special form of software known as the Warden Client The Warden client is known to be used with Blizzard s online games such as Diablo and World of Warcraft and the Terms of Service contain a clause consenting to the Warden software s RAM scans while a Blizzard game is running 106 The Warden client scans a small portion of the code segment of running processes in order to determine whether any third party programs are running The goal of this is to detect and address players who may be attempting to run unsigned code or third party programs in the game This determination of third party programs is made by hashing the scanned strings and comparing the hashed value to a list of hashes assumed to correspond to banned third party programs 107 The Warden s reliability in correctly discerning legitimate versus illegitimate actions was called into question when a large scale incident happened This incident banned many Linux users after an update to Warden caused it to incorrectly detect Cedega as a cheat program 108 Blizzard issued a statement claiming they had correctly identified and restored all accounts and credited them with 20 days play 109 Warden scans all processes running on a computer not just the game and could possibly run across what would be considered private information and other personally identifiable information It is because of these peripheral scans that Warden has been accused of being spyware and has run afoul of controversy among privacy advocates 110 111 112 Controversies and legal disputes editBlizzard Entertainment Inc v Valve Corporation edit Shortly after Valve filed its trademark for Dota to secure the franchising rights for Dota 2 DotA Allstars LLC run by former contributors to the game s predecessor Defense of the Ancients filed an opposing trademark in August 2010 113 DotA All Stars LLC was sold to Blizzard Entertainment in 2011 After the opposition was over ruled in Valve s favor Blizzard filed an opposition against Valve in November 2011 citing their license agreement with developers as well as their ownership of DotA Allstars LLC 114 Blizzard conceded their case in May 2012 however giving Valve undisputed commercial rights to Dota name while Blizzard would rename their StarCraft II Heart of the Swarm mod Blizzard All Stars which would eventually become the stand alone game Heroes of the Storm 115 California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v Activision Blizzard edit Main article California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v Activision Blizzard Following a two year investigation the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing DFEH filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard in July 2021 for gender based discrimination and sexual harassment principally within the Blizzard Entertainment workplace The DFEH alleges that female employees were subjected to constant sexual harassment unequal pay retaliation as well as discrimination based on pregnancy The suit also described a pervasive frat boy workplace culture at Blizzard that included objectification of women s bodies and jokes about rape 116 Activision Blizzard s statement described the suit as meritless contending that action had been taken in any instances of misconduct The company also objected to the DFEH not approaching them prior to filing 117 The lawsuit prompted an employee walkout as well as leading J Allen Brack and head of human resources Jesse Meschuk to step down 116 118 119 Because of these allegations Blizzard changed names that referenced employees in multiple of its franchises including Overwatch and World of Warcraft 120 Founder Electronics infringement lawsuit edit On August 14 2007 Beijing University Founder Electronics Co Ltd sued Blizzard Entertainment Limited for copyright infringement claiming 100 million yuan in damages The lawsuit alleged the Chinese edition of World of Warcraft reproduced a number of Chinese typefaces made by Founder Electronics without permission 121 FreeCraft edit Main article Stratagus On June 20 2003 Blizzard issued a cease and desist letter to the developers of an open source clone of the Warcraft engine called FreeCraft claiming trademark infringement This hobby project had the same gameplay and characters as Warcraft II but came with different graphics and music As well as a similar name FreeCraft enabled players to use Warcraft II graphics provided they had the Warcraft II CD The programmers of the clone shut down their site without challenge Soon after that the developers regrouped to continue the work by the name of Stratagus 122 Hearthstone ban and Hong Kong protests edit Main article Blitzchung controversy During an October 2019 Hearthstone Grandmasters streaming event in Taiwan one player Ng Wai Chung going by his online alias Blitzchung used an interview period to show support for the protestors in the 2019 20 Hong Kong protests Shortly afterwards on October 7 2019 Blitzchung was disqualified from the current tournament and forfeited his winnings to date and banned for a one year period The two shoutcasters engaged in the interview were also penalized with similar bans Blizzard justified the ban as from its Grandmasters tournament rules that prevents players from anything that brings themselves into public disrepute offends a portion or group of the public or otherwise damages Blizzard s image 123 124 125 Blizzard s response led to several protests from current Hearthstone players other video game players and criticism from Blizzard s employees fearing that Blizzard was giving into the censorship of the Chinese government 126 Protests were held including through the 2019 BlizzCon in early November to urge Blizzard to reverse their bans 127 The situation also drew the attention of several U S lawmakers fearing that Blizzard as a U S company was letting China dictate how it handled speech and also urged the bans to be reversed 128 Blizzard CEO J Allen Brack wrote an open letter on October 11 2019 apologizing for the way Blizzard handled the situation and reduced the bans for both Blitzchung and the casters to six months Brack reiterated that while they support free speech and their decision was in no way tied to the Chinese government they want players and casters to avoid speaking beyond the tournament and the games in such interviews 129 King s Diversity Tool controversy edit On May 12 2022 Blizzard Entertainment released a blog post about the Diversity Space Tool developed by a team at King a mobile business unit at Activision Blizzard alongside the MIT Game Lab Jacqueline Chomatas King s globalization project manager described the tool as a measurement device to analyze how diverse the characters are when compared to the norm The post showed example images of the tool being used on Overwatch s cast with graphs showing breakdowns of the character attributes and stated that The Overwatch 2 team at Blizzard has also had a chance to experiment with the tool with equally enthusiastic first impressions Blizzard shared the intent to release the tool during the summer and fall of 2022 with the goal of making the tool available to the industry as a whole 130 131 The tool received heavy backlash online Many people asked why Blizzard would create the tool instead of hiring diverse teams and raised questions regarding the tool s rating scale 131 132 The blog post originally suggested that the tool was used in an active development mainly for Overwatch which led some Blizzard employees working on the game to publicly deny the tool was used in Overwatch development and to criticize the tool further 131 On May 13 2022 the blog post was edited to remove the example images of the tool and any mention of Overwatch 132 133 Later the post was deleted altogether MDY Industries LLC v Blizzard Entertainment Inc edit Main articles Glider bot and MDY Industries LLC v Blizzard Entertainment Inc On July 14 2008 the United States District Court for the District of Arizona ruled on the case MDY Industries LLC v Blizzard Entertainment Inc The Court found that MDY was liable for copyright infringement since users of its Glider bot program were breaking the End User License Agreement and Terms of Use for World of Warcraft MDY Industries appealed the judgment of the district court and a judgment was delivered by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on December 14 2010 in which the summary judgment against MDY for contributory copyright infringement was reversed 134 135 Nevertheless they ruled that the bot violated the DMCA and the case was sent back to the district court for review in light of this decision 136 137 MDY v Blizzard s decision did affirm a prior Ninth Circuit ruling in Vernor v Autodesk Inc that software licenses such as the one used by Blizzard for WoW were enforceable and enshrined the principle that video games could be sold as licenses to players rather than purchased This ruling though limited to the states of the Ninth Circuit has been used by the industry to continue to sell games as licenses to users 138 Privacy controversy and Real ID edit On July 6 2010 Blizzard Entertainment announced that they were changing the way their forums worked to require that users identify themselves with their real name 139 140 The reaction from the community was overwhelmingly negative with multiple game magazines calling the change foolhardy 141 and an epic fail 142 It resulted in a significant user response on the Blizzard forums including one thread on the issue reaching over 11 000 replies 143 144 145 146 147 This included personal details of a Blizzard employee who gave his real name to show it wasn t a big deal 148 Shortly after revealing his real name forum users posted personal information including his phone number picture age and home address 143 Some technology media outlets suggested that displaying real names through Real ID is a good idea and would benefit both Battle net and the Blizzard community 149 But others were worried that Blizzard was opening their fans up to real life dangers such as stalking harassment and employment issues since a simple Internet search by someone s employer can reveal their online activities 143 150 151 152 Blizzard initially responded to some of the concerns by saying that the changes would not be retroactive to previous posts that parents could set up the system so that minors cannot post and that posting to the forums is optional 145 However due to the significant negative response Blizzard President Michael Morhaime issued a statement rescinding the plan to use real names on Blizzard s forums for the time being 153 The idea behind this plan was to allow players who had a relationship outside of the games to find each other more easily across all the Blizzard game titles 143 154 StarCraft privacy and other lawsuits edit In 1998 Donald P Driscoll an Albany California attorney filed a suit on behalf of Intervention Inc a California consumer group against Blizzard Entertainment for unlawful business practices for the action of collecting data from a user s computer without their permission 155 156 On May 19 2014 Blizzard Entertainment filed a lawsuit in federal court in California alleging that the unidentified programmers were involved in creation of software that hacks Starcraft II Most of the alleged charges are related to copyright infringement 157 158 Back in May 2010 MBCPlus Media which operates the network MBCGame Korean television stations that are broadcasting tournaments built around StarCraft was revealed to be sued by Blizzard for broadcasting StarCraft tournaments without the company s consent insisting that StarCraft is not a public domain offering as Blizzard has invested significant money and resources to create the StarCraft game 159 World of Warcraft private server complications edit On December 5 2008 Blizzard Entertainment issued a cease and desist letter to many administrators of high population World of Warcraft private servers essentially slightly altered hosting servers of the actual World of Warcraft game that players do not have to pay for Blizzard used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to influence many private servers to fully shut down and cease to exist 160 Related companies editOver the years some former Blizzard Entertainment employees have moved on and established gaming companies of their own Several of these occurred following the merger between Activision Holdings and Blizzard s parent company at the time Vivendi Games in 2008 and more recently as Activision Blizzard has directed Blizzard away from properties like Warcraft and Starcraft that are not seen as financial boons to the larger company These employees left to form their smaller studios to give themselves the creative freedom that they were lacking at Blizzard Collectively these studios are known as Blizzard 2 0 161 ArenaNet 162 creators of the Guild Wars franchise Bonfire Studios 163 founded by Rob Pardo Carbine Studios 164 now defunct as of September 2018 after releasing a massively multiplayer title WildStar 165 Castaway Entertainment 166 now defunct after working on a game similar to the Diablo series Djinn Dreamhaven 167 founded by Michael Morhaime Fantastic Pixel Castle 168 founded by Greg Street working on a new combat focused MMO codenamed Ghost Flagship Studios 169 now defunct creators of Hellgate London also worked on Mythos Frost Giant Studios 170 founded by Tim Morten and Tim Campbell currently developing real time strategy game Stormgate Hyboreal Games 171 founded by Michio Okamura Magic Soup Games 172 founded by J Allen Brack and Jen Oneal Ready at Dawn Studios 173 creators of The Order 1886 Daxter God of War Chains of Olympus and an Ōkami port for the Wii Red 5 Studios 174 now defunct creators of Firefall a free to play game MMOG Runic Games 175 now defunct founded by Travis Baldree Erich Schaefer and Max Schaefer creators of Torchlight Second Dinner 176 founded by Ben Brode creators of 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