Blizzard Entertainment

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California, and is currently a subsidiary of American company Activision Blizzard. The company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles, Michael Morhaime, Frank Pearce, and Allen Adham. The company originally concentrated primarily on the creation of game ports for other studios before beginning development of their own software in 1993 with the development of games like Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. In 1994 the company became Chaos Studios, then Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates.

Shortly thereafter, Blizzard shipped out what would become their first breakthrough smash hit Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. Blizzard then went on to create several other successful video games, including other Warcraft sequels, the Diablo series, the StarCraft series, and also in 2004 the popular MMORPG World of Warcraft. Their most recent projects include: the first expansion for Diablo III—Reaper of Souls; the online collectible card game Hearthstone; the sixth expansion for World of Warcraft—Legion; the "Hero Brawler" Heroes of the Storm; the third and final expansion for StarCraft II—Legacy of the Void; and the multiplayer first-person shooter Overwatch.

On July 9, 2008, Activision officially merged with Vivendi Games, culminating in the inclusion of the Blizzard brand name in the title of the resulting holding company. On July 25, 2013, Activision Blizzard announced the purchase of 429 million shares from majority owner Vivendi. As a result, Activision Blizzard became a completely independent company. Blizzard Entertainment hosts conventions for fans to meet and to promote their games: the BlizzCon in California, United States, and the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in other countries, including France and South Korea.

History
Blizzard Entertainment was founded by Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce as Silicon & Synapse on February 8, 1991, a year after all three had received their bachelor's degrees from UCLA. In the early days 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. In 1993, the company developed games such as Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings(published by Interplay Productions).

In early 1994 they were acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates for $6.75 million ($10.9 million today). That same year the company briefly changed its name to Chaos Studios, before finally settling on Blizzard Entertainment after it was discovered that another company with the Chaos name already existed. Shortly thereafter, Blizzard shipped their breakthrough hit Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.

Blizzard 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. Blizzard was part of the Vivendi Games group of Vivendi. In July 2008 Vivendi Games merged with Activision, using Blizzard's name in the resulting company, Activision Blizzard.

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

Blizzard launched their online gaming service Battle.net in January 1997 with the release of their action-RPG Diablo. 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 under Game Boy Advance. In 2004, Blizzard opened European offices in the Paris suburb of Vélizy, Yvelines, France, responsible for the European in-game support of World of Warcraft. On November 23, 2004, Blizzard released World of Warcraft, its MMORPG offering. On May 16, 2005, Blizzard announced the acquisition of Swingin' Ape Studios, a video game developer which had been developing StarCraft: Ghost. The company was then merged into Blizzard's other teams after StarCraft: Ghost was "postponed indefinitely". On August 1, 2005, Blizzard announced the consolidation of Blizzard North into the headquarters at 131 Theory in UC Irvine's University Research Park in Irvine, California. In 2007, Blizzard moved their headquarters to 16215 Alton Parkway in Irvine, California.

World of Warcraft was the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994. Blizzard announced World of Warcraft on September 2, 2001. The game was released on November 23, 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the Warcraft franchise.

The first expansion set of the game, The Burning Crusade, was released on January 16, 2007. The second expansion set, Wrath of the Lich King, was released on November 13, 2008. The third expansion set, Cataclysm was released on December 7, 2010. Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor, were released respectively on September 25, 2012 and November 13, 2014. The most recent expansion, Legion, was released on August 30, 2016.

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. However, World of Warcraft is still the world's most-subscribed MMORPG, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers. In April 2008, World of Warcraft was estimated to hold 62 percent of the MMORPG subscription market. 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.

In 2012 Blizzard had 4,700 employees, 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.

Games Developed/Published

 * Rock n' Roll Racing
 * The Lost Vikings
 * Blackthorne
 * Warcraft: Orcs & Humans
 * Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
 * Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal
 * Diablo
 * StarCraft
 * StarCraft: Brood War
 * Diablo 2
 * Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
 * Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
 * World of Warcraft
 * StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
 * Diablo III
 * StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
 * Hearthstone
 * Heroes of the Storm
 * StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void
 * Overwatch

Why they (and many of their games) rock

 * 1) Amazing and updated graphics.
 * 2) Solid and smooth controls.
 * 3) Fluent animation.
 * 4) Awesome soundtracks for each game.
 * 5) High-budget revenue.
 * 6) Cool-looking character models.
 * 7) Amazing game mechanics.
 * 8) More likable characters to see.
 * 9) With the release of Diablo, they released Battle.net as their video game distribution system compared to Steam by Valve.
 * 10) Some of their games have mod support.
 * 11) It is considered one of the best companies in America unlike EA, which is the worst and greedy.
 * 12) They launched BlizzCon as their video game convention center.
 * 13) They respect their importance in video game industry.
 * 14) Marathons of each game.
 * 15) A lot of challenges to involve.
 * 16) Interesting voice acting.
 * 17) Goodly improved AI.
 * 18) More improvements via updates, especially Overwatch.
 * 19) They're now hunting Overwatch Trolls on youtube.

Bad Quality

 * 1) The Diablo Immortal annoucment was a complete disaster.