Blizzard Entertainment facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.

Blizzard Entertainment's Irvine campus
Formerly	Silicon & Synapse, Inc. (1991–1993) Chaos Studios, Inc. (1993–1994)
Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	February 1991; 34 years ago (1991-02)
Founders	Allen Adham Michael Morhaime Frank Pearce
Headquarters	Irvine, California , US
Number of locations	8 studios and offices (2024)
Key people	Johanna Faries (president)
Products	Diablo series Hearthstone Heroes of the Storm Overwatch series StarCraft series Warcraft series
Services	Battle.net
Parent	Davidson & Associates (1994–1998) Vivendi Games (1998–2008) Activision Blizzard (2008–present)
Subsidiaries	Blizzard Albany Blizzard Boston

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American company that makes and publishes video games. It is located in Irvine, California. Blizzard is part of Activision Blizzard, a larger gaming company.

The company started in 1991. It is famous for creating the popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft. They also made other big game series like Diablo, StarCraft, and Overwatch. Blizzard also runs Battle.net, an online service where players can connect and play games together.

Blizzard was first called Silicon & Synapse, Inc. It was started by three friends from college: Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce. In 1993, they started making their own games, like Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. That same year, they changed their name to Chaos Studios, Inc.

In 1994, a company called Davidson & Associates bought them. They changed their name again to Blizzard Entertainment. That year, they released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. This game led to many sequels and the super popular World of Warcraft. Later, Blizzard also had big hits with Diablo (1997) and StarCraft (1998).

In 1998, Blizzard became part of Vivendi Games. Then, in 2008, Vivendi Games joined with Activision to form Activision Blizzard. In 2013, Activision Blizzard became its own independent company. In 2023, Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard. Blizzard Entertainment still makes and publishes games as part of the larger Microsoft Gaming family.

Since 2005, Blizzard Entertainment has held yearly events called BlizzCon. These events let fans meet up and learn about new games. Blizzard has continued to make new games and expansions. These include updates for World of Warcraft, StarCraft: Remastered (2017), Diablo III (2012), and Diablo IV (2023). They also released new online multiplayer games like Hearthstone (a card game), Heroes of the Storm (a battle arena game), and Overwatch and Overwatch 2 (first-person shooter games).

How Blizzard Entertainment Started

Early Days (1991–1994)

Blizzard co-founder and former CEO Mike Morhaime

Blizzard Entertainment began as Silicon & Synapse in February 1991. It was founded by Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce. They had all finished college at the University of California, Los Angeles. The name "Silicon & Synapse" was meant to sound smart. "Silicon" is a computer part, and "synapse" is a brain part. Each founder put in about $10,000 to start the company. Their first office was in Irvine, California.

For the first two years, the company mostly helped other studios. They would take games and make them work on different computers or consoles. One of their first jobs was for Interplay Productions. They worked on games like Battle Chess and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I. They also helped develop RPM Racing for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System.

Interplay was impressed with their work. They gave Silicon & Synapse a chance to make their own games. The first two games they made were Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings.

Around 1993, Allen Adham decided he didn't like the name "Silicon & Synapse." People were confusing "silicon" with "silicone." So, they changed the name to "Chaos Studios" by the end of 1993. This name reflected their creative way of making games.

At this time, the company wanted to publish their own games. They were inspired by games like Dune II and the fantasy world of The Lord of the Rings. They started working on a game that would become Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. To keep the company going, they took on more jobs.

A company called Davidson & Associates offered to buy them for $4 million. Davidson & Associates published educational software. They had worked with Silicon & Synapse before. The founders said no at first. But Davidson & Associates came back with a better offer of $6.75 million. They also promised the founders could still control their games. The founders accepted the offer in early 1994.

Soon after the sale, another company said they owned the name "Chaos." They wanted money for Blizzard to keep the name. Blizzard didn't want to pay. So, they decided to change their name again. They looked through a dictionary for new names. They found "blizzard" and liked it. By May 1994, they became "Blizzard Entertainment." Warcraft came out in November 1994. It quickly made Blizzard a well-known game studio.

Joining Vivendi and the Rise of World of Warcraft (1995–2007)

Blizzard Entertainment has been owned by different companies over the years. In 1996, Davidson was bought by CUC International. Then, CUC merged with another company to form Cendant in 1997. In 1998, Cendant sold its software companies, including Blizzard, to a French publisher called Havas. Havas was then bought by Vivendi in the same year. Blizzard became part of the Vivendi Games group.

In 1996, Blizzard Entertainment bought Condor Games. This studio was working on the game Diablo for Blizzard. Condor Games was renamed Blizzard North. Blizzard's main office in Irvine was sometimes called Blizzard South. Diablo was released in early 1997. It came with Battle.net, an online service for players to find each other. Blizzard North then made Diablo II (2000) and its expansion Lord of Destruction (2001).

After Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness was a hit, Blizzard started making a science fiction strategy game called StarCraft. It came out in March 1998. StarCraft was the best-selling PC game that year. It also helped Battle.net grow and became popular for esports.

Around 2000, Blizzard worked with another studio on a StarCraft game for consoles. This game, StarCraft: Ghost, was a stealth game. It was different from the strategy games Blizzard usually made. The game had problems during development. Blizzard stopped working on it in 2004. They tried again with a new studio, Swingin' Ape Studios, which Blizzard bought in 2005. But the game was for older consoles, and new ones were coming out. So, Blizzard decided to cancel Ghost.

Blizzard started working on a sequel to Warcraft II in 1998. This game, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, came out in July 2002. It was the third game in the Warcraft universe. Warcraft III has influenced many games since then. Its characters and stories are used in many other Blizzard games.

In 2002, Blizzard got back the rights to three of its older games: The Lost Vikings, Rock n' Roll Racing, and Blackthorne. They re-released them for the Game Boy Advance.

Around 2003, Blizzard North was working on Diablo III. Some leaders at Blizzard North left the company in 2003. Blizzard then decided to combine Blizzard North with its main office in Irvine in 2005.

In 2004, Blizzard opened offices in France.

Blizzard started making World of Warcraft in late 1999. This was a huge online role-playing game based on the Warcraft world. It was announced in 2001. The game created a lot of excitement. In January 2004, Allen Adham left the company. Michael Morhaime took over as president.

World of Warcraft was released on November 23, 2004, in North America. By December 2004, it was the fastest-selling PC game in the United States. By March 2005, it had 1.5 million players worldwide. Blizzard worked with a Chinese company to release World of Warcraft in China in June 2005. By the end of 2007, World of Warcraft was a global hit. It had over 9 million players and made over $1 billion. In 2008, it was estimated that World of Warcraft had 62% of the online role-playing game market.

Because World of Warcraft was so successful, Blizzard Entertainment held its first BlizzCon event in October 2005. It was held in Anaheim, California. About 6,000 people came. BlizzCon became a yearly event where Blizzard announces new games and updates.

Blizzard's staff grew from about 400 employees in 2004 to 1600 by 2006. This was to support World of Warcraft and its updates. To fit everyone, Blizzard moved to a new, larger office in Irvine in 2008. The city even named the main street "1 Blizzard Way." The campus has a large bronze statue of a Warcraft orc. It also has plaques with the company's values, like "Gameplay First" and "Play Nice; Play Fair."

Activision Blizzard and New Games (2008–2017)

In 2008, Vivendi Games (which owned Blizzard) merged with Activision. The new company was called Activision Blizzard. This merger helped Activision get into the online game market.

Blizzard also made a deal with a Chinese company called NetEase in 2008. This deal was to publish Blizzard's games in China. This included StarCraft II, which was popular for esports. Later, in 2009, Blizzard also moved World of Warcraft's operations in China to NetEase.

They released an improved version of Battle.net (Battle.net 2.0) in March 2009. It had better ways to find games, a store, and better support for all Blizzard games.

World of Warcraft had its most players in 2010, with 12 million monthly subscriptions. By 2014, this number went down to 6.8 million. But World of Warcraft is still the most popular online role-playing game by players. In 2008, Blizzard won an Technology & Engineering Emmy Award for creating World of Warcraft.

After the merger, Blizzard started to create new types of games. They set up small teams to try out new ideas. One team came up with a collectible card game based on the Warcraft world. This became Hearthstone, released for free in March 2014. Hearthstone had over 25 million players by the end of 2014. By 2018, it had over 100 million players.

Another small team started working on a new game called Titan around 2008. It was going to be a new online role-playing game. But Titan's development had problems. In 2013, Blizzard canceled the project. Most of the team moved to other projects. But about 40 people, led by Jeff Kaplan, stayed. They came up with a new idea: a team-based shooter game. They used many parts from Titan but created a new story. This new game became Overwatch, released in May 2016. Overwatch became Blizzard's fourth main game series, after Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo.

Besides Hearthstone and Overwatch, Blizzard also made sequels and updates for its older games. These included StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (2010) and Diablo III (2012). Their game Heroes of the Storm (2015) brought characters from all Blizzard's games together. In the late 2010s, Blizzard released updated versions of older games, like StarCraft: Remastered (2017) and Warcraft III: Reforged (2020).

Overwatch was very successful when it came out in May 2016. It was the best-selling PC game of 2016. Blizzard created the Overwatch League for professional players. They even bought a studio in California to use as a special place for esports events, called Blizzard Arena. The Overwatch League started in 2018.

By 2012, Blizzard Entertainment had 4,700 employees. They had offices in 11 cities around the world. By June 2015, their main office in Irvine had 2,622 employees.

Changes in Leadership (2018–2022)

By 2018, there were disagreements about how Blizzard should make games. Michael Morhaime, the company president, wanted developers to have more freedom. The CEO of Activision, Bobby Kotick, focused more on making money. Morhaime decided to step down as president and CEO on October 3, 2018. He stayed as an advisor for a while. J. Allen Brack, who worked on World of Warcraft, took his place.

In February 2019, Activision Blizzard laid off about 8% of its staff, around 800 people. This included many at Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard was getting ready to announce Diablo IV and Overwatch 2. To focus on these, two other projects were canceled.

Frank Pearce, another co-founder, also stepped down in July 2019. Michael Chu, a lead writer for many Blizzard games, left in March 2020 after 20 years.

In January 2021, a studio called Vicarious Visions joined Blizzard Entertainment. Vicarious Visions had been helping Blizzard with an updated version of Diablo II, called Diablo II: Resurrected. It made sense for them to join Blizzard to keep supporting the game. By April 2022, Vicarious Visions was fully part of Blizzard and renamed Blizzard Albany.

To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Blizzard Entertainment released Blizzard Arcade Collection in February 2021. This collection included classic games like The Lost Vikings, Rock n' Roll Racing, and Blackthorne. It added new features like better graphics and ways to save game progress.

In July 2021, a lawsuit was filed against Activision Blizzard. It said that the company had problems with how it treated female employees. Because of this, J. Allen Brack left Blizzard. Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra became co-leaders. In November 2021, Jen Oneal left, and Mike Ybarra became the sole leader of Blizzard.

Because of these issues, Activision Blizzard's stock faced problems. In January 2022, Microsoft announced it would buy Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. This was the biggest deal in tech history. The deal was completed on October 13, 2023. Activision Blizzard became part of the Microsoft Gaming division.

Blizzard also bought Proletariat in June 2022. This studio helps support World of Warcraft.

Challenges and Microsoft Acquisition (2022–Present)

In November 2022, Blizzard and NetEase could not agree on a new deal to publish Blizzard games in China. So, most Blizzard games stopped working in China in January 2023. This was due to disagreements about how the games would be managed. Blizzard said they were looking for other Chinese companies to work with. By April 2024, Blizzard and NetEase agreed to new terms. Blizzard's games are planned to return to China by mid-2024. NetEase will also be able to bring games to the Xbox platform.

After Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard, Microsoft Gaming laid off 1,900 staff on January 25, 2024. Blizzard President Mike Ybarra and Chief Design Officer Allen Adham also left the company. A planned survival game from Blizzard was canceled. On January 29, 2024, Johanna Faries became Blizzard Entertainment's new president.

Some employees at Blizzard have formed unions. In July 2022, quality assurance (QA) testers at Blizzard Albany voted to form a union. On July 24, 2024, 500 artists, designers, engineers, producers, and QA testers who work on World of Warcraft also voted to unionize. On the same day, 60 QA testers at Blizzard's Austin office, who work on games like Diablo IV and Hearthstone, also formed a union. In May 2025, nearly 200 game developers who work on Overwatch 2 also unionized.

Blizzard Entertainment Games

Blizzard Entertainment has made 19 games since it started in 1991.

Main Game Series

Most of Blizzard's games are from the Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft series. Since Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994), Diablo (1997), and StarCraft (1998), these three have been their main focus. Overwatch (2016) later became a fourth main series.

Each series has other media like books, card games, comics, and short videos. In 2006, Blizzard announced a Warcraft movie. It was released in June 2016. On October 4, 2022, Overwatch servers were turned off when Overwatch 2's servers went live.

Spin-off Games

Blizzard has released two spin-off games. Hearthstone (2014) is a card game set in the Warcraft world. Heroes of the Storm (2015) features characters from all four of Blizzard's main game series.

Remastered Games

In 2015, Blizzard Entertainment created a "Classic Games division." This team focused on updating older games. They worked on StarCraft: Remastered (2017), Warcraft III: Reforged (2020), and Diablo II: Resurrected (2021).

Re-released Games

In February 2021, Blizzard Entertainment released Blizzard Arcade Collection. This collection is for various game systems. It includes five classic Blizzard games: The Lost Vikings, Rock n' Roll Racing, Blackthorne, The Lost Vikings 2, and RPM Racing. The last two games were added in April 2021. The collection has modern features like better screen resolution and ways to save game progress. It also has a digital museum with game art and interviews.

Games That Were Not Released

Some notable games were planned but never released. Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans was an adventure game canceled in 1998. StarCraft: Ghost was an action game for consoles. It was put on hold indefinitely in 2006 after many development issues.

Work on a project called Nomad started around 1998. It was inspired by a tabletop game and set in a post-apocalyptic world. Nomad was canceled in 1999 as Blizzard decided to make its own online role-playing game, World of Warcraft.

After layoffs in 2018, two projects were canceled. One was a mobile card game called Orion. The other was a first-person shooter in the StarCraft universe called Ares.

After seven years of work, Blizzard announced the cancellation of an online game called Titan in 2014. However, Overwatch was created using parts of Titan. Blizzard often takes its time with games, saying they are "done when it's done."

In January 2022, the company announced a new game project. It was a survival game that had been in the works for almost six years. This game, called Odyssey, was canceled in 2024.

Game Ports

When the company was called Silicon & Synapse, it first focused on making other studios' games work on different computer systems. They made 8 such game ports between 1992 and 1993.

How Blizzard Entertainment Works

Blizzard Entertainment has different teams for its game series. Since around 2004, these teams have been given numbers:

• Team 1 handles the StarCraft games. This team also worked on Heroes of the Storm. Team 1 used to have a Classics Team that updated older Blizzard games. This team was later closed.
• Team 2 continues to manage and create new content for World of Warcraft.
• Team 3 oversees the Diablo game series.

Since 2004, two new teams were created:

• Team 4 was started around 2007. It worked on Blizzard's first new game series since World of Warcraft, which was Titan. After Titan had problems, the remaining members of Team 4 changed the idea into Overwatch. Team 4 still works on Overwatch.
• Team 5 was created in 2008 to explore smaller games. This led to Hearthstone, a card game based on Warcraft. Hearthstone became Team 5's main focus.

Blizzard has a saying: "it'll be ready when it's ready." This means they take as much time as needed to make sure their games are good before releasing them. This idea started when they delayed Diablo to make it better.

Technology at Blizzard Entertainment

Battle.net 2.0

Battle.net is Blizzard Entertainment's online service. It was updated in 2009. This platform lets people play games online, download games, and connect with friends. If you buy a Blizzard game, you can download it digitally through Battle.net.

Since November 11, 2009, all World of Warcraft accounts use Battle.net. This means you can use one Battle.net login to access, download, and play all current Blizzard games.

Battle.net 2.0 helps players find games and offers many features. Players can see their friends' achievements and game history. They can also chat with players from other Blizzard games using voice chat and instant messages. You don't need many different usernames for Blizzard games anymore.

Warden Client

Blizzard Entertainment uses special software called the 'Warden Client'. This software is used with Blizzard's online games like Diablo and World of Warcraft. When you play a Blizzard game, the rules say that Warden can scan your computer's memory.

Warden checks if any other programs are running that might give players an unfair advantage. It looks for programs that are not allowed. Sometimes, Warden has made mistakes. For example, it once incorrectly detected a program used by Linux users as a cheat. Blizzard fixed this and gave those players free game time. Some people worry that Warden scans too much of their computer, but Blizzard says it only looks for things related to cheating.

Other Companies Started by Former Blizzard Employees

Over the years, some people who used to work at Blizzard Entertainment have left to start their own game companies. Many of these companies were formed after Activision and Vivendi Games merged in 2008. These former employees wanted more creative freedom. These new studios are sometimes called "Blizzard 2.0."

• ArenaNet, which made the Guild Wars games.
• Bonfire Studios, started by Rob Pardo.
• Dreamhaven, founded by Michael Morhaime.
• Frost Giant Studios, which is making a real-time strategy game called Stormgate.
• Magic Soup Games, started by J. Allen Brack and Jen Oneal.
• Ready at Dawn Studios, known for games like The Order: 1886.
• Runic Games, which made Torchlight.
• Second Dinner, founded by Ben Brode, creators of Marvel Snap.

See also

In Spanish: Blizzard Entertainment para niños