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Games - Blizzard Entertainment

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

Overview

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

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

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

Blizzard launched their online gaming service Battle.net
in January of 1997 with the release of their action-RPG
Diablo.

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

On May 16, 2005, Blizzard announced the acquisition of Swingin' Ape, a console game maker, which is now Blizzard Console, currently working on Starcraft: Ghost.

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

Titles

  • (1990) - RPG
  • The Lost Vikings (1992) - platform game
  • Rock & Roll Racing (1993) - racing game
  • Blackthorne (1994) - fantasy platform game
  • The Death and Return of Superman (1994) - side-scrolling beat 'em up
  • Warcraft (1994) - fantasy real-time strategy game
  • Justice League Task Force (1995) - one-on-one fighting game
  • The Lost Vikings II (1995) - platform game
  • Warcraft II (1995) - fantasy real-time strategy game
  • Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal (1996) - expansion pack
  • Diablo (1996) - action-oriented computer role-playing game
  • Diablo: Hellfire (1997) - expansion pack (co-created by Sierra Studios)
  • StarCraft (1998) - science fiction real-time strategy game
  • StarCraft: Brood War (1998) - expansion pack
  • Diablo II (2000) - action-oriented RPG
  • Diablo II: Lord of Destruction (2001) - expansion pack
  • Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002) - fantasy real-time strategy game
  • Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne (2003) - expansion pack
  • World of Warcraft (2004) - MMORPG
    set in the Warcraft universe

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Blizzard Entertainment ]


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