Blizzard Entertainment

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Blizzard Entertainment
Type Subsidiary of Activision Blizzard
Founded 1991 (as Silicon & Synapse)
Headquarters Irvine, California, USA.[1]
Key people Michael Morhaime (president and co-founder)
Frank Pearce (vice president and co-founder)
Rob Pardo (vice president)
Chris Metzen (vice president of Creative Development)
Industry Video games
Products Warcraft series
StarCraft series
Diablo series
Revenue ▲ $1.1 Billion[citation needed]
Employees 2,700[2]
Parent Vivendi
Website www.blizzard.com

Blizzard Entertainment is an American video game developer and publisher headquartered in Irvine, California.[1] It is a division of Activision Blizzard. Blizzard is the creator of several successful PC games, including the Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo series, and the MMORPG World of Warcraft.

Blizzard Entertainment offers events to meet players and to announce games, the BlizzCon in California, United States, and the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational in other countries.

Contents

[edit] History

Blizzard Entertainment was founded by Michael Morhaime, Ayman Allen Adham and Frank Pearce as Silicon & Synapse in February 1991, a year after[3] all three had received their bachelor's degrees from UCLA.[3][4] 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.[5][6] In 1993, the company developed games like Rock N' 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: Orcs and 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.

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 from Interplay Entertainment and re-release them under Game Boy Advance.[7] 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 console 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 2008, Blizzard was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for the creation of World of Warcraft. Mike Morhaime accepted the award.

[edit] Titles

Game Name Release Year Genre
RPM Racing[5] 1991 racing game
Battle Chess (Windows and Commodore 64 ports)[8] 1992 chess
Battle Chess II: Chinese Chess (Amiga port)[8] 1992 puzzle game
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I (Amiga port)[8] 1992 role-playing game
Castles (Amiga port)[5] 1992 strategy
MicroLeague Baseball (Amiga port)[5] 1992 sport
Lexi-Cross (Macintosh port)[5] 1992 game show
Dvorak on Typing (Macintosh port)[5] 1992 education
The Lost Vikings[9] 1992 platform game
Rock N' Roll Racing[9] 1993 racing game
Shanghai II: Dragon's Eye[8] 1994 mahjong solitaire
Blackthorne[9] 1994 cinematic platform game
The Death and Return of Superman[9] 1994 side-scrolling beat 'em up
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans 1994 fantasy real-time strategy game
The Lost Vikings II 1995 platform game
Justice League Task Force[10] 1995 fighting game
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness 1995 fantasy real-time strategy game
Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal 1996 expansion pack
Diablo 1996 action-oriented fantasy role-playing game
StarCraft 1998 science fiction real-time strategy game
StarCraft: Brood War 1998 expansion pack
Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition 1999 fantasy real-time strategy game
Diablo II 2000 action-oriented fantasy role-playing game
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.
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade 2007 expansion pack
World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King 2008 expansion pack
StarCraft II (Wings of Liberty)[11] Expected 2009[12] science fiction real-time strategy game
StarCraft II (Heart of the Swarm) under development science fiction real-time strategy game
StarCraft II (Legacy of the Void) under development science fiction real-time strategy game
Diablo III[13][14][15] under development action-oriented fantasy role-playing game
Next-Gen MMO project[15][16] under development Massive multiplayer online game
Unknown project under development Currently uses World of Warcraft engine for testing [17]
StarCraft: Ghost indefinitely postponed third-person shooter

Notable unreleased titles include Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans, which was cancelled on May 22, 1998, Shattered Nations, and StarCraft: Ghost, which was "indefinitely postponed" on March 24, 2006 after being in development hell for much of its lifespan, and whose current status is in question. 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."[18]

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, the now-legendary StarCraft. THQ eventually contracted with Heliotrope and released the game in 1997 as Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain.

Blizzard Entertainment has announced that they will be producing a Warcraft live-action movie. The movie will be released by Legendary Pictures.[19]

[edit] Companies created by former employees

Over the years, some former Blizzard employees have moved on and established gaming companies of their own:

[edit] Controversies

[edit] Battle.net

Main article: Battle.net
 This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2008)

Battle.net is an online gaming service used for its games World of Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft, Starcraft: Brood War, Diablo II, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, Warcraft II: Battle.net Edition, Warcraft III, and Warcraft III Expansion Set: The Frozen Throne. It was released in January 1997 coinciding with the release of Diablo. It functions as a way to play over the Internet, featuring cooperative and player-versus-player game playing, a game matchmaking system, and online chat among other features. Battle.net is free, and only requires an Internet connection and account registration in order to use. World of Warcraft players can link their paid subscription to Battle.net so that the two accounts share the same login and authentication rules. Battle.net servers include a CD key check as a means of preventing software piracy.

In February 2002 lawyers retained by Blizzard threatened legal action under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act against the developers of bnetd, a reverse engineered, GNU GPL licensed Battle.net emulation package. With bnetd a gamer was not required to use the official Battle.net servers to play Blizzard games online.

Despite offers from the bnetd developers to integrate Blizzard's CD key checking system into bnetd Blizzard claimed[cite this quote] that the public availability of any such software package facilitated piracy and moved to have the bnetd project shut down under provisions of the DMCA.[citation needed] As this case was one of the first major test cases for the DMCA the Electronic Frontier Foundation became involved. Attempts to negotiate a settlement to the dispute failed and the issue went to court where Blizzard won the case on all counts. The defendants were ruled to have breached both StarCraft's End User License Agreement (EULA) and the Terms of Use of Battle.net.[29]

This decision was appealed to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which also ruled in favor of Blizzard/Vivendi on September 1, 2005.[30]

[edit] Warden Client

Main article: Warden (software)

Blizzard 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 World of Warcraft online game, and the Terms of Service contain a clause consenting to the Warden software performing these scans while World of Warcraft is running.[31]

The Warden client scans the process names, window titles, and a small portion of the code segment of running processes in order to determine whether any of these third-party programs are running. This determination is made by hashing the scanned strings and comparing the hashed value to a list of hashes assumed to correspond to cheat programs.[32] The Warden scans all processes running on a computer, not just the World of Warcraft 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.[33][34][35]

The Warden's reliability in correctly discerning legitimate vs illegitimate actions was called into question when a large scale incident happened when many Linux users were banned after an update to Warden caused it to incorrectly detect Cedega as a cheat program.[36] Blizzard issued a statement claiming they had correctly identified and restored all accounts and credited them with 20 days play.[37]

The Warden is not the first time Blizzard Entertainment has been accused of attempting to inspect customer's computers. In 1998 Blizzard Entertainment had a class action lawsuit filed against them for "unlawful business practices" for the action of collecting data from a user's computer without their permission.[38]

[edit] FreeCraft

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 gamers 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.

[edit] World of Warcraft Private Server Complications

 This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2009)

On December 5, 2008 Blizzard 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. Private or Free servers often charge a fee for providing you with in game items such as Epic sets of armor, weapons and gold. Some skills, abilities and quests are also disabled creating a sizable gap in functionality between the paid and private servers.

[edit] Founder Electronics infringement lawsuit

In 2007-08-14, 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.[39]

[edit] Blizzard Account

Blizzard released its Blizzard Account system in 2008. This service allows people who have purchased Blizzard Products (particularly StarCraft, Diablo II, and WarCraft III and their expansions), to download games they have purchased, without needing the CD. Soon, it will store a player's "Blizzard Level" (similar to a Gamerscore), when World of Warcraft's Achievement Points get added to the system, and expanded with future Blizzard titles, like StarCraft II and Diablo III.[40]

[edit] See also

Search Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Blizzard Entertainment

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "Company Profile". Blizzard Entertainment. http://www.blizzard.com/us/inblizz/profile.html. Retrieved on 2007-08-21. 
  2. ^ Brandon Sheffield (2007-07-13). "E3 Exclusive: Blizzard Establishes Third Team, New Game Expected". Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=14691. Retrieved on 2007-07-14. 
  3. ^ a b M. Abraham (2006-11-06). "UCLA Engineering Celebrates Accomplishments at Annual Awards Dinner". UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. http://www.engineer.ucla.edu/news/2006/Awards%20Dinner%202006.htm. Retrieved on 2007-09-22. 
  4. ^ "Blizzard Entertainment 10th Anniversary Celebration". Blizzard Entertainment. Archived from the original on 2002-01-26. http://web.archive.org/web/20020126160653/http://www.blizzard.com/register/blizzard/. Retrieved on 2007-09-22. 
  5. ^ a b c d e f "Blizzard Timeline". Blizzard Entertainment. Archived from the original on 2003-06-08. http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.blizzard.com/blizz-anniversary/timeline.shtml. 
  6. ^ "Ported by Blizzard Entertainment Inc.". Mobygames. http://www.mobygames.com/browse/games/blizzard-entertainment-inc/ported-by/list-games/. 
  7. ^ The Making of The Lost Vikings. Interview with Blizzard Insider. Blizzard Insider (url). Blizzard Insider. 2002-11-22. Retrieved on 2007-06-23.
  8. ^ a b c d "A Decade of Blizzard". IGN. 2001-02-01. http://pc.ign.com/articles/090/090953p1.html. Retrieved on 2008-07-07. "Commodore 64 Battle Chess, Windows Battle Chess, Amiga Battle Chess II, Amiga Lord of the Rings, and Windows Shanghai were some of our early projects." 
  9. ^ a b c d "Company Profile". Blizzard Entertainment. http://eu.blizzard.com/en/inblizz/profile.html. Retrieved on 2008-07-07. "Prior to the release of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Blizzard served as a third-party developer, creating entertainment software for various platforms, including DOS, Macintosh, Sega Genesis, and Super Nintendo. The company's best-known titles from this era include Rock 'n Roll Racing, The Lost Vikings, Blackthorne, and The Death and Return of Superman." 
  10. ^ "Blizzard North: Condor and Diablo". Blizzard Entertainment. Archived from the original on 2002-02-22. http://web.archive.org/web/20020222115131/http://www.blizzard.com/blizz-anniversary/blizznorth.shtml. 
  11. ^ Ocampo, Jason; Eduardo Vasconcellos (October 10, 2008). "Blizzcon 08: StarCraft II Split Into Three Games". IGN. http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/918/918895p1.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-13. 
  12. ^ http://e3.gamespot.com/story/6210427/starcraft-ii-by-end-of-2009-call-of-duty-expanding-to-new-genres
  13. ^ Worldwide Invitaional 2008
  14. ^ http://us.media.blizzard.com/232309/_images/en-US/splash.swf
  15. ^ a b Blizzard Entertainment - Employment Opportunities
  16. ^ IGN: Blizzard's New MMO Not Related To WoW
  17. ^ Fifth Blizzard Game In the Works Update | Diii.net The Unofficial Diablo 3 Site!
  18. ^ GamePro Staff (2006-08-29). "GamePro Q&A: Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan on The Burning Crusade". GamePro. http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/79448/gamepro-q-a-blizzards-jeff-kaplan-on-the-burning-crusade/. Retrieved on 2006-09-30. 
  19. ^ "Blizzard Entertainment - Press Release". 2006-05-09. Archived from the original on 2006-05-26. http://web.archive.org/web/20060526064526/http://www.blizzard.com/press/060509.shtml. Retrieved on 2006-08-31. 
  20. ^ "About Flagship Studios". Archived from the original on 2007-12-12. http://web.archive.org/web/20071212114426/http://flagshipstudios.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=7&Itemid=29. 
  21. ^ ArenaNet
  22. ^ "About Ready At Dawn Studios". Archived from the original on 2007-02-10. http://web.archive.org/web/20070210074447/http://www.readyatdawn.com/ready.asp. 
  23. ^ Red 5 Studios[dead link]
  24. ^ About Castaway Entertainment
  25. ^ Click Entertainment
  26. ^ Carbine Studios
  27. ^ "Austin GDC 2008 Speaker List". https://www.cmpevents.com/GDAU08/a.asp?option=G&V=2&CPid=226&Sortby=4a&SPln=H. 
  28. ^ Hyboreal Games Q&A - Shacknews - PC Games, PlayStation, Xbox 360 and Wii video game news, previews and downloads
  29. ^ Shinkle (12 Oct.), "Vivendi wins lawsuit against bypassing its game Web site", Knight Ridder Tribune Business News.: 1 
  30. ^ "Blizzard Entertainment(R) Media Alert: Court Upholds BnetD Ruling in Favor of Blizzard Entertainment(R)", Business Wire, 6 Sep. 
  31. ^ WoW -> Legal -> Terms of Use
  32. ^ rootkit.com
  33. ^ WoW's Warden stirs controversy - news - play
  34. ^ Definitions and Supporting Documents
  35. ^ Look! what is Blizzard doing on your pc? - MMOsite News Center
  36. ^ Linux Users Banned From World of Warcraft? | Linuxlookup
  37. ^ Blizzard Unbans Linux World of Warcraft Players | Linuxlookup
  38. ^ Errata: Blizzard Entertainment
  39. ^ Founder prosecuting Blizzard online game World of Warcraft Tort Claiming 100 million yuan
  40. ^ MTV Multiplayer » Blizzard Plans To Track Gamer Achievements Across ‘WoW,’ ‘Starcraft’ And ‘Diablo’

[edit] External links

[edit] Company and corporate

[edit] The Bnetd case

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