Blizzard Entertainment, Inc is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California.
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40 Facts About Blizzard Entertainment
2.
Blizzard Entertainment 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.
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3.
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.
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5.
In 1996, Blizzard Entertainment acquired Condor Games of San Mateo, California, which had been working on the action role-playing game Diablo for Blizzard at the time.
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6.
Blizzard Entertainment North developed the sequel Diablo II, and its expansion pack Lord of Destruction .
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7.
Around 2000, Blizzard Entertainment engaged with Nihilistic Software to work on a version of StarCraft for home consoles for Blizzard Entertainment.
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8.
Blizzard Entertainment 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.
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9.
Blizzard Entertainment fully acquired Swingin' Ape Studios in May 2005 to continue on Ghost.
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10.
Blizzard Entertainment decided to cancel Ghost rather than extend its development period to work on the newer consoles.
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11.
Blizzard Entertainment started to work on a sequel to the Warcraft II in early 1998, which was announced as a "role-playing strategy" game.
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13.
Blizzard Entertainment 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.
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14.
Blizzard Entertainment's staff quadrupled from around 400 employees in 2004 to 1600 by 2006 to provide more resources to the game and its various expansions, and Blizzard Entertainment moved their headquarters to 16215 Alton Parkway in Irvine, California in 2007 to support the additional staff.
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16.
Blizzard Entertainment 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.
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17.
Blizzard Entertainment continued to speak on Titans development over the next few years, with over 100 people within Blizzard Entertainment working on the project.
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18.
However, Titans development was troubled, and, internally, in May 2013, Blizzard Entertainment cancelled the project, 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 Entertainment's other departments.
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19.
The new project was greenlit by Blizzard Entertainment and became known as Overwatch, which was released in May 2016.
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20.
Several traditional esport events had been established within the year of Overwatch release, such as the Overwatch World Cup, but Blizzard Entertainment continued to expand this and announced the first esports professional league, the Overwatch League at the 2016 BlizzCon event.
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21.
Blizzard Entertainment 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.
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22.
Michael Chu, lead writer on many of Blizzard Entertainment's franchises including Diablo, Warcraft, and Overwatch, announced he was leaving the company after 20 years in March 2020.
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23.
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.
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24.
The deal is expected to close by mid-2023, during which Activision Blizzard Entertainment will remain its own company and, once finalized, will be moved into the Microsoft Gaming division.
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25.
Blizzard Entertainment acquired Proletariat, the developers of Spellbreak, in June 2022 as to help support World of Warcraft.
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26.
Blizzard Entertainment has developed 19 games since 1991, the majority of which are in the Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft series.
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27.
Additionally, Blizzard Entertainment has released two spin-offs to the main franchises: Hearthstone, and Heroes of the Storm .
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28.
Blizzard Entertainment announced in January 2022 that it was near release of another new intellectual property, a survival game that had been at work at the studio for nearly five years.
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29.
Currently, Blizzard Entertainment has four main franchises: Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, and Overwatch.
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30.
Blizzard Entertainment announced in 2006 that they would be producing a Warcraft live-action movie.
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31.
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, Warcraft III: Reforged, and Diablo II: Resurrected .
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32.
In February 2021, Blizzard Entertainment released a compilation called Blizzard Arcade Collection for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch.
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33.
Blizzard Entertainment 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.
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34.
Blizzard Entertainment has made use of a special form of software known as the 'Warden Client'.
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35.
Blizzard Entertainment issued a statement claiming they had correctly identified and restored all accounts and credited them with 20 days' play.
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36.
Blizzard Entertainment 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.
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37.
Blizzard Entertainment 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 Entertainment's] image".
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38.
Blizzard Entertainment used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to influence many private servers to fully shut down and cease to exist.
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39.
Activision Blizzard Entertainment's statement described the suit as meritless, contending that action had been taken in any instances of misconduct.
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40.
Blizzard Entertainment objected to the DFEH not approaching them prior to filing.
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