Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded in February 1991 as Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles: Michael Morhaime, Frank Pearce and Allen Adham. The company 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. In 1993, the company became Chaos Studios, Inc., and then Blizzard Entertainment soon after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates early in the following year. Shortly after, Blizzard released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one of the largest third-party video game publishers in the world and was the top United States publisher in 2016.
Michael Morhaime is an American video game developer and entrepreneur. He is the chief executive officer (CEO) and founder of Dreamhaven, located in Irvine, California. Morhaime is best known as the co-founder and the former president of Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, Inc., that was founded in 1991 as Silicon & Synapse. He served on the Vivendi Games executive committee since January 1999, when Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. became a subsidiary of Vivendi Games.
Joshua Luis Wiener, known by his stage name Josh Keaton, is an American actor. He is known for his many voice roles which have included Takashi 'Shiro' Shirogane in Voltron: Legendary Defender, Spider-Man in various media in addition to Electro in the video game Marvel's Spider-Man, Jack Darby in Transformers: Prime and the adolescent Hercules in Hercules. He was also the voice of Ryu Hayabusa in the console versions of Ninja Gaiden, and the voice of Revolver Ocelot in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater.
Salli Saffioti is an American actress. She is known for voicing roles in video games including Ingrid Hunnigan in Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil: Degeneration, Resident Evil: Damnation, Resident Evil 6, and Resident Evil: Death Island, Ming in Lost Odyssey, the Sea Captain's daughter in Tales of the Black Freighter, Razia in Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands and the Black Widow in Spider-Man: Web of Shadows. She also voices First Arcanist Thalyssra in World of Warcraft: Legion and the Female Hero in Fable II and III. In the Monster High franchise, she voices main characters Clawdeen Wolf and Cleo de Nile, which in later video installments, she goes under the stage name Celeste Henderson. She also goes under this name for non-union productions.
Toys for Bob, Inc. is an American video game developer based in Novato, California. It was founded in 1989 by Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford and is best known for creating Star Control and the Skylanders franchise, as well as for working on the Crash Bandicoot and Spyro franchises.
Brian Keith Bloom is an American actor and screenwriter. He co-wrote the screenplay and starred in The A-Team, produced by brothers Tony and Ridley Scott. Bloom is the voice of Captain America in The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and multiple subsequent Marvel titles. He is the voice of Varric Tethras in BioWare's Dragon Age franchise, B.J. Blazkowicz in MachineGames' Wolfenstein series, as well as multiple Call of Duty performances including Nick Reyes in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, which he co-wrote. He was also a co-writer of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. He starred as The Punisher in Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher.
Major League Gaming Corp. (MLG) is a professional esports organization. MLG is headquartered in New York City, New York and was founded in 2002 by Sundance DiGiovanni and Mike Sepso. MLG has held official video game tournaments throughout the United States and Canada. The Boost Mobile MLG Pro Circuit was a television broadcast of Halo 2 MLG tournaments in 2006 and 2007, ESPN.com, and other broadband sites. The company has also been involved in television production, and game development. MLG's aim is to elevate computer and console game tournaments to viable competitive and spectator events.
Blizzard Albany is an American video game developer based in Albany, New York. The studio was acquired by Activision in January 2005. After releasing its last game as part of that company, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2, Vicarious Visions became part of Activision's sister company Blizzard Entertainment in January 2021 and was merged into it in April 2022, thereby being renamed Blizzard Albany.
Fred Tatasciore is an American voice actor, who has provided voices in animated and live-action films, television shows, and video games. He is known for voicing the Hulk, Volstagg, and Beast in various Marvel media and Solomon Grundy in various DC media. Other characters he has voiced include Yosemite Sam, Taz, Soldier: 76, Shao Kahn, and Kakuzu.
Stacey Sher is an American film producer.
Call of Duty, also referred to as (COD), is a video game series and media franchise published by Activision, starting in 2003. The games were first developed by Infinity Ward, then by Treyarch and Sledgehammer Games. Several spin-off and handheld games were made by other developers. The most recent title, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, was released on November 10, 2023.
Beenox Inc. is a Canadian video game developer established in 2000 in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The studio became a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision on May 25, 2005.
Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. Activision Blizzard currently includes five business units: Activision Publishing, Blizzard Entertainment, King, Major League Gaming, and Activision Blizzard Studios.
Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure is a 3D action-adventure platform game and the first video game in the Skylanders series. It is played using with toy figures that interact with it through a "Portal of Power" that reads their tag through NFC.
Skylanders is a toys-to-life action-adventure video game franchise published by Activision. Skylanders games are played by placing a character's figure on the "Portal of Power", a device that reads its tag using NFC and "imports" them into the game as a playable character.
Warcraft is a 2016 American action fantasy film based on the video game series of the same name. Directed by Duncan Jones, who co-wrote with Charles Leavitt, it stars Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Robert Kazinsky, and Daniel Wu. The film follows Anduin Lothar of Stormwind and Durotan of the Frostwolf clan as heroes set on opposite sides of a growing war, as the warlock Gul'dan leads the Horde to invade Azeroth using a magic portal. Together, a few human heroes and dissenting Orcs must attempt to stop the true evil behind this war and restore peace.
Skylanders Academy is an animated television series produced by TeamTO and Activision Blizzard Studios based on the Skylanders series. The first season debuted on Netflix on October 28, 2016. A trailer for the series debuted on October 12, 2016. The second season was released on October 6, 2017 and the third and final season was released on September 28, 2018.
Microsoft Gaming is an American multinational video game and digital entertainment division of Microsoft based in Redmond, Washington. Microsoft Gaming produces the Xbox brand of video game consoles and services, in addition to overseeing the production, game development, publishing, research and development, sales of Xbox and the division's three subsidiaries (publishers) worldwide. The three subsidiaries consist of: Xbox Game Studios, ZeniMax Media, and Activision Blizzard, each publish games under their own respective labels. CEO Phil Spencer, who has concurrently overseen the Xbox brand since 2014, is the leader of the division.
On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The deal was concluded on October 13, 2023, with the total cost of the acquisition amounting to $75.4 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft brought Activision Blizzard under its Microsoft Gaming business unit as a sibling division to Xbox Game Studios and ZeniMax Media. With it, Microsoft gained ownership of several franchises under Activision, Blizzard Entertainment, and King, including Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Overwatch, and Candy Crush. As of 2023, the acquisition is the largest video game acquisition by transaction value in history.
