Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California, and a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard. Originally founded in 1991, the company is best known for producing the highly influential massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (2004), as well as the multi-million selling video game franchises Diablo,StarCraft and Overwatch. The company also operates Battle.net, an online gaming service.
Raven Software Corporation is an American video game developer based in Middleton, Wisconsin, and part of Activision. Founded in May 1990 by brothers Brian and Steve Raffel, the company is most known for the dark fantasy franchise Heretic/Hexen, the first two Soldier of Fortune games, as well as licensed titles based in the Star Wars: Jedi Knight series and Marvel Comics's X-Men characters, including 2006's Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Since 2011, Raven has been working on multiple Call of Duty games as both lead and support developer.
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.
Neversoft Entertainment, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Woodland Hills, California. The studio was founded by Joel Jewett, Mick West and Chris Ward in July 1994 and was acquired by Activision in October 1999. Initially, the studio worked with Playmates Toys, where they worked on the game Skeleton Warriors, which was based on a animated television series of the same name. Throughout 1996, the studio grew, and worked on projects with Crystal Dynamics and Sony Computer Entertainment, but due to internal conflicts, they were cancelled.
Treyarch Corporation is an American video game developer based in Santa Monica, California. Founded in 1996 by Peter Akemann and Doğan Köslü, it was acquired by Activision in 2001. The studio is known for its work for the Call of Duty series, which it develops alongside Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software.
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 from January 1999, when Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. became a subsidiary of Vivendi Games, until July 2008.
Joshua Luis Wiener, known by his stage name Josh Keaton, is an American actor. He is known for his many voice roles, including 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. He is also the voice of King Anduin Wrynn in the MMORPG World of Warcraft.
nStigate Games was an American video game developer based in Novato, California.
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.
Ubisoft Leamington is a British video game developer and a studio of Ubisoft based in Leamington Spa. Founded in November 2002 by six industry veterans formerly of Codemasters and Rare, the studios was bought by Activision in September 2008. In January 2017, Ubisoft acquired the studio from Activision and renamed it Ubisoft Leamington. Ubisoft Leamington is working on AAA games, primarily the Tom Clancy's The Division franchise, in close cooperation with sister studio Ubisoft Reflections as both act as support to the main developer.
Call of Duty is a military first-person shooter 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, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, was released on October 25, 2024.
Guitar Hero is a series of rhythm games first released in 2005, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing primarily lead, bass, and rhythm guitar across numerous songs. Players match notes that scroll on-screen to colored fret buttons on the controller, strumming the controller in time to the music in order to score points, and keep the virtual audience excited. The games attempt to mimic many features of playing a real guitar, including the use of fast-fingering hammer-ons and pull-offs and the use of the whammy bar to alter the pitch of notes. Most games support single player modes, typically a Career mode to play through all the songs in the game, as well as competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes. With the introduction of Guitar Hero World Tour in 2008, the game includes support for a four-player band including vocals and drums. The series initially used mostly cover versions of songs created by WaveGroup Sound, but most recent titles feature soundtracks that are fully master recordings, and in some cases, special re-recordings, of the songs. Later titles in the series feature support for downloadable content in the form of new songs.
Budcat Creations, LLC was an American video game developer based in Iowa City, Iowa, United States and was a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision, though they formerly had partnerships with Electronic Arts and Majesco Entertainment. They were largely responsible for porting titles to non-target consoles. They had worked on a number of blockbuster gaming franchises, among them Guitar Hero, Madden NFL, and Medal of Honor. They have also produced a few original titles, including Blast Works: Build, Trade, Destroy and The New York Times Crosswords.
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.
Robert A. Kotick is an American businessman who served as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Activision Blizzard and previously Activision from 1991 to 2023. He became the CEO of Activision after purchasing a company stake the previous year. Kotick engineered a merger between Activision and Vivendi Games during the late 2000s, which led to the creation of Activision Blizzard in 2008 and him being named the company's inaugural CEO. He has also served on several boards, including The Coca-Cola Company from 2012 to 2022, and Yahoo! from 2003 to 2008. Following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, Kotick retired from the company on December 29, 2023.
DJ Hero is a 2009 rhythm game developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision. It is the first spin-off of the Guitar Hero series. It was released on October 27, 2009, in North America and on October 29, 2009, in Europe. The game is based on turntablism, the act of creating a new musical work from one or more previously recorded songs using record players and sound effect generators, and features 94 remixes of two different songs across numerous genres.
Guitar Hero is a series of rhythm video games published by Activision in which players use guitar-shaped controllers to mimic the playing of numerous rock music songs in a score attack gameplay; later games in the series have included support for drums and vocals and playing as a full band. With over $2 billion in total sales worldwide, the game series has made a significant cultural impact, becoming a cultural phenomenon and recognizable in the popular culture. The series has been found to influence younger players into learning real instruments and has found application within the health care industry to help recovering patients.
Activision Blizzard Studios, LLC is a motion picture production company and a subsidiary of American video game company Activision Blizzard based in Beverly Hills, California. It was created to utilize its parent company's popular game franchises through films and television shows. It is co-headed by Stacey Sher and Nick van Dyk, the latter being a former executive of The Walt Disney Company.
California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard is a current lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), now the Civil Rights Department (CRD) against video game developer Activision Blizzard in July 2021. The lawsuit asserts that management of Activision Blizzard allowed and at times encouraged sexual misconduct towards female employees, that the company maintained a "frat boy" culture, and that the company's hiring and employment practices were discriminatory against women.
On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. The acquisition was completed on October 13, 2023, with its total cost 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.
