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.
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is a high fantasy real-time strategy computer video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment released in July 2002. It is the second sequel to Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, after Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, the third game set in the Warcraft fictional universe, and the first to be rendered in three dimensions. An expansion pack, The Frozen Throne, was released in July 2003. Warcraft III is set several years after the events of Warcraft II, and tells the story of the Burning Legion's attempt to conquer the fictional world of Azeroth with the help of an army of the Undead, led by fallen paladin Arthas Menethil. It chronicles the combined efforts of the Human Alliance, Orcish Horde, and Night Elves to stop them before they can corrupt the World Tree.
Defense of the Ancients (DotA) is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) mod for the video game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos (2002) and its expansion, The Frozen Throne. The objective of the game is for each team to destroy their opponents' Ancient, a heavily guarded structure at the opposing corner of the map. Players use powerful units known as heroes, and are assisted by allied teammates and AI-controlled fighters. As in role-playing games, players level up their heroes and use gold to buy equipment during the game.
BlizzCon is an annual gaming convention held by Blizzard Entertainment to promote its major franchises including Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, and Overwatch.
Sam "Samwise" Didier is an American artist. He served as senior art director at Blizzard Entertainment, having been with the company since 1991. As the art director for the flagship games of the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo franchises, the producer of several games, and an artistic contributor to almost every game released under the name Blizzard Entertainment, Didier has created a distinctive Blizzard house style. Edge described Didier's style as "a striking, pulp sensibility that may be an acquired taste, but one acquirable on either side of the Pacific, side-stepping polarisation of appeal to either eastern or western audiences." His other contributions to Blizzard projects include writing, voice acting, music, sculpture, the Pandaren species, and the name "Warcraft". Leonardo Marcato calls him "one of the game designers that can be legitimately called authors thanks to the imprint they gave to projects they directed."
Christopher Vincent Metzen is an American game designer, artist, voice actor, and author known for his work creating the fictional universes and scripts for Blizzard Entertainment's three major award-winning media franchises: Warcraft, Diablo and StarCraft. Metzen was hired by Blizzard Entertainment as an animator and an artist; his first work for the company was with the video game Justice League Task Force.
Bill Roper is an American video game designer and producer. He is a co-founder and the current Chief Creative Officer at AuthorDigital / Arcadia Games. Previously, he was Chief Creative Officer at Improbable. Roper was Vice President/GM at Disney Interactive Studios from 2011–2016, and headed video game studios and creative and development departments for two decades, including divisions at Blizzard Entertainment, Flagship Studios, and Cryptic Studios. He is also an accomplished musician, and a founding member of the folk band The Poxy Boggards.
Mike O'Brien is the former president and co-founder of ArenaNet and executive producer of its games Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. He led the design and content creation teams of the original Guild Wars.
Matt Uelmen is an American video game music composer and sound designer. He is best known for his work in Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo series, which was recognized with the inaugural Excellence in Audio award by the IGDA in 2001. He also worked as a sound designer for the real-time strategy game StarCraft, and worked on World of Warcraft's expansion The Burning Crusade in 2007. From 2009 until the studio's closure in 2017, Matt Uelmen worked as a member of the Runic Games team, as a composer and sound designer for the Torchlight games.
Jeffrey Kaplan is an American video game designer and former vice president of Blizzard Entertainment, a position he held until he left the company in 2021. He designed elements of World of Warcraft and is the former lead director of Overwatch.
Josh Mosqueira-Asheim is a game designer of both tabletop games and video games, and was game director during the creation of Diablo III at Blizzard Entertainment.
Patrick Wyatt is a game programmer and one of the three co-founders of ArenaNet. He was the leader of the Network and Technology teams and a programmer for Guild Wars. Before the founding of ArenaNet, he was working in Blizzard Entertainment where he was the Vice President of Research and Development and a senior programmer. Wyatt was the leader of Battle.net gaming network's programming and a major contributor on the multiplayer parts of Blizzard's popular games including StarCraft, Diablo and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness. Having been in Blizzard for more than eight years, his work also includes earlier Blizzard games like Lost Vikings and Rock N' Roll Racing.
Battle.net is an Internet-based online game, social networking service, digital distribution, and digital rights management platform developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The service was launched on December 31, 1996, followed a few days later with the release of Blizzard's action-role-playing video game Diablo on January 3, 1997. Battle.net was officially renamed to "Blizzard Battle.net" in August 2017, with the change being reverted in January 2021.
Diablo III is a 2012 hack-and-slash action role-playing game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment as the third installment in the Diablo franchise. It was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X in May 2012, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in September 2013, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in August 2014, and Nintendo Switch in November 2018. Set 20 years after the events of Diablo II, players control one of seven character classes – Barbarian, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Monk, Necromancer, Witch Doctor, or Wizard – and are tasked with defeating Diablo.
Russell Brower is an American music composer and three-time Emmy Award-winning sound designer who has created sounds for Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs and Batman: The Animated Series, and video game music for games including Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising, World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III and Arena of Valor. He was previously the Director of Audio/Video for Blizzard Entertainment, the sound designer/editor at Warner Bros. Animation and DiC Entertainment, the Audio Director at NovaLogic, and the Principal Media Designer and Music Director at Walt Disney Imagineering.
Bonfire Studios is a video game development studio located in Orange County, California. It was founded in 2016 with funding from Andreessen Horowitz and Riot Games.
Neal Acree is an American composer of film, television, and video game music. He has scored 30 feature films, contributed music to the popular Blizzard Entertainment video game franchises StarCraft II, World of Warcraft, Diablo III, Overwatch, as well as the Chinese MMO Revelation Online. His television work includes the series Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Witchblade and the first season of Sanctuary.
Heroes of the Storm is a crossover multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. Announced at BlizzCon 2010, it was released on June 2, 2015 for macOS and Windows. The game features various characters from Blizzard's franchises as playable heroes, as well as different battlegrounds based on Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, and Overwatch universes.
Ben Brode is an American video game designer. He was the game director and public face of Hearthstone until 2018 when he left to found his own game studio, Second Dinner, where he is now Chief Development Officer.
