Blizzard Entertainment

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.

Founded as Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles: Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce. The company began developing its own software in 1993, releasing titles such as Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. That same year, it changed its name to Chaos Studios, Inc. and in 1994, following its acquisition by distributor Davidson & Associates, it was renamed Blizzard Entertainment. In 1994, the company released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, which would receive numerous sequels and led to the highly popular World of Warcraft. By the end of the decade, Blizzard also found success with the action role-playing game Diablo (1997) and strategy game StarCraft (1998). The company became part of Vivendi Games in 1998, which would then merge with Activision in 2008, culminating in the inclusion of the Blizzard brand name in the title of the resulting holding company; Activision Blizzard became completely independent from Vivendi in 2013. Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in 2023, maintaining that the company will continue to operate as a separate business, while part of the larger Xbox division; Blizzard Entertainment retains its function as the publisher of games developed by its studios.