Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American company that creates and sells video games. It is based in Irvine, California, and is owned by Activision Blizzard. The company was founded in 1991 and is best known for creating the popular game World of Warcraft (2004), as well as the successful game series Diablo, StarCraft, and Overwatch. Blizzard also runs Battle.net, an online service for playing games.

The company was originally named Silicon & Synapse, Inc. and was started by three graduates from the University of California, Los Angeles: Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce. In 1993, the company began making its own software and released games such as Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings. That same year, the company changed its name to Chaos Studios, Inc. In 1994, after being bought by Davidson & Associates, the company became known as Blizzard Entertainment. That year, it released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, a game that led to the popular World of Warcraft. By the end of the 1990s, Blizzard also released Diablo (1997) and StarCraft (1998), which were both successful.

In 1998, Blizzard became part of Vivendi Games. Vivendi later merged with Activision in 2008, creating the company Activision Blizzard. In 2013, Activision Blizzard became independent from Vivendi. In 2023, Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard, but Blizzard continues to operate as a separate business under Microsoft Gaming. Blizzard still publishes games made by its studios.

Since 2005, Blizzard has held annual events called BlizzCon for fans to meet and learn about its games. These events have also taken place in countries outside the United States. In the 2010s and 2020s, Blizzard released new versions of World of Warcraft (the latest was Midnight in 2026), as well as StarCraft: Remastered (2017), Diablo III (2012), and Diablo IV (2023). The company also created Hearthstone (a collectible card game), Heroes of the Storm (a battle arena game), and Overwatch and Overwatch 2 (first-person shooter games).

Since 2018, Blizzard has faced challenges, including some games that were not well received by players, controversies involving employees and players, and reports of misconduct by some senior employees.

History

Blizzard Entertainment was founded in February 1991 by Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce. At that time, all three had recently earned their bachelor's degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles. The company was originally named Silicon & Synapse. The name was chosen because "silicon" refers to the material used in computers, and "synapse" refers to the connections in the brain. The company's first logo was created by Stu Rose. Each founder contributed about $10,000 to start the company. Morhaime borrowed his share from his grandmother without interest. The company's offices were located in a business park near the University of California, Irvine, in California.

In the first two years, the company worked on adapting games for other studios. Brian Fargo, a leader at Interplay Productions, was friends with Adham and owned 10% of Silicon & Synapse. Fargo helped the company get contracts to adapt games, including Battle Chess and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I. Fargo also asked Silicon & Synapse to help develop RPM Racing, a game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. After seeing their work, Fargo allowed the company to create their own games for Interplay to publish. The first games made entirely by the company were Rock n' Roll Racing, a follow-up to RPM Racing, and The Lost Vikings, inspired by Lemmings.

By 1993, Adham said the name "Silicon & Synapse" was no longer suitable because people confused "silicon" (used in computers) with "silicone" (used in medical implants). The company changed its name to "Chaos Studios" in 1993, reflecting the unpredictable nature of their development process.

Around the same time, the company began exploring ways to publish its own games, as the contracts to adapt other games were not profitable. Inspired by Dune II and The Lord of the Rings, the company started developing Warcraft: Orcs & Humans. Adham saw this as the beginning of a series of connected games, like the Gold Box series. To fund development, the company took on more contracts, even though this led to debt. Davidson & Associates, a company that published educational software, offered to buy the company for $4 million. Interplay wanted to publish Warcraft, and Fargo advised against selling the company. Adham and Morhaime rejected the offer, but Davidson later raised it to $6.75 million (equivalent to $14.7 million in 2025) and promised creative control. Adham and Morhaime accepted the offer in early 1994.

Soon after, the company faced a legal issue with a Florida company, Chaos Technologies, which claimed the right to use the name "Chaos." To avoid paying $100,000 (equivalent to $217,220 in 2025), the company changed its name to "Ogre Studios" in April 1994. However, Davidson & Associates did not approve of this name and forced another change. The founders searched for a new name, and "blizzard" was chosen after legal checks. The company became "Blizzard Entertainment" in May 1994. Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was released in November 1994 and helped establish Blizzard among other game studios.

Blizzard changed ownership several times. In 1996, Davidson & Associates was bought by CUC International, which later merged with HFS Corporation to form Cendant in 1997. In 1998, CUC was found to have committed accounting fraud, causing its stock value to drop by 80%. Cendant sold its consumer software division, including Blizzard, to Havas, a French publisher, in 1998. Havas was later acquired by Vivendi, and Blizzard became part of Vivendi Games.

In 1996, Blizzard acquired Condor Games, a studio working on Diablo, and renamed it Blizzard North. Blizzard's original studio in Irvine was called Blizzard South. Diablo was released in 1997 with Battle.net, a multiplayer service. Blizzard North later developed Diablo II (2000) and its expansion Lord of Destruction (2001).

After the success of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Blizzard began developing StarCraft, a science fiction-themed real-time strategy game. Released in 1998, StarCraft became the top-selling PC game of the year and boosted Battle.net and esports. In 2000, Blizzard partnered with Nihilistic Software to create a console version of StarCraft, called StarCraft: Ghost. However, conflicts between Blizzard and Nihilistic led to the project being canceled in 2004. Blizzard later hired Swingin' Ape Studios to continue development but canceled the game in 2005 due to changes in console technology.

In 1998, Blizzard began working on a sequel to Warcraft II, called Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, which was released in 2002. The game influenced many future games in the real-time strategy and multiplayer online battle arena genres. Characters and settings from Warcraft III appeared in later Blizzard games.

In 2002, Blizzard reacquired the rights to three older games—The Lost Vikings, Rock n' Roll Racing, and Blackthorne—from Interplay and released them for the Game Boy Advance.

Around 2003, Blizzard North was working on Diablo III and a science fiction game called Starblo.

Games

Blizzard Entertainment has created 23 games since the company was founded in 1991. Most of these games belong to the Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft series. After the release of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994, Diablo in 1997, and StarCraft in 1998, Blizzard focused almost entirely on these three series. Overwatch, released in 2016, became the fourth main series. Each series has related media, such as books, card games, comics, and short videos. In 2006, Blizzard announced a live-action movie based on Warcraft. The film was directed by Duncan Jones and produced by Legendary Pictures, Atlas Entertainment, and others. It was released in June 2016. On October 4, 2022, Overwatch servers were shut down, and Overwatch 2 was launched.

Blizzard has released two spin-offs: Hearthstone (2014), which is based on the Warcraft universe, and Heroes of the Storm (2015), which includes characters from all four main series. In 2015, Blizzard formed a "Classic Games division" to update older titles, including StarCraft: Remastered (2017), Warcraft III: Reforged (2020), and Diablo II: Resurrected (2021).

In February 2021, Blizzard released a compilation called Blizzard Arcade Collection for multiple platforms. It includes five classic games: The Lost Vikings, Rock n' Roll Racing, Blackthorne, The Lost Vikings 2, and RPM Racing. The collection includes features like 16:9 resolution, 4-player split-screen, saving progress, replaying games, and graphic filters. Upgrades for each game are also included, such as improved multiplayer for The Lost Vikings and new music for Rock n' Roll Racing. A digital museum with game art, unused content, and interviews is part of the collection.

Some unreleased titles include Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans (canceled in 1998), Shattered Nations (canceled around 1996), and StarCraft: Ghost (postponed indefinitely in 2006).

A project named Nomad began in 1998, inspired by a tabletop game called Necromunda. It was canceled in 1999 as Blizzard shifted focus to creating its own MMORPG, World of Warcraft.

After layoffs in 2018, two projects were canceled: Orion, an asynchronous card game for mobile devices, and Ares, a first-person shooter set in the StarCraft universe.

In 2014, Blizzard canceled an unannounced MMO called Titan, though Overwatch was later developed using some of its assets. Blizzard often avoids setting release dates, instead waiting until a product is "done when it's done."

Pax Imperia II was initially planned by Blizzard but was dropped in favor of StarCraft. THQ later released the game as Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain in 1997.

In January 2022, Blizzard announced a new intellectual property called Odyssey, a survival game developed by Craig Amai, a World of Warcraft creator. The game was canceled in 2024 after Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard and reduced its workforce.

Initially, the company, known as Silicon & Synapse, focused on porting other studios' games to computers, completing 8 ports between 1992 and 1993.

Company structure

Blizzard Entertainment, like many companies with multiple games, has created separate teams to manage its different franchises. Since around 2004, these teams have been identified by numbers. The original three teams were:

• Team 1 manages the StarCraft franchise. This team also developed the StarCraft spin-off game Heroes of the Storm. Team 1 included the Classics Team, which worked on remastering older Blizzard games for modern computers, such as StarCraft: Remastered, Warcraft III: Reforged, and Diablo II: Resurrected. The Classics Team was dissolved in August 2020, about eight months after Warcraft III: Reforged was released. According to Jason Schreier of Bloomberg News, this happened because Activision Blizzard encouraged Blizzard to focus less on remastering older games, which contributed to issues with Warcraft III: Reforged.
• Team 2 continues to manage and create content for World of Warcraft.
• Team 3 oversees the Diablo franchise.

Since 2004, two additional teams were formed:

• Team 4 was created in 2007 to develop Titan, Blizzard’s first new game since World of Warcraft. However, Titan faced challenges around 2013, and most members of Team 4 were moved to other teams. The remaining members, led by Jeff Kaplan, changed Titan’s idea into Overwatch, which Team 4 continues to manage since its release in 2016.
• Team 5 was formed in 2008 to explore smaller games that could fit Blizzard’s lineup. This led to the creation of Hearthstone, a collectible card game based on the Warcraft universe, which became Team 5’s main focus.

Blizzard uses an informal motto, “it’ll be ready when it’s ready,” to describe its game release schedules. This approach began when the company delayed the release of Diablo to ensure a high-quality product. By the time World of Warcraft was released, employees started using the phrase to respond to fans who were eager for release dates.

Technology

Blizzard Entertainment launched its updated Battle.net service in 2009. This platform offers online gaming, distributing digital games, managing digital rights, and providing social networking features. Battle.net lets users who have bought Blizzard games download digital copies of those games without needing physical discs.

On November 11, 2009, Blizzard required all World of Warcraft accounts to switch to Battle.net accounts. This change allows users to access, download, and play all current Blizzard games using one Battle.net login.

Battle.net 2.0 is the system used for matchmaking in Blizzard games. It includes many extra features, such as tracking friends’ achievements, viewing match history, and seeing avatars. Players can also earn achievements for playing Blizzard games.

The service includes community tools like friend lists and groups. It also lets players chat with others from different Blizzard games using voice and instant messaging. For example, users no longer need separate usernames or accounts for most Blizzard products. To chat across games, players must be either Battletag or Real ID friends.

Blizzard uses a special type of software called the "Warden Client" in its online games, such as Diablo and World of Warcraft. The Terms of Service include a rule allowing the Warden software to scan a computer’s memory while a Blizzard game is running.

The Warden Client checks a small part of the code in running programs to see if any third-party software is active. This helps identify and stop players using unauthorized programs. It does this by comparing scanned data to a list of known banned programs. The Warden’s accuracy was questioned after an incident where it incorrectly banned many Linux users by mistaking a program called Cedega for cheating software. Blizzard later fixed the issue and restored all affected accounts, giving them 20 days of free play.

The Warden scans all processes running on a computer, not just the game itself. This can include private or personal information. Because of these scans, the Warden has been accused of acting like spyware and has caused controversy among privacy advocates.

Controversies and legal disputes

Shortly after Valve applied for a trademark for "DotA" to secure rights for Dota 2, DotA-Allstars, LLC, managed by former contributors to the game's earlier version, Defense of the Ancients, filed an opposing trademark in August 2010. DotA-Allstars, LLC was sold to Blizzard Entertainment in 2011. After the opposition was ruled in Valve's favor, Blizzard filed an opposition against Valve in November 2011, citing its license agreement with developers and its ownership of DotA-Allstars, LLC.

An agreement was reached in May 2012 between Blizzard and Valve, giving Valve exclusive commercial rights to the "DotA" trademark, especially for Dota 2, while allowing Blizzard to use the name in noncommercial ways for its community, such as for player-created maps in Warcraft III and StarCraft II. As part of the agreement, Blizzard changed the name of a custom map it had created for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty from "Blizzard DOTA" to "Blizzard All-Stars," which later became the stand-alone game, Heroes of the Storm.

In July 2021, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, accusing the company of gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment, mainly within Blizzard Entertainment. The DFEH claimed female employees faced ongoing sexual harassment, unequal pay, retaliation, and discrimination based on pregnancy. The lawsuit also described a workplace culture that included objectifying women and jokes about rape. Activision Blizzard called the suit without merit, stating it had taken action in cases of misconduct and objected to the DFEH not contacting it before filing. The lawsuit led to an employee walkout and the resignation of J Allen Brack, head of human resources, Jesse Meschuk, and others. Morhaime, Brack's predecessor, expressed shame on social media. Because of these allegations, Blizzard changed names in some of its games that referenced employees, including Overwatch and World of Warcraft.

On June 20, 2003, Blizzard sent a cease and desist letter to the developers of FreeCraft, an open-source clone of the Warcraft engine, claiming trademark infringement. FreeCraft had the same gameplay and characters as Warcraft II but used different graphics and music. The clone also allowed players to use Warcraft II graphics if they had the original CD. The developers shut down their site after the letter but later regrouped under the name Stratagus to continue the project.

During an October 2019 Hearthstone Grandmasters event in Taiwan, a player named Ng Wai Chung, who used the online name "Blitzchung," supported protestors in the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests during an interview. Shortly after, Blitzchung was disqualified from the tournament, lost his winnings, and was banned for one year. The two shoutcasters involved in the interview were also banned. Blizzard stated the ban followed tournament rules that prohibit actions that "bring [players] into public disrepute, offend a group, or harm [Blizzard's] image."

Blizzard's decision caused protests from Hearthstone players, other gamers, and employees who worried the company was complying with Chinese censorship. Protests occurred, including at BlizzCon in November 2019, and U.S. lawmakers criticized Blizzard for letting China influence its policies. On October 11, 2019, Blizzard CEO J. Allen Brack apologized in an open letter, reducing the bans to six months. He emphasized that the decision was not tied to China but asked players and casters to avoid discussing politics during tournaments.

On May 12, 2022, Blizzard announced the Diversity Space Tool, developed by a team at King (a part of Activision Blizzard) and MIT Game Lab. The tool was described as a way to measure how diverse game characters are compared to typical representation. Example images showed the tool being used on Overwatch characters, with graphs showing character attributes. Blizzard planned to release the tool in 2022 for industry use. However, the tool faced criticism online, with some questioning why Blizzard did not hire diverse teams instead. The blog post was later edited to remove references to Overwatch and eventually deleted.

In July 2008, the U.S. District Court for Arizona ruled in the case MDY Industries, LLC v. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., finding MDY liable for copyright infringement because users of its Glider bot program broke the End User License Agreement for World of Warcraft. MDY appealed, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the copyright infringement ruling but stated the bot violated the DMCA. The case was sent back to the district court for further review. This decision supported a prior ruling that software licenses, like Blizzard's for World of Warcraft, are enforceable, allowing companies to sell games as licenses rather than purchases.

On July 6, 2010, Blizzard announced that its forums would require users to identify themselves with their real names. The community strongly opposed the change, with many calling it "foolhardy" and "an epic fail." A thread on the issue received over 11,000 replies. One Blizzard employee shared his real name to show it was not a big deal, but users later posted his personal information, including his phone number, address, and family details. Some media supported the real name policy, while others worried about privacy risks.

Related companies

Over time, some former employees of Blizzard Entertainment have left the company to start their own gaming studios. This happened after the 2008 merger between Activision Holdings and Vivendi Games, which was Blizzard's parent company at the time. More recently, it also occurred as Activision Blizzard shifted focus away from games like Warcraft and StarCraft, which were not seen as major sources of income for the larger company. These employees formed smaller studios to gain more creative freedom, which they felt was limited at Blizzard. Together, these studios are referred to as "Blizzard 2.0."

• ArenaNet: Developers of the Guild Wars game series.
• Bonfire Studios: Founded by Rob Pardo.
• Carbine Studios: No longer active since September 2018, after releasing the multiplayer game WildStar.
• Castaway Entertainment: No longer active, after working on a game similar to Diablo called Djinn.
• Dreamhaven: Founded by Michael Morhaime.
• Fantastic Pixel Castle: Founded by Greg Street, working on a new combat-focused MMO called Ghost.
• Flagship Studios: No longer active, creators of Hellgate: London and also worked on Mythos.
• Frost Giant Studios: Founded by Tim Morten and Tim Campbell, currently developing the real-time strategy game Stormgate.
• Hyboreal Games: Founded by Michio Okamura.
• Magic Soup Games: Founded by J. Allen Brack and Jen Oneal.
• Ready at Dawn Studios: Creators of The Order: 1886, Daxter, God of War: Chains of Olympus, and a version of Ōkami for the Wii.
• Red 5 Studios: No longer active, creators of Firefall, a free-to-play MMOG.
• Runic Games: No longer active, founded by Travis Baldree, Erich Schaefer, and Max Schaefer; creators of Torchlight.
• Second Dinner: Founded by Ben Brode, creators of Marvel Snap.
• Uncapped Games: Founded by David Kim and Jason Hughes.