Blizzard entertainment

The history of Blizzard Entertainment dates back to February 1991 , when Silicon & Synapse was founded. The founders were Mike Morhaime ( Eng. Mike Morhaime ), Allen Adam ( Eng. Allen Adham ), Frank Pierce ( Eng. Frank Pearce ). During BlizzCon 2016, Mike Morheim admitted that his grandmother helped him found the company, who lent his grandson 15 thousand dollars ^[5] .

The company released Rock N 'Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings with publisher Interplay Entertainment ). In 1994, the company changed its name to Chaos Studios , however, it soon became apparent that such a name was already taken, so the studio changed its name to Blizzard Entertainment . In the same year, the company was acquired by a distributor of Davidson & Associates , for $ 10 million. Some time later, Blizzard releases Warcraft: Orcs & Humans .

Then the owner of Blizzard changed several times: Davidson was acquired with Sierra On-Line by a company called CUC International in 1996; In 1997, CUC merged with Cendant Software , a hotel, real estate and car rental company ( HFS Corporation ). But in 1998, it was discovered that before the merger, CUC was involved in major financial frauds. Over the next six months, Cendant shares fell 80%. The company sold software development affiliates, including Blizzard, to the French publisher Havas . But in the same 1998, Havas was bought by Vivendi .

In 1996, Blizzard acquired Condor Games, the studio that worked on the Diablo game. The name was later changed to Blizzard North and since then, the studio has released a series of games : Diablo , Diablo II and the addition of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction . Blizzard North is located in San Mateo (California). On August 1, 2005, Blizzard Entertainment announced the closure of the Blizzard North division due to poor performance and, in particular, the slow development of the game Diablo III ^[6] .

With the release of the role-playing action game Diablo in January 1997, Blizzard launches the online gaming service Battle.net . In 2002, Blizzard acquired the rights to its three previous games, released by Silicon & Synapse and published by Interplay Entertainment, and then reissued them under Game Boy Advance . In 2004, Blizzard opened European offices in France , near Paris , which took responsibility for World of Warcraft gaming support in Europe . November 23, 2004 Blizzard releases the game World of Warcraft , which is quickly becoming popular. May 16, 2005 Blizzard acquires Swingin 'Ape Studios ^[7] , a console game developer who is starting work on StarCraft: Ghost . Later, the name changes to the Blizzard Console , and the studio focuses on the next-generation consoles, the release of StarCraft: Ghost is postponed indefinitely. On August 1, 2005, Blizzard announces the relocation of Blizzard North to its Irvine headquarters.

In December 2007, the combination of Activision and Blizzard Entertainment was announced ^[8] .

One of the largest successful projects of the company was the multiplayer game World of Warcraft , at the time of its maximum popularity with more than 12 million subscribers (2010), but over time the number of players began to decline (6.8 million in 2014) ^{[9] [10] [ 11]} .

In January 2008, at the 59th annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards festival, Blizzard was awarded for the creation of World Of Warcraft ^[12] . In April 2008, according to some estimates, World of Warcraft accounted for up to 62 percent of the entire audience of MMORPG players ^[13] . In June 2009, she was noted in the game edition of the Guinness Book of Records as the most popular MMORPG in the world ^[14] . In the third quarter of 2015, the number of subscribers to World of Warcraft amounted to 5.5 million users, and it was decreasing at that time (for example, in the second quarter there were 100 thousand more). The company at that time reported that it would no longer publish data on the number of users ^[15] .

In 2012, Blizzard had 4,700 employees located in 11 cities around the world with headquarters in Irvine (California, USA) ^[16] .

On October 3, 2018, President Mike Morheim left the company (while maintaining the position of an adviser to the company), and Allen Brack, executive producer of World of Warcraft , took his place ^[17] . It is reported that Morheim will finally leave the company in April 2019 ^[18] .

Over the years, some employees left Blizzard and started their own gaming companies:

• Flagship Studios ^[19] . The company went bankrupt and officially closed ^[20] .
• Runic Games is a company formed after the bankruptcy of Flagship Studios that developed the Torchlight dilogy.
• ArenaNet ^[21] , creator of Guild Wars .
• Ready At Dawn Studios ^[22] , creator of Daxter .
• Red 5 Studios ^[23] .
• Castaway Entertainment ^[24] .
• Hyboreal Games ^[25] .
• Nethera Studios ^[26] .
• Jimmy Vienneau ^[27] .
• Carbine Studios
• Super Evil Megacorp, creators of Vainglory, MOBA games for iOS and android.

The company's gaming service, launched in 1997 to support the company's games, such as the Diablo and StarCraft series. The service includes the functions of digital distribution and social platform . Battle.net was the first online gaming platform built directly into the games in which it is used, which was different from the approach of other companies using external interfaces.

Blizzard uses special software known as the Warden Client to detect third-party programs that are primarily used for cheating. Warden Client scans the list of processes, window names, and a small part of the code of running processes to determine the possible use of prohibited programs. This determination is made by hashing the scanned lines and comparing the results of the hash function with a hash list of known cheat programs. Blizzard is known to use the Warden Client in World of Warcraft .

Using the Warden Client, Blizzard ran into allegations of some privacy proponents. As Warden looks at running processes, it can also detect some private data, such as email addresses, account names in instant communication programs, and other confidential information. Human rights activists claim that Warden acts like a spyware. However, many World of Warcraft players note that only strings are compared, and no other information gets back to Blizzard; in addition, all players , agreeing to the license agreement and terms of use, agree to check their computer using the Warden Client, while World of Warcraft is running. Supporters of Warden argue that instead of being a spy, the program behaves more like an antivirus , only detects not viruses, but third-party cheat programs, thus helping to prevent fraud attempts within the game.

• Technical description of Warden (inaccessible link from 10-08-2013 [2197 days] - history , copy ) on the WOW! Sharp forums (forum of third-party software developers)
• World of Warcraft Terms of Use (see section 13.A)

On April 7, 2015, Blizzard suspended access to the accounts of the Battle.net game service for Crimean subscribers ^[28] . Letters arriving to Crimeans from the Blizzard Customer Service division read: “You received this letter because, due to current trade restrictions with regard to the Crimean region, we are forced to suspend access to your Battle.net account. All current subscriptions will be canceled. ”

No official statements were made in this regard, and the company support service, confirming the fact of blocking, refuses to comment on the situation.

All locks occurred and happen quietly, not in large numbers, but pointwise, most often after communicating with the support service, and some Crimean users still have not lost access to Blizzard products and services. The greatest resonance was the story of the lockout of Zoe Belevantseva’s account ^{[29] [30]} .

On March 29, 2016, a number of Ukrainian media reported that Blizzard Entertainment lifted sanctions and unblocked accounts and all games developed by Blizzard were again available to Crimeans ^[31] , but the information was not confirmed by Blizzard support or residents of the Crimean peninsula.

• Blizzard Entertainment Games List

• - official Blizzard Entertainment website
• Official site Battle.net