Wikia

Blizzard Entertainment

Main leader	Michael Morhaime (president and co-founder), Frank Pearce (vice president and co-founder)
Secondary leaders	Rob Pardo (vice president), Chris Metzen (vice president of Creative Development), Shahram Dabiri (producer on World of Warcraft), Jeffrey Kaplan (lead designer on World of Warcraft)
Race(s)	Draenei, Dwarves, Gnomes, Humans, Night Elves, Blood Elves, Orcs, Tauren, Trolls, Undead
Capital	Irvine, California
Main language	Common/English
Secondary languages	Korean, Chinese, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese (in development)
Theater of operations	Quality RTS and RPG video games

Blizzard Entertainment is the company that brought you the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo franchises of gaming software. Besides the general list of products below, this article contains links to websites dedicated to Blizzard's specific products and the company in general, if you choose to look for more in-depth information on them.

On December 2, 2007, Vivendi (Blizzard Entertainment's previous parent company) announced that their subsidiary Vivendi Games (of which Blizzard Entertainment was one of the divisions) would be merging with Activision to form Activision Blizzard.^[1] This merger will not affect Blizzard Entertainment's operations. This deal was finalized on July 8, 2008.^[2]

Published games

Warcraft universe

Main article: Warcraft Universe
Computer games

Other games

Related pen-and-paper RPG materials
Warcraft: The Board Game
- World of Warcraft: The Board Game
World of Warcraft: Trading Card Game

StarCraft universe

StarCraft
StarCraft: Brood War
Related novels by PocketBooks
StarCraft II

Diablo universe

Diablo
Diablo II
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
Diablo III
Related novels by PocketBooks

Others

Canceled games

Warcraft Adventures

Indefinitely postponed games

StarCraft: Ghost ^[3]

Confirmed upcoming projects

Other additional World of Warcraft expansions
StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void

Rumored games

Note: Blizzard has confirmed that they are NOT working on a StarCraft or Diablo MMORPG.^[4]

Warcraft IV would be another epic whose plot remains unknown.
Future MMORPG ("Titan?").
- "When we announce our next MMORPG it's not going to be another WoW - we're not a company that tends to tread the same ground. It'll be something innovative and new that really brings entertainment to another level." ^[5]

Employees

This section concerns content that is out-of-date. Reason: A few people below may be former employees.

Notable

Tom Chilton
Samwise Didier
Drawgoon (Peter Lee)
Mark Gibbons
Chris Metzen
Fargo (Dave Kosak)
Mumper (Cory Stockton)
Ghostcrawler (Greg Street)
Michael Morhaime
Frank Pearce
Raneman (Glenn Rane)
Travis Thammer
Twincruiser (René Koiter and Michel Koiter)

Organizations

Previous employees

Bill Roper

Influence of Activision and Vivendi

Prior to the Activision Blizzard merger, Vivendi took an almost complete hands off approach to Blizzard, but as soon as the merger happened it was clear that Blizzard had little influence at the top levels of the combined company.^[6]^[7] The senior corporate management consists of 7 former Activision executives plus Mike Morhaime of Blizzard and one outsider (not from Vivendi either). Former CEO of Activision, Robert Kotick, is the CEO of the new combined company.</ref> So, although Blizzard had not really been an independent company since their purchase by Viviendi, the management result of the combined company was effectively a corporate takeover by Activision with oversight by Vivendi.^[7] One of their current directors also appears to look at Blizzard as more of a resource for Activision.^[8]

References

^ ACTIVISION BLIZZARD 2007-12-02. VIVENDI AND ACTIVISION TO CREATE ACTIVISION BLIZZARD – World’s Largest, Most Profitable Pure-Play Video Game Publisher. Archived from the original on 2007-12-02.
^ Rob Purchese 2008-06-30. Blizzard Worldwide Invitational. Eurogamer. Retrieved on 2011-07-29.
^ by Rainier 2006-03-25. 'StarCraft: Ghost' (PS2/Xbox) Cancelled But Goes Next-Gen. Worth Playing.
^ Tor Thorsen 2006-06-14. Blizzard freezes non-WOW MMOG rumors.
^ World of Warcraft: It’s the most addictive game in history and one of the developers tells Empire why.. Empire online. Retrieved on 2011-07-29.
^ Board of Directors. Activision Blizzard. Retrieved on 2011-07-29. The board of directors has literally no former Blizzard Entertainment employees, while 6 of the total of 11 directors are from Vivendi or its other subsidiaries. The 5 other directors are all former Activision executives.
^ ^a ^b Senior Corporate Management. Activision Blizzard. Retrieved on 2011-07-29.
^ Ben Parfitt 2008-07-17. INTERVIEW - Thomas Tippl.
How much autonomy is Blizzard going to retain – and is there scope to use Activison and Vivendi’s licences within that division?

Blizzard has established the most successful business in all of video games. It’s not like we need to go there and fix something. Blizzard will continue to operate as they have done in the past – fairly independently.

They have a top notch management and development team and we have a very high degree of confidence that they know how to run the business and a track record to prove it. In addition, they have an extraordinarily strong product pipeline, with Starcraft, Wrath of the Litch King and Diablo 3.

It’s tremendous, and it would be a big mistake for us to distract them with new ideas. But there are some opportunities we will be exploring, especially relating to their expertise in Asia. If you consider that Guitar Hero is not in Asia yet and that the only way to create a business there is figuring out ways to work in internet cafes, etc., we hope to benefit from their expertise.

Tippl is supposed to be answering a question about the autonomy of Blizzard within Activision Blizzard, but seems only to see how Blizzard's experience in Asia can help one of Activision's major titles. It also isn't clear what "fairly independently" means.