Blizzard Entertainment Inc.

Moby ID: 21

History add

April 10, 2024: Company renews contract with NetEase in a deal struck by Microsoft's gaming arm.
January 23, 2023: Company loses presence in mainland China after the NetEase contract expiry.
November 17, 2022: Company fails to negotiate a contract renewal with NetEase over game publishing in China.
September 22, 2022: Company announces the acquisition of Proletariat.
August 15, 2013: The open beta of the Battle.net application is launched.
April 16, 2009: The handling of World of WarCraft for the Chinese market is agreed to be transferred from The9 Limited to NetEase.
March 20, 2009: Company unveils Battle.net 2.0, an overhauled version of their multiplayer infrastructure.
December 24, 2008: Opened Russian section on official corporate website.
August 12, 2008: Company strikes deal with NetEase for publishing and distribution of Blizzard games into mainland China after the previous contract with The9 Limited expires.
December 2, 2007: When Activision Publishing, Inc. announces to merge with Vivendi Games, Blizzard Entertainment Inc. becomes part of the new company: Activision Blizzard.
October 28, 2005: The first BlizzCon is organized.
September 2, 2005: A federal appeals court rules that computer programmers do not have the right to reverse-engineer Blizzard Entertainment's video games to improve their playability. This is aimed at the defendants in the case, Ross Combs and Rob Crittenden, and their "bnetd" project, which lets Blizzard games connect with unofficial servers, yielding benefits like faster response times.
August 1, 2005: The company closes its Redwood City development studio in Northern California. The majority of the staff is relocated to the company's Irvine office.
May 16, 2005: The company acquires Swingin' Ape Studios. Swingin' Ape will establish the foundation for Blizzard's new console team and will continue development on StarCraft: Ghost in that role.
March 9, 2005: Dustin Browder (former game design director at EA Los Angeles) joins the company as a senior designer.
February 2004: Blizzard opens a new office in France, especially aimed at the localization and management of World of Warcraft in Europe.
January 2004: Senior artist Ru Weerasuriya and senior software engineer Andrea Pessino leave the company to form Ready for Dawn Studios with Didier Malenfant.
January 2004: Co-founder Allen Adham, who had the position of Vice President of Game Design for the last few years, leaves the company. He will stay on in a consulting role.
June 20, 2003: The company obtains a cease and desist order against an open source clone of the Warcraft II engine called Freecraft. This hobby project had the same gameplay and characters as Warcraft II, but came with different graphics and music, and was written from scratch without code from Blizzard.
1998: Cendant Software sold its consumer software operations, including Blizzard, to French publisher Havas. In the same year Havas was purchased by Vivendi. Blizzard became part of the VU Games group of Vivendi Universal
1997: CUC International (owner of Blizzard) merged with HFS Corporation to form Cendant Software.
November 1996: The free online service Battle.net is launched to support multiplayer gaming for Diablo.
October 5, 1996: Beta testing applications are opened for the then-upcoming Battle.net multiplayer service.
March 1996: Company acquires Condor, Inc., renaming it Blizzard North.
1996: Davidson & Associates (and Blizzard along with it) was acquired by a timeshare company called CUC International.
1994: Acquired by Davidson & Associates for under $10 million.
1994: The company title Blizzard is established, and their first title under the new name, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans is released.
February 1991: Company founded as Silicon & Synapse by chairman Allen Adham, president Michael Morhaime and vice president Frank Pearce.