Episode 49 - Developer Spotlight - Blizzard-Activision

The boys are back to talk about another gaming giant that you may recognize, Blizzard-Activision. Whether you've been a fan since the Silicon and Synapse days, with your friends The Lost Vikings, or you're just now dipping your toes in with World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, Blizzard has probably touched your gaming life in more ways than you know. Give a listen and see how three UCLA grads created one of the greatest studios to grace this industry.

The boys are back to talk about another gaming giant that you may recognize, Blizzard-Activision. Whether you've been a fan since the Silicon and Synapse days, with your friends The Lost Vikings, or you're just now dipping your toes in with World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, Blizzard has probably touched your gaming life in more ways than you know.  Give a listen and see how three UCLA grads created one of the greatest studios to grace this industry.

Episode 49 - Blizzard Entertainment

Intro 

• Mark introduces with eConnXn mission statement

• Introduce regular hosts and any guest panelists/interviewees

• Introduce topics at hand

  • Founding

  • Growth Catalyst and Major Properties

  • Upcoming Growth

Topic 1 - Founding

• Founded in 1991 with Mike Morhaime, Allen Adham and Frank Pearce, originally as Silicon & Synapse

  • Silicon representative of basic structure of computers and synapse being the basic structure of the brain

    • Eventually changed to Chaos Studios because people didn’t know the difference between Silicon and Silicone

• Early games included such classic as Rock n’ Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings

  • Find them free on blizzard.com.

• After being contacted by Chaos Technologies, they were forced to change names again to avoid a $100,000 settlement.  Blizzard Entertainment was chosen by...flipping through a dictionary and asking legal

• First breakout hit was Warcraft: Orcs and Humans

Topic 2 - Growth Catalysts and Major Properties

• Battle.net was a major game changer with the release of Diablo and Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness.  These laid the framework for a major eSports success with a sci-fi themed RTS that we all know and love, Starcraft

  • Originally two studios, consolidation in Irvine after acquisition by Vivendi

• Starcraft: Ghost was preparing to be a major game changer when development was cancelled due to extended development cycles that fell as console generations were changing.  It was ultimately scrapped.

• In November 2004, Blizzard released World of Warcraft, what would ultimately be the major contributor to the success of Blizzard

  • So popular that it warranted the creation of BlizzCon in 2005!

• WoW gained the attention of Bobby Kotick of Activision in 2006 which led to the Blizzard-Activision that we have today

  • With the extra assets provided by Activision to Blizzard, now Blizzard-Activision, new properties and extensions of properties entered the fold including

    • Starcraft II in 2010

    • Hearthstone in 2014

    • Heroes of the Storm in 2015

    • Overwatch in 2016

    • A myriad of remasters in all of their earliest franchises

    • Sequels to Overwatch and Diablo at a TBD time

Topic 3 - Upcoming Growth Strategies

• Warzone has changed the way free to play games works and that structure is bleeding over into traditional Blizzard games

  • Speculatively…

    • Diablo

      • Diablo Immortal on Mobile (Confirmed)

      • Diablo IV Premium (Confirmed)

      • Diablo F2P

    • Overwatch

      • Overwatch GO

      • Overwatch 2 Premium (Confirmed)

      • Overwatch 1 F2P

    • Warcraft

      • World of Warcraft (Confirmed)

      • Warcraft Heroes F2P

      • Warcraft RTS on Mobile a la Clash of Clans

Outro

• Recap Headlines

  • Founding

  • Growth Catalysts and Major Properties

  • Upcoming Growth Strategies

• Mark delivers an encouraging and uplifting speech about loving your fellow gamer

Referenced Materials

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/77805/diablo-warcraft-and-overwatch-to-get-their-own-warzone-ecosystems/index.html