Blizzard Arcade Collection Introduction:
Blizzard Entertainment, headquartered in Irvine, California, is a prominent American video game developer and publisher. It was established in February 1991 under the name Silicon & Synapse by co-founders Michael Morhaime, Frank Pearce, and Allen Adham. Initially, the company focused on adapting games from other studios to computer platforms, such as their work on RPM Racing (1991), a reimagining of Racing Destruction Set (1985).
However, in 1992, Blizzard shifted its direction by creating original games for home consoles, exemplified by The Lost Vikings (1992) and Rock n' Roll Racing (1993). This trend continued with the release of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994), marking the company's transition to primarily developing original computer games. The rebranding to Blizzard Entertainment occurred in 1994, and a significant move took place in 1996 when Condor, a company working on Diablo (1997), merged with Blizzard and was renamed Blizzard North. Although it functioned as a distinct entity until 2005, Blizzard North eventually closed its doors.
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In 1994, Blizzard was acquired by Davidson & Associates, and subsequent acquisitions led to its integration into Vivendi Games, a subsidiary of Vivendi, over the following four years. The merger between Vivendi Games and Activision in 2008 resulted in the formation of Activision Blizzard, a name that persisted when Activision Blizzard became an independent company in 2013. Throughout these changes, Blizzard remained an autonomous subsidiary.
From the late 1990s onwards, Blizzard's focus has been predominantly on developing the Warcraft, Diablo, StarCraft, and Overwatch franchises. Notably, all games released by Blizzard since 2004 continue to receive expansions and updates. Particularly noteworthy is the enduring success of World of Warcraft (2004), a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that boasts over 100 million lifetime accounts as of 2014 and generated a remarkable $9 billion in revenue by 2017. This achievement firmly establishes World of Warcraft as one of the highest-selling computer games and most lucrative video game ventures of all time.
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Since its inception in 1991, Blizzard Entertainment has crafted a total of 19 games, alongside working on 8 ports between 1992 and 1993. Out of these titles, 11 belong to the esteemed Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft series.
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