blizzard entertainment ** an american video game developer and publ**her headquartered in irvine,california.[1]it ** a div**ion of activ**ion blizzard.blizzard ** the creator of several successful computer games,including world of warcraft and the warcraft,starcraft,and diablo series.
h**tory
blizzard entertainment was founded by michael morhaime,ayman allen adham and frank pearce as silicon&synapse in february 1991,a year after[3]all three had received their bachelor's degrees from ucla.[4][3]in the early days the company focused on creating game ports for other studios.ports include titles such as j.r.r.tolkien's the lord of the rings,vol.i and battle chess ii:chinese chess.[5][6]in 1993,the company developed games like rock n' roll racing and the lost vikings(publ**hed by interplay productions).in 1994,the company briefly changed its name to chaos studios,before finally settling on blizzard entertainment after it was d**covered that another company with the chaos name already ex**ted.that same year,they were acquired by d**tributor d**idson&associates for under$10 million.shortly thereafter,blizzard shipped their breakthrough hit warcraft:orcs and humans.
blizzard has changed hands several times since then:d**idson was acquired along with sierra on-line by a company called cuc international in 1996;cuc then merged with a hotel,real-estate,and car-rental franch**er called hfs corporation to form cendant in 1997.in 1998 it became apparent that cuc had engaged in accounting fraud for years before the merger;cendant's stock lost 80%of its value over the next six months in the ensuing widely d**cussed accounting scandal.the company sold its consumer software operations,sierra on-line which included blizzard,to french publ**her h**as in 1998,the same year h**as was purchased by vivendi.blizzard was part of the vivendi games group of vivendi.in july 2008 vivendi games merged with activ**ion,using blizzard's name in the resulting company,activ**ion blizzard.
in 1996,blizzard acquired condor games,which had been wo**ng on the game diablo for blizzard at the time.condor was renamed blizzard north,and has since developed hit games diablo,diablo ii,and its expansion pack diablo ii:lord of destruction.blizzard north was located in san mateo,california.
blizzard launched their online gaming service battle.net in january 1997 with the release of their action-rpg diablo. in 2002,blizzard was able to reacquire rights for three of its earlier silicon&synapse titles from interplay entertainment and re-release them under game boy advance.[7]in 2004,blizzard opened european offices in the par** suburb of vélizy,yvelines,france,responsible for the european in-game support of world of warcraft.on november 23,2004,blizzard released world of warcraft,its mmorpg offering.on may 16,2005,blizzard announced the acqu**ition of swingin' ape studios,a console game developer which had been developing starcraft:ghost.the company was then merged into blizzard's other teams after starcraft:ghost was 'postponed indefinitely'.on august 1,2005,blizzard announced the consolidation of blizzard north into the headquarters at 131 theory in uc irvine's university research park in irvine,california.
in 2008,blizzard was honored at the 59th annual technology&engineering emmy awards for the creation of world of warcraft.mike morhaime accepted the award.
补充答案：
so th** ** marginally on topic,but i saw th** on/.today.th** ** some kind of business porn bull** from some local orange county ** containing a bunch of platitudes about blizzard's success with world of warcraft.frankly,th** article could h**e been written about any arbitrary product,and ** 50%bull**.so i want to offer my 11 counterpoints on why wow ** such a hit.
1.quality of people matters.
blizzard hires quality people and generally pays them commensurate with their value.th** might seem like it belongs in the source article,but in the games world,th** ** actually rare.
2.innovation ** bunk.
i love wow,and i know the market,unlike the douche who writes for ocreg**ter.yes,blizzard makes exponential-ambient-ass-loads of money off wow.however,and i h**e said th** since the day the game shipped-there ** not a single iota of innovation anywhere in wow.it ** an identical,if not limiting mechanical structure for a game relative to what other people had put out.in fact,the success of wow might actually h**e a globally chilling effect on the mmog market for the next decade.th**,however,leads in to the next few points:
3.fuck your product.know,use,and love your competition.
dogfooding ** a common practice in all software businesses.where you will really win ** understanding why people love other products.without naming any names here,a great example ** netbeans.i know sun does all their internal development with netbeans.they eat their own dogfood.what does th** tell them?a good bit,really.however,it omits the knowledge of why people who use them like eclipse or love intellij idea.you should h**e on your staff people who adore your compe**s products,and use them all the time.th** tells you not just where you can improve your product for the people who drank your kool-aid,but how you can win in the marketplace.wow has almost no aspects to its gameplay that everquest didn't pioneer.all wow **,in essence,** eq with the crap that annoyed people fixed.sony went wrong by actually trying to innovate(see#2)with eq ii,and that **(part of)why wow ate their lunch.
4.expand a market by doing better.
i see th** all the time.great example:mapquest.mapquest was a verb for a lot of people the same way"google"** a verb.however,google maps came out and redefine the space.you can argue that google maps was innovative,but it wasn't"cotton gin"innovative.it was maybe"fluorescent light"innovative at best.they took an establ**hed market that they knew was big,and expanded it by pwning on the little things of the ui.wow,in much the same way,came into a huge mmog market,and expanded it by not shipping a ** product.
5.it ** done when it ** done.
th** has been a hallmark of both blizzard and id software for years.i think neither company has made a ship date in two decades,but when they ship a product it **-not just reasonably bug free-but tweaked.for a game company th** mean the mechanics are exceedingly well balanced.buffs and nerfs aside,it ** clear to most people that wow,and the whole*craft brand,ships with an incredibly well balance gameplay for all the roles and classes when the game ships.let me restate th** point with another axiom:it matters less if it works 100%,than if it provides the utility the customer expects.
note:please don't confuse th** with"demand excellence."if you are a manager and(a)you can't describe excellence when you see it or(b)don't use the compe**s products(see above),then your"demand"** just so much posturing.
6.personality matters,and that **n't from a committee.
wow,like many blizzard products,has a whole lot of character.whether th** ** the ghostbusters jokes in the mage quests of wow or the numerous scifi classics references in starcraft,the products reflect the love of the developers for genre products.th** can't be designed by a marketing group.you need writers and developers who honest-to-god connect with the market.there was a chat at j**a posse roundup with joe about ui design and"how does th** software make you feel."i brought up wow and games in general,because th** ** one of the few areas in the industry where th** **n't just a consideration,but the whole game plan(pun intended).the best way to establ**h brand loyalty ** to make users feel connected with the people who develop the product.oh,btw.
7.brand ** incredibly important.
for all the talk in the business section about ea,activ**ion,or(blizzard parent and activ**ion merger target)vivendi,gamers know they are **.who cares about the shovelware churn factories?sure,you might buy madden whatever or nhlxx[xx],but in the end,you don't care about these companies.yet another fifa title doesn't matter nearly as much as starcraft 2,spore,or even rainbow 6 las vegas 2.pumping out products with marginal difference to collect your$60 and pass go again can make you a lot of money,but it won't earn you brand loyalty.however,when*blizzard*the people who made both diablo(huge in the us)and starcraft(huge in the us but an absolute runnaway in asia)say they are making an mmog,assuming it matched 1.6 here,it will bury lineage in asia and the whole soe portfolio in the us.speaking of soe.
8.customer support matters.
your product has bugs.your product will get hacked.thequestion **,what happens when th** happens?if your customer support experience has 1 bad outcome in 10,it will be all over the internet.moreover,if you h**e long term users,like many mmogs do,if a customer needs help once a year,after 3 years a third of your user base hates your ever-loving guts.seriously,ask anybody who played a sony online game.
9.control expectations.
if you h**e a non-user determin**tic software product(google search)you can talk about six-sigma uptime.otherw**e,if you h**e a product where the operational mechanics are critical(mmog,banking,**ps)you will h**e downtime.be upfront with the customers.schedule outages fairly and tell your operations team to actually post to the network status page on your web site.while you deal with a lot of retards,if you h**e a status page and it shows you know and are making a good college try to deal with a problem,you will s**e yourself hundreds,if not thousands of contacts to customer support,and that will drive up your value in#8.
10.operations ** a competitive advantage.
techops ** critical and has to be part of the development process.one of the reasons"patch day"(see#9)**n't as bad for wow as[insert other preceeding mmog here]** because they adopted bittorrent for patch d**tribution.if you don't h**e your head firmly up your ass,you understand that bittorrent increases burst network ...