Blizzard Entertainment’s Road To Success

One of the most popular MMO titles around is Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. However, the path Blizzard – and other producer of online games – had to tread was not easy. When internet became widely used in 1992, going into the virgin market for playing games on the internet was too big a risk to take.

Sierra Network (later renamed ImagiNation Network) paved the way for online gaming. Although with the big hourly pay (which came to almost $6 at one point), Sierra failed to stay in the market. At the time it closed though, some online gaming companies are beginning to flourish. Silicon & Synapse was a good example. Founded in 1991, Silicon & Synapse made a living by producing console and second-rate DOS games.

In 1993, Silicon & Synapse President Allen Adhem met with Condor Entertainment co-founder Dave Brevik when both companies found out they were working on the same title – DC’s Justice League – for Sega Genesis (Condor) and Super Nintendo NES (Silicon & Synapse). On this meeting, Adham showed Brevik the first installment of what was to become one of the best-selling videogame franchise of all time, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. Brevik loved the game and Condor became the beta tester for the RTS game. And the rest of the Warcraft story, as they say, was history.

Silicon & Valley – rechristened Blizzard Entertainment in 1994 – took its partnership with Condor a notch higher when they acquired Condor and renamed it Blizzard North.

Blizzard went on to produce more well-known MMORPG such as StarCraft and Diablo. All the success is not born out of sheer luck. All of them came from a vision of a game, mixed with really creative, talented people, and – as Mark Kern, former team leader for World of Warcraft, adds – the ‘Secret Sauce’.

Read more on how Blizzard achieved its “Star Power” by clicking on the ‘Read’ link below.

One of the most popular MMO titles around is Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. However, the path Blizzard – and other producer of online games – had to tread was not easy. When internet became widely used in 1992, going into the virgin market for playing games on the internet was too big a risk to take.

Sierra Network (later renamed ImagiNation Network) paved the way for online gaming. Although with the big hourly pay (which came to almost $6 at one point), Sierra failed to stay in the market. At the time it closed though, some online gaming companies are beginning to flourish. Silicon & Synapse was a good example. Founded in 1991, Silicon & Synapse made a living by producing console and second-rate DOS games.

In 1993, Silicon & Synapse President Allen Adhem met with Condor Entertainment co-founder Dave Brevik when both companies found out they were working on the same title – DC’s Justice League – for Sega Genesis (Condor) and Super Nintendo NES (Silicon & Synapse). On this meeting, Adham showed Brevik the first installment of what was to become one of the best-selling videogame franchise of all time, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans. Brevik loved the game and Condor became the beta tester for the RTS game. And the rest of the Warcraft story, as they say, was history.

Silicon & Valley – rechristened Blizzard Entertainment in 1994 – took its partnership with Condor a notch higher when they acquired Condor and renamed it Blizzard North.

Blizzard went on to produce more well-known MMORPG such as StarCraft and Diablo. All the success is not born out of sheer luck. All of them came from a vision of a game, mixed with really creative, talented people, and – as Mark Kern, former team leader for World of Warcraft, adds – the ‘Secret Sauce’.

Read more on how Blizzard achieved its “Star Power” by clicking on the ‘Read’ link below.