There have been many great PC game makers in our era but none of them have come close to the man behind World of Warcraft. Mike Morhaime, the founder of Blizzard Entertainment (originally called Silicone and Synapse), was born in 1967 and by 1991, at the age of 24, he had co-founded the company.He is a member of an alumnus called the Triangle Fraternity which is a social fraternity that limits its member to those of engineering, architecture, and physical, mathematical, biological, and computer sciences.
In July of 2008, he became the CEO of Activision Blizzard along with Vivendi Games and stuck with the role until 1998 when he became President of Blizzard Entertainment. He rocked on as a bassist in a band called “Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftan” along with some other Blizzard employees. He also wrote an introduction to a video game he worked on called “StarCraft”.
The company that set the future of PC gaming
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Dynamic duo
In 1991, the company Blizzard Entertainment was started and got off to a great start. This would set a trail to the game “Warcraft”, along with adaptations of the game that would eventually lead to a movie in 2016. “Warcraft” revolves around five core games: “Warcraft: Orcs and Humans”, “Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness”, “Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos”, “World of Warcraft”, and “Hearthstone”.
.All of the games revolve around the fantasy world of Azeroth and it focuses on the war between the humans nations that made up the Eastern Kingdoms and the Orcish Horde. The movie adaptation focuses on the areas in the game “Warcraft” and it articulates the interactions between the humans and the orcs. It was released in Paris on May 24th, 2016 and was then released by “Universal Studios” on June 10th,2016.
Warcraft 2016 trailer
On November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft was created (after about four to five years of production) and it took the world by storm. The open world along with its epic storyline, allowed players to adventure in a vast fantasy world, the first of its kind, and brought gamers from all over the world together. Another Blizzard title that is big is Diablo 3, released by Blizzard in 2012.
Diablo 3 passed a milestone of 30 million copies sold and is in tenth place on a list of the bestselling video games ever.Diablo 3 was made for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox one. So was the expansion of “Diablo 3, Reaper of Souls”.
When combined together they will have made an “Ultimate Evil” edition. “Overwatch” is the eighth game made by Blizzard that has made over 1 billion dollars in revenue and is the fastest growing franchise from the company. A financial report stated, “Blizzard had record first‐quarter time spent [per player], up a double‐digit percentage year‐over‐year.”Another fact about “Overwatch” is that in a game update on April 28th, 2017, the game has surpassed a milestone by having 30 million registered players!
The Profitability of Blizzard’s Games Has Contributed to Mike’s Wealth
While most humans were dawdling and focusing on pointless subjects, Mike was developing the game we would come to love and cherish, World of Warcraft. In a September 2008 conference call, it was revealed that over four years of work “World of Warcraft” cost over 200 million dollars to make. In 2015, when the game was at its highest peak in population (aka WoW subscribers), the gross revenue to Blizzard was about $1.3 billion dollars.
World of Warcraft, having been in the market for over 10 years, had come in first place in sales. World of Warcraft has generated over $3 billion dollars for Blizzard over its lifetime while Hearthstone generates $20 million per month in revenues and Overwatch generating over $585 million in revenue in 2016 alone. Activision blizzard posted by revenue of$1.57 billion in just Q3 of 2016.
