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Cost of Blizzard staff, development hits Vivendi expenses

March 4th, 2008, 5:20 pm by

Blizzard is still turning high profits on World of Warcraft for parent company Vivendi, but the latest revenues statement shows Blizzard is paying more right now to keep its current employees and to develop the Wrath of the Lich King and StarCraft II.

In Vivendi’s 2007 earnings released, Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy says that the company’s expenses increased because of Blizzard.

Levy said that Blizzard’s “higher compensation costs related to retention plans and by the current development of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and of StarCraft II” meant higher expenses for the company. No specific figures for Blizzard’s expenses were given.

After leaving Blizzard, some workers went on on to create their own gaming companies — including Carbine Studios and Red 5 Studios, both in Orange County.

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • WoW • • • • • • • • | Comments Off

Ezra update: Still recovering, playing World of Warcraft

February 29th, 2008, 10:15 am by

**See Latest UPDATES below in links area **

**UPDATE: June 15, 2008: Warcraft fan’s cancer spreads but family remains upbeat **

Eleven-year-old Ezra Chatterton (or to WoW players, ePhoenix) became famous last spring after the Make A Wish Foundation offered to grant his wish to design characters for his favorite game, the World of Warcraft.

The Riverside fifth-grader was diagnosed with a metastatic brain cancer and his father, Micah, wrote to update us on his condition which is improving but still plagued by cancer.

The good news is that Ezra’s most recent MRI results surprised his doctors and Micah with 98 percent shrinkage of the primary brain tumor and similar reduction in the other smaller metastases in his brain and spine. Also, Micah says that Ezra has glasses, his first pair, that offset the damage to his optic nerve. That, Micah says, means that Ezra has been able to “get back to reading and playing WOW (rather than ordering me to go there, kill that, farm those, etc.),” along with watching Lakers games.

Ezra’s Old Rancher character for World of Warcraft

Still, Ezra is back in the hospital. Micah says it’s for an infection that he hopes is something mild. Also, Ezra is still undergoing chemotherapy — treatment that every day has a new effect, whether its chronic nosebleeds, nausea, seizure activity in his brain, or just plain exhaustion.

Micah says that, “During the darker days of a chemotherapy round, it’s difficult to see how far his recovery has actually come. The treatment has also left him open to various infections I’d never heard of, like pancreatitis, which are a nightmare.”

The treatment, Micah says, is a long, slow battle and Micah is still a long way away from going back to school. Still, Micah took the time to thank others for support during Ezra’s journey:

“I’d like to take this opportunity again to thank everyone who has responded to Ezra’s story, both in the World of Warcraft community and out of it, as well as those who have kept us in their thoughts and prayers. Your good will has been a miraculous comfort to us. I believe in my heart that all of you have had a hand in Ezra’s recovery, miraculous as it is to this point. Thank you so much for all the love you’ve shown us. It would have been so much more difficult for Ezra to get through this disease without you.”

The Ezra Chatterton archive:
**Update** Ezra Chatterton passed away on Oct. 20, 2008. Read his father’s tribute HERE.

* Aug. 21, 2008: Ezra Update: WoW fan with cancer suffers stroke
* June 15, 2008:  WoW fan’s cancer spreads but family remains upbeat
*Feb. 29, 2008: Ezra update: Still recovering, playing World of Warcraft
* Sept. 28, 2007: Ezra Update: Warcraft fan has ups and downs
* July 18, 2007: Ezra update: Warcraft fan with cancer turns 11
* June 13, 2007: UPDATE: Condition of Warcraft fan with cancer improves
* May 31, 2007, Big screen for Ezra?
* May 25, 2007: Fund for Warcraft fan with cancer set up
* May 23, 2007: Gamers show their support for Ezra
* May 22, 2007: Images of Ezra’s WoW creations, thanks to Blizzard developers
* May 22, 2007: The original story and slideshow:Blizzard makes WoW wish virtual

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • WoW • • • • • | 10 Comments »

World of Warcraft $75,000 contest starts in April

February 15th, 2008, 12:31 pm by

Many World of Warcraft players would dream of being able to just sit around and play the game for a whole year. A life free of strifearenatourney from a job with only worries of how to finish quests and level up.

That’s a possibility if a player is good enough at WoW, with a new tournament announced today. The grand prize is $75,000 – which just also happens to be just over the $73,895 average Orange County household income.

The Irvine company, Blizzard Entertainment, unveiled today plans for a new type of tournament competition using the in-game Arena System. Tournaments will take place in special realms that allow competitors to instantly create level-70 characters with epic equipment, placing the focus on tactics and execution rather than normal adventuring. “We’re pleased to expand World of Warcraft’s tournament options for players who want to focus mainly on the competitive aspect of the game,”said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment.

According to Blizzard:

  • The tournaments are scheduled to start in April with two rounds of online qualifiers in Europe, South Korea, North America, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
  • Each qualifier round will have a per-competitor entry fee — €15/£12 in Europe; 20,000 won in South Korea; $20 in North America; and NT$450 in the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau — and will run for six weeks. During this time, teams will play 3-vs.-3 matches on the tournament realm in their region, with the top four teams from each round advancing to the regional finals to compete for more than $27,000 in cash prizes.
  • Winners from each region will then be invited to a global championship event to compete for $120,000 in cash prizes, including a $75,000 grand prize.

The site is not yet set up so you can’t register yet. But, you can watch this Blizzard page for more details as made available.

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • WoW • • • • • • | 2 Comments »

Revenues for Irvine’s Blizzard grew 58 percent year-over-year

January 31st, 2008, 5:17 pm by

burningcrusadeWorld of Warcraft added two million subscribers in 2007, helping the game reach the milestone of 10 million subscribers and also contributing to an 8 percent year-over-year revenue growth for parent company Vivendi.

This is interesting for two reasons. First, World of Warcraft was released Nov. 23, 2004, meaning 20 percent of its users joined in the game’s third year (during which the Burning Crusade expansion pack, at left, was released). Second, Blizzard was the only driving force in the revenue increase for Vivendi’s gaming division in 2007.

According to 2007 revenue information released by Vivendi this afternoon, the company’s 2007 revenues totaled $32 billion, with net income of $4.1 billion.

The Vivendi Games division that includes World of Warcraft developer Blizzard Entertainment reported $1.5 billion in revenues last year and Blizzard’s share of that gaming revenue was $1.2 billion.

The Vivendi earnings report says Blizzard’s revenues grew 58 percent year over year, while the revenues for the rest of the Vivendi gaming division (Sierra Entertainment, Sierra Online and Vivendi Games Mobile) decreased by 29 percent.

In early December gaming giant Activision announced a merger with Blizzard’s parent company Vivendi to be called Activision-Blizzard. According to Activision, its 2007 earnings will be announced Feb. 7.

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Ron Paul WoW marchers document experience

January 2nd, 2008, 2:25 pm by

wowrallyElves, druids, orcs and more gathered and marched from inside the World of Warcraft for a Ron Paul New Year’s Day rally and then documented the event in blogs, forums and videos.

The political event in Azeroth was organized by Ron Paul supporters on a discussion forum and revolution.ist Web site. Paul devotees staged the rally on the Whisperwind server and led about 300 characters on a mostly single-file line march from Ironforge to StormWind to Westfall through Booty Bay to Rachet then to the Barrens and finally the Cross roads for a dance — despite some spamming, spit and snowballs from anti-Ron Paul protesters present.

Read our stories leading up to the march.

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Flash video.

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • WoW • • • • • | 6 Comments »

Blizzard CEO honored for gaming work

December 12th, 2007, 11:25 am by

Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime (on the right in the photo) has been honored as the 11th inductee in the Hall of Fame by the Academy ofBlizzardfounders Interactive Arts & Sciences.

The academy said Morhaime was selected “for his role in expanding the MMOG audience beyond the hardcore.” He will receive the award Feb. 7 in Las Vegas:

“The success that Blizzard Entertainment has had over the years would not have been possible without the enthusiasm and support of players around the world, and the passion and dedication of our employees, so I thank all of them for contributing to this achievement,” said Morhaime in a statement.

Other Hall of Famers include Trip Hawkins, Peter Molyneux, Yu Suzuki, Will Wright, John Carmack, Hironobu Sakaguchi , Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto, Richard Garriott and Danielle Bunten Berry.

This is Blizzard’s biggest nod from the academy, which previously gave the game company one award in 2005 for “Massively Multiplayer/Persistent World Game of the Year.” That same year, Half-Life 2 was given three awards in categories that included World of Warcraft as a nominee.

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • WoW • • • • • • | 2 Comments »

WoW listed as most-played PC game

December 12th, 2007, 6:38 am by

WoWearthWorld of Warcraft looks to be turning more and more people into druids, elves and warlocks as Nielsen Company named it the No. 1 PC game title in the U.S. between April and November. The report released Tuesday looked at “the most popular trends among Americans.”

According to the report, WoW players spent an average of just over 17 hours per week — roughly 2.5 hours per night — playing the game from Irvine-based Blizzard Entertainment. That would mean that WoW gamers spend an average 10% of their time in the mythical land of Azeroth. Some people are obviously spending more well over three hours nightly.

Looking at the number of minutes played per week, the next game on the list is another MMOG, RuneScape from England’s Jagex. Fans of that game played it about 11.5 hours on average every week.

Nielson ranked their list by the percent of PC gamers who played each game in the “average minute.” Almost one out of every 100 computer gamers (.79 percent) play WoW in the average minute — more than four times the .18 share scored by the second most popular game, Electronic Arts’ The Sims.

The other top PC gaming titles: Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Counter-Strike, The Sims 2, Madden NFL ’07, Grand Theft Auto and Counter-Strike: Source.

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • WoW • • • • • | 3 Comments »

Build your own Dell Warcraft package, save $1,576

December 5th, 2007, 2:45 pm by

Dell-WoW1

Remember Dell’s hint last week that something big was coming? Well, the “legendary” partnership between Irvine’s Blizzard the computer company was announced this week.

For a mere $4,499 one can buy a World of Warcraft XPS M1730 gaming laptop computer. It’ll even let you choose between Alliance and Horde versions.

So what if you want to try and save money by not buying the specific Dell version? Here is the DIY-option:

TOTAL: $2933.87.

Having your wealthy grandparents buy you the Dell WoW computer? Priceless.

Not available to include in the package above:

  • World of Warcraft Beta Club Key Card with a key to future World of Warcraft beta tests.
  • Exclusive desktop background artwork and screensavers (but I’m sure friends could share or find these “exclusive” features).
  • Backpack and additional loot such as Honor Badges, a behind the scenes DVD, soundtrack, Warcraft novels, strategy guides, trading cards. (Price depends on what all is included).

Tell us in the comments below, is the new WoWed Dell worth it? Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • Computers • WoW • • • | Comments Off

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