Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American
video game developer and
publisher founded February 8, 1991, under the name
Silicon & Synapse by three graduates of the
University of California, Los Angeles,
Michael Morhaime,
Frank Pearce, and
Allen Adham and is currently a subsidiary of American company
Activision Blizzard. Based in
Irvine, California, the company originally concentrated primarily on the creation of game
ports for other studios before beginning development of their own software in 1993 with the development of games like
Rock n' Roll Racing and
The Lost Vikings. In 1994 the company became
Chaos Studios then
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. after being acquired by distributor
Davidson & Associates.