Blizzard North (formerly known as Condor) was an American video game development studio based in

San Mateo, California San Mateo ( ) is the most populous city in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. It is part of the San Francisco Bay Area metropolitan region, and is located about south of San Francisco. San Mateo border ...

. The studio was the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments ...

division of

Blizzard Entertainment Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and Video game publisher, publisher based in Irvine, California, and a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard. Originally founded in 1991, the company is best known for producing the h ...

, and it was known for the ''Diablo'' series. The company was originally based in

Redwood City, California Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area of Northern California, approximately south of San Francisco and northwest of San Jose, California, San Jose. The city's population was 84,292 accor ...

, always serving as the northern counterpart to Blizzard Entertainment's main development studio in

Irvine, California Irvine () is a Planned community, planned city in central Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. It was named in 1888 for the landowner James Irvine. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the ...

. In 2005, Blizzard North was closed to reallocate its staff to the development of ''World of Warcraft''.

History

Blizzard North was founded in 1993 under the name Condor by

David Brevik David Brevik (born February 14, 1968) is an American video game designer, producer, and programmer who served as the co-founder and president of Blizzard North. He is best known for the critically acclaimed ''Diablo'' series. Currently, he ser ...

, Erich Schaefer, and Max Schaefer. The three met while working at FM Waves, a

clip art Clip art (also clipart, clip-art) is a type of graphic art. Pieces are pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Today, clip art is used extensively and comes in many forms, both electronic and printed. However, most clip art today is creat ...

production studio. Upon the closure of FM Waves, the trio scavenged its equipment to create Brevik's concept of a dungeon crawler game based on ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical ...

'' with

roguelike Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a style of role-playing game traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character. Most ro ...

gameplay. Brevik served as the president of the company between 1993 and 2003, while the Schaefer brothers held the Vice President positions. The company was purchased and renamed as Blizzard North by Blizzard Entertainment's former owner

Davidson & Associates Davidson & Associates, Inc. was an American developer of educational software based in Torrance, California. The company was founded in 1984 by husband-and-wife Bob and Jan Davidson, the latter of whom led the company as president until January 1 ...

about nine months before the release of their hit PC game '' Diablo'' in 1997. However, Blizzard North had complete autonomy from Blizzard Entertainment while David Brevik and the Schaefer brothers continued to manage the company respectively as the President and Vice Presidents. ''Diablo'' was highly successful, and its 2000 sequel ''

Diablo II ''Diablo II'' is a 2000 action role-playing game developed by Blizzard North and published by Blizzard Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, Classic Mac OS, and OS X. The game, with its dark fantasy and horror themes, was conceptualized and des ...

'' even more so. An expansion pack, '' Diablo II: Lord of Destruction'', followed the year after. Upon the 2001 completion of ''Diablo II'' and its expansion content, Blizzard North split its development staff between ''Diablo III'' and a ''Diablo''-like game set in space, dubbed ''Starblo'' by the studio. In June 2003, Blizzard North executives Bill Roper, Max Schaefer,

Erich Schaefer The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, Eirik, or Eiríkur is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Nor ...

, and

emailed Blizzard Entertainment's then-

parent company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

Vivendi Games Vivendi Games (formerly known as CUC Software, Cendant Software, Havas Interactive, Vivendi Universal Interactive Publishing and Vivendi Universal Games) was an American video game publisher and holding company based in Los Angeles. It was foun ...

, threatening to resign unless provided financial protections and communication on Vivendi's intent to sell Blizzard. Vivendi accepted their resignations effective immediately, spurring them to found

Flagship Studios Flagship Studios was an American video game developer founded by Bill Roper along with , , and David Brevik, former Blizzard North executives. The latter three had been collaborating since their 1993 founding of Condor Studios, later renamed up ...

and recruit similarly disgruntled Blizzard North employees. In August 2005,

closed Blizzard North, claiming that its headquarters in

, was struggling to supervise this secondary studio's troubled development of ''Diablo III''. Blizzard North employees were offered the chance to interview for positions in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

supporting the development of '' World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade'', the first

expansion Expansion may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''L'Expansion'', a French monthly business magazine * ''Expansion'' (album), by American jazz pianist Dave Burrell, released in 2004 * ''Expansions'' (McCoy Tyner album), 1970 * ''Expansi ...

to the company's

MMORPG A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

, whose success had far outpaced the ''Diablo'' series in sales. A few employees from the ''Diablo'' team, including Eric Sexton,

Michio Okamura Michio Okamura is a computer game developer and artist. He was the lead artist for the popular computer game '' Diablo'', and senior artist on ''Diablo II''. He designed many of the game's characters, including the title character. He is currently ...

, and Steven Woo, launched a new company, Hyboreal Games.

Castaway Entertainment

Castaway Entertainment was established by former employees of Blizzard North, and was also based in Redwood City, California. The company signed a publishing agreement with Electronic Arts in March 2004, but had yet to produce any products for that publisher when it was shut down in 2008. Former Blizzard North members who joined the studio include Michael Scandizzo, Stefan Scandizzo, Alan Ackerman, Steven Woo, Rick Seis, Ted Bisson, Bruno Bowden, Peter Brevik, Michael Huang, Kelly Johnson (artist),

, Tom Ricket (also known as Sluggy Freelance's Shirt Guy Tom), and Fredrick Vaught (after whom the Halls of Vaught in

were named). Other notable employees include game designer Bill Dunn and art director Rick Macaraeg. On April 4, 2008, Michael Scandizzo announced that Castaway was suspending operations due to financial problems.

Moon Beast Productions

Moon Beast Productions
founded circa 2022-2023 by industry veterans from Blizzard North, is an independent game development studio dedicated to revitalizing the action role-playing game (ARPG) genre. With decades of experience from iconic titles like Diablo, Diablo II, and Torchlight, the team at Moon Beast Productions aims to innovate and expand upon traditional ARPG mechanics. Key Blizzard North staff members, including Erich Schaefer, Peter Hu and Phil Shenk, are part of this new venture. Their upcoming projects promise to introduce new gameplay elements and user-generated content, offering fresh and dynamic experiences for players.

Games

As Condor

*'' NFL Quarterback Club '95'' (1994) - handheld versions *'' Justice League Task Force'' (1995) - Mega Drive/Genesis version *'' NFL Quarterback Club '96''

As Blizzard North

*'' Diablo'' (1996) -

action role-playing game An action role-playing game (often abbreviated action RPG or ARPG) is a video game genre that combines core elements from both the action game and Role-playing video game, role-playing game genres. Definition Action role-playing games empha ...

*''

'' (2000) -

**'' Diablo II: Lord of Destruction'' (2001) -

expansion pack An expansion pack, expansion set, supplement, or simply expansion, is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game, video game, collectible card game or Miniature wargaming, miniature wargame. An expansion may introduce new rules ...

As Castaway Entertainment

*'' Yaris'' (2007) -

racing In sports, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific g ...

advergame An advergame (portmanteau of "advertisement" and "video game") is a form of advertising in video games, in which the video game is developed by or in close collaboration with a corporate entity for purposes of advertising a brand-name product. Whil ...

Cancelled

* Diablo Junior * ''NFLPA Superstars'' (for the canceled

Panasonic M2 Panasonic M2, earlier known as 3DO M2, is a multimedia terminal and cancelled video game console. It was initially developed by The 3DO Company as a peripheral chip for the 3DO hardware before turning into a standalone successor system. In Janu ...

console) * ''

Diablo III ''Diablo III'' is a 2012 online-only action role-playing dungeon crawling game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment as the third installment in the ''Diablo'' franchise. It was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X in May 2012, ...

'' (in development 2000-2005)

References

*Techspot: Alfonso Maruccia December 20, 2024 at 2:57 PM - New Studio Moon Beast Productionshttps://www.techspot.com/news/106053-studio-founded-diablo-diablo-ii-team-want-revolutionize.html *Venture Beat: Dean Takahashi December 18, 2024 6:00 AM Moon Beast Announces $4.5M in Funding secured https://venturebeat.com/games/moon-beast-productions-raises-4-5m-for-action-rpg/ * * * *

External links

Blizzard website
{{Authority control Blizzard Entertainment Video game development companies Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game companies established in 1993 Video game companies disestablished in 2005 Companies based in San Mateo, California Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area 1993 establishments in California 2005 disestablishments in California Video game companies based in California Defunct computer companies based in California Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area