A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with employee responsibilities split between individual disciplines, such as programmers , designers , artists , etc. Most game development companies have video game publisher financial and usually marketing support. Self-funded developers are known as independent or indie developers and usually make indie games .
177-612: Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California , and a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard . Originally founded in 1991, the company is best known for producing the highly influential massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (2004), as well as the multi-million selling video game franchises Diablo , StarCraft and Overwatch . The company also operates Battle.net , an online gaming service. Founded as Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three graduates of
354-477: A Warcraft live-action film . The movie was directed by Duncan Jones , financed and produced by Legendary Pictures , Atlas Entertainment , and others, and distributed by Universal Pictures . It was released in June 2016. On October 4, 2022, Overwatch servers were officially shut off at the same time Overwatch 2 ' s went up. Blizzard has released two spin-offs to the main franchises: Hearthstone (2014), which
531-588: A database , Voice over IP , or add-in interface software; this is also known as middleware . Examples of this include SpeedTree and Havoc . Independents are software developers which are not owned by (or dependent on) a single publisher. Some of these developers self-publish their games, relying on the Internet and word of mouth for publicity. Without the large marketing budgets of mainstream publishers, their products may receive less recognition than those of larger publishers such as Sony, Microsoft or Nintendo. With
708-779: A school of osteopathy founded in 1896 and the oldest continuously operating medical college in the Southwest ) became part of UC Irvine. In 1976, plans to establish an on-campus hospital were set aside, with the university instead purchasing the Orange County Medical Center (renamed the UC Irvine Medical Center ) around 12 miles from UC Irvine, in the City of Orange. In early July 2018, UC Irvine removed benefactor Francisco J. Ayala 's name from its biology school and central science library after an internal investigation by
885-555: A wingnut -shaped loop road as the main thoroughfare, which twice crossed the campus. However, the Irvine Company 's development plans expanded before it could be completed, and portions of California, Carlson, Harvard and Turtle Rock roads today constitute segments of what would have been the Loop Road. Despite the suburban environment, a variety of wildlife inhabits the university's central park, open fields, and wetlands. The university
1062-494: A world record attempt by the university at the beginning of each academic year . UCI has won Guinness World Records for the largest game of capture the flag six times, with the most recent one in September 2015. In addition, the university has broken the record for the largest game of dodgeball three years straight. They have also won records for largest water pistol fight and largest pillow fight . On November 30, 2007,
1239-499: A "contextualist" approach beginning in the late 1990s combining stylistic elements of the first two phases in an attempt to provide an architectural "middle ground" between the two vastly different styles. Gehry's building was recently removed from campus to make way for a new building, with a design that has been called a "big beige box with bands of bricks". In 2009 the Humanities Gateway building, designed by Curtis W. Fentress ,
1416-606: A $ 40 million donation from Bill Gross ' philanthropic foundation to turn its nursing science program into the Sue and Bill Gross School of Nursing. The UC Regents formally approved the establishment of the school in January 2017. In July 2020, the UC Regents approved the establishment of the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. In July of 2024, UCI received a gift of $ 50 million to support
1593-568: A Blizzard employee before leaving to found the studio. The game, StarCraft: Ghost , was a stealth-oriented game compared to the RTS features of StarCraft , and was a major feature of the 2002 Tokyo Game Show . However, over the next few years, the game entered development hell with conflicts between Nihilisitic and Blizzard on its direction. Blizzard ordered Nihilistic to stop work on StarCraft: Ghost in July 2004, and instead brought on Swingin' Ape Studios,
1770-434: A New Greek), and risk management programs (topics vary). There are around 600 student clubs and organizations on campus. Campus activities throughout the year include cultural nights, arts performances, and live music at Anteater Plaza. Special events such as Summerlands, Wayzgoose, Shocktoberfest, Soulstice, and Earth Day are held yearly. ASUCI , the university's undergraduate student government , traditionally organizes
1947-594: A business park near the University of California, Irvine in Irvine, California . During the first two years, the company focused on creating game ports for other studios. Interplay Productions ' Brian Fargo was friends with Adham and had a 10% stake in Silicon & Synapse. Fargo provided the company with conversion contacts for the games Interplay was publishing, starting with Battle Chess . Other titles included Ports include titles such as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of
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#17328554762092124-514: A cafeteria and student center, it is now a dual-use computer lab and study area which is open nearly 24 hours. The UCI Student Center offers a large number of study areas, auditoriums, and two food courts, and therefore is one of the most popular places to study on campus. UC Irvine also has a number of computer labs that serve as study centers. The School of Humanities maintains the Humanities Instructional Resource Center,
2301-499: A company that published educational software and which had previously employed Silicon & Synapse for conversion contracts, made an offer to buy the company for $ 4 million. Interplay was negotiating to be the publisher for Warcraft , and Fargo cautioned Adham and Morhaime against selling the company. Adham and Morhiame rejected Davidson & Associates' initial offer, but the company came back with another offer of $ 6.75 million (equivalent to $ 13.9 million in 2023), assuring to
2478-731: A company-wide layoff of 8% of Activision Blizzard staff, around 800 total positions, due to lower revenues in 2018; this included a significant portion of Blizzard Entertainment, which had been since as having bloated head count over the years. Blizzard was planning for the announcement of Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 at the 2019 Blizzcon, and to keep the company focused, two other projects, codenamed Ares and Orion , were cancelled. Frank Pearce announced he would be stepping down as Blizzard's Chief Development Officer on July 19, 2019, though will remain in an advisory role similar to Morhaime. Michael Chu, lead writer on many of Blizzard's franchises including Diablo , Warcraft , and Overwatch , announced he
2655-557: A compilation called Blizzard Arcade Collection for Microsoft Windows , Xbox One , PlayStation 4 , and Nintendo Switch . The collection includes five Blizzard's classic video games: The Lost Vikings , Rock n' Roll Racing , Blackthorne , The Lost Vikings 2 and RPM Racing , with the last two games added in April 2021. Some of the modern features include 16:9 resolution, 4-player split-screen, rewinding and saving of game progress, watching replays, and adding graphic filters to change
2832-452: A culture of "toxic geek masculinity" within the workplace. In addition, the conditions behind crunch time are far more discriminating towards women as this requires them to commit time exclusively to the company or to more personal activities like raising a family. These factors established conditions within some larger development studios where female developers have found themselves discriminated in workplace hiring and promotion, as well as
3009-701: A dedicated esports venue, the Blizzard Arena, to be used for the Overwatch League and other events. The inaugural season of the Overwatch League launched on January 10, 2018, with 12 global teams playing. By the second season in 2019 it had expanded the League to 20 teams, and with its third season in 2020, it will have these teams traveling across the globe in a transitional home/away-style format. In 2012, Blizzard Entertainment had 4,700 employees, with offices across 11 cities including Austin, Texas , and countries around
3186-654: A drop-in computer lab specializing in language and digital media. Additionally, UCI maintains five other drop-in labs, four instructional computer labs, and a number of reservation-only SmartClassrooms, some of which are open 24 hours. Other popular study areas include Aldrich Park, the Cross-Cultural Center, the Locus (a study room and computer lab used by the Campuswide Honors Program), and plazas located in every school. A network of tunnels runs between many of
3363-571: A first-party company. As a balance to not being able to release their game for other platforms, second-party developers are usually offered higher royalty rates than third-party developers. These studios may have exclusive publishing agreements (or other business relationships) with the platform holder, but maintain independence so that upon completion or termination of their contracts, they are able to continue developing games for other publishers if they choose to. For example, while HAL Laboratory initially began developing games on personal computers like
3540-410: A fixed period and generally work similar hours as full-time staff members, assisting across all areas of video game development, but as contractors, do not get any benefits such as paid time-off or health care from the employer; they also are typically not credited on games that they work on for this reason. The practice itself is legal and common in other engineering and technology areas, and generally it
3717-810: A fresh idea within a few weeks or have their team reassigned to Blizzard's other departments. The small team came upon the idea of a team-based multiplayer shooter game, reusing many of the assets from Titan but set in a new near-future narrative. The new project was greenlit by Blizzard and became known as Overwatch , which was released in May 2016. Overwatch became the fourth main intellectual property of Blizzard, following Warcraft , StarCraft , and Diablo . In addition to Hearthstone and Overwatch , Blizzard Entertainment continued to produce sequels and expansions to its established properties during this period, including StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty (2010) and Diablo III (2012). Their major crossover title, Heroes of
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#17328554762093894-403: A game on schedule. The complexity of workflow, reliance on third-party deliverables, and the intangibles of artistic and aesthetic demands in video game creation create difficulty in predicting milestones. The use of crunch time is also seen to be exploitative of the younger male-dominated workforce in video games, who have not had the time to establish a family and who were eager to advance within
4071-406: A game's profits. Current examples of first-party studios include PlayStation Studios for Sony, and Xbox Game Studios for Microsoft Gaming . Second-party developer is a colloquial term often used by gaming enthusiasts and media to describe game studios that take development contracts from platform holders and develop games exclusive to that platform, i.e. a non-owned developer making games for
4248-611: A head when, in April 2009, Blizzard announced it was terminating its contract with The9, and transferred operation of World of Warcraft in China to NetEase. They released an improved version of Battle.net (Battle.net 2.0) in March 2009 which included improved matchmaking, storefront features, and better support for all of Blizzard's existing titles particularly World of Warcraft . Having peaked at 12 million monthly subscriptions in 2010, World of Warcraft subscriptions sunk to 6.8 million in 2014,
4425-440: A hotel, real-estate, and car-rental franchiser called HFS Corporation to form Cendant in 1997. In 1998 it became apparent that CUC had engaged in accounting fraud for years before the merger. Cendant's stock lost 80% of its value over the next six months in the ensuing widely discussed accounting scandal. The company sold its consumer software operations, Sierra On-line (which included Blizzard) to French publisher Havas in 1998,
4602-590: A member of the Association of American Universities in 1996. The university administers the UC Irvine Medical Center , a large teaching hospital in Orange , and its affiliated health sciences system ; the University of California, Irvine, Arboretum ; and a portion of the University of California Natural Reserve System . UC Irvine set up the first Earth System Science Department in the United States . The university
4779-454: A perfect mile and completely encircles Aldrich Park. Most schools and libraries are lined up by this road with each of these schools having their own central plaza which also connects to the Aldrich Park. Other areas of the university outside of the core campus such as the School of Arts are connected by four pedestrian bridges. Beyond the core campus and the bridges, the layout of the campus
4956-437: A position in a medium to large video game company. An experienced game-development employee, depending on their expertise and experience, averaged roughly $ 73,000 in 2007. Indie game developers may only earn between $ 10,000 and $ 50,000 a year depending on how financially successful their titles are. In addition to being part of the software industry, game development is also within the entertainment industry; most sectors of
5133-568: A press release defending Drake and claiming that anti-Semitic activity was "exaggerated". In 2010, eleven students from the Muslim Student Union staged a protest against a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren by disrupting it several times. The students and the student's union involved were first disciplined by UCI and then had criminal charges brought against them. They were convicted of misdemeanor charges and sentenced to three years probation, community service, and fines. This led to
5310-482: A result of some information leaks. Blizzard continued to speak on Titan ' s development over the next few years, with over 100 people within Blizzard working on the project. However, Titan ' s development was troubled, and, internally, in May 2013, Blizzard cancelled the project (publicly reporting this in 2014), and reassigned most of the staff but left about 40 people, led by Jeff Kaplan , to either come up with
5487-572: A roundtable discussion with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), the professional association for developers. Statements made by the IGDA's current executive director Jen MacLean relating to IGDA's activities had been seen by as anti-union, and Game Workers Unite desired to start a conversation to lay out the need for developers to unionize. In the wake of the sudden near-closure of Telltale Games in September 2018,
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5664-449: A school or department office; others are housed in their own facilities. These are a few of the research organizations at UCI: Among universities under 50 years of age Times Higher Education ranked UCI 4th in the world and 1st in the US for 2012, 5th in the world and 1st in the US for 2013, 7th in the world and 1st in the US in 2014, and 7th in the world and 1st in the US in 2015. 2015
5841-495: A science-fiction themed RTS StarCraft and released the title in March 1998. The title was the top-selling PC game for the year, and led to further growth of the Battle.net service and the use of the game for esports . Around 2000, Blizzard engaged with Nihilistic Software to work on a version of StarCraft for home consoles for Blizzard. Nihilisitic was co-founded by Robert Huebner, who had worked on StarCraft and other games while
6018-407: A single publisher; one canceled game may devastate a small developer. Because of this, many small development companies are short-lived. A common exit strategy for a successful video game developer is to sell the company to a publisher, becoming an in-house developer. In-house development teams tend to have more freedom in game design and content than third-party developers. One reason is that since
6195-403: A strong STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) background for women at the secondary education level, but there are issues with tertiary education such as at colleges and universities, where game development programs tend to reflect the male-dominated demographics of the industry, a factor that may lead women with strong STEM backgrounds to choose other career goals. There
6372-479: A team of architects led by William Pereira and including A. Quincy Jones and William Blurock. The initial landscaping, including Aldrich Park, was designed by an association of three firms, including that of the noted urban-landscaping innovator Robert Herrick Carter. Aldrich Park was designed under the direction of landscape architect Gene Uematsu, and was modeled after Frederick Law Olmsted 's designs for New York City's Central Park . The campus opened in 1965 with
6549-512: A third-party studio that had just successfully released Metal Arms: Glitch in the System in 2003, to reboot the development of Ghost . Blizzard fully acquired Swingin' Ape Studios in May 2005 to continue on Ghost . However, while the game was scheduled to be released in 2005, it was targeted at the consoles of the sixth generation , such as the PlayStation 2 and original Xbox , while the industry
6726-635: A unique case where nearly all parts of its labor force, including white-collar jobs such as video game development, may engage with labor unions under the Employment Protection Act often through collective bargaining agreements. Developer DICE had reached its union agreements in 2004. Paradox Interactive became one of the first major publishers to support unionization efforts in June 2020 with its own agreements to cover its Swedish employees within two labor unions Unionen and SACO . In Australia, video game developers could join other unions, but
6903-464: A wide variety of Mediterranean-climate flora and fauna, feeling that it served an "aesthetic, environmental, and educational [purpose]." To plan the remainder of the ranch, the university hired William Pereira and Associates. Pereira intended for the UC Irvine campus to complement the neighboring community, and it became clear that the original 1,000 acres (400 ha) grant would not suffice. In 1964,
7080-473: Is also a significant gap in racial minorities within the video game industry; a 2019 IGDA survey found only 2% of developers considered themselves to be of African descent and 7% Hispanic, while 81% were Caucasian; in contrast, 2018 estimates from the United States Census estimate the U.S. population to be 13% of African descent and 18% Hispanic. In a 2014 and 2015 survey of job positions and salaries,
7257-449: Is expected that this is meant to lead into a full-time position, or otherwise the end of the contract. But more recently, its use in the video game industry has been compared to Microsoft 's past use of " permatemp ", contract workers that were continually renewed and treated for all purposes as employees but received no benefits. While Microsoft has waned from the practice, the video game industry has adapted it more frequently. Around 10% of
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7434-533: Is generally illegal, companies often target their oldest workers first during layoffs or other periods of reduction. Older developers with experience may find themselves too qualified for the types of positions that other game development companies seek given the salaries and compensations offered. Some of the larger video game developers and publishers have also engaged contract workers through agencies to help add manpower in game development in part to alleviate crunch time from employees. Contractors are brought on for
7611-452: Is home to cougar , hawks , golden eagles , great blue herons , squirrels , opossums , peregrine falcons , rabbits, raccoons , owls , skunks , weasels , bats , and coyotes . The UCI Arboretum hosts a collection of plants from California and Mediterranean climates around the world. The rabbits in particular can be seen across campus in high numbers, especially during hours of low student traffic. The first buildings were designed by
7788-522: Is more suburban. Irvine, California consistently ranks as the safest city in the United States. UCI is close to the beaches, mountains, and attractions of Southern California. Disneyland is approximately 20 minutes away by car. While the university is located in Irvine, the campus is directly bounded by the city of Newport Beach and the community of Newport Coast . The western side of the campus borders
7965-538: Is ranked among the nation's top 50 hospitals by U.S. News & World Report for the 12th consecutive year. The school has 19 clinical and 6 basic science departments with 560 full-time and 1,300 volunteer faculty members involved in teaching, patient care, and medical and basic science research. UCI's many research organizations are either chaired by or composed of UCI faculty, frequently draw upon undergraduates and graduates for research assistance, and produce innovations, patents, and scholarly works. Some are housed in
8142-539: Is set in the existing Warcraft lore, and Heroes of the Storm (2015), which features playable characters from all four of Blizzard's franchises. In 2015, Blizzard Entertainment formed "Classic Games division", a team focused on updating and remastering some of their older titles, with an initially announced focus on StarCraft: Remastered (2017), Warcraft III: Reforged (2020) , and Diablo II: Resurrected (2021) . In February 2021, Blizzard Entertainment released
8319-494: Is still their primary activity they are generally described as "publishers" rather than "developers". Developers may be private as well. In the video game industry , a first-party developer is part of a company that manufactures a video game console and develops mainly for it. First-party developers may use the name of the company itself (such as Nintendo ), have a specific division name (such as Sony's Polyphony Digital ) or have been an independent studio before being acquired by
8496-474: Is usually conducted in a casual business environment, with t-shirts and sandals as common work attire. Many workers find this type of environment rewarding and pleasant professionally and personally. However, the industry also requires long working hours from its employees (sometimes to an extent seen as unsustainable). Employee burnout is not uncommon. An entry-level programmer can make, on average, over $ 66,000 annually only if they are successful in obtaining
8673-589: The AFL–CIO writing an open letter to video game developers encouraging them to unionize. In January 2020, Game Workers Unite and the Communications Workers of America established a new campaign to push for unionization of video game developers, the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE), in January 2020. Initial efforts for CODE were aimed to determine what approach to unionization would be best suited for
8850-519: The Bay Area counties, San Bernardino County , Riverside County , and San Diego County . The most popular major for freshmen is a major in the School of Biological Sciences (22%), followed by Undecided/Undeclared (20.6%), Social Sciences (17.4%), Engineering (11.7%), Humanities (8.8%), Physical Sciences (6.1%), Arts (5%), Social Ecology (5%), Information and Computer Sciences (3%), and Health Sciences (0.2%). The average freshman's incoming high school GPA
9027-501: The Communications Workers of America . The same day, 60 QA testers at Blizzard's Austin office, who work on various games including Diablo IV and Hearthstone , also voted to unionize and formed the union "Texas Blizzard QA United-CWA". Blizzard Entertainment has developed 19 games since the inception of the company in 1991. The majority of the games Blizzard published are in the Warcraft , Diablo , and StarCraft series. Since
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#17328554762099204-588: The Game Boy Advance handheld console. Around 2003, Blizzard North was working on Diablo III as well as planned science-fiction-based version dubbed Starblo . Amid rumors that Vivendi was looking to sell its gaming division around 2003, Blizzard North's leadership, consisting of Brevik, the Schaefers, and Bill Roper , asked Blizzard to provide their studio protections from the potential sale, or else they would resign. After several rounds of tense communications,
9381-456: The International Game Developers Association (IGDA), are conducting increasing discussions about the problem; they are concerned that working conditions in the industry cause a significant deterioration in employees' quality of life. Some video game developers and publishers have been accused of the excessive invocation of "crunch time". "Crunch time" is the point at which the team is thought to be failing to achieve milestones needed to launch
9558-508: The MSX , they became one of the earliest second-party developers for Nintendo, developing exclusively for Nintendo's consoles starting with the Famicom, though they would self-publish their mobile games. A third-party developer may also publish games, or work for a video game publisher to develop a title. Both publisher and developer have considerable input in the game's design and content. However,
9735-461: The Me Too movement and have tried to address the symptoms of these problems industry-wide, the video game industry has yet to have its Me Too-moment, even as late as 2021. There also tends to be pay-related discrimination against women in the industry. According to Gamasutra 's Game Developer Salary Survey 2014, women in the United States made 86 cents for every dollar men made. Game designing women had
9912-547: The Office of Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education issued a report finding insufficient evidence in support of allegations that Jewish students at UCI were harassed and subjected to a hostile environment based on their religious beliefs. The agency ultimately found that none of the incidents leading to the allegations qualified as "sufficiently severe, pervasive or persistent as to interfere with or limit
10089-567: The Philosophical Gourmet Report , UCI's Department of Philosophy, along with its sister department, the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, ranks 24 in the nation. UCI faculty are affiliated with the following learned societies . UC Irvine is categorized by U.S. News & World Report as "most selective" for college admissions in the United States. It was the third-most selective University of California campus for
10266-591: The San Diego Creek and the San Joaquin Freshwater Marsh Reserve, through which Campus Drive connects UCI to the 405 freeway . The northern and eastern sides of UCI are adjacent to Irvine proper; the eastern side of the campus is delineated by Bonita Canyon Road, which turns into Culver Drive at its northern terminus. California State Route 73 marks UCI's southern boundary and separates the campus from Newport Beach. The "North Campus" houses
10443-504: The Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) union doing work for video games struck several major publishers, demanding better royalty payments and provisions related to the safety of their vocal performances, when their union's standard contract was up for renewal. The voice actor strike lasted for over 300 days into 2017 before a new deal was made between SAG-AFTRA and
10620-448: The University of California, Los Angeles , the year prior. The name "Silicon & Synapse" was a high concept from the three founders, with "silicon" representing the building block of a computer, while "synapse" the building block of the brain. The initial logo was created by Stu Rose. To fund the company, each of them contributed about $ 10,000, Morhaime borrowing the sum interest-free from his grandmother. Their offices were established in
10797-499: The University of California, Los Angeles : Michael Morhaime , Frank Pearce and Allen Adham, the company began development of their own software in 1993, with games like Rock n' Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings , and changed its name to Chaos Studios, Inc. the same year, then to Blizzard Entertainment after being acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates in 1994; that year, the company released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans , which would receive numerous sequels and led to
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#173285547620910974-531: The Warcraft narrative universe, which ultimately became Hearthstone , released as a free-to-play title in March 2014. Hearthstone reached over 25 million players by the end of 2014, and exceeded 100 million players by 2018. Another small internal team began work around 2008 on a new intellectual property known as Titan , a more contemporary or near-future MMORPG that would have co-existed alongside World of Warcraft . The project gained more visibility in 2010 as
11151-549: The video game industry . He told the Los Angeles Times : "Someone who was part of the co-creation of that world and those characters isn't getting a credit or a nickel for the work they put into it. Maybe we need unions in the video game industry to be able to protect creators." University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine ( UCI or UC Irvine ) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California , United States. One of
11328-530: The 1960s under the California Master Plan for Higher Education . During the 1950s, the University of California saw the need for the new campuses to handle the expected increase in enrollment from the post-war baby boom . One of the new campuses was to be in the Los Angeles area; the location selected was Irvine Ranch, an area of agricultural land bisecting Orange County from north to south. This site
11505-498: The 2010s and 2020s, Blizzard has continued development of expansion packs for World of Warcraft (the most recent being 2024's The War Within ), while also releasing StarCraft: Remastered (2017), Diablo III (2012) and Diablo IV (2023), as well as new material most notably the online multiplayer games Hearthstone , a collectible card game ; Heroes of the Storm , a battle arena game; and Overwatch and Overwatch 2 , which are first-person shooters. Since 2018,
11682-440: The 2023-2024 school year , there were fifteen schools and several interdisciplinary programs. The College of Health Sciences was established in 2004, but no longer exists as a separate academic unit. On November 16, 2006, the University of California Regents approved the establishment of the School of Law. The School of Education was established by the UC Regents in 2012. In 2016, the university announced that it had received
11859-553: The CEO of Activision , had been working to rebound the company from near-bankruptcy, and had established a number of new studios. However, Activision lacked anything in the MMO market. Kotick saw that World of Warcraft was bringing in over US$ 1.1 billion a year in subscription fees, and began approaching Vivendi's CEO Jean-Bernard Lévy about potential acquisition of their struggling Vivendi Games division, which included Blizzard Entertainment. Lévy
12036-746: The Chancellor, the second most senior official is the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, the university's chief academic and operating officer. Every school on campus reports to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost through a Dean, and all other academic and administrative units report to his office through a Vice Chancellor or chief administrator. A partial list of these units includes Campus Recreation, Intercollegiate Athletics, Planning and Budget, Student Affairs, UC Irvine Libraries, UC Irvine Medical Center, and University Advancement. UC Irvine's academic units are referred to as schools. As of
12213-477: The Clans , an adventure game which was canceled on May 22, 1998, Shattered Nations , a turn-based strategy game cancelled around 1996, and StarCraft: Ghost , an action game aimed for release on consoles, co-developed with Nihilistic Software , which was "Postponed indefinitely" on March 24, 2006, after being in development hell for much of its lifespan. Work on a project called Nomad started around 1998 after
12390-744: The Facilities Management Department, the Faculty Research Facility, Central Receiving, Fleet Services, the Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory, and numerous other functions. It is located next to the UCI Arboretum ; both the North Campus and the arboretum are located about 1 mile (2 km) from the main campus. William Pereira's original street layout for the region surrounding the university had
12567-446: The IGDA found that people of color were both underrepresented in senior management roles as well as underpaid in comparison to white developers. Further, because video game developers typically draw from personal experiences in building game characters, this diversity gap has led to few characters of racial minority to be featured as main characters within video games. Minority developers have also been harassed from external groups due to
12744-507: The Olympics, winning a total of 33 Olympic medals . As of January 2022, the school has had 3 Nobel Prize laureates, 7 Pulitzer Prize winners, 6 MacArthur "Genius Grant" recipients, 37 Guggenheim Fellows, and 1 Turing Award winner affiliated with the university as alumni, faculty or researchers. The University of California, Irvine (with San Diego and Santa Cruz ) was one of three new University of California campuses established in
12921-455: The Paris suburb of Vélizy , Yvelines, France. Blizzard began work on World of Warcraft near the end of 1999, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on the Warcraft franchise, with gameplay inspired by EverQuest . The game was publicly announced in September 2001. The excitement by the media for World of Warcraft led to significant growth with Team 2 from forty to
13098-534: The Rings , the company began work on what would become Warcraft: Orcs & Humans . Adham saw this as a start of a series of interconnected titles, similar to the Gold Box series by Strategic Simulations . To support its development and keep the company afloat, the studio took several more conversion contracts, though the founders were going into debt to keep their twelve developers employed. Davidson & Associates ,
13275-495: The Rings, Vol. I and Battle Chess II: Chinese Chess . Fargo then enlisted Silicon & Synapse around 1991 to help develop RPM Racing that Interplay was preparing for the launch of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System . Fargo remained impressed with Silicon & Synapse's work, and provided them the ability to write their own games to be published by Interplay. The first two titles developed solely by
13452-475: The Storm , was released as a MOBA game in 2015. The game featured various characters from Blizzard's franchises as playable heroes, as well as different battlegrounds based on Warcraft , Diablo , StarCraft , and Overwatch universes. In the late 2010s, Blizzard released StarCraft: Remastered (2017) and Warcraft III: Reforged (2020) , remastered versions of the original StarCraft and Warcraft III, respectively . The May 2016 release of Overwatch
13629-412: The U.S., tied for 10th among public universities, tied for 12th in "Top Performers on Social Mobility", tied for 58th in "Most Innovative Schools", and tied for 62nd in "Best Undergraduate Teaching". In 2019, Forbes ranked UCI 3rd out of the 300 Best Value Colleges, based on Return on Investment. In 2017 Kiplinger ranked UCI 26th out of the top 100 best-value public colleges and universities in
13806-629: The UC Irvine campus to a newly constructed 240,000-square foot campus in Irvine, California, to support the additional staff, which was completed by March 2008; the city named the primary street on this campus as 1 Blizzard Way to honor the company. The campus includes a twelve-foot tall bronze status of a Warcraft orc riding a wolf, with plaques surrounding it representing the eight company values by that point, "Gameplay First", "Commit to Quality", "Play Nice; Play Fair", "Embrace Your Inner Geek", "Learn & Grow", "Every Voice Matters", "Think Globally", and "Lead Responsibly". Up through 2006, Bobby Kotick ,
13983-584: The UCI Machine Learning Repository, a data resource which is very popular among machine learning researchers and data mining practitioners. It was created in 1987 and contains 622 datasets from several domains including biology, medicine, physics, engineering, social sciences, games, and others. The datasets contained in the UC Irvine Machine Learning Repository have been used by thousands of students and researchers in
14160-528: The United States, and by March 2005, had reached 1.5 million subscribers worldwide. Blizzard partnered with Chinese publisher The9 to publish and distribute World of Warcraft in China, as foreign companies could not directly publish into the country themselves. World of Warcraft launched in China in June 2005. By the end of 2007, World of Warcraft was considered a global phenomenon, having reached over 9 million subscribers and exceeded US$ 1 billion in revenue since its release. In April 2008, World of Warcraft
14337-625: The ability of an individual to participate in from the services, activities or privileges" provided by UCI, and that university officials had acted appropriately in response to each incident. In December 2007, UCI Administration was cleared of anti-semitism complaints by the US Department of Education 's Office for Civil Rights . Following a speech by Chancellor Drake at the national Hillel meeting in Washington, D.C. in March 2008, Anteaters for Israel, along with three other Jewish organizations, issued
14514-474: The acquisition of Activision Blizzard , stated it supported these unionization efforts. After this acquisition, the employees of Bethesda Game Studios , part of Zenimax under Microsoft, unionized under the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in July 2024. Over 500 employees within Blizzard Entertainment 's World of Warcraft division also unionized with CWA that same month. Sweden presents
14691-572: The advent of digital distribution of inexpensive games on game consoles, it is now possible for indie game developers to forge agreements with console manufacturers for broad distribution of their games. Other indie game developers create game software for a number of video-game publishers on several gaming platforms. In recent years this model has been in decline; larger publishers, such as Electronic Arts and Activision, increasingly turn to internal studios (usually former independent developers acquired for their development needs). Video game development
14868-616: The cancellation of an unannounced MMO codenamed Titan on September 23, 2014, though Overwatch was created from its assets. The company also has a history of declining to set release dates, choosing to instead take as much time as needed, generally saying a given product is "done when it's done." Pax Imperia II was originally announced as a title to be published by Blizzard. Blizzard eventually dropped Pax Imperia II , though, when it decided it might be in conflict with their other space strategy project, which became known as StarCraft . THQ eventually contracted with Heliotrope and released
15045-429: The center than the graduate schools. Aldrich Park is planted with over 11,120 trees (there are over 24,000 trees on the entire campus), including 33 species of eucalyptus. Two ceremonial trees were planted in 1990, one for Arbor Day and the second for former chancellor Daniel Aldrich who had died that year. On the first anniversary of the September 11th tragedies, the chancellor planted a bay laurel tree in remembrance of
15222-431: The closest equity, making 96 cents for every dollar men made in the same job, while audio professional women had the largest gap, making 68% of what men in the same position made. Increasing the representation of women in the video game industry required breaking a feedback loop of the apparent lack of female representation in the production of video games and in the content of video games. Efforts have been made to provide
15399-416: The company president and CEO On October 3, 2018, while remaining an advisor to the company. Morhaime stated publicly that he felt it was time for someone else to lead Blizzard, but those close to him said he had become tired of the conflicts with Kotick. Morhaime formally left on April 7, 2019, and was replaced by J. Allen Brack, the executive producer on World of Warcraft . In February 2019, Kotick announced
15576-408: The company were Rock n' Roll Racing , a sequel to RPM Racing , and The Lost Vikings inspired by Lemmings . Around 1993, co-founder Adham told the other executives that he did not like the name "Silicon & Synapse" anymore, as people outside the company were confusing the meaning of silicon the chemical element used in microchips with silicone the materials used in breast implants . By
15753-419: The company will continue to operate as a separate business, while part of the larger Microsoft Gaming division; Blizzard Entertainment retains its function as the publisher of games developed by their studios. Since 2005, Blizzard Entertainment has hosted annual gaming conventions for fans to meet and to promote their games, called BlizzCon , as well as a number of global events outside the United States. In
15930-457: The company's reputation has suffered from a series of poorly received games, controversies involving players and staff, and allegations of sexual harassment and other misconduct against leading Blizzard employees. Blizzard Entertainment was founded by Michael Morhaime , Allen Adham, and Frank Pearce as Silicon & Synapse in February 1991, after all three had earned their bachelor's degrees from
16107-501: The computer science community and facilitated the publication of approximately 26 thousand scientific articles. The first fraternities and sororities at UCI began in 1973 with three sororities ( Delta Gamma , Pi Beta Phi , and Gamma Phi Beta ) and three fraternities ( Beta Theta Pi , Sigma Chi , and Phi Delta Theta ). Major events and programs in the Greek Community include Songfest, All Greek Conference, Greek Week, BANG (Being
16284-416: The console manufacturer (such as Rare or Naughty Dog ). Whether by purchasing an independent studio or by founding a new team, the acquisition of a first-party developer involves a huge financial investment on the part of the console manufacturer, which is wasted if the developer fails to produce a hit game on time. However, using first-party developers saves the cost of having to make royalty payments on
16461-503: The console. This established the use of licensing fees as a model for third-party development that persists into the present. The licensing fee approach was further enforced by Nintendo when it decided to allow other third-party developers to make games for the Famicom console, setting a 30% licensing fee that covered game cartridge manufacturing costs and development fees. The 30% licensing fee for third-party developers has also persisted to
16638-580: The current city of Irvine (incorporated in 1971) did not exist. The name "Irvine" is a reference to James Irvine , a landowner who administered the 94,000-acre (38,000 ha) Irvine Ranch. In 1960, The Irvine Company sold 1,000 acres (400 ha) of the Irvine Ranch to the University of California for one dollar, since company policy prohibited the donation of property to a public entity. On campus, UC Irvine's first Chancellor, Daniel G. Aldrich selected
16815-444: The developer if the game is not meeting expectations. When each milestone is completed (and accepted), the publisher pays the developer an advance on royalties . Successful developers may maintain several teams working on different games for different publishers. Generally, however, third-party developers tend to be small, close-knit teams. Third-party game development is a volatile sector, since small developers may depend on income from
16992-417: The developers are the publisher's employees, their interests align with those of the publisher; the publisher may spend less effort ensuring that the developer's decisions do not enrich the developer at the publisher's expense. Activision in 1979 became the first third-party video game developer. When four Atari, Inc. programmers left the company following its sale to Warner Communications , partially over
17169-406: The early buildings. Architects such as Frank Gehry , Robert Venturi , Eric Owen Moss , James Stirling and Arthur Erickson were brought in to bring the campus more up to date. The recession in the early 1990s along with internal politics led to a change in direction, due to the reduced capital budget, and changing attitudes towards architectural innovation at the university. This, in turn, led to
17346-404: The end of 1993, Adham changed the name to "Chaos Studios", reflecting on the haphazardness of their development processes. Near this same time, the company started to explore options in publishing their own games, as their conversion contracts were not as lucrative for the company. Inspired by the multiplayer aspects of Westwood Studios ' Dune II and the high fantasy setting of The Lord of
17523-537: The end of 2021, leaving Ybarra as the sole leader of Blizzard. As a result of the California lawsuit and of delays and release issues with their more recent games, Activision Blizzard's stock faced severe pressure. Subsequently, Microsoft seized the opportunity to become one of the largest video game companies in the world and announced its intent to acquire Activision Blizzard and its subsidiaries, including Blizzard, for $ 68.7 billion in January 2022. This exchange marks
17700-467: The entertainment industry (such as films and television ) require long working hours and dedication from their employees, such as willingness to relocate and/or required to develop games that do not appeal to their personal taste. The creative rewards of work in the entertainment business attracts labor to the industry, creating a competitive labor market that demands a high level of commitment and performance from employees. Industry communities, such as
17877-530: The event of a student riot. The main tunnel actually contains an above-ground section, in the form of the interior of an unusually thick pedestrian bridge near the Engineering Tower, in an area where the Ring Mall crosses between two hills. The tunnels are only accessible to maintenance staff, although there are also publicly accessible tunnels which intersect the utility tunnels, such as the one that goes between
18054-889: The exception of World of Warcraft , still being handled by The9. The two companies established the Shanghai EaseNet Network Technology for managing the games within China. Blizzard and The9 prepared to launch the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King , but the expansion came under scrutiny by China's content regulation board, the General Administration of Press and Publication , which rejected publication of it within China in March 2009, even with preliminary modifications made by The9 to clear it. Rumors of Blizzard's dissatisfaction with The9 from this and other previous complications with World of Warcraft came to
18231-444: The executives decided to change the studio's name to "Ogre Studios" by April 1994. However, Davidson & Associates did not like this name, and forced the company to change it. According to Morhaime, Adham began running through a dictionary from the start, writing down any word that seemed interesting and passing it to the legal department to see if it had any complications. One of the first words they found to be interesting and cleared
18408-569: The faculty through the Academic Senate. The Chancellor is the chief campus officer and has authority over the campus budget. The Academic Senate has authority to determine the conditions for admission and supervise courses and curricula. The Chancellor is nominated by and is responsible to the Regents of the University of California and the UC President. UCI's Chancellors are listed below: After
18585-557: The first video game-specific union, Game Workers Unite Australia, was formed in December 2021 under Professionals Australia to become active in 2022. In Canada, in a historic move, video game workers in Edmonton unanimously voted to unionize for the first time in June 2022. In January 2023, after not being credited in The Last of Us HBO adaptation, Bruce Straley called for unionization of
18762-404: The founders that they would have creative control over the games they developed. Adham and Morhaime accepted the offer in early 1994. Shortly after the sale, they were contacted by a Florida company, Chaos Technologies, who claims their trademark rights on the name "Chaos" and wanted the company to pay US$ 100,000 (equivalent to $ 205,568 in 2023) to keep the name. Not wanting to pay that sum,
18939-461: The four gave their resignations to Blizzard's management on June 30, 2003. As part of this, a significant portion of Blizzard North's staff were laid off, additional work on Starblo was terminated and the remaining team focused Diablo III . Blizzard's management made the decision August 2005 to consolidate Blizzard North into Blizzard Entertainment, relocating staff to the main Blizzard offices in Irvine. In 2004, Blizzard opened European offices in
19116-482: The freshman class entering in the fall of 2019, as measured by the ratio of admitted students to applicants (behind UC Berkeley and UCLA ). UC Irvine received 119,210 applications for admission to the fall 2022 incoming freshman class and 25,213 were admitted, making UC Irvine's acceptance rate 21% for fall 2022. The first-year median weighted GPA was 4.22 for fall 2022. The incoming 2018 freshmen were predominantly from Los Angeles County , followed by Orange County ,
19293-574: The game and for other Diablo games including Diablo IV . Vicarious was completely merged into Blizzard by April 12, 2022, thereby being renamed Blizzard Albany. In celebration of the company's 30th anniversary, Blizzard Entertainment released a compilation called Blizzard Arcade Collection in February 2021, for various video game platforms. The collection includes their three classic video games: The Lost Vikings , Rock n' Roll Racing , and Blackthorne , each of which containing additional upgrades and numerous modern features. Activision Blizzard
19470-703: The game in 1997 as Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain . Video game developer A developer may specialize in specific game engines or specific video game consoles , or may develop for several systems (including personal computers and mobile devices ). Some focus on porting games from one system to another, or translating games from one language to another. Less commonly, some do software development work in addition to games. Most video game publishers maintain development studios (such as Electronic Arts 's EA Canada , Square Enix 's studios, Activision 's Radical Entertainment , Nintendo EPD and Sony's Polyphony Digital and Naughty Dog ). However, since publishing
19647-667: The games directly rather than run the license through a joint venture, and Activision Blizzard's concerns that NetEase was trying to start their own ventures, including the $ 100 million payment towards Bungie in 2018. NetEase was further concerned about the impact of the pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft . Activision Blizzard stated they were looking to other Chinese firms as replacements for NetEase as to restore their games in China. By April 2024, Blizzard, with Microsoft's help, and NetEase had agreed to new publishing terms, with plans to bring back Blizzard's games to China by mid-2024, maintaining all prior game ownership from
19824-404: The gaming industry, while a 2017 IGDA survey found that the female demographic in game development had risen to about 20%. Taking into account that a 2017 ESA survey found 41% of video game players were female, this represented a significant gender gap in game development. The male-dominated industry, most who have grown up playing video games and are part of the video game culture , can create
20001-459: The globe. As of June 2015, the company's headquarters in Irvine, California had 2,622 employees. By 2018, a rift had developed between Kotick and Morhaime on how Blizzard should continue developing its games, with Morhaime wanting to allow the developers the freedom to experiment while Kotick was focused on generating profit. Morhaime had considered resigning in 2017 but Kotick convinced him to stay on. Morhaime announced his plans to step down as
20178-459: The headquarters of the University of California Office of Federal Governmental Relations and supports UC students interning in the District of Columbia. UC Washington Center is currently led by UC Santa Cruz economist Helen Shapiro. Like other University of California campuses, UC Irvine operates under a system of shared governance, or a partnership between the Chancellor and his administration and
20355-487: The heroes and victims of the events of September 11, 2001. The tree itself was a gift from the UCI Staff Assembly. Aldrich Park is the site for "Wayzgoose", a medieval student festival held each year in conjunction with the "Celebrate UCI" open house. It also hosts many extracurricular activities. Ring Mall is the main pedestrian road used by students and faculty to travel around the core campus. The road measures up to
20532-531: The highly popular World of Warcraft . By the end of the decade, Blizzard also found success with the action role-playing game Diablo (1997) and strategy game StarCraft (1998). The company became part of Vivendi Games in 1998, which would then merge with Activision in 2008, culminating in the inclusion of the Blizzard brand name in the title of the resulting holding company; Activision Blizzard became completely independent from Vivendi in 2013. Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in 2023, maintaining that
20709-516: The hundreds, as well as a large amount of crunch development to complete the game. In January 2004, Adham announced he was leaving the company from being burnt out over his work on World of Warcraft , transferring management to Morhaime. World of Warcraft was released on November 23, 2004, in North America, and on February 11, 2005, in Europe. By December 2004, the game was the fastest-selling PC game in
20886-452: The industry by working long hours. Because crunch time tends to come from a combination of corporate practices as well as peer influence, the term "crunch culture" is often used to discuss video game development settings where crunch time may be seen as the norm rather than the exception. The use of crunch time as a workplace standard gained attention first in 2004, when Erin Hoffman exposed
21063-524: The influence on real-time strategy and multiplayer online battle arena genre. Many of the characters, locations and concepts introduced in Warcraft III and its expansion went on to play major roles in numerous future Blizzard's titles. In 2002, Blizzard was able to reacquire rights for three of its earlier Silicon & Synapse titles, The Lost Vikings , Rock n' Roll Racing and Blackthorne , from Interplay Entertainment and re-release them for
21240-408: The inner circle and park only half-completed. There were only nine buildings and a dirt road connecting the main campus to the housing units. Only three of the six "spokes" that radiate from the central park were built, with only two buildings each. Pereira was retained by the university to maintain a continuity of style among the buildings constructed in the inner ring around the park, the last of which
21417-532: The internal organization of their divisions". In 1967, the UCI Academic Senate voted to redesignate the divisions as "schools", with all their deans reporting directly to the vice chancellor for academic affairs. This is why schools became the dominant academic unit at UCI, in contrast to the relatively large colleges at the older UC campuses. In 1967, the California College of Medicine (originally
21594-424: The investigation were compiled in a 97-page report, which included testimony from victims of Ayala. The layout of the core campus resembles a rough circle with its center being Aldrich Park (initially known as Campus Park), lined up by the Ring Mall and buildings surrounding the road. To further emphasize the layout, academic units are positioned relative to the center, wherein undergraduate schools are closer to
21771-431: The lack of respect that the new management gave to programmers, they used their knowledge of how Atari VCS game cartridges were programmed to create their own games for the system, founding Activision in 1979 to sell these. Atari took legal action to try to block the sale of these games, but the companies ultimately settled, with Activision agreeing to pay a portion of their sales as a license fee to Atari for developing for
21948-758: The largest acquisition in tech history, surpassing the $ 67 billion Dell-EMC merger from 2016. The deal closed on October 13, 2023, and Activision Blizzard moved into the Microsoft Gaming division. Blizzard acquired Proletariat , the developers of Spellbreak , in June 2022 as to help support World of Warcraft . The 100-employee studio remained in Boston but will shutter Spellbreak as they move onto Warcraft . Ahead of their license renewal in January 2023, Blizzard (via Activision Blizzard) and NetEase stated in November 2022 that they had been unable to come to an agreement on
22125-432: The legal check was "blizzard", leading them to change their name to "Blizzard Entertainment" by May 1994. Warcraft was released in November 1994, and within a year, helped to establish Blizzard among other development studios like Westwood. Blizzard Entertainment has changed hands several times since then. Davidson was acquired along with Sierra On-Line by a company called CUC International in 1996. CUC then merged with
22302-414: The look of player's game. Additionally, it contains upgrades for each game such as enhanced local multiplayer for The Lost Vikings , new songs and artist performances for Rock n' Roll Racing , as well as a new level map for Blackthorne. A digital museum, which is included in the collection, features game art, unused content, and interviews. Notable unreleased titles include Warcraft Adventures: Lord of
22479-484: The lowest number since the end of 2006, prior to The Burning Crusade expansion. However, World of Warcraft is still the world's most-subscribed MMORPG, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers. In 2008, Blizzard was honored at the 59th Annual Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards for the creation of World of Warcraft . Mike Morhaime accepted the award. Following
22656-554: The main Information & Computer Science building and the Engineering Tower. The University of California, Irvine, created the University of California, Washington Center ( UCDC ) program in 1982. It is a student program of the university, located on Scott Circle in Downtown Washington ( 38°54′23.4″N 77°2′14″W / 38.906500°N 77.03722°W / 38.906500; -77.03722 ). The center serves as
22833-488: The major buildings on campus and the Central Plant, with the major trunk passage located beneath Ring Mall. Smaller tunnels branch off from this main passage to reach individual buildings, carrying electrical and air-conditioning utilities from the Central Plant. These tunnels have been the subject of much campus lore, the most popular story being that the tunnels were constructed to facilitate the safe evacuation of faculty in
23010-533: The merger was complete, with Vivendi Games effectively dissolved except for Blizzard Entertainment, and the new company was named Activision Blizzard . Blizzard established a distribution agreement with the Chinese company NetEase in August 2008 to publish Blizzard's games in China. The deal focused on StarCraft II which was gaining popularity as an esport within southeast Asia, as well as for other Blizzard games with
23187-408: The merger, Blizzard found it was relying on its well-established properties, but at the same time, the industry was experiencing a shift towards indie games . Blizzard established a few small teams within the company to work on developing new concepts based on the indie development approach that it could potentially use. One of these teams quickly came onto the idea of a collectible card game based on
23364-551: The movement again called out for the industry to unionize. The movement argued that Telltale had not given any warning to its 250 employees let go, having hired additional staff as recently as a week prior, and left them without pensions or health-care options; it was further argued that the studio considered this a closure rather than layoffs, as to get around failure to notify required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 preceding layoffs. The situation
23541-762: The nation, and 5th in California. In 2018, Sierra Magazine ranked UCI 1st in its "Coolest Schools" in America list for campus sustainability and climate change efforts. In addition, many of UCI's graduate programs are ranked in the top 50 of the 2020 U.S. News & World Report rankings: literary criticism and theory (1), criminology (3), organic chemistry (10), English (17), chemistry (20), sociology (23), computer science (30), physics (28), psychology (36), law (21), education (24), biological sciences (33), earth sciences (41), history (34), engineering (35), business part-time MBA (32), political science (45), mathematics (39), medicine-research (46), and economics (47). According to
23718-448: The nature of the video game culture. The industry also is recognized to have an ageism issue, discriminating against the hiring and retention of older developers. A 2016 IGDA survey found only 3% of developers were over 50 years old, while at least two-thirds were between 20 and 34; these numbers show a far lower average age compared to the U.S. national average of about 41.9 that same year. While discrimination by age in hiring practices
23895-529: The news, there have typically been followup discussions towards the potential to form a union. A survey performed by the International Game Developers Association in 2014 found that more than half of the 2,200 developers surveyed favored unionization. A similar survey of over 4,000 game developers run by the Game Developers Conference in early 2019 found that 47% of respondents felt the video game industry should unionize. In 2016, voice actors in
24072-476: The original publishing deal. Under this new deal, NetEase also will be able to bring games to the Xbox platform. Following completion of the acquisition, Microsoft announced it was laying off 1,900 staff from Microsoft Gaming on January 25, 2024. Alongside this, Blizzard President Mike Ybarra and Chief Design Officer Allen Adham announced they would be leaving the company. Further, the planned survival game from Blizzard
24249-694: The present, being a de facto rate used for most digital storefronts for third-party developers to offer their games on the platform. In recent years, larger publishers have acquired several third-party developers. While these development teams are now technically "in-house", they often continue to operate in an autonomous manner (with their own culture and work practices). For example, Activision acquired Raven (1997); Neversoft (1999), which merged with Infinity Ward in 2014; Z-Axis (2001); Treyarch (2001); Luxoflux (2002); Shaba (2002); Infinity Ward (2003) and Vicarious Visions (2005). All these developers continue operating much as they did before acquisition,
24426-414: The primary differences being exclusivity and financial details. Publishers tend to be more forgiving of their own development teams going over budget (or missing deadlines) than third-party developers. A developer may not be the primary entity creating a piece of software, usually providing an external software tool which helps organize (or use) information for the primary software product. Such tools may be
24603-429: The publisher's wishes generally override those of the developer. Work for hire studios solely execute the publishers vision. The business arrangement between the developer and publisher is governed by a contract, which specifies a list of milestones intended to be delivered over a period of time. By updating its milestones, the publisher verifies that work is progressing quickly enough to meet its deadline and can direct
24780-415: The publishers. While this had some effects on a few games within the industry, it brought to the forefront the question of whether video game developers should unionize. A grassroots movement, Game Workers Unite , was established around 2017 to discuss and debate issues related to unionization of game developers. The group came to the forefront during the March 2018 Game Developers Conference by holding
24957-469: The release of Warcraft: Orcs & Humans (1994), Diablo (1997), and StarCraft (1998), the focus has been almost exclusively on those three franchises. Overwatch (2016) became an exception years later, bringing the number of main franchises to four. Each franchise is supported by other media based around its intellectual property such as novels, collectible card games, comics and video shorts. Blizzard announced in 2006 that they would be producing
25134-432: The release of Starcraft , with development led by Duane Stinnett. Nomad was inspired by the tabletop role playing game Necromunda that was played in a post-apocalyptic setting . The project had vague goals, and around that time, many of the staff of Blizzard began playing MMORPGs EverQuest and Ultima Online . Nomad was cancelled in 1999 as Blizzard shifted to making their own MMORPG, World of Warcraft . In
25311-435: The renewal terms for their license, and thus most Blizzard games will cease operations in China in January 2023 until the situation can be resolved. According to a report by The New York Times , several factors influenced Activision Blizzard's decision to terminate the agreement, which included stronger demands made by the Chinese government to know of Activision Blizzard's internal business matters, NetEase's desire to license
25488-494: The resources of the UC Irvine Libraries by maintaining their own reading rooms and scholarly meeting rooms. They contain small reference collections and are the choice for more intimate lectures, graduate seminars, and study sessions. There is also the large Gateway Study Center located across from Langson Library, one of the university's original buildings and under the custody of UC Irvine Libraries. Having served formerly as
25665-470: The same year Havas was purchased by Vivendi . Blizzard, at this point numbering about 200 employees, became part of the Vivendi Games group of Vivendi. In 1996, Blizzard Entertainment acquired Condor Games of San Mateo, California , which had been working on the action role-playing game (ARPG) Diablo for Blizzard at the time, and was led by David Brevik and brothers Max and Erick Schaefer. Condor
25842-430: The second chancellor of UC Riverside. The UCI College of Letters and Science was to be divided into five divisions which together would initially offer about a dozen majors: Biological Sciences, Fine Arts, Humanities, Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences. It was Hinderaker who came up with the idea "to appoint deans with strong authority for each of the divisions and to give them as much freedom as possible in determining
26019-468: The second-largest employer in Orange County , with an annual economic impact of $ 5 billion. Aldrich developed the campus's first academic plan around a College of Letters and Science, a Graduate School of Administration, and a School of Engineering. The "principal author" of the plan was Ivan Hinderaker , who served under Aldrich as UCI's vice-chancellor for academic affairs before departing to become
26196-464: The six "spokes". Construction on the campus all but ceased after the Administration building, Aldrich Hall, was completed in 1974, and then resumed in the late 1980s, beginning a massive building boom that still continues today. This second building boom continued the futuristic trend, but emphasized a much more colorful, postmodern approach that somewhat contradicted the earthy, organic designs of
26373-545: The target of sexual harassment. This can be coupled from similar harassment from external groups, such as during the 2014 Gamergate controversy . Major investigations into allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct that went unchecked by management, as well as discrimination by employers, have been brought up against Riot Games , Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard in the late 2010s and early 2020s, alongside smaller studios and individual developers. However, while other entertainment industries have had similar exposure through
26550-423: The ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and professional degrees, and roughly 30,000 undergraduates and 6,000 graduate students were enrolled at UCI as of Fall 2019. The university is classified among " R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity " and had $ 523.7 million in research and development expenditures in 2021. UCI became
26727-484: The toxic nature of the video game culture. This racial diversity issue has similar ties to the gender one, and similar methods to result both have been suggested, such as improving grade school education, developing games that appeal beyond the white, male gamer stereotype, and identifying toxic behavior in both video game workplaces and online communities that perpetuate discrimination against gender and race. In regards to LGBT and other gender or sexual orientations,
26904-513: The traditional high school academic record, personal statement, and entrance examination scores. While residency is not a factor in admission, it is a factor in tuition expenses, with out-of-state residents fees much greater than California residents. Since the approval of Proposition 209 in November 1996, California state law has prohibited all public universities (including UC Irvine) from practicing affirmative action as part of their admissions processes. The University of California Irvine hosts
27081-554: The transition of the former Program in Public health to the Joseph C Wen School of Population and Public Health, named for the donor and his family. Supplementary education programs offer accelerated or community education in the form of Summer Session and UC Irvine Extension. The academic units consist of (with their founding in parentheses): The School of Medicine constitute the professional schools of health science. UC Irvine Medical Center
27258-465: The university purchased an additional 510 acres (210 ha) in 1964 for housing and commercial developments. Much of the land that was not purchased by UCI (which is now occupied by the cities of Irvine, Tustin , and Newport Beach ) remains held by The Irvine Company , but the completion of the university rapidly drove the development of Orange County. The City of Irvine became incorporated and established in 1971 and 1975, respectively. UCI remains
27435-487: The university's Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity substantiated a number of sexual harassment claims. Chancellor Gillman also authorized the removal of the Ayala name from graduate fellowships, scholar programs, and endowed chairs. Ayala resigned July 1, 2018 and was ordered to abstain from future university activities, following the university's consultative procedures that include a faculty review committee. The results from
27612-487: The use of crunch time at Electronic Arts , a situation known as the "EA Spouses" case. A similar "Rockstar Spouses" case gained further attention in 2010 over working conditions at Rockstar San Diego . Since then, there has generally been negative perception of crunch time from most of the industry as well as from its consumers and other media. Game development had generally been a predominately male workforce. In 1989, according to Variety , women constituted only 3% of
27789-504: The video game industry typically shares the same demographics as with the larger population based on a 2005 IGDA survey. Those in the LGBT community do not find workplace issues with their identity, though work to improve the representation of LGBT themes within video games in the same manner as with racial minorities. However, LGBT developers have also come under the same type of harassment from external groups like women and racial minorities due to
27966-678: The video game industry. Whereas some video game employees believe they should follow the craft-based model used by SAG-AFTRA which would unionize based on job function, others feel an industry-wide union, regardless of job position, would be better. Starting in 2021, several smaller game studios in the United States began efforts to unionize. These mostly involved teams doing quality assurance rather than developers. These studios included three QA studios under Blizzard Entertainment : Raven Software , Blizzard Albany , and Proletariat; and Zenimax Media 's QA team. Microsoft , which had previously acquired Zenimax and announced plans to acquire Blizzard via
28143-601: The wake of the 2018 layoffs, two projects were cancelled: One was codenamed Orion , an asynchronous card game for mobile devices designed by Hearthstone developers. While the game was considered fun to play when players were engaged in real time, the asynchronous aspect diluted the enjoyment of the. The second, codenamed Ares , was a first-person shooter within the Starcraft universe inspired by Electronic Arts ' Battlefield series that had been in development for three years. After seven years of development, Blizzard revealed
28320-412: The wake of these events, Brack, one of the few individuals directly named in the suit, announced he was leaving Blizzard to "pursue new opportunities", and will be replaced by co-leads Jen Oneal, the lead of Vicarious Visions and the first woman in a leadership role for the company, and Mike Ybarra, a Blizzard executive vice president. Oneal announced in November 2021 that she would be leaving the company by
28497-504: The workforce in video games is estimated to be from contract labor. Similar to other tech industries, video game developers are typically not unionized . This is a result of the industry being driven more by creativity and innovation rather than production, the lack of distinction between management and employees in the white-collar area, and the pace at which the industry moves that makes union actions difficult to plan out. However, when situations related to crunch time become prevalent in
28674-536: Was 3.95. The average SAT scores were 602 (Critical Reasoning), 640 (Mathematics), and 612 (Writing), while the ACT composite score was 26. SAT verbal scores for the middle 50% were 550 and 660, while SAT math scores ranged between 580 and 700. The choice to offer admission is based on the University of California's comprehensive review program, which considers a candidate's personal situation, community involvement, extracurricular activities, and academic potential in addition to
28851-660: Was argued to be "exploitive", as Telltale had been known to force its employees to frequently work under "crunch time" to deliver its games. By the end of 2018, a United Kingdom trade union, Game Workers Unite UK, an affiliate of the Game Workers Unite movement, had been legally established. Following Activision Blizzard 's financial report for the previous quarter in February 2019, the company said that they would be laying off around 775 employees (about 8% of their workforce) despite having record profits for that quarter. Further calls for unionization came from this news, including
29028-646: Was canceled. On January 29, 2024, Johanna Faries, the former general manager of the Call of Duty series, was named Blizzard Entertainment's new president, taking office on February 5. Following the unionization success of Raven Software 's Game Workers Alliance (GWA) union for quality assurance (QA) testers , the 20-member QA team of Blizzard Albany announced a unionization drive in July 2022 as GWA Albany. The vote passed (14–0). On July 24, 2024, 500 artists, designers, engineers, producers, and quality assurance testers who work on World of Warcraft voted to unionize under
29205-526: Was chosen to accommodate the county's growing population, complement the growth of nearby UCLA and UC Riverside , and allow for the construction of a master planned community in the surrounding area. On June 20, 1964, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson dedicated UC Irvine before a crowd of 15,000 people, and on October 4, 1965, the campus began operations with 1,589 students, 241 staff members, 119 faculty, and 43 teaching assistants. However, many of UCI's buildings were still under construction and landscaping
29382-419: Was completed in 1974. These buildings were designed with the appearance of being displayed on "pedestals" (containing the first floor and basement levels) that elevated them above the rolling terrain, with distinctive white railings evoking the deck of an ocean liner. They additionally feature an elevated second pedestrian level above ground, originally intended as a "skyway" to connect all the buildings in each of
29559-788: Was estimated to hold 62 percent of the MMORPG subscription market. With the success of World of Warcraft , Blizzard Entertainment organized the first BlizzCon fan convention in October 2005 held at the Anaheim Convention Center . The inaugural event drew about 6,000 people and became an annual event which Blizzard uses to announce new games, expansions, and content for its properties. Blizzard's staff quadrupled from around 400 employees in 2004 to 1600 by 2006 to provide more resources to World of Warcraft and its various expansions. To deal with its growing staff, Blizzard moved their headquarters from
29736-626: Was highly successful, and was the highest-selling game on PC for 2016. Several traditional esport events had been established within the year of Overwatch 's release, such as the Overwatch World Cup , but Blizzard continued to expand this and announced the first esports professional league, the Overwatch League at the 2016 BlizzCon event. The company purchased a studio at The Burbank Studios in Burbank, California , that it converted into
29913-570: Was leaving the company after 20 years in March 2020. On January 22, 2021, Activision transferred Vicarious Visions over to Blizzard Entertainment, stating that the Vicarious Visions team had better opportunity for long-term support for Blizzard. Vicarious had been working with Blizzard for about two years prior to this announcement on the planned remaster of Diablo II , Diablo II: Resurrected , and according to Brack, it made sense to incorporate Vicarious into Blizzard for ongoing support of
30090-465: Was open to a merger, but would only allow it if he controlled the majority of the combined company, knowing the value of World of Warcraft to Kotick. Among those Kotick spoke to for advice included Blizzard's Morhaime, who told Kotick that they had begun establishing lucrative in-roads into the Chinese market . Kotick accepted Lévy's deal, with the deal approved by shareholders in December 2007. By July 2008,
30267-774: Was opened. Its curvilinear design marked a return to the sculptural treatment of concrete begun by Pereira. As of 2005, the campus has more than 200 buildings and encompasses most of the university's 1,525 acres (6.17 km ). The campus is in the midst of a $ 1.1 billion construction campaign. In addition to holding a noted critical theory archive and Southeast Asian archive, the Libraries also contain extensive collections in Dance and Performing Arts, Regional History, and more. Additionally, Langson Library hosts an extensive East Asian collection with materials in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Nearly all departments and schools on campus complement
30444-788: Was rated as one of the " Public Ivies " in 1985 and 2001 surveys comparing publicly funded universities the authors claimed provide an education comparable to the Ivy League . The UC Irvine Anteaters currently compete in the NCAA Division I as members of the Big West Conference . During the early years of the school's existence, the teams played at the NCAA Division II level. The Anteaters have won 28 national championships in nine different team sports, 64 Anteaters have won individual national championships, and 53 Anteaters have competed in
30621-425: Was renamed Blizzard North , with Blizzard's existing Irvine studios colloquially referred as Blizzard South. Diablo was released at the very start of 1997 alongside Battle.net , a matchmaking service for the game. Blizzard North developed the sequel Diablo II (2000), and its expansion pack Lord of Destruction (2001). Following the success of Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness , Blizzard began development on
30798-403: Was still in progress, with the campus only at 75% completion. By June 25, 1966, UCI held its first Commencement with fourteen students, which conferred ten Bachelor of Arts degrees, three Master of Arts degrees, and one Doctor of Philosophy degree. Unlike most other University of California campuses, UCI was not named for the city it was built in; at the time of the university's founding (1965),
30975-419: Was the final year UCI was eligible for this ranking. UCI's graduate philosophy program ranks among the finest worldwide, according to the Philosophical Gourmet Report , with the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science jointly achieving a 28th position in global rankings. For 2024, U.S. News & World Report ranked UC Irvine tied for 33rd among national universities in
31152-496: Was the subject of a lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing in July 2021, asserting that for several years the management within Blizzard as well as Activision promoted a "frat boy" atmosphere that allowed and encouraged sexual misconduct towards female employees and discrimination in hiring practices. The lawsuit drew a large response from employees and groups outside of Activision Blizzard. In
31329-510: Was transitioning to the seventh generation . Blizzard decided to cancel Ghost rather than extend its development period to work on the newer consoles. Blizzard started to work on a sequel to the Warcraft II in early 1998, which was announced as a "role-playing strategy" game. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos , the third title set in the Warcraft fictional universe, was released in July 2002. Warcraft III has inspired many future games, having
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