Blizzard Entertainment®is a premier publisher of entertainment software. Since establishing the Blizzard label in 1994, the company has quickly become one of the most popular and well-respected makers of computer games.

　　With blockbuster hits including World of Warcraft®and the Warcraft®, Diablo®, and StarCraft®series, the company has enjoyed back-to-back number-one selling games, as well as consecutive Game of the Year awards. The company's free online game service, Battle.net®, is the largest in the world with millions of active users.

　　The company's most recent release was World of Warcraft®, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on the award-winning Warcraft series. It launched on November 23, 2004 in North America, Australia, and New Zealand, and promptly shattered all sales records for a PC title, as well as setting records for account creation and peak concurrency for an online game. It became the fastest PC title to sell over 240,000 units, with the biggest day one sell through in PC history. With a current subscriber base of more than 1.5 million players, World of Warcraft is now the biggest online game in North America.

　　Within a few months of launching in North America, World of Warcraft also launched in Korea and Europe. On January 18, 2005, World of Warcraft released in Korea, and quickly became one of the top MMORPGs in the country. The game then launched in Europe on February 11, 2005, to even greater success than in North America. In its first day alone, World of Warcraft sold through over 280,000 copies. Today, Europe has over 900,000 active subscribers. Worldwide, World of Warcraft enjoys a total subscriber population of over 5 million players.