Ayman ‘Allen’ Adham is an American businessman, who along with Michael Morhaime and Frank Pearce, was one of three co-founders of Silicon & Synapse, which changed its name to Blizzard Entertainment. He led the creation of The Lost Vikings, RPM Racing, Rock N’ Roll Racing, Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, among others.
Mike Morhaime is the president and a co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, a video game developer located in Irvine, California and currently owned by Activision Blizzard. He is also an alumnus of Triangle Fraternity and received his bachelor’s degree in 1990 from UCLA.
Morhaime appears in animated form in the South Park episode “Make Love, Not Warcraft,” which deals with the World of Warcraft MMORPG.
Frank Pearce was Co-founder of Silicon & Synapse (later named Blizzard) in 1991 with Allen Adham and Michael Morhaime.
As Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.’s executive vice president of product development, Frank Pearce plays a critical role in the development of all Blizzard Entertainment® titles. This involves coordinating the work of multiple teams in order to ensure that every project maintains the same polish and quality that mark all Blizzard games.
Blizzard Entertainment is an American video game developer and publisher headquartered in Irvine, California. It is a division of Activision Blizzard. Blizzard is the creator of several successful computer games, including World of Warcraft and the Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo series.
Blizzard Entertainment was founded by Michael Morhaime, Ayman Allen Adham and Frank Pearce as Silicon & Synapse in February 1991, a year after all three had received their bachelor’s degrees from UCLA. In the early days the company focused on creating game ports for other studios. Ports include titles such as J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Vol. I and Battle Chess II: Chinese Chess. In 1993, the company developed games like Rock N’ Roll Racing and The Lost Vikings (published by Interplay Productions). In 1994, the company briefly changed its name to Chaos Studios, before finally settling on Blizzard Entertainment after it was discovered that another company with the Chaos name already existed. That same year, they were acquired by distributor Davidson & Associates for under $10 million. Shortly thereafter, Blizzard shipped their breakthrough hit Warcraft: Orcs and Humans.
Blizzard Entertainment has proudly announced that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King has sold more than 2.8 million copies in its first 24 hours of availability. This fact makes Lich King the fastest-selling PC game ever made.
In celebration of the launch, more than 15,000 stores throughout the world had their doors open at midnight to welcome thousands of expectant players. Several of these locations were attended by Blizzard Entertainment representatives, who met players and signed copies of the game.
Thousands of gaming fans left a virtual world to unite in the real one and test an update of their obsession. By day they are human, but in their spare time they become mythical heroes such as wizards, dwarfs and blood-elves. At the weekend, in California, 15,000 of them logged out of World of Warcraft, the world’s biggest online game, to gather in a hall the size of an aircraft hangar for the “big nerdfest” that is Blizzcon.
They were drawn to the Anaheim Convention Centre in California by their love of the virtual worlds they inhabit. Blizzcon is part video game carnival, part trade fair and part religious pilgrimage, organised by Blizzard Entertainment, which makes World of Warcraft and the real-time strategy game Starcraft.
