Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime on the last 25 years of games — and the next 25

Blizzard Entertainment is the the division of Activision Blizzard that’s brought us games like StarCraft, Diablo, and World of Warcraft, and it turns 25 today. Its chief executive is Mike Morhaime, who was one of the three original founders who started the company during the golden age of PC games.

The company started in 1991 as Silicon & Synapse, with Allen Adham, Morhaime, and Frank Pearce as its founders. They started out as work for hire, making games for Interplay Productions. But now they’ve grown into a 4,000-employee powerhouse, with $1.6 billion in the 12 months that ended September 30, the leading subscriber online game in World of Warcraft, a 30 million seller in Diablo III, and two growing esports with Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft (a card battler) and Heroes of the Storm (an online multiplayer strategy game). Throughout the ups and downs, the changes in ownership, a transition in power in which Adham turned the reins over to Morhaime, the company has outlived the competition.