1991: Allen Adham, Michael Morhaime and Frank Pearce start a game company called Silicon & Synapse. The company develops games for other publishing houses. Best known titles include Rock ‘n Roll Racing. The Lost Vikings and Blackthorne.

1994 The company changes its name to Chaos Studios, then changed its name to Blizzard Entertainment, realizing that another company had the prior name.

November 1994: Silicon & Synapse renames itself to Blizzard Entertainment and publishes its first Warcraft game, “Warcraft: Orcs & Humans,” available as a DOS CD-ROM and floppy disk for $45. The game wins PC Gamer’s Editors Choice award and best strategy game of 1994.

1994 The Death and Return of Superman is created based on the storyline of Death of Superman.

1994 Blackthorne, otherwise known as BlackHawk in European countries, is developed by Blizzard Entertainment.

December 1995: “Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness” is released and wins Game of the Year award from PC Gamer. About 50,000 copies are sold in the first weekend.

1995 Justice League Task Force is created by Blizzard. Like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, this game is in the fighting genre.

1996 Warcraft II Beyond the Dark Portal is created by Blizzard. Based on the Warcraft II Tide of Darkness, this game is an expansion pack.

December 1996: Release of action-role-playing game “Diablo” and Battle.net, one of the early forms of multiplayer gaming online. A half-million copies of Diablo sell within the first few months. Within six months, Battle.net registers 700,000.

March 1998: “StarCraft” launches, selling 1 million copies in first three months.

2000: Diablo II is released, selling 1 million copies in first two weeks. It sets the record for the fastest-selling PC game ever.

2001: An expansion to the Diablo sequel, “Diablo II: Lord of Destruction,” is released and sells more than one million copies in the first month.

July 2002: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos released, selling more than one million copies in first three weeks.

July 2003: An expansion to Warcraft III, “The Frozen Throne” is released. One million copies sold within the first month.

Nov. 23, 2004: “World of Warcraft” launches. In the US, 240,000 copies sold in first day, with 200,000 players creating online accounts within 24 hours, at $15 a month.

May 9, 2006: Plans are announced to develop a live-action “World of Warcraft” movie. Legendary Pictures, the studio behind Batman Begins and 300, will produce.

January 2007: An expansion pack to “World of Warcraft,” called “The Burning Crusade,” launches with 2.4 million copies sold in the first 24 hours .

May 19, 2007: StarCraft II is announced.

August 2007: World of Warcraft expansion pack, “Wrath of the Lich King ” is announced.

July 24, 2007: WoW subscribers surpass 9 million.

November 2007: The first comic book series based on “World of Warcraft” is released.

December 2007: Plans are announced for Activision (creator of “Guitar Hero”) and Blizzard’s parent company, France-based Vivendi, to merge as Activision-Blizzard.

December 2007: Blizzard Entertainment CEO and co-founder Mike Morhaime is honored as the 11th inductee in the Hall of Fame by the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences for “his role in expanding the MMOG audience beyond the hardcore.”

Jan. 22, 2008: WoW subscribers surpass 10 million – including more than 2 million in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America and about 5.5 million in Asia.

March 7, 2008: Blizzard Entertainment is ranked No. 3 game developer in the world by Think Services’ Game Developer magazine.

After more than a year of covering Orange County’s biggest and best-known developer, we’re ending the Blizzard Blog.

But not because Blizzard Entertainment is no longer worth covering. In fact, when we wrote exclusives about the Irvine game developer, we captured fan attention big time.  We’d like to thank all the fans who checked us out, especially especially the guys at WoW.com for the great linkage.

In the last several months, Tamara Chuang (aka the Gadgetress) and I had personal and professional obligations that  severely limited the time we had to devote to this blog. In the end, our editors decided the topic was best covered from Tamara’s Gadgetress blog, where it began, rather than use the resources required for a separate blog.

So we’re moving all future coverage to a category of Tamara’s main blog at The Gadgetress (here’s a shortcut: gadgetress.com/blizzard). You’ll find a new page with links to older stories, photo slide shows, videos and all good things Blizzard.

There are still plenty of Blizzard-related events that happen – from BlizzCon to the company’s developer-attended game launches. Thanks for following us and reading the coverage that we provided, and we hope to see you all again.

Here are the most recent stories:

~ Joe Simmons, lead Blizzard blogger

We haven’t closed entries to try out for goody bags yet, but we’re getting close — in fact, we’re closing the contest tonight, Wednesday, at midnight PST.

If you want a BlizzCon goody bag, make sure to register with the Web site and leave a comment on any of BlizzCon coverage. We’ll randomly select winners from anyone that’s said something on the coverage — it’s that simple!

Coverage so far: