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‘World of Warcraft’ artists forum at UC Irvine

September 21st, 2009, 2:58 pm by

gryphn-rider-laguna_edit

“Gryphn Rider,” a 2004 print by Bill Petras. On view at Laguna Art Museum through Oct. 4. © Blizzard Entertainment.

Attention gamers and art fans: The Laguna Art Museum is hosting an artists’ forum at UC Irvine from 4-6 p.m. Oct. 1. The forum will take place at UCI’s Winifred Smith Hall.

The forum will include artists featured in the museum’s current exhibition, “WoW: Emergent Media Phenomenon,” as well as Blizzard Entertainment’s cinematics project lead, Jeff Chamberlain. The forum will be moderated by the associate director of UC Irvine’s Beall Center for Art and Technology, David Familian.

The artists participating will be Antoinette LaFarge, Robert Nideffer and Eddo Stern.

LaFarge is an associate professor of digital media at UC Irvine. She’s a faculty member for the arts computation engineering graduate program in the studio art department, and is the director of academic computing at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts. Her digital print “World of World: The Adventures of Malbec and Player” is on view at the Laguna Art Museum.

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Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard Art • Latest game news • World of Warcraft | 4 Comments »

NEW: Blizzard Entertainment in pictures and video

September 1st, 2009, 9:43 am by

Blizzard Blog photo archiveWe’re still recovering from BlizzCon 2009 and have just selected winners for our goody-bag giveaway. Readers are being notified right now.

If you missed any of our coverage, check out our new photo gallery archive, at gaming.freedomblogging.com/photos, where we have put together links to all previous photo slide shows and video taken by us and the professional photographers here at the OCRegister.

So far, there’s three years of BlizzCon footage and we’re trying to track down photos from year one. Plus, we’ve added a lot of other goodies from times past.

We’ll be adding to the collection from here on and when we find time, will continue to add older coverage. Are we missing something? Ping us!

Enjoy!

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard Art • • | Comments Off

Interviews with StarCraft II lead developer, producer

July 2nd, 2009, 8:39 am by

Photos from Blizzard's Rob Pardo and Chris Sigaty interviews.Ya, ya, we all know StarCraft II is coming out this year, or is expected to unless Blizzard feels the need to delay it. But for the Register’s mainstream readers, we offer an update on Blizzard, the upcoming game and what at least one fan site thinks about it.

This was part of our recent visit to Blizzard’s Irvine headquarters, where the company opened its doors to press and select fan sites. We go to play the game, watch three battles between pro gamers David Lee and Matt Cooper, talk to the lead developer and producer and eat all the Blizzard sandwiches we wanted (actually, just ordinary meat and cheese … but there was plenty of veggie sammies).

StarCraft II sneaks

So, check out today’s story in the Register with the no-duh headline, “After 11 years, ‘StarCraft’ sequel to emerge.” Here’s a sneak peek:

Back in March 1998, Blizzard Entertainmentreleased a completely new game, “StarCraft.”With its previous games selling more than a million copies in a year, the Irvine game developer had high hopes for its first science-fiction strategy game: It had 1 million games ready to sell on day one. “StarCraft” has since sold 11 million copies and remains one of the best-selling PC games today.

Now, multiply that by the massive resources Blizzard has today, from billions of dollars in game revenue to its 3,000 employees, which is 30 times what it had in 1998. Add in a decade of industry anticipation and fan excitement. Plus there’s the pressure to top every game Blizzard has released, including the latest update to “World of Warcraft,” which sold 2.8 million copies – in the first 24 hours.

“StarCraft II,” the long awaited sequel to 1998′s top PC game, is slated to launch by the end of the year. But it’s not just record sales the company envisions. Blizzard wants another classic.

Read up and continue watching this space for more tidbits gleaned from our visit to Blizzard. Meanwhile, here’s a video of our interviews with Rob Pardo, executive vice president of game design, and Chris Sigaty, lead producer of StarCraft II:

Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this Brightcove video.

 Earlier:

Posted in: Blizzard • Latest game news • Star Craft • • • • | 4 Comments »

Photos: Orc on wolf mount spotted at Blizzard’s headquarters!

February 26th, 2009, 10:25 am by

Remember the Orc Warrior on Wolf Mount, the foot-tall sculpture Blizzard Entertainment gave as a gift to every single employee last year? That creature was a pint-size model of the real thing, which arrived on the company’s Irvine campus this week.

Blizzard commissioned the 12-foot statue for its courtyard from the Weta Workshop, the same New Zealand film-effects company that worked on “The Lord of the Rings” movies. The giant bronzed orc riding a wolf is, obviously, inspired from Blizzard’s own Warcraft games.

And we’ve got a slide show of all the cool installation photos. Click the image on the right to get started.

I first heard about this when I stopped by Chief Operating Officer Paul Sams’ office last fall to write about his crazy, humongous collection of Blizzard toys, treasures and other artifacts (see “Man who collects all things Blizzard.”  He, in turn, mentioned that Blizzard is one of those cool companies to work for not just because you get to play games, but it piles heaps of love on its employees, including handing out a full-sized sword on an employee’s fifth anniversary. 

The smaller sculpture was a thank you to its crew, Sams said. 

Anyway, take a look yourself in the photos below: Sams holding up the model and the real thing. See more cool shots, courtesy of Blizzard… 

  

More installation photos (images courtesy of Blizzard). Click to enlarge:

       

Older posts you may be interested in:

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard Art • The Business • • • • | 10 Comments »

The Blizzard Report, 2/13/2009

February 13th, 2009, 5:00 am by
  • Blizzard’s posted new “StarCraft II” wallpapers and winners of its “StarCraft” comic contest. Blizzard
  • “World of Warcraft” is increasingly becoming a destination — a “third place” — where people can meet others and spend time with friends. Well, duh, but it’s official now because it’s a researcher saying it, not a bunch or regular Joes. WoW Insider
  • “World of Warcraft” lead designer Jeff Kaplan is moving on to the company’s next (and as-yet unannounced) MMO title. Massively
  • BlizzPlanet’s got the whole list of recently posted dual spec changes that will begin trickling into “World of Warcraft” in the near future. BlizzPlanet

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard Art • Games • Latest game news • Lich King • Star Craft • The Business • World of Warcraft • | Comments Off

The Blizzard Report, 2/6/2009

February 6th, 2009, 5:00 am by
  • WoW Insider’s already got a guide to patch 3.1 for “World of Warcraft.” This includes the new class info as well as several other changes, both big and small, that have been announced. WoW Insider
  • Speaking of class changes — upcoming death knight, hunter, mage and paladin changes have been announced. Blizzard forums
  • Activision Blizzard may be attending E3 this year, but there’s a little clarification: The Blizzard half, with its “Starcraft,” “Diablo” and “Warcraft” franchises, will not be showing up. Joystiq
  • Upper Deck Entertainment announced that it’ll be holding regional World of Warcraft Miniatures Game tournaments, with the grand prize being a World of Warcraft Trading Card Game “Spectral Tiger” card. The card, which has a code that can be exchanged for an in-game mount, once went for over $1000 in online auctions (but is now on eBay for the much saner $80). BlizzPlanet

Posted in: Activision Blizzard • Blizzard • E3 • Events • Games • Latest game news • Lich King • The Business • World of Warcraft • | Comments Off

Merry Christmas: Blizzard’s holiday card

December 24th, 2008, 3:01 pm by

It’s always fun to see the Christmas card from Blizzard. Friendly orcs and cheeky night elves all glitzed out for the holiday season. Here’s the Blizzard Entertainment 2008 holiday card:

 
Inside the card it says, “Happiness is always remembering … even the naughty can play nice!”

Check out the 2006 card HERE.

Posted in: Blizzard • | Comments Off

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