MediaFile

Blizzard Entertainment, the publisher of World of Warcaft and StarCraft 2 (Korea’s national past time) turns 20 this year. In February 1991, three UCLA grads, Allen Adham, Frank Pearce, and Mike Morhaime founded a publishing company called Silicon & Synapse. Based in Irvine, California, it would later go on to be known as Blizzard Entertainment and crank out $1.65 billion in revenue 2010.

Here are some highlights of an interview on Monday with two of three founders, Pearce and Morhaime, as well as Activision Blizzard’s CFO Thomas Tippl. Here’s a  video the company made to celebrate.

ON HOW FAST THEY CAN GET OUT THE NEXT WORLD OF WARCRAFT UPDATE (CATACLYSM TOOK TWO YEARS):

“We want to do it faster. Two years is too long and one year is too aggressive for us in terms of being able to deliver the quality of content.”-Frank Pearce, Blizzard’s co-founder and executive vice president of product development

ON EA’S UPCOMING STAR WARS MASSIVE MULTI-PLAYER GAME ‘THE OLD REPUBLIC’:

“There is room for more than one successful MMO in the Western world.”-  Mike Morhaime, Blizzard CEO, co-founder

“The Star Wars franchise is hugely powerful. It will bring people to this genre who haven’t tried it before.”- Pearce

ON CATACLYSM RELEASE IN CHINA:

“We’re mid-process in getting the game out in China.  We are trying to get it out as soon as possible.”- Morhaime

ON WHAT ACTIVISION CAN LEARN FROM BLIZZARD:

“We are tremendously benefiting from Blizzard’s success in Asia as we are trying to expand Activision’s ‘Call of Duty’ in markets like China.”-  Activision Blizzard CFO Thomas Tippl

ON UPCOMING STARCRAFT 2 EXPANSION, HEART OF SWARM:

“The team is focusing on following up the launch of StarCraft2 with content patches and properly supported E-sports community so those are really a bigger priority than ‘Heart of Swarm.’ – Pearce

ON THE NEXT 20 YEARS:

“ In 20 years I don’t even think they’ll use the term gamer, just like we don’t use “music listener” or “TV watcher”. Everyone will just game. – Morhaime

(Photo: Reuters)