Blizzard plans to acquire Spellbreak studio Proletariat to bolster World of Warcraft

venturebeat.com:

Interested in learning what's next for the gaming industry? Join gaming executives to discuss emerging parts of the industry this October at GamesBeat Summit Next. Learn more.

Blizzard Entertainment said it plans to acquire Spellbreak maker Proletariat to beef up the staff on its massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft. [Updated: 7:59 a.m. Pacific time on 6/29/22 with intent to acquire].

Under the deal, Boston-based Proletariat will become part of Blizzard, and its team of 100 people will begin working on World of Warcraft, including the Dragonflight expansion coming later this year. Spellbreak, a battle royale game where wizards and witches cast spells at each other, will be sunset. (The company announced this news yesterday.)

The move is the biggest acquisition that Blizzard has made — at least for the past decade — to expand its studios. In this case, the mission is to beef up the staffing for World of Warcraft so that it can hit quality and timing goals for expansions. Terms of this transaction were not disclosed.

Activision Blizzard, the parent company of Blizzard, also folded Vicarious Visions, a longtime Activision studio, into Blizzard to work on the Diablo franchise in January 2021. But Blizzard hasn’t been particularly acquisitive, as one of the few we can remember was the acquisition of Swinging Ape in 2005. Rather, Blizzard itself got tossed around quite a bit in its early days before landing with Activision Blizzard back in 2008. Proletariat has been working with Blizzard since May.

MetaBeat 2022

MetaBeat will bring together metaverse thought leaders to give guidance on how metaverse technology will transform the way all industries communicate and do business on October 3-4 in San