Blizzard Albany

Formerly	Vicarious Visions, Inc. (1991–2022)
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Video games
Founded	1991; 34 years ago (1991)
Founders	Karthik Bala Guha Bala
Headquarters	Albany, New York , US
Key people	Simon Ebejer (studio head) Aaron Ondek (CTO)
Number of employees	200+ (2021)
Parent	Activision (2005–2021) Blizzard Entertainment (2021–present)
Website	vvisions.com at theWayback Machine (archived March 20, 2022) (now redirects toblizzard.com)

Blizzard Albany (formerlyVicarious Visions, Inc.) is an Americanvideo game development division ofBlizzard Entertainment based inAlbany, New York. Founded in 1991, the company was acquired byActivision in January 2005. In January 2021, Vicarious Visions became part of Activision's sister companyBlizzard Entertainment and was merged into it in April 2022.

The studio was founded by brothers Karthik and Guha Bala in 1991 while they were in high school.^[1] In the late 1990s, Vicarious Visions appointed Michael Marvin, an Albany-based investor and entrepreneur, and founder and former CEO ofMapInfo Corporation; and Charles S. Jones, investor, who sat on the boards of various software and industrial companies including Geac and PSDI, to its board of directors. Under their leadership, a sale of the company was negotiated toActivision, earning the original investors over 20x their initial investment.^{[citation needed]} In 1999, Vicarious Visions partnered with Vatical Entertainment for a three-year strategic alliance, where Vatical published titles Vicarious Visions is developing, includingGame Boy Color.^[2] In January 2005, Vicarious Visions was acquired by publisher Activision. In June 2007, Activision closed the Vicarious Visions' office inMountain View, California.^[3] On April 5, 2016, the Bala brothers announced that they had left the company.^[4] The brothers then foundedVelan Studios in November 2016.^[5]

On January 22, 2021, Vicarious Visions was moved byActivision Blizzard from a subsidiary of Activision to a subsidiary ofBlizzard Entertainment. Going forward, more than 200 employees of Vicarious Visions will be employees of Blizzard.^[6] Vicarious had been working with Blizzard for about two years prior to this announcement, and specifically on the plannedremaster ofDiablo II,Diablo II: Resurrected, and Blizzard felt the move would be best as to have Vicarious' group provide continued support not only on the remaster but also on otherDiablo properties includingDiablo IV.^[7][8] Vicarious Visionsstudio head Jen Oneal moved to Blizzard's management and was succeeded by Simon Ebejer, previously the studio'schief operating officer.^[9] On October 27, 2021, Blizzard informed Vicarious Visions employees that the studio would change its name.^[10] The studio was fully merged into Blizzard on April 12, 2022, and was renamed Blizzard Albany, otherwise retaining its offices.^[11][12]

Blizzard Albany'squality assurance team, about 20 members in size, announced aunionization drive in July 2022 asGame Workers Alliance Albany. It followsRaven Software, another Activision Blizzard subsidiary, whose QA team voted to unionize earlier in the year.^[13]

Terminus, an online multiplayer space trading and combat simulation game, won twoIndependent Games Festival Awards in 1999. They became known as a leading developer of handheld games breaking ground by theTony Hawk's Pro Skater series, developingGame Boy Advance andNintendo DS titles in the franchise's main series as well as one spin off. They developed the first threeCrash Bandicoot GBA games. Vicarious Visions developedSpider-Man,Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro,Ultimate Spider-Man,Crash Nitro Kart,Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast,Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, andDoom 3 for the Xbox. Vicarious Visions developed for theGuitar Hero series on the Nintendo DS andWii platforms. ForGuitar Hero: On Tour, Vicarious Visions created the "Guitar Grip" peripheral for the Nintendo DS, which emulates the guitar controller for the portable system.

It was revealed on June 10, 2011, that Vicarious Visions was working on the 3DS version ofSkylanders: Spyro's Adventure, and would go on to have an important role in developing the Skylanders game series, creating the gamesSkylanders: Swap Force andSkylanders: SuperChargers.^[14] On December 8, 2016, Vicarious Visions announced that they were partnering withBungie to work on theDestiny franchise.^[15]

Vicarious Visions Alchemy is the company's game engine. It was released in 2002. It was originally calledIntrinsic Alchemy and developed by Intrinsic Graphics before being renamed after Vicarious Visions acquired Intrinsic Graphics in 2003.^[16]

• Official website

• 1991 establishments in New York (state)
• 2005 mergers and acquisitions
• 2021 mergers and acquisitions
• American companies established in 1991
• Blizzard Entertainment
• Colonie, New York
• Companies based in Albany County, New York
• Former Activision subsidiaries
• Video game companies based in New York (state)
• Video game companies established in 1991
• Video game development companies

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