Talk:List of Blizzard Entertainment games

I am not a fan of current list of video games

I think that original release dates need to be in separate column. It will be much easier to find information you need. Current table is very hard to read fast. 77.243.29.247 (talk) 14:34, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Games that are not produced by Blizzard Entertainment

• 1997 - Diablo: Hellfire
• 1998 - StarCraft: Insurrection

Neither of them were designed or released by Blizzard Entertainment. They are only authorized. --Darth Narutorious 17:24, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

ok... removed... thanks for the info... - Adolphus79 18:22, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

No problem. The description of this article is the "List of games designed and/or released by Blizzard Entertainment", so I indicate those games which did not fit in that description. Anyway, for more info: Diablo: Hellfire (1997) is produced by Sierra On-Line while StarCraft: Insurrection (1998) was produced by Aztech New Media. Although they were "authorized" by Blizzard Entertainment, well it doesn't mean that Blizzard made it. I don't even think Blizzard ever endorses these products since they did not produce it. If Blizzard Entertainment, or any other game developers made games, they would explicitly announce it and indicate that they made it. They never endorse a product that they didn't made even though they "authorize" it. Well, that's all. --Darth Narutorious 09:24, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain was developed by Blizzard. Please add -86.153.168.33 (talk) 21:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Nope, quote: "Pax Imperia II was originally announced as a title to be published by Blizzard. Blizzard eventually dropped Pax Imperia II, though, when it decided it might be in conflict with their other space strategy project, the now-legendary StarCraft. THQ eventually contracted with Heliotrope and released the game in 1997 as Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain." --Voidvector (talk) 21:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Separating/better indicating games developed as Silicon & Synapse and as Blizzard

I believe it might be a good idea to either separate the list into two lists (Games developed as Silicon & Synapse and Games developed as Blizzard Entertainment for example), or to add a better visual indicator than the notes (say a merged row on the table at the beginning that says "As Silicon & Synapse" and a merged row above Blackthorne that says "As Blizzard Entertainment" or something of the sort). SharkyIzrod (talk) 10:00, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, lets try splitting it into two tables. --PresN 12:06, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Inclusion of Expansions

I believe including expansions in the list of releases would be the correct way to proceed. They are major releases as defined by Blizzard themselves, and more importantly, with standalone expansion releases and remasters the lines get blurred, so I'd say the safer and more useful option is to include all of them. This wouldn't include Hearthstone expansions, however, but expansions which constitute large scale releases, separate and detailed Wikipedia pages, and are listed by Blizzard separately on their list of games page here.

Anyone who disagrees please bring up your reasoning here. Otherwise I'll get to adding all the major releases soon. SharkyIzrod (talk) 08:52, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

I think if we're going to classify expansions as if they were "major releases" on par with full games, then we need an objective measure of doing so. I don't think inclusion on that page counts- it's missing all games before StarCraft, and the WarCraft 3, Diablo 2, and StarCraft expansions (and Frozen Throne / Brood War were definitely major expansions). It's basically a listing of "of the games we currently market, here are the stand-alone expansions". And usually for these per-company lists, stand-alone expansions get listed with their parent game, because the line is blurry. --PresN 15:20, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

Their older games are listed on the classic games page, by the way. As for objective measure, I don't think that's possible in a marketing-driven system of classification as is the case with game releases. But I do believe that the closest we are going to get is that Blizzard page. It accurately depicts only large releases (i.e. a Heroes of the Storm or Hearthstone "expansion" is incomparable in size to Legacy of the Void, Reaper of Souls, Legion and so on. The list also includes games not on the market anymore, such as prior WoW expansions that are now part of the base game for World of Warcraft. Notably, that list doesn't separately include remasters (i.e. StarCraft: Remastered, we'll see about Warcraft III: Reforged), but I would argue that their inclusion on this list is also reasonable. The goal of this list isn't necessarily to serve as a perfectly defined formal product list, but to answer people's question of "What are Blizzard's releases?" What do they announce release dates for and announce at BlizzCon, what gets a retail release, what gets its own box, what does a whole team work on and so on. And of course, this does blur the line between a Hearthstone expansion and a larger expansion like say a WoW expansion. But remember, Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. General understanding and press coverage, as well as notably in the context of Wikipedia, presence of a developed Wikipedia page al suggest that Hearthstone expansions are not on the same level as full-fledged, $40-$50 expansion pack. The Wikipedia page requirement would still include things such as Diablo III: Rise of the Necromancer or StarCraft II: Nova Covert Ops, but combined with press coverage, regularity of releases (three expansions per year for Hearthstone), and size of release (i.e. amount of content included, comparing NCO's 9 missions to a regular StarCraft II release of 25-30, or RotN's single class to Diablo III's RoS and its class, act, new systems, 10 extra levels, new game mode, etc.), should be enough to separate DLC packs from expansion packs. SharkyIzrod (talk) 09:06, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Okay, so, you're saying that all stand-along expansions should get their own row? (1 for D3, 2 for SC2, 7 for WoW, etc.) Going back how far? All the way back to WarCraft 2? Or starting at StarCraft? I'm not opposed, it's just a big expansion, so I want to get the "rules" nailed down before we start. --PresN 14:17, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

I'm not being specific since this list is obviously mostly your work, rather I am saying I believe we should include all expansions in some way (yes, starting with WarCraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal). I'm going off of how the main Blizzard Entertainment page used to function with a list including games and expansions but not repackaging (i.e. Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition wasn't listed separately from D3 and RoS). On that page, they were part of the same list as full game releases, but I'm not particularly opposed to them being separate. However I believe being on the same list is easier because it doesn't make us ask and answer more difficult questions, like "Does StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void, an expandalone (expansion that doesn't require the base game) go in this row or the other one?" or "Is a remaster an expansion or a full game?" SharkyIzrod (talk) 16:56, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Amigas and Macs were PC's, and games were released for Personal computer, apparently

Back in the day when Amigas were on the market and Macs had significantly different hardware from Windows machines, the meaning of the abbreviation "PC" was, for all practical purposes, IBM PC compatible. Nobody in their right minds would refer to an Amiga or a Mac as "a PC", except for the purpose of flame baiting. Nobody would even refer to them as personal computers, unless for the sake of contrarianism or pedantry. I guess history must have reinvented itself, because not only did the 1990 see games released for Personal computer according to this article, the Mac and the Amiga were also PCs.

Throwing operating systems into the mix doesn't clear anything up, quite the contrary. The list states that the Lost Vikings was released for a "PC" that ran AmigaOS (it hurts my brain a little just to write that out), and that it was also released for the Amiga CD32. What type of system was the CD32 and which OS did it run on? Well, if the other amigas were PCs, then the CD32 must surely be a console? But that is not mentioned in the list. In either case, it ran on AmigaOS just like any other Amiga, but that is not mentioned in the list either.

So what is the actual difference between a CD32 and an Amiga 1200 when it comes down to it? The CD32 had an integrated CD-ROM drive and an external keyboard. The A1200 had an integrated keyboard, and you had to buy the CD-ROM drive as an accessory. And that's about it; Otherwise the machines had near identical specs and functionality. The only reason there was a separate CD32 release of some games, is because they were CD versions of the game. If you had a CD-ROM drive for your A1200, you could run your CD32 games on it with no problem.

So the A1200 is now lumped into a "personal computer" category that is not only so broad as to be virtually meaningless, it is also ambiguously abbreviated, while the near identical CD32 which presumably is not a "personal computer" doesn't even get categorized at all.

I'm not going to be sucked into an edit war, but I do want to point that this attempt at computer system taxonomy fails at every level. - Soulkeeper (talk) 23:59, 8 August 2019 (UTC)

@Soulkeeper: Ok, so: we need to clarify if the root issue is calling it a "personal computer", or if the problem is specifically that it's being abbreviated as a "PC". Because calling all computers that intended for personal use "personal computers", regardless of hardware architecture, is not just confined to this list. The very first line of Amiga is "The Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985." The very first line of Macintosh is "The Macintosh [...] is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Inc. since January 1984." The very first line of PC-9800 series is "The PC-9800 series [...] is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 through 2000." So, is the issue that the IBM PC compatible type of computer hardware took over what "PC" meant in the 90s (though do note that it wasn't even the only computer type to use "PC" in the name at the time), and it never gave it back, so it's unclear to refer to a computer running AmigaOS as a "PC", even with a link for context? Or is the issue that anything not using x86 is a separate breed of computer and should not be mixed? Never mind that macs switched architectures from PowerPC to x86, so did that turn modern macs into "PCs" with a different OS? The CD32 thing is a separate but related issue, I think- it's certainly a can of worms that the game was marketed as being for a "console" that was basically a computer with a cd drive in a form factor, but the same argument that the CD32 was a computer and not a console technically apply more or less to modern consoles, which are computers with a custom OS. Maybe the answer is to remove the CD32 entirely, and just say "AmigaOS".

To be honest, the only reason I grouped personal computer platforms together was because it felt weird to say "this game was released for this discrete console, and this discrete console, and [any device that can run Windows] and [any device that can run linux] - the first ones are physical types of devices and are marketed as such, while the others are... operating systems that are not necessarily tied to a given type of hardware. So, instead it's "type of hardware = personal computer aka PC (with variants for the OS you need in addition to that type of device)". --PresN 00:54, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

"[...] it's unclear to refer to a computer running AmigaOS as a "PC", even with a link for context?" Yes. The primary (de facto only) meaning of the abbreviation "PC" in the context of 1980s and 1990s mainstream computer gaming, was "IBM PC compatible"/"Wintel". In this context, the meaning "Personal computer" is secondary and quaint, and should probably be spelled out if used at all, in order to avoid confusing it with IBM PC compatible. Specific examples:

• Games released "for Amiga" only worked with Commodore Amiga computers, barring emulation.
• Games released "for Mac" only worked with Apple Macintosh computers, barring emulation.
• Games released "for PC" only worked with IBM PC compatibles, barring emulation.

If any game releases that worked with multiple personal computer systems existed, they were very few and far between, and probably either some technical wizardry show-off project, or they came with separate media for each system. In either case, they were anything but common. I can't come up with a single example.

Game makers, marketers and journalists consistently used "PC" as a shorthand for IBM PC compatible. In their writing they had little if any need for the concept of personal computers. Either a device could be gamed on, or it could not; Whether it was classified as a personal computer was irrelevant; What mattered was whether a game could run on a given system. In practice, everything that was mutually compatible was lumped together.

The practice of labeling games with OS instead of hardware/vendor platform didn't come until the late 1990s or early 2000s. In the DOS days you could buy a game "for PC" and run it on your IBM PC compatible with MS-DOS, PC-DOS, DR-DOS, OS/2 (although I guess the most universally game compatible one was always MS-DOS), also Windows 3, Windows 95 (which were not as much true OSes as shells on top of DOS), and probably more. It didn't make sense to slap all these stickers on the same box, and it certainly didn't make sense to print separate boxes for them, so they simply sold them as "PC" games. Other platforms like the Mac or Amiga already had a brand name that signified that they were mutually compatible for the most part, so they could simply be marketed towards the brand.

The CD32 is somewhat an exception to this, and removing it from the list is probably not a good idea, because Amiga games were marketed separately for the CD32: If an AmigaOS game came on floppy, is was sold "for the Amiga (with OCS/ECS/AGA)" and if it came on CD-ROM it was sold "for CD32" (and you could assume that it required AGA as well). The CD32 versions of the games were often released on different dates, and marketed and sold separately from the floppy versions. - Soulkeeper (talk) 08:15, 9 August 2019 (UTC)

Alright, I tried replacing "PC (blah)" with "Computer (blah)" and didn't like how it looked, so now I've tried removing it altogether and not grouping computer platforms at all- how does that look? --PresN 14:53, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

It looks much better to me now. Personally I would also consider ditching the OS designations for the older games, and maybe change MS-DOS to either [[PC|IBM PC compatible]], [[IBM PC|IBM PC compatible]] or [[IBM PC compatible]], for those. That's what it was called on the box art, in the ads, and in the gaming press. OS compatibility for IBM PC compatibles didn't become a real topic until Windows 98 came along in 1998. To be fair there were some games for Windows 3 and Windows 95 that did not run under DOS, but those were typically puzzle type games with simple 2D graphics running in windowed mode using the Windows API, and these games generally did not get much attention from "real gamers". (But newer DOS games often did run under Win3 and Win95 if you had enough RAM.) From Win98 on, PC games started to be marketed "for Windows", with or without a version number. - Soulkeeper (talk) 16:35, 11 August 2019 (UTC)