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| - The name "Condor" came from Project Condor, a game developed in secret by employees of a digital clip art company that went under. Condor was established in 1993, founded by Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer, and David Brevik. While the idea for Diablo existed early on, the company developed a number of sports games and the Sega Genesis version of Justice League Task Force in order to stay afloat. While showing off the Genesis version, they came into contact with Silicon & Synapse, who had developed the Super Nintendo version (the game's publisher had not informed Condor of the separate publishing scheme). Silcon & Synapse would later be named Blizzard Entertainment, and after the release of Warcraft, came back into contact with Condor to hear their pitch for Diablo. Blizzard liked the pitch, a
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| abstract
| - The name "Condor" came from Project Condor, a game developed in secret by employees of a digital clip art company that went under. Condor was established in 1993, founded by Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer, and David Brevik. While the idea for Diablo existed early on, the company developed a number of sports games and the Sega Genesis version of Justice League Task Force in order to stay afloat. While showing off the Genesis version, they came into contact with Silicon & Synapse, who had developed the Super Nintendo version (the game's publisher had not informed Condor of the separate publishing scheme). Silcon & Synapse would later be named Blizzard Entertainment, and after the release of Warcraft, came back into contact with Condor to hear their pitch for Diablo. Blizzard liked the pitch, and offered to publish the game. The game received a $300,000 budget. To bolster its finances, Condor worked on sports games on the side. Condor was purchased and renamed "Blizzard North" by Blizzard about six months before the release of Diablo in 1996. During the development period, Condor had been on the brink of insolvency several times, but the game's success guaranteed their stability. 3D0 made a counter-bid that would have offered more, but Condor chose Blizzard as the company cultures were more similar. Structurally, Blizzard North was considered an independent studio from Blizzard South, but also reported to them. There was never a real structure on how Blizzard North had to operate in regards to its parent company. Diablo proved to be incredibly successful, and their 2000 sequel Diablo II was more successful yet. An expansion pack followed the year after. By June 2003 two new games were in production. However on June 30 2003, several key employees left Blizzard North to form the new companies Flagship Studios (8 moved here) and Castaway Entertainment (9 moved here). The Blizzard North exodus continued on with around 30 employees leaving the company in total. The resignations were partly due to a conflict with Blizzard Entertainment's owner, Vivendi, and partly due to employees wishing to start something new. Back at Blizzard North, however, they would have a common effect; of the two unannounced games that were in production at the time, one was now forced to be canceled. Blizzard Entertainment has since said the canceled game was a "Blizzard North kind of game". On August 1 2005, Blizzard Entertainment announced the closure of Blizzard North. A key reason for the closure was Blizzard North's poor development of what was to be Diablo III which did not meet the expectations of Vivendi. Former Blizzard North staffers including Joseph Lawrence, Wyatt Cheng and Matt Uelman subsequently appeared in the credits of Blizzard's next retail release, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. The work of former Blizzard North artist Phroilan Gardner was also featured in editions of World of Warcraft: The Trading Card Game around the same time. A few employees from the Diablo team, including Eric Sexton, Michio Okamura and Steven Woo, organized to launch a new company, Hyboreal Games. Only a few joined Team 3 in development of Blizzard South's version of Diablo III.
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