Which company developed and published World of Warcraft?

Blizzard Entertainment developed and published World of Warcraft. The game expanded Blizzard’s Warcraft strategy-game universe into a persistent online role-playing world.

Blizzard began work on the project around the end of the 1990s after the company became interested in massively multiplayer games such as EverQuest. World of Warcraft was announced in 2001 and released on November 23, 2004, for Windows and macOS. Its development combined Warcraft’s setting and characters with quests, exploration, dungeons, equipment, and large-scale online communities.

A common mix-up is confusing Blizzard with companies associated with other online role-playing games. ArenaNet created Guild Wars, BioWare developed games such as Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Square Enix is associated with Final Fantasy XIV. Blizzard’s corporate ownership has changed over time, including Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2023, but Blizzard remains the studio and publisher identified with World of Warcraft.