BlizzCon 2016: Allen Adham, co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, rejoins company

The co-founder came out of a 12-year retirement.

David Craddock

November 4, 2016 11:16 AM

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During this morning's BlizzCon 2016 keynote, Blizzard president and CEO Mike Morhaime announced that Allen Adham, his fellow co-founder, has come out of retirement to rejoin the company.

Allen Adham was the driving force behind the founding of Blizzard in 1991. A lifelong gamer, he got his start when a mutual friend, Interplay founder Brian Fargo, gave Allen's then-nascent Blizzard company contracts to develop ports of console games.

When the Blizzard staff got hooked on Westwood's Dune II RTS, Adham assigned programmer Patrick Wyatt the task of breaking ground on WarCraft, Blizzard's take on the genre. The team grew from there, and WarCraft: Orcs and Humans launched in 1994.

Adham maintained a strong leadership role at the company after it was acquired by Davidson & Associates, an "edutainment" corporation known for creating the Math Blaster series of games on Apple II and IBM PCs.

Particulars of Adham's involvement are not known as of press time. He was president before his departure, the position occupied by his co-founder and college buddy, Mike Morhaime.

David Craddock

Long Reads Editor

David L. Craddock writes fiction, nonfiction, and grocery lists. He is the author of the Stay Awhile and Listen series, and the Gairden Chronicles series of fantasy novels for young adults. Outside of writing, he enjoys playing Mario, Zelda, and Dark Souls games, and will be happy to discuss at length the myriad reasons why Dark Souls 2 is the best in the series. Follow him online at davidlcraddock.com and @davidlcraddock.