Proletariat, a Boston-based gaming studio, has been recently acquired by Blizzard Entertainment. Proletariat confirmed this recent development in a blog post yesterday, June 28, 2022. As noted by GameBeat, this is the biggest acquisition that Blizzard Entertainment has made in the past decade to expand its studios, with its last big acquisition being Swinging Ape in 2005. This recent development has effectively ended development for Spellbreak, which is officially closing the servers in 2023. Proletariat went on to thank its fans and player base for their support.
“…We are grateful to everyone in the game’s community for exploring the magical worlds and experiences we created together. Spellbreak was an ambitious project that saw our team push new boundaries in design and development and we are excited to continue to innovate as we create new titles in the future.”
Blizzard’s acquisition of Proletariat is do to the need to increase the frequency of content for World of Warcraft. According to Gamebeat, Blizzard started looking for external partners besides hiring more people at its internal studio, and had its eyes on Proletariat after a search, for its experienced senior leadership team and large remote workforce.
However, as noted by GameBeat, this decision couldn’t have come at a more awkward time. With Blizzard’s parent company Activision Blizzard being acquired by Microsoft and Blizzard Entertainment’s controversy around sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Seth Sivak, CEO of Proletariat, told GameBeat that after an “open and transparent conversation” with the Blizzard team, He was happy and satisfied with changes that they were making to make Blizzard more open and inclusive. Once the acquisition is finalized, Proletariat’s main focus will be to expand World of Warcraft, with some of their earliest work in the new Dragonflight expansion coming later this year.
Sivak stated his excitement for this next chapter for Proletariat, noting that while Spellbreak was a “critical success” it never reached the number of users to justify its ongoing existence. For Sivak, this new opportunity at Blizzard allows his team to accelerate what they wanted to do within World of Warcraft.
“…Being able to work for the World of Warcraft audiences is really awesome. And the level of ambition on where I think both teams want to take World of Warcraft is incredibly exciting for us.”