Irvine-based video game maker Blizzard Entertainment Inc. regained the title of Orange County’s largest software employer as the industry posted little growth here in the past year.
The 27 largest companies with local operations added a combined 35 workers for a total of 7,627 employees, according to this week’s Business Journal list.
The list, based on employee figures as of March, includes locally based software makers, as well as subsidiaries and operations of big companies, such as Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and IBM Corp.
Six companies on the latest list added workers, seven cut staff, and four were flat from a year earlier. Ten entries were based on Business Journal estimates.
Blizzard overtook New York-based IBM as the county’s biggest software employer, adding 100 people for a total workforce of 1,800, up 5.9% from a year earlier.
“We are hiring,” Production Director Chris Sigaty told the Business Journal last month before Blizzard’s midnight release of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm.
The company last week had more than 140 open positions on its website, with a heavy concentration in software engineering and game development.
The job gains come in the wake of several developments at Blizzard, which released Diablo III in May 2012 to much fanfare. The $60 PC game, which sold a record 3.5 million copies in its first 24 hours on the market, will be the company’s first console title under a recent deal with Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.
The partnership with Sony opens an established distribution channel for Blizzard and gives PlayStation new content to offer customers amid fierce competition in the console market.
The Business Journal recently reported that Blizzard plans to debut its first free-to-play video game, dubbed Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, later this year. The card-playing game is geared for Windows, Macs and iPads, another first for the company.
“Mobile devices are going to be more and more popular,” Chief Executive Mike Morhaime recently told the Business Journal. “Tablets are great computing and gaming devices.”
The company also is raising its stakes in the growing eSports competitive gaming industry, with the recent acquisition of technology and assets for the IGN Pro League from San Francisco-based IGN Entertainment Inc.
IGN’s pro league brand—known to gamers as IPL—will be folded into Blizzard’s operations.
Prize purses in such tournaments over the past few years have gone from the thousands to the millions.
Blizzard, a unit of Santa Monica-based parent Activision, itself part of Paris-based Vivendi SA, is also the largest software maker in Orange County in terms of revenue, with $1.6 billion in sales in 2012.
Hiring
• The Business Journal estimates No.2 IBM saw flat hiring, with 1,700 local employees. The company, which posted sales of $56.9 billion in its fiscal year ending in January, has moved aggressively into newer segments, such as cloud computing and social networking, but has seen sales wane for older legacy products.
• No. 3 Quest Software Inc. had flat hiring in the past year, with an estimated 600 local employees. Dell acquired the company for $2.4 billion last year, saying it plans to use Quest as the foundation to grow software sales past the $5 billion mark in the coming years as it diversifies product offerings beyond computers.
Round Rock, Texas-based Dell, the world’s third-largest computer maker, won a four-month bidding war to acquire Quest. Dell management has signaled the company intends to maintain the software hub in OC.
Quest makes software that helps manage and improve other business products from various companies, including Washington-based Microsoft, IBM and Redwood Shores-based Oracle, No. 5 on the list with an estimated 462 employees, the same as a year ago.
• No. 9 Weston, Fla.-based Ultimate Software Group, which maintains an Irvine office, moved up nine spots after adding 55 people for a total of 170, up nearly 48% from a year ago.
The company, which specializes in human resources, payroll and employee management software, counts more than 2,500 customers in 144 countries, including Adobe, Major League Baseball, the New York Yankees and Pep Boys.
Ultimate posted sales topping $332.3 million in 2012, up 23% from 2011. Adjusted profits hit $28.5 million, up 57.4%.
• No. 10 Epicor Software Corp. held its ranking, despite shedding 50 people, for a local workforce of 150. Most of those jobs were either lost or shifted to other locations following its $976 million sale to London-based private equity firm Apax Partners in 2011. Apax combined Epicor, which was formerly based in Irvine, with Northern California-based Activant Solutions Inc. and moved the headquarters to Dublin, Calif.
• No. 16, Chicago-based Vision Solutions Inc., which maintains an Irvine office, lost 50 employees and now counts 100 people in its local workforce.
The company, which makes data and cloud-recovery software, changed its reporting standards this year to better represent its local workforce. It previously included remote employees assigned to Irvine managers in local figures, according to a company spokesperson.
Vision is a portfolio company under Chicago private equity firm Thoma Cressey Bravo Inc.
Download the 2013 OC’s LARGEST SOFTWARE COMPANIES list (pdf)