Former president of Blizzard Entertainment SAS donates his personal collection to a New York museum

A very generous man by the name of Paul Sams donated over 1,500 items out of his personal collection to The Strong National Museum of Play. Spanning through the items include gems from Diablo, StarCraft, and WarCraft. 

During his time as COO of Blizzard Entertainment and president of the French-based Blizzard Entertainment SAS group, over the course of two decades, Blizzard products have made the way into his collection and now he’s giving them to the community. 

The Past and Future of the Products

Paul Sams joined Blizzard back in 1996, serving nearly two decades with the company to date. Rising from director of business development before gaining his current position in 2004, Sams was able to see some of Blizzard’s best projects come to the light of day.

When choosing a place to donate his private collection to, Sams decided on The Strong National Museum of Play in New York as the perfect location so generations in upcoming decades could learn from Blizzard’s products and see how gaming has changed. 

“This collection holds a very dear place in my heart and I wanted to ensure that the materials would be properly preserved for many decades to come. The dedicated and talented team at The Strong were the obvious choice to care for the collection. Most importantly, I wanted to ensure that broadest audience of gamers and fans of entertainment and play would be able to share in this extensive collection of gaming history.”

 – Paul Sams of Blizzard Entertainment SAS

Current Projects Ongoing

Though Legendary Pictures is taking the reigns on the World of Warcraft movie, Blizzard developed the popular Warcraft game, that has an expected movie release in June of 2016. Earlier this week a 40-second trailer was leaked on the internet and information regarding the leaked trailer can be found at “Warcraft 2016 movie trailer leaked – check it out before it’s taken down”. What do you think of the private collection that Sams has donated? Will it become a popular exhibit at The Strong National Museum of Play? Share your thoughts below on the special items revealed below.