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Blizzard and Activision Announce $18.8bn Merger

Posted by Zonk on from the jigaa-whaaaaa dept.

Ebon Praetor writes "The BBC reports that Blizzard and Activision have announced an $18.8bn merger. Activision's CEO, Bobby Kotick, will become the head of the joint company, while Vivendi, Blizzard's current parent company, will become the largest single investor in the new group. Even with the size of the merger, the combined company will still be smaller than the industry giant EA. 'As part of the merger plan, Blizzard will invest $2bn in the new company, while Activision is putting up $1bn. The merged business will be called Activision Blizzard ... Vivendi will be the biggest shareholder in the group.'"

6 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. World Of Warcraft by tsj5j · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How is the WoW community going to take it?

    I think it really matters whether the game developers are going to be replaced by Activision or not, as a decrease in quality might spark some anger.
    Especially since their number of players are ... alot.

    1. Re:World Of Warcraft by Jarik_Tentsu · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Indeed. Every game Blizzard has made has been a huge success.

      WoW - Biggest MMORPG in the world...has changed the gaming industry so much, other publishers are accusing Blizzard of destroying the market.
      Starcraft - Still has the biggest professional gaming industry (South Korea) which has more money in it than all other professional gaming industries put together.

      Diablo series - While not nearly as successful as the other two, proved itself as a popular RPG almost all gamers have had a go at.
      Warcraft series - Still proves itself as one of the most popular RTSs. Warcraft III especially was played in many professional levels and the modification game, DotA is probably the most popular game to play at LAN parties and cafes.

      So yeah, unlike EA, they make few games, but each game is a hit. They put out quality games with few bugs and support them well. They look at the needs of the gamers and do well in producing something they would like.

      I only hope Starcraft II will be as good as the first one, and I think that will be largely based on whether they plan to aim towards the South Korean needs of the game (Who want something perfectly balanced, simple, hard to play well, but can be put into a professional league and is competitive that can last in proleagues for years), or towards the more mainstream market (Who want an RTS with fancy graphics, to play the campaign once, play a couple of multiplayer games which involve just massing units for one big attack, then forget it a couple of months later).

      But yeah, hopefully Activision won't come and say "Let's start pumping out 3 new games a year!" or something stupid like that.

      ~Jarik

  2. Makes sense by Dunbal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No wonder their stock has been climbing lately. I have made so much money day-trading them. I guess it's time to go short now that all the sheeple will want some... I'll sell you some on Monday afternoon.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  3. EA is no longer alone at the top. by 6350' · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Many news-sites are actually reporting this as a merger between Vivendi and Activision (perhaps more of a semantic distinction, but it does serve to remind that Blizzard is owned by someone, and is not an independant self-owned development studio, in the strictly on-paper sense).

    This is a fascinating move for one very important reason: EA. This merger combines a hugely profitable juggernaut of game-making (Blizzard) with what is probably the largest publisher out there (Activision). Electronic Arts suddenly got not only competition, but may have just dropped into second place, all in one fell swoop.

    This is a great move for Blizzard: there is no other development company that is such a proven success, having long passed the point of "one hit wonder" or "a lucky run," and they now have access to, in light of how bankable they are, absolutely vast wodges of capital for their future plans. This is an awesome move for Activision: a publisher (with some developer in there too) that has quietly grown over the last decade to become one of the largest now has pretty much the ultimate triple-A development juggernaut at its core. This last bit is a key point, as it reflects EA. EA is large publisher wrapped around a large and important development house. Vivendi and Activision have now stepped up to that level and type of operation, and can be expected to give EA a run for its money.

    What particularly pleases me is how this could be seen as providing a "good guys" team to stand against EA's often-percieved "bad guys" team, which should be an interesting public dynamic to watch :P

  4. Re:Guitarcraft: Lords of Music by david.given · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How long until I can play some crazy rhythm-based RTS with my guitar hero controller?

    You know, that might actually be quite fun. Did you ever play Loom? That was a point-and-click adventure game where all your actions were done by playing short phrases of music.

    Update it to the present day, and you have your character roaming the wilderness blowing monsters away with your sw33t r1ffs. The more powerful the spell, the harder it is to play, so your character's skills are directly related to your skills. If you could solve the lag issue, you could even have the ability to team up with other players and jam together for extra power.

    Hmm. Different character classes would map to different types of music quite well. Healer == psychedelic 60s. Tank == 80s power ballad. Fighter == rock. Necromancer == death metal...

  5. Re:Here's an FAQ from Blizzard by Ghubi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Or maybe... 1bn + 2bn = 18.8bn.

    The way I see it, Activision must have had some super cool idea for the next major online cash cow err game. But, Activision must have determined that they lacked the resources to complete this epic production on their own. So, they carefully weigh their options of ways to raise the extra 2bn they estimate is needed to complete the project. Stock offering, venture capitalists... apparently they decided that their best option was to merge with another larger gaming company.

    There's no reason why this new 3bn project should interfere with the day to day operations of the other 15.8bn of whatever makes up the total merger. I can't wait to find out exactly what this new 3bn project is.