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Activision/Vivendi Merger Looms, Fallout Continues
Ever since the announced merger between Activision and Vivendi Games the community has been all aflutter with speculation and fallout. Here we are, six months later, and the shockwaves continue to resonate throughout the industry as the actual merger looms closer. Gamasutra has an in-depth investigation of what this deal actually means and what some of the details might be.
Well, I'd certainly hope Fallout 3 would continue development seeing neither Activision nor Vivendi have anything to do with that game. ;)
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I'm curious about how you think they screwed up World of Warcraft. One of the great things about Starcraft was how everyone had played it, no matter whether they were a hardcore gamer or not. The same thing's happened with WoW. They've developed the story fairly well, the mechanics are well balanced and open to being used to tweak your character but without requiring it, and created an experience that's unmatched by anyone in the genre (wow, that last sentence sounds like an ad).
I just fail to see where they've abandoned their morals and lost vision/path. I'm honestly curious to hear your views on what's happened.
In case you were wondering, yes, Blizzard and its assets have pretty much been priced into the stock already. Now that the merger is looking solid and ATVI revised profits upwards a few weeks ago for 07, the stock has gone to $34 after hovering around $27 for a few months.
A friend close to the two companies says: A stock price of $40 is likely to take some time (18+ months) and would be contingent on the performance of both Activision Blizzard and EA. EA will probably need to slip to the #2 publisher in order for Activision Blizzard to consistently trade over $40.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
Guitar Heroes of Warcraft ?
Except the majority of high-end gamers are going, "Oh f---- not another expansion, I don't want to grind anymore..."
...short for emotional?
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
Sure, that may have been the way it WAS 10 years ago, but we're talking now, and getting past that stigma will let you realize that three of the most popular gaming companies in the world are owned or in partnership with much larger companies. Valve is owned by Vivendi, Bungie used to be partnered with Microsoft, and BioWare is currently partnering with Microsoft.
Now, I'm not saying you're entirely wrong, because all you'd have to do is look back at Rareware and their Nintendo ownership before you see your corporate overlord strawman, but Rareware also released some of the most popular and innovative games during its partnership with Nintendo - Goldeneye, Killer Instinct, Donkey Kong Country, Blast Corps, etc... The basic "evil" that came out of that deal was that they were supposedly not allowed to develop their own IPs, that's what they said anyway. So what'd they do when they broke away from Nintendo? They released Viva Pinata and whatever the fuck their other 360 flop was.
No, the mergers and partnerships of today are more like the big company helping the little company than it was back in the day. Microsoft shoveled money to Bungie, Vivendi shoveled money to Blizzard, and the resulting games are better for the money that was dished out and the lack of influence the bigger company exerted.
The hostile takeover is a thing of the past when it comes to companies in the public eye. How many people do you know who won't buy another EA game because they keep buying out their competitors (Madden is the only NFL game)? I know many.
Now THAT'S the way you question word usage! =)
If you have "Keeping-up-with-the-Jones" syndrome then no, you will never be satisfied with WoW because there will ALWAYS be someone with more time to lose on the game than you. The same applied to "skill-based" mmorpgs like UO; the more you practiced and accumulated wealth the more advantaged you became.
Your problem is envy, not mmorpg design.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
No, the reason WoW trumps EQ2 in subscription numbers is that it came out of the gate with a much better product, and it had a much lower requirement for processor/memory/GPU.
EQ2 was a mess when it was released, with SOE still sticking to their formula they had in EQ1 of grind, grind, grind, and making things difficult for the sake of difficulty. Stuff like corpse recoveries and having to do time consuming quests just to change your bind point.
WoW came out with lots of fun right out of the box, and not a lot of unnecessary hassles. Time sinks were much less in WoW. Blizzard did a great job out of the gates. And since then, they've been slow as hell to add a lot of content.
They've long since fixed those problems, and in my opinion, EQ2 is now a much better product than WoW.
Adding an instance is not a huge amount of content. I'm fairly certain SOE has released that much content for EQ2 without a box set, and they've still had 4 box sets released to WoW's 1.