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Blizzard Breaks For Independence As Kotick Plans $8.2 Billion Dollar Buyout
MojoKid writes "The CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, announced this morning that he would lead an investor buyout of the company worth approximately $8.2 billion dollars. The move would free Blactivision (how has this moniker never caught on?) to become an independent publisher and free it from the clutches of Vivendi, the evil French entertainment conglomerate. Vivendi has reportedly been attempting to sell Activision Blizzard for years, due to an apparent hatred of actually turning a profit, given than the game developer owns some of the most popular franchises on Earth. Kotick has previously been known for his comments regarding exploiting game franchises and for gems like this: 'We have a real culture of thrift. The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games.'"
It's true that Researchers Implant False Memories in Mice but Activision has implanted Happy Memories in Gamers and erased all bad ones!
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Like Hell they have, I was hoping TFA was about Blizzard finally breaking free from Kotick's money-grubbing, DLC-and-franchise-all-the-games!, clutches.
This may be the wrong crowd, but this exactly the kind of move that is to be expected of a CEO who's main job is making money for shareholders. It's not surprising at all, except the heavy bias of TFA.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
Blactivision (how has this moniker never caught on?)
Because it's fucking stupid. It's fupid.
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That exceeded the standard threshold for painfully aspergian jokes and obnoxious editorializing in an article write-up.
You have one job, Unkown Lamer, one job!
CoD...one track mind..sounds like a console gamer!
No no, I jest.
Blizzard itself has made a lot of great games, and I keep looking forward to their next sequel.
Starcraft, Starcraft 2. Amazing.
Heart of the swarm? Amazing.
World of Warcraft? I'm personally tired of it, yet, amazing.
Warcraft 1-2-3, great games.
Diablo 1/2, amazing. Enjoyed d3 but..eh.
They're not perfect, but their PC marketed games have done very well and have been good.
Why complain about good?
I thought his goal was to make games that weren't any fun to _play_. After a couple of hundred hours milling in WoW, I just gave up. Beautiful scenery, ok music, shitty combat system, horrible $160 annual fee for playing online plus $50 for new game options. No fucking thanks.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I've been involved with Blizzard since the early days when they weren't so popular despite being so young. Before WoW, before Warcraft 3. I'm sure there were many people who can go back further, but ever since Starcraft, I've been more than a hardcore fan: I've been a modder. I've probably spent more time on b.net than a person does sleeping in the same time period.
It kills me to say this, but Blizzard took a turn for the worst ever since Activision acquired them. And oh yeah, that's the problem: Blizzard turns a profit and that's all they seem to care about these days: monetizing and milking the hell out of their franchises. At the expense of the games they're producing. It's a business strategy of money now and let's not worry about the later.
Well now later has come, and Diablo 3 is complete and utter crap, Starcraft 2 is borderline crap, WoW has turned into little more than a glorified cash cow, and their new big thing was a trading card game (whoo?). They were riding on their popularity and fan base, but now it's just... Ugh. They've shifted over the pro gaming scene, but us modders and level designers have been left in the dark (once again).
Not only is their EULA damn near totalitarian (they own everything you make with your editor, including characters, plots, etc... At least that's what it says), but the editor is a pile of crap that seems to have been coded by interns.
As for the actual game itself. Well, it's about three years old at this point and with a GTX Titan and a 4770K Haswell processor you'll still only be pulling around 30-40 FPS with max settings (1280x720, no AA/AS). That's freaking ridiculous and shows just how badly coded the game is.
I'm moving onto bigger and better things. This French company is quite smart to get rid of the sinking ship.
Call me when Blizzard breaks free of Kotick/Activision and actually starts making good games again.
All of it is old, that's my point. The only titles in that that were developed in the last ten years were Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 parts 1 and 2. Diablo 3 is not a good game and the auction house killed it, SC2 is alright but nothing outstanding, and heart of the swarm was straight up just a small expansion pack. More importantly, it's all derivative sequels - Blizzard hasn't put new ideas into a game in a very long time, and are content to milk old ones. That's why they have no growth prospects and no future.
Yikes, what did Activision Blizzard ever do to the OP? In breaking from the mega-corporate-ownership chain going from something like GE-???-Vivendi-Activision, Activision is now its own independent megacorporation not owned by a debt ridden parent that was demanding massive dividends to support its drug addiction. http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/25/activision-buys-back-majority-stake-from-vivendi-for-5-83-billion/ This is good news... If all posts were this venomous, all PS3 / XBONE / WiiU posts would sound like an expletive filled angry drunk rant by a person with turrets syndrome.
I think that the move to buyout the company also has do with Vivendi trying to force Activision to issue a $3 Billion dividend. Vivendi is a majority owner of Activision. Vivendi will get $2 Billion out of the deal, and if it works well enough, may force additional dividends in the future until Activision is rung dry and some or all of Vivendi's enormous debt is paid down. The buyout is a matter of survival for Activision.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/22/vivendi-activision-idUSL6N0FS0OQ20130722
Were Diablo 3 preorders inflated by Blizzard giving away copies to longtime players of WoW? That's how I got mine.
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Yet, jerry-rigged is still somehow acceptable. I am not suggesting we should go back to using racist phrases, just we should abandon them equally.
WoW was initially released in the last 10 years, and I'd argue their expansions have been pretty good in adding new mechanics and content. I'd concede that WoW as a platform is no spring chicken.
Agreed as well on the D3 business. Requiring a persistent Internet connection, and having RMT, ensure that D2 is the last installment I'll buy. Feeling a bit burnt by Blizzard, so when I'm finally done with WoW I'm thinking it's the last title I'll play.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
I thought previous Slashdot comments had settled on "Actiblizzard" or "Actiblizz" for short. In any case, I won't use a nickname that brings ethnic tension into a discussion where it doesn't belong, especially considering the stereotypes already present in the Warcraft universe.
Seconded. I was hoping Blizzard was going to dump Activision and go back to developing new IP instead of rehashing the same 3 ideas over and over again.
Place something witty here
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jerry-rigged
Those are two different terms. Jury-rigged is nautical in origin. Jerry-rigged is a racist term first used in ww1 or ww2 by british soldiers. It started in ww1 as jerry-built.
WOW may be losing subscribers, but it's still insanely profitable.
I wonder what's leading them to lose subscribers. If it's just fatigue, since the game is so old. One pattern I've noticed is as they've shortened the timeline between patches and expansions, players seem to quit more often. Once and expansion is announced, in game players (and I would assume subscriptions) drop. It seems like now it even happens in between patches. I assume it is because players feel whatever they earn will be worth less by the new patch/expansion. I wonder sometimes if they wouldn't be better served by not announcing patches so early, and having longer cycles between expansions.
Apparently we're getting the TL;DR of the TL;DR. The real truth is this:
Following the close of these two transactions, Vivendi will retain about 12% of Activision Blizzard and will no longer be the majority shareholder. [http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/gaming/2013/07/26/activision-buys-majority-vivendi-stock/2588675/]
This is only a partial buy-out. While they would lose the majority reign over A/B, they'd still have a 12% say in everything they do.
What Diablo III? There were only two games released in that series, though I really wish they'd make a third sometime.
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Jerry-rigged is a racist term first used in ww1 or ww2 by british soldiers. It started in ww1 as jerry-built.
This struck me as odd, seeing as the Brits seem to venerate German engineering, so I went digging. All the sites I read said that it pre-dates WW1 and has nothing to do with Germans.
Do you have a reference which says otherwise?
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