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The BBC is reporting that Blizzard and Activision have issued a surprising announcement: The two gaming giants are going to merge their companies into one. The new company will go by the name of “Activision Blizzard“.
Activision and Blizzard have said they will form “the world’s most profitable games business” in a deal worth $18.8bn (£9.15bn).
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 and its chief executive will be Activision’s current CEO Bobby Kotick. Vivendi will be the biggest shareholder in the group.
Jean-Bernard Levy, Vivendi chief executive, said: “This alliance is a major strategic step for Vivendi and is another illustration of our drive to extend our presence in the entertainment sector.
“By combining Vivendi’s games business with Activision, we are creating a worldwide leader in a high-growth industry.”
Blizzard has posted a FAQ page with some more details.
Q: What are the details of the deal?
A: Under the terms of an agreement with Vivendi, Blizzard and the other companies that make up Vivendi Games will combine with Activision to form a new public company called Activision Blizzard. We do not anticipate any difference in Blizzard’s operations as a result of the combination. Joining forces with Activision will create a stronger and more diversified company that we anticipate will benefit and strengthen both brands.
The rest of the FAQ makes it clear that Activision will not affect Blizzard’s game development in any way:
- Blizzard’s team and its management will remain the same
- Release dates (what ever they are) will not change
- The Blizzard offices will remain operational
- The famous logo will continue appearing on game boxes
Activision obviously understands that Blizzard knows what it’s doing and will not attempt to alter Blizzard’s winning formula. If they don’t figure it out themselves, Blizzard’s hoards of fans will have to … explain it to them.
On the bright side, this paves the way for the inevitable “World of Guitar Hero”, where players roam a fantastic world, churning out guitar tunes to formulate spells instead of clicking mouse buttons repeatedly.
26 Comments to “Blizzard and Activision Merge”
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Seeing how many times they mentioned more money, I think we can expect to see a monthly fee for battle.net. I am…. disgusted.
“If they don’t figure it out themselves, Blizzard’s hoards of fans will have to … explain it to them.
On the bright side, this paves the way for the inevitable “World of Guitar Hero”, where players roam a fantastic world, churning out guitar tunes to formulate spells instead of clicking mouse buttons repeatedly.”
Hahaha.
I haven’t heard of activision before… I think this isn’t a merger, it should have benn a buy out so that Blizzard can retain its sole name as BLIZZARD and activision will be part of that, without mentioning it on the prime brand. I’ve known Blizzard to be a really great game designing company, they ought to make sure that Activision doesn’t change that perception BY NOT CHANGING THE PRIME BRAND AND LOGO.
“I haven’t heard of activision before”
They are one of the biggest (#1 in 2007, I think) game publishers/distributors in the world.
You haven’t heard of Activision? Maybe you’re not into games then. It’s a very well known company imo.
I don’t line the news.. :S
Holy smokes! I was not expecting this!
This is obviously a step toward being able to release a digital content delivery system similar to Steam. That is probably the reason Blizzard has been hyping SCII so much, even though the game is still far off.
Acquiring Activision just gives them a larger library of titles to offer to keep people using the service. Blizzard only has a few titles, making it impractical to launch such a large project by themselves.
Activision was the first third party game company ever. Seriously you havent heard of them? I remember playing pitfall! on the atari!
That makes a lot of sense, as. I hope it’s less annoying than steam and won’t prevent me from playing the game occasionally (and on launch, more importantly).
I’m sorry but I just don’t like the notion of putting StarCraft and Tony Hawk&Co under one hat. It seems some infuence is bound to sip through, no matter how “uninterventional” they try to keep it!
But… it may be for good, who knows.
This scare the shit out of me …. why such stupid move is needed, there is somethnig fishy behind this
Hopefully this will only change how they distribute stuff. To my knowledge, Activision does not develop anything. The mentioned Tony Hawk, for instance, was made by Neversoft.
lol no one said the name could be Actard
to whoever admins this site, sc2pod.com is a blizzard employee post tracker. thought it could be useful.
Here is a random thought. Blizzard has said that all the old original SC and BW units will be in the map editor. I think they might have a surprise. I think that they will have a brood war mode where everything is balanced like in brood war with all the old units.
“the name could be Actard”
Hahahahhahaha… ha.
Quoting rikas:
“You haven’t heard of Activision? Maybe you’re not into games then. It’s a very well known company imo.”
Yes, really… I keep track of new games here in the Phils but I haven’t heard of Activision. The popular games here are all from Blizzard, Sierra, Nintendo, Sega and that company that made C&C. Maybe they haven’t penetrated much in SE Asia.
Anyway, if this helps them improve their development of Starcraft II, then so be it. I don’t mind, as long as Starcraft will continue to prevail. En Taro Adun!!!
quoting mmx:
“This scare the shit out of me …. why such stupid move is needed, there is somethnig fishy behind this.”
lol… certified conspiracy theorist. =)
You guys are missing out on the positives here… with Activision, promotion for StarCraft II will be even bigger and reach even more people. They have said many times already in all these reports, that nothing changes in regards to Blizzard gaming development.
Does anyone even read this page? It says there won’t be any changes to the game right here.
Given the increasing connections between games and other media (music, movies, etc), it’s a surprise that Vivendi is the only media conglomerate buying gaming companies.
Activision is a good company… guitar hero? call of duty 4?
It may be less known then blizzard but certainly activision put off many Good games
Wouldn’t Blizzard vision or Blizz-vision be a better name or did they just want to be higher in the yellow pages?
For those who say they never heard of Activision here’s a list of games of games published:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Activision_games
It’s an impressive list imo
Impressive indeed .. Looking at the game list both company seems to complete each other very well. Blizz is very RTS-MMO-PCRPG oriented, while Activision is more action-console+FPS.
And from what I can see, Activision has a strong background in console gaming which could be put to good use to bring back old franchises from Blizz, such as Blackthorne, Rock&Roll Racing and Lost Vikings.
WOW! Just confirmed on wikipedia that Blizzard made these games Jebbou just talked about! Incredible, now I love them even more! haha