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Blizzard and Activision Announce $18.8bn Merger

Posted by Zonk on Sun Dec 02, 2007 01:36 PM
from the jigaa-whaaaaa dept.
Businesses Entertainment Games
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.'"
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Submission: Blizzard and Activision Announce $18.8bn Merger by Ebon Praetor (459548)
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  • A dupe in itself? (Score:5, Funny)

    by hysma (546540) on Sunday December 02 2007, @01:39PM (#21553047)
    Not too often the summary itself IS the dupe...

  • World Of Warcraft (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tsj5j (1159013) on Sunday December 02 2007, @01:41PM (#21553061)
    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.

    • Re:World Of Warcraft (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DurendalMac (736637) on Sunday December 02 2007, @02:04PM (#21553287)
      I doubt they're going to mess with Blizzard. It's going to be more like the Disney-Pixar buyout. Disney was at least smart enough not to mess with what Pixar was doing, because it was damned obvious that they were doing something right. If Activision has any shred of intelligence, they'll let Blizzard keep doing what they're doing with minimal interference, because Blizzard is making over $100m a month off of WoW.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by SL Baur (19540)

      How is the WoW community going to take it?

      I think that depends on when and how the Wrath of the Lich King comes out. As of patch 2.3, they've trashed most of the sport of WoW (leveling to 60), so I'm sure I'm not the only one anxiously awaiting the new expansion.

      Give me my World of Warcraft (as I've experienced it for the last year or so) and I don't particularly care what they do corporate-wise.

      I'm not sure why I love that game more than Nethack/Rogue, but I do.

  • I can't wait until I can buy their games. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Seumas (6865) on Sunday December 02 2007, @01:42PM (#21553071)
    I can't wait to start buying their games and various swag -- all emblazoned with the new Blactavision logos!

  • New MMORPG (Score:4, Funny)

    by Valacosa (863657) on Sunday December 02 2007, @01:44PM (#21553077)
    World of Command and Conquer?

    • Re:New MMORPG (Score:4, Informative)

      by Valacosa (863657) on Sunday December 02 2007, @01:47PM (#21553123)
      Damn - upon further research, I find that it was EA that bought Westwood, not Activision. Now I feel really stupid.

      It's too bad too. Imagine how awesome it would be to have a game where orcs could be pwned by an Obelisk of Light.

      • Damn - upon further research...
        There are certain things regular Slashdot readers come to expect from this site, and researched posts or comments is not one of them. Please don't let it happen again.

  • Here's an FAQ from Blizzard (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jon.Laslow (809215) on Sunday December 02 2007, @01:44PM (#21553085) Homepage
    http://blizzard.com/press/activision-faq.shtml [blizzard.com]

    Provides some details. From their front page:

    Blizzard to Join Forces With Activision
    We're pleased to announce that along with the other companies that make up Vivendi Games, we are merging with Activision to form a new global entertainment organization called Activision Blizzard (pending shareholder and regulatory approval). Similar to our previous arrangement, Blizzard Entertainment will now operate as a division of this new organization.

    There will be no changes to our games, our websites, our personnel, or our day-to-day operations as a result of the deal. However, this combining of resources will benefit all of the companies involved and will further strengthen Blizzard's ability to continue delivering high-quality content for our players around the world for many years to come.

    • Re:Here's an FAQ from Blizzard (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TubeSteak (669689) on Sunday December 02 2007, @01:58PM (#21553237) Journal

      However, this combining of resources will benefit all of the companies involved and will further strengthen Blizzard's ability to continue delivering high-quality content for our players around the world for many years to come.
      I would have thought Activision was the one that needed to strengthen their ability to deliver high quality content.

      They routinely rush studios to push out complete and utter crap under the Activision Value title. Even the decent games still come with serious flaws due to the rushed timetables.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Jugalator (259273)

      There will be no changes to our games, our websites, our personnel, or our day-to-day operations as a result of the deal.
      That's what they always say first.

    • Re:Here's an FAQ from Blizzard (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Minupla (62455) <minuplaNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday December 02 2007, @02:22PM (#21553441) Homepage Journal

      There will be no changes to our games, our websites, our personnel, or our day-to-day operations as a result of the deal.
      if this is true, how can:

      ... combining of resources will benefit all of the companies involved and will further strengthen Blizzard's ability to continue delivering high-quality content
      Also be true? Either nothing is changing or something is, you can't have it both ways. The reason for mergers and aquisitions is generally that the companies involved believe that through the merger some gains can be made. The way that history proves works is through reductions is redundancy. (call these layoffs, retrenchments, rightsizing, as your personal tastes dictate) The other not-so-successful-historically model is the "merge two companies with no redundancies, run them together and lose money" model (ref: AOL-Time-Warner among others)

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by king-manic (409855)

        There will be no changes to our games, our websites, our personnel, or our day-to-day operations as a result of the deal.
        if this is true, how can: ... combining of resources will benefit all of the companies involved and will further strengthen Blizzard's ability to continue delivering high-quality content
        Also be true? Either nothing is changing or something is, you can't have it both ways. The reason for mergers and aquisitions is generally that the companies involved believe that through the merger some gains can be made. The way that history proves works is through reductions is redundancy. (call these layoffs, retrenchments, rightsizing, as your personal tastes dictate) The other not-so-successful-historically model is the "merge two companies with no redundancies, run them together and lose money" model (ref: AOL-Time-Warner among others)

        They now have ~twice the advertising clout and a bigger stick to negotiate with retailers. ie. Stock or we will only have limited quantities of SC2 and COD5 for you.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Ghubi (1102775)

        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 compa

  • My gosh (Score:5, Funny)

    by guardiangod (880192) on Sunday December 02 2007, @01:44PM (#21553093)
    Activision and Blizzard have said they will form "the world's most profitable games business"

    I screamed.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by OakLEE (91103)
        I'll tackle this in two parts,

        It really saddens me when game companies make good business decisions...

        Well, like you said, both Blizzard and Activision are businesses, and businesses exist to make money that they can return to their owners and shareholders. Both Blizzard and Activision don't make games just because it's fun to. They make games because people will pay money for them.

        ...that, to me, seem like they will hurt gamers in the long run

        I actually think this will help gamers. First off, Vivendi wi

  • $18.8bn? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 02 2007, @01:49PM (#21553147)
    Why are the amounts quoted in Barbadian dollars?

  • Starcraft (Score:4, Insightful)

    by snl2587 (1177409) on Sunday December 02 2007, @01:55PM (#21553205)
    As long as Starcraft 2 is still going to be released, this is fine with me.

  • (Shudder...) (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DoofusOfDeath (636671) on Sunday December 02 2007, @01:57PM (#21553219)
    No one makes games with great replay value like Blizzard does. Blizzard's strategy of not releasing a game until its ready is almost unheard of in this industry. I seriously hope that the new overlords don't mess with this - I'd hate to stop benefiting from Blizzard's good work.

  • Commentary (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hibiki_r (649814) on Sunday December 02 2007, @02:02PM (#21553269)
    It's not Blizzard that is merging: They've been part of Vivendi universal for years. Their parent company has many developers other developers outside of Blizzard. WoW is their cash cow though.

    That said, it doesn't seem like their different developer studios have a lot of synergy though: The end result is a company that has very diverse offerings, and will be difficult to market as a single entity. It's not like either company needed the other for stability purposes though: Both WoW and Guitar Hero are the kind of franchises that allow a company to have a nice R&D budget and take risks with new franchises.

    So I guess the merger will just mean they'll be able to push retailers around more easily, and make their revenue even more predictable.

  • Makes sense (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dunbal (464142) on Sunday December 02 2007, @02:15PM (#21553381)
    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.

  • I have a solution... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by theorem4 (1101729) on Sunday December 02 2007, @02:31PM (#21553503)
    Put Blizzard employees in all management spots. Call me naive, but I think with them in charge it would keep a certain level of quality in the company that us fans like so much.

  • EA is no longer alone at the top. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 6350' (936630) on Sunday December 02 2007, @02:34PM (#21553539)
    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 [livejournal.com], which should be an interesting public dynamic to watch :P

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by fm6 (162816)

      Many news-sites are actually reporting this as a merger between Vivendi and Activision (perhaps more of a semantic distinction

      That's like saying there's a "semantic" distinction between fruit and fruit trees. Vivendi owns several media and telecom businesses. (In fact, they used to be a major player in the media world, with movie studios, cable networks, and more. But that's another story.) Not only will this new company be a small part of Vivendi's operation, but Vivendi will share ownership with Ac

  • Activision Blizzard (Score:3, Funny)

    by bcharr2 (1046322) on Sunday December 02 2007, @02:39PM (#21553585)
    Activision Blizzard? That's the best name they could come up with?

    If they wanted to depend on brand name recognition, they should have simply called themselves "The Creators of WOW & Call of Duty".

  • Guitar Hero (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kohath (38547) on Sunday December 02 2007, @02:50PM (#21553669)
    I think this is the real news:

    Vivendi, owner of the Universal Music Group -- world's largest music publisher, buys a controlling stake in Activision, maker of Guitar Hero -- the world's most popular music-based game franchise.

  • Massively Multiplayer Pitfall! (Score:4, Funny)

    by tachyonflow (539926) * on Sunday December 02 2007, @04:13PM (#21554315) Homepage
    As someone who mostly associates the name "Activision" with old titles, the first thing that popped in my head when I read this was... "Massively Multiplayer Pitfall!"

  • Another American company owned by France (Score:4, Insightful)

    by smchris (464899) on Sunday December 02 2007, @04:28PM (#21554453)
    They say it'll be a buyer's market with the dollar tanking over the next year.

  • Dear Zonk (Score:3, Funny)

    by cralewyth (934970) on Sunday December 02 2007, @04:59PM (#21554651)
    Dear Zonk,

    You shouldn't repeat yourself in your summary, it makes the summary redundant. It's like when you say something twice and it becomes redundant.

  • Oh, thank the FSM... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Dirtside (91468) on Sunday December 02 2007, @05:11PM (#21554709) Journal
    Finally, I'll be able to stop playing WoW! It's so addictive now, but I'm sure Activision will somehow find a way to fuck it up so that it won't be fun, and I'll finally be able to quit.

    Thanks, Activision! (Thactivision.)

    • Re:Guitarcraft: Lords of Music (Score:4, Funny)

      by rootofevil (188401) on Sunday December 02 2007, @02:13PM (#21553355) Homepage Journal
      Thrall Pro Skater 2: grinding in dalaran

    • Re:Guitarcraft: Lords of Music (Score:5, Interesting)

      by david.given (6740) <dg&cowlark,com> on Sunday December 02 2007, @02:46PM (#21553639) Homepage Journal

      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...

    • I hate to be the one to break this to you, buddy, but Blizzard's franchises are STILL popular. Warcraft III was highly acclaimed when it came out, and widely enjoyed. Starcraft is still, of course, rabidly played in Korea and other places, as will Starcraft II, I imagine. World of Warcraft (the last game Blizzard released for a while) doesn't even count as a sequel to Warcraft in any way, considering that it isn't an RTS. So yeah, I don't know where you get your ideas, but it isn't reality.

    • Re:Starcraft II ramifications (Score:5, Informative)

      by Cyberllama (113628) on Sunday December 02 2007, @05:20PM (#21554779)
      I can afford the karma hit so I'm gonna say it like it is:

      Blizzard hasn't been a "release it only when it's done" company since Warcraft 3: TFT. I've Participated in the last 4 Blizzard betas, and there was a remarkable shift from Warcraft 3: RoC to Warcraft 3: TFT -- you almost couldn't even call TFT a beta test by comparison. It lasted maybe 2 months total? The game came out very incomplete -- missing an entire single player campaign from what had been promised -- but was slowly added in over the course of several balance patches (the game as also a joke of balance when it came out). Blizzard, to their credit, did do a good job with the final product -- it just took them a couple months worth of patches after release to get the job done.

      I hate to be the one to break the bad news to you, but Blizzard has been a "patch it till it's done" company for a few years now, just like everyone else.

      This actually works out well enough in the MMORPG setting since often they are able to patch in missing content and polish/fix other content before players even get to it -- since it takes players some time to burn though the lower-end content which tends to be the most polished/playtested.

      I do give them credit for actually delaying TBC (thus causing it to miss it's initial November 30th release date which would have meant massive Christmas sales) and spending more time with it -- but they almost didn't have a choice there -- there was literally no content above level 67 at the time and 3 out of the 7 zones weren't even populated/open/quested/etc, not to mention none of the raid content was implemented yet.

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