Blizzard and Activision Announce $18.8bn Merger

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.'"

A dupe in itself?

Not too often the summary itself IS the dupe...

World Of Warcraft

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

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:World Of Warcraft

Actually, if you look at the Gamasutra summary, it's Blizzard (well, Vivendi) buying out Activision. Vivendi gets 52% of the stock of the merged company and 6 of 11 seats on the board.

Re:World Of Warcraft

Erm, which I suppose I should link.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=16457 [gamasutra.com]

Re:World Of Warcraft

Yes, obviously they bought Blizzard out so that they could nerf warriors; it had nothing to do with the money.

Makes sense

Both companies do little else other than release sequel after sequel for once popular series. Most of their original titles were released in the 90s.

I can't wait until I can buy their games.

I can't wait to start buying their games and various swag -- all emblazoned with the new Blactavision logos!

Re:I can't wait until I can buy their games.

I prefer the Actalizzard, myself.

Re:I can't wait until I can buy their games.

I'm kinda partial to Blizzavision.

Re:I can't wait until I can buy their games.

I'm kinda partial to Blizzavision.

No, that's what causes me to hit on ugly chicks after six drinks.

Re:I can't wait until I can buy their games.

You shouldn't complain about something that pushes your chances of getting laid up into the single digits. :-o

Re:I can't wait until I can buy their games.

AcTard.

Re:I can't wait until I can buy their games.

Shut yo mouff!

I'm just talking about Blactavision!

New MMORPG

World of Command and Conquer?

Re:New MMORPG

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.

Here's an FAQ from Blizzard

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

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:Here's an FAQ from Blizzard

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)

My gosh

Activision and Blizzard have said they will form "the world's most profitable games business"

I screamed.

Guitarcraft: Lords of Music

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

Re:Guitarcraft: Lords of Music

Thrall Pro Skater 2: grinding in dalaran

Re:Guitarcraft: Lords of Music

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...

$18.8bn?

Why are the amounts quoted in Barbadian dollars?

Starcraft

As long as Starcraft 2 is still going to be released, this is fine with me.

(Shudder...)

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.

Re:(Shudder...)

I seriously hope that the new overlords don't mess with this

Not the end of the world if they do - you can always SPAWN MORE OVERLORDS

some questions

So, does anyone know who's going to be put in charge of the new company? And what about Vivendi? I thought they owned part of Blizzard. Any word on them?

R.I.P.

Innovation, imagination etc. All that will be left is "The Sure Thing".
 

Commentary

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.

Re:Commentary

The Ghost of Infocom cries out in the wind.
The Ghost of Infocom moves north.
The Ghost of Infocom enters.
The Ghost of Infocom hits Blizzard with the long sword.

hmm

I for one would like to welcome our new gaming overlords. Some of the forums I visited listed this, but I figured it was a farce until I saw it here, now, I may go back to bed. Most of the gaming devs in various other games and genres would learn alot of blizzard. I loathe playing pay to play beta's for half finished games. Not that the release of WoW was not a pay to play beta. EA on the other hand, doesnt seem to care for their customers concerns, and just releases the games any way. World of Duty, Call of Warcraft. Me, I wanna play Medal of Homer.

Finally!

a chance for a classic to be reborn!

world of pitfall anyone?

Makes sense

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.

Half this summary is redundant

"Activision's CEO, Bobby Kotick, will become the head of the joint company"
"its chief executive will be Activision's current CEO Bobby Kotick"

"Vivendi, Blizzard's current parent company, will become the largest single investor in the new group"
"Vivendi will be the biggest shareholder in the group"

Short stories work just as well. No need to repeat everything.

I have a solution...

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.

Eighteen billion?

How does that work? Do they add up the estimated values of both companies and dish out a number? But when one of the companies is putting 1 billion into the deal, and the other company 2 billion, doesn't that only equal 3 billion? Or are they just spending that on lawyers, donuts and hotel accommodations for the merger meeting? I don't get it. Either way, a billion dollars sure doesn't buy what it used to.

-FL

EA is no longer alone at the top.

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

Activision Blizzard

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".

Starcraft II ramifications

Blizzard has long been a 'Release it when its done' company--and the resulting products have almost always been very polished. Activision(at least in the past 15 years), has been willing to push crap out to market. With Activision's CEO taking over the merged company, can we expect anything -but- a quality drop in Blizzard's future products?

Re:Starcraft II ramifications

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.

Guitar Hero

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.

I think there is something afoot.

I have been keeping an eye on the hiring page for Blizzard for awhile and they have been hiring for a "top secret" project(their words)for quite some time. http://www.blizzard.com/jobopp/ [blizzard.com]
(Look on the upper right side of page)

I have been making potshot guesses regarding what they are up to.

This changes those guesses. It may boil down to simple licensing issues. Activison has something Blizzard needs and is willing to pay for it? A merger here would put a lot of those licensing issues out of the purview of most people, allowing them to do so without blowing their cover. Thats a wild guess though.

The thing that puzzles me the most is that ACTIVISIONS current CEO will be running the ship. Granted, that may have been a concession on the part of Vivendi, but it sure looks to me like Blizzard/Vivendi has the majority of the chips on the table. Which, again, leads me to believe that Vivendi wants something from Activision and that was the only way to get it.

Merger FAQ

A FAQ has been posted on Blizzard's web site detailing the effects of this merger on Blizzard's development efforts. Pasted below: http://www.blizzard.com/press/activision-faq.shtml [blizzard.com] 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. Q: What will happen to the Blizzard brand name? A: The Blizzard brand name will stay the same as it's always been: Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. Q: What will change with regard to the day-to-day operations at Blizzard? A: There will be no changes in the way Blizzard operates. All of the people, processes, and philosophies that have made Blizzard so successful will be preserved. Blizzard will benefit from all-star sales and distribution teams to service our products. In addition, the combined company will be stronger financially, managerially, and operationally. Q: How will this impact Blizzard's games? A: This will not impact Blizzard's games. We remain committed to providing the same high-quality game content and support that we always have. Development on Wrath of the Lich King and StarCraft II, as well as on our unannounced games, is continuing as normal. Q: Will there be any visible differences in Blizzard's logo or packaging/marketing materials as a result of this deal? A: No, there won't be any changes to our company name, logo, packaging/marketing materials, or anything else along those lines. Q: Will there be any management changes at Blizzard as a result of this deal? A: No, there won't be any management changes at Blizzard as a result of the combination. Q: Will Activision and Blizzard now share development teams? A: No, both of our companies will continue to operate as they have previously with regard to game development. Q: Will the release schedules for any Blizzard games be impacted? A: No, the transaction will not have any impact on our games, our day-to-day operations, or our release timelines. Q: Will any of Blizzard's offices close as a result of the deal? Or, will any new offices open? A: No, all of our offices will continue to function as they have, and we don't foresee the need to open any new offices for the time being. Q: Will any employees move to different offices as a result of the deal? A: We don't anticipate making any such moves as a result of the deal. Q: Does this deal include Activision's and Blizzard's international offices? A: Yes, every part of our companies in the U.S. and abroad is involved in this deal. Q: If Activision Blizzard is a public company, does that mean I'll now be able to buy stock in Blizzard? A: Activision will be renamed Activision Blizzard, Inc and will continue to be a publicly listed company traded on NASDAQ. You will be able to buy stock in the combined company. Q: When will the transaction be complete? A: The transaction is subject to approval of Activision shareholders, customary closing conditions, and regulatory approvals. Pending approval, the companies expect the transaction to be completed by mid 2008.

Massively Multiplayer Pitfall!

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

They say it'll be a buyer's market with the dollar tanking over the next year.

Fixed

"Blizzard will invest $2bn worth of monthly WoW fees in the new company" fixed that for you

Dear Zonk

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...

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.)

Buying Notes

I wonder if we can now trade our Warcraft Gold for new Songs for Guitar Hero III on sites like mmoExchange.com or GamerTex.com

Didnt the creators of Blizzard already leave...

Great, two big faceless companies are merging... Blizzard barely makes games, and Activision is a void of good ideas as well...

So Good luck with that company.

WoW, for consoles?

Any chance the Activision involvement could lead to World of Warcraft ported to next-gen consoles?

Let Blizzard continue to support Mac please

Please Activision do not cut us out. We like Blizzard and they seem to like us.

blizzard games under wine

maybe activision can learn something from blizzard. blizzards games seem to work pretty good under wine on linux

starcraft ghost?

does this mean that starcraft ghost will be developed by activision and maybe use the call of duty engine?

Obligatory WebComic

http://zapalley.com/comic/2007/12/03/mergers-and-acquisitions/ [zapalley.com]

Oh look!

That guy is jumping over a shark!

i worked at vivendi for years

theyre bad news. they turn everything they touch into shit. vivendi is the company for buyouts of small companies (Sierra being the best example), and the KING of crappy movie licenses. anyone remember their awsome X-Files game? Eragon PSP? World of Conflict (which i was fortunate enough to work on; check the credits for Ernest Devaney) is the best thing to ever run through their greasy fingers. oh wait, they had nothing to do with the development of that game. right.

WoW

maybe now they will cancel online fees

ETA?

Is there a release date set for Jun Lee's Pro Gold Farmer?

BINO

I have always liked Activision as a game company since Battlezone.

I thought Battlezone was an Atari product [wikipedia.org] and Atari hated Activision for making unlicensed games for Atari 2600. You must be talking about Activision's Battezone In Name Only [wikipedia.org].

Re:Who needs to purchase games from conglomerates

such as Activision Blizzard when you can download [wikipedia.org] games [wikipedia.org] for [wikipedia.org] free [wikipedia.org]?

I live in the United States. Can I download games for free that are designed to be played on a 32 inch SDTV? (Most stand-alone PC games nowadays are designed for an XGA or WXGA monitor.) Can I download games for free and play them on a handheld device that doesn't lock me into a 24-month telephone service commitment? (I already have a phone; I don't want another.)

Re:WTF? I thought the older company name was kept

The older company here would actually be Activision... So I'm not sure what your rant is about.